Wednesday, January 31, 2007

The Reason Why the Car Rules....

is that the federal government apparently thinks autos should be put ahead of everything else. Portland Transport brings us up to speed on the request by the Federal Highway Administration that Metro, Portland's regional government, put cars at the top of its RTP. This is ridiculousness. The reason why cars are at the top of the food chain is because they have been forced there over many many years. Jonathan puts it best...

When is the U.S. going to take a serious look at how misguided our blind allegiance to the automobile has been for the last hundred years? We don’t need to be anti-car, but we do need to be much more car-conscious. You’d think with our current issues of obesity, global warming, wars over oil, skyrocketing highway costs, etc… that the feds might just be a bit more open to new ideas.

Cristof Destroys Culbertson

Over at Intermodality, Cristof clears up some muck about that knuckledragger Culbertson and proves that yes, Light Rail can run on Richmond. I wonder what would happen if we had to vote for freeways.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Rails to Trails

I love rails to trails. It's a great idea and opens up good space for running. However there is one caveat. If you ever want to have a transit line back in the corridor where there will be a rails with trails project, don't ever build a rail trail without the transit. It is politically impossible to get the rail back in once people have gotten rid of it. This idea was in a Seattle paper this morning. If you want the rails with the trails, gotta put them in.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Capital Funding Sources #3

Because transit investments have positive relationships on property values, lately developers are getting in on the act. But basically people are getting rich off of a public investment. While there is nothing wrong with it (unless you're Speaker Dennis Hastert and you do it illegally) shouldn't the public get something more out of its investment?

Well they can if they figure out a way to take some of the increased value from the landowners that got lucky enough to have a public investment near their property. I'm not talking about TIF, but rather some sort of a transfer tax. The idea is that as soon as a city knows that they are going to make a value changing investment, they should create a selling district like a TIF. They take an inventory of the district around each rail station and its land value as well as sample areas in the region that aren't around rail stations. If a property is sold between announcement of the rail station placement and the opening of the line (perhaps another time after opening) then the sales price is measured against the control group for the region and the increase over the regional average is taxed at a certain amount at sales time. This extra capital could be used on future capital improvement projects or an affordable housing fund for the station area. Just another idea...

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Culbertson Not the Coldest Beer in the Fridge

So here is another idiotic writeup by Mini Tom Delay. Rep. John Culbertson asks Metro to put the rail down Westpark which in his opinion is a good idea. What he doesn't know however is that the FTA would never fund that route. The ridership is too low to get a favorable rating in the New Starts program yet he pushes it anyways. Any guess as to why? Well he thinks that he needs to hold metro accountable but really it's because he hates transit. Can't we get rid of this guy like we got rid of Tom Delay?

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Tram Blogging










How About some Tram Blogging? This yellow Siemens Combino Supra is from Budapest. It's reportedly one of the longest trams in the world with 6 modules and 54 meters long(177 Feet). That's almost 3 articulated buses. Very Cool. This picture was taken by Marcus Tschaut.

The Next Modern Streetcar

The next modern streetcar to open will be the South Lake Union Line in Seattle. Currently under construction, it was the brainchild of land owners in the South Lake Union neighborhood that would allow them to connect up an underutilized industrial properties that could be redeveloped with downtown. The downtown end consists of connections to the new regional light rail, monorail and buses.

Most of it is going to be paid for by the landowners taxing themselves. Paul Allen, former Microsoft exec, and the other owners plan to change the neighborhood with high rise apartments and biomedical research facilities. It will be an impressive transformation and they are relying on the streetcar pretty heavily. The idea was conceived based on the success of Portland, so hopefully they will match the experience there.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Houston Representatives (D) Want LRT

Well now that big bad Tom Delay is gone looks like Houston residents might get what they actually voted for. Being from Houston I've been watching this with interest. Tom Delay and his little buddy Rep Culbertson were so anti-transit yet so powerful they were able to get Metro to change its technology from LRT to BRT. This made all the voters mad because they felt like they'd been tricked. This also put Metro in a bad political situation weakening their ability to have a little more leeway. While we don't know if they can actually get it changed, we do know that Culbertson is a jackass and will build 10 lane freeways all day knocking down houses, but when it comes to light rail, if its built next to a house he's gonna stop it or put in a bus.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Planning Hard or Hardly Planning?

This post had a bit of thinking about how smart it is to be forward thinking in your transportation planning. Well today in the Salt Lake City Tribune it seems like in a plan for a new 8 lane freeway they didn't look at whether it would be prudent to reserve space for transit. They only looked at as the articles states...

But Wasatch Front Regional Council staffers, who are updating the agency's long-range transportation plan, only evaluated which mode of transportation - vehicle or transit - would get people to their destinations the quickest, said council executive director Chuck Chappell. That means streetcars or BRT wouldn't be cost-effective, he said.
Wouldn't be cost effective? What does the cost effectiveness of a reservation for future transit and smart transportation planning have to do with planning for a freeway? Well it does have to do with cars and auto-centricity that seems to be prolific around the country. At least the press is smart enough to pick up on the highway good ole boy network that still persists at regional and state DOTs. Perhaps because of the heads up it will change during the meetings and final planning.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

APTA Calls Bush on His Auto-Centricity

Bill Millar, President of the American Public Transportation Association called out President Bush for not mentioning transit as a way to reduce oil consumption. The following is an excerpt but the full text can be found here...

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) is disappointed that, in his State of the Union address, President Bush did not recognize public transportation usage as one of the ways Americans can reduce their dependence on foreign oil. We urge Congress and the Administration to increase investment to make public transit services available to more Americans and to include incentives that will encourage greater transit use in the energy legislation that will be developed. The millions of Americans who use public transportation each day know it saves gasoline. APTA commissioned a study entitled "Public Transportation and Petroleum Savings in the U.S.: Reducing Dependence on Oil" so that the President, Congress and our citizens can have the right facts before them to make informed decisions about how to solve our country's energy issues.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Bush Calls for Oil Use Reduction

Where have we heard this before? Oh yeah, last years state of the union address and he hasn't done anything about it. But here is what disturbs me about this statement year after year. Yeah it sounds good but really he just wants people to continue driving, continue sprawling and have folks not make any sacrifices or hard choices. His call tonight is going to be for alternative fuels for cars, fuels that still need petroleum in some way to succeed, and fuels that still allow us to sprawl.

Bush wants 20%? I think we can do better than that. Alan Drake already says 10% can be done easily through transport electrification. Changing vehicle standards can add even more and incentives for workers to use transit instead of their cars would push consumption down even further. Bush will talk about congestion pricing but what about a larger gas tax. But why can't we do it? Because there are still too many incentives to get in your car and drive, too many neighborhoods where your car is the only way around and too many reasons for the government lobby to just say lets just keep doing what we are doing. So as Bush tells us tonight we need to cut down on oil consumption but keep on driving, just know that his suggestions aren't pushing people to stop sprawl which is a major consumer of our energy and land.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Six Flags Astroworld to be a TOD

I have many memories as a young adult going to AstroWorld to ride all the roller coasters and hang out with my friends. That however is no longer possible. AstroWorld has been sold to developers to do TOD. At the very end of Houston's very successful Light Rail line, Astroworld is prime real estate for TOD and there is talk of routing the end of the line through the site. Tim VanMeter's group is working on the TOD plan which hopefully means it will be done right.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Is Cincinnati In?

As the transit space race heats up Cincinnati's paper takes a really big leap in beginning to advocate for rail. Perhaps this bus city with some short sighted leaders is changing its stripes to keep up with the rest of the country. I'll be watching with interest. So what are people saying?

Brian at Cincinnati Blog says the region shouldn't be involved in a city streetcar project.

The Gentleman Agitator discusses midwestern cities reluctance to embrace progress that doesn't include a bus.

The Cincinnati Post asks leaders to get their head out of the sand.

An article from earlier in the week.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Insert Track, Pave Road, Repeat

Most cities pay for neighborhood and city roads through bonds financed through the general fund which usually comes out of property taxes or taxes that aren't the gas tax. These road projects are big money for contractors but I wonder how much more it would cost when designing roads to add in a lane and rails for light rail or a streetcar. It doesn't seem like it would cost that much more aside from steel for the rail itself (which has been skyrocketing over the last few years) and a bit of extra engineering.

At some point streets downtown need to be reconstructed anyway so why not build light rail when already replacing the street if its in the cities future? Generally costs for reconstruction of the street and utility relocation are blamed on the transit authority and lumped in with the cost of the project which allows project opposition to cite high costs as a reason not to make the capital investment in rail infrastructure. But with this method we go back to the way it when streetcars were first built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, where they were the reason the street was built and paid for at all.

This forward thinking is going on in Charlotte. Even though they aren't running streetcars until 2019, they are going to build the line into the street when they replace Elizabeth Avenue downtown.

Last year, Grubb helped persuade the Charlotte Area Transit System to redirect the streetcar through a proposed development off Hawthorne Lane. He was aware of the city's $277,000 purchase of steel streetcar rails. They will be laid during an estimated $10 million remake of Elizabeth Avenue that includes sidewalks, streetlights, sewer lines and underground utilities. The all-in-one construction effort could start by summer.

Transit agencies and Cities could be more forward thinking in this respect as more rail infrastructure is planned and built. However there needs to be provisions for this type of forward thinking in the new starts process and the NEPA process as well...but lets take it one step at a time.

Friday, January 19, 2007

The Real Reason You're Broke....

Bus Chick has found an article that talks about what American's seem to do best...spend money and burn oil. None of my friends seem to be complaining about the cost of a car, probably because like me they drive it once a week. Although my roommate thinks that BART is way too expensive if you're going with two other people to the east bay. But it seems that the problem is not with carpooling but rather single occupancy vehicles, more specifically their costs. Why are we trying to subsidize housing so much when people are just gonna blow that extra money on their auto...

Americans are spending more on their vehicles than ever before -- more than $8,000 a year on average -- and it's driving some to the breaking point. Credit counselor Bill Thompson of Jacksonville, Fla., estimates that one out of every four clients his agency sees has overspent -- sometimes dramatically -- on a car. "They may be spending 15% to 20% of their (take-home) pay on just the car payment," said Thompson, who supervises credit counseling for the nonprofit Family Foundations, "and that doesn't include insurance, gas, maintenance and all the other costs of owning a vehicle."

Quite Amazing, perhaps transit is a part of the affordability solution. To take a look at how to address this issue through transit, check out the Affordability Index.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

What If...

Today there was an article in the New York Times discussing what people could do with the $1.2 Trillion dollars that will be spent on the Iraq War. Well what if we spent it on fixed guideway? If spent in Capital projects alone, (there would have to be more funding for service) we could build at $30 million per mile 40,000 miles of Streetcars and Light Rail. Of course this is an oversimplification since some areas would be good with BRT and others streetcars and some would need to be in Subway but that is an awful lot of transit. If limited to the 100 largest cities, that is still 400 miles of rail per city.

Also lets think about return on investment and TOD. Imagine if it were all streetcars and we got 500% of our investment back in development. That would be $6 Trillion dollar economic boost. Of course again its oversimplification but you get the idea. There are other issues to deal with as well including TOD infrastructure, ped improvements, steel costs from such a large infusion in cash but if it were all under the buy America act, we could mass produce streetcars like the PCC streetcar in house and make TOD the standard instead of the rule.

As noted by Ed Tennyson this money that we are spending on the war didn't likely exist anyway but we can always dream…but lets dream of a world where we wouldn't even have to go to coal mines at home instead of oil fields afar to get our energy to move people until of course a better alternative energy source came along.


Tuesday, January 16, 2007

The Social Capital of Transit

When i was in school i took a class called Public Health and the Built Environment. My professor Dr. McMillan often rode the #3 bus to school had a whole class day devoted to social capital. That day she told us of an encounter she had on the bus one day of a lady who was lacking enough change to get on the bus (In Austin it's still 50 cents). Obviously anyone that was standing there with the woman would give her the extra change she needed to get on the bus and its telling of the generosity of Austinites that her ride was paid for through the kindness of strangers.

But when does this type of kind interaction happen in your automobile? Sure you let people cut in front of you in a traffic jam, or you might let a pedestrian go in front of you but as a personal observation it seems like one never gets to truly interact with people like on transit. Some folks don't want to be bothered by people of different social status' whether higher, lower or even student but i think it allows people to be more able to empathize with life situations and stages. Younger folks learn how to give seats to their elders and older folks might find from looking at the kids that its a great idea to bring an ipod when in transit. Taking transit might be good for the environment and good for your pocketbook but it seems like it also might be good for your conscience.

Ostrava Streetcars Delivered to Portland

The New Portland Streetcars have arrived. Check them out over at Portland Transport. A little more about Ostrava from Commissioner Sam Adams' blog. Part 2 of this blog discusses the issues of the Buy America act and why if streetcars are to make a major comeback with federal aid, there needs to be an American made streetcar.

Monday, January 15, 2007

The Madison Debates

Lately there has been a fervent debate in Madison Wisconsin over whether streetcars would be good for the urban environment there. In the Capital Times, Op-Eds for each side have been flying back and forth but most of the opposition is using the misinformation of Randal O'Toole and Wendell Cox (What great names for villains). The most recent one written by Ward Lyles of 1000 Friends of Wisconsin rebuffs the arguments made by local folks who don't know all the facts with data from the National Transit Database and professional anti-rail propaganda as stated by Randal O'Toole.

As a circulator system, streetcars are a great idea. They combine the stop spacing of buses with the economic development potential and ridership bump of semi-metro type light rail to which streetcars are related. They are not meant to go fast but rather act as pedestrian accelerators and meld with the urban environment. In Portland, the streetcar carries almost 9,000 folks a day and has helped to spur $2.8 billion in development. This development was not just because of the streetcar but as a part of the total planning package, the Pearl District and South Waterfront areas are becoming the most European like neighborhoods in the West.

In Madison like their sister city Austin, streetcars should only be part of the transportation solution as circulators connecting major destinations in the downtown. Cities such as Denver, Salt Lake City and Seattle are already way ahead of the game in thinking about transportation in bigger terms than just a single mode. All of them are building light rail, thinking about streetcars, and operate many different types of buses.

In some corridors streetcars work, in others light rail is more apt and in freeways with HOV lanes there might be an opportunity for express bus service but all of the modes are needed to beat dependence on the single occupancy automobile. This is something Madison, Austin and other towns need to be talking about if they want to have a transportation sea change like the previously mentioned members of the transit space race.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

The Salt Lake City Experience

Today's article in The Arizona Republic lauds Salt Lake City for its rail system and compares differences between the two systems and regions. While SLC is a very conservative place, some of the folks who thought that roads were going to do the trick were converts to rail on the first day. This is telling of what the rail can really do for a cities knowledge base and perception of major investments. As the environmental movement picks up again i have a feeling we will see more investment in alternative transportation. Hopefully, folks in Phoenix will see similar benefits of their system on the first day.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

3rd Street Light Rail Open in SF

Now running on the weekends, light rail is rolling on third street. This is the first part of the Central Subway project that will be the future lead to the Geary Subway and potential extensions to the Marina. The Central Subway should be paid for completely by the Feds because Muni is looking to use this initial segment as its match in the New Starts Process. Hopefully this means moving faster to the Geary Subway but until then, I'll be watching third street and the Central Subway with great interest.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Seattle Voters Asked to Cement Frontrunner Status in Transit Space Race

Today articles in all of the Seattle news papers discussed a bond measure that would go on next year's ballot to expand the light rail system that is currently under construction. The 40 more miles of Light Rail and Streetcars are part of a $17 billion dollar transportation ask. It also has money to buy right of way for a light rail extension to Everett.

The Seattle system even though not complete is already having cities beg to ask for extensions. The cities that don't get extensions or aren't guaranteed stations are upset. This system should when it opens set a national example. If you want to get something done, you have to just pay up and do it. It's for the good of the community and more cars and lane miles on already congested freeways is not going to help people get from point a to point b.

This is a really huge step to expand a system that hasn't even finished initial construction. It also shows that Seattle wants to be a world class city. The transit space race has many of these cities looking to build out serious systems to make themselves more livable and while it seems like it might be a little expensive, the benefits will be returned to the communities multi-fold. Imagine if the Washington DC Subway was never built. It would have been a travesty but it would have also influenced how that region grew out instead of up along the corridors. Hopefully when democratic leaders go to pick a presidential candidate they can see how Denver is shaping up in its bid to win the Transit Space Race.

I'm not sure how to rank cities in the TSR...but if i had to pick some that are doing the best, Denver and Seattle are front runners. Portland has a head start so i didn't count it in that initial assessment but soon i'll do a comarison between the frontrunners listed in the sidebar. But the others in the race don't seem that far behind either.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Possible Capital Funding Sources #2

Garage Tax - What if we had a garage Tax? Every garage has to pay an annual fee to operate transit. I got the idea when i heard about a roof tax in England of 10,000 English Pounds per house in a transit oriented neighborhood. Well why can't we have a garage tax that makes people pay to have a garage on their house.

However thinking about it maybe now we should have a parking space tax. For every lane mile of highway that the road warriors propose for moving people by car, they are also promoting sprawl because all of those cars end up somewhere. That somewhere is a space in a parking lot at work. So for every employer who has a parking lot, perhaps they should have to pay some sort of tax for creating the need for more freeways in the form of a transit tax. Just an idea. There has to be some sort of linkage there somewhere, so lets do it.

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Streetcars are Back

Today's USA Today ran an article on streetcars and it was good except for one thing. The graphic was a light rail vehicle, not a streetcar. Other than that it was a good article and it had some good quotes including one I've heard Len Brandrup of Kenosha Transit say in person.

"Streetcars have sex appeal, it resonates with folks. Developers don't write checks for buses."
So True. But what does this have to do with the transit revolution? Everything. These streetcars are doing more with land use than light rail ever dreamed while promoting a true urbanism. Not that Light Rail can't do it either, but its kind of like showing the older brother up. The land use changes can happen around light rail, but it seems more linear around the streetcar. Hopefully we can learn how to build light rail for the same cost...the fact that they are different escapes me...but i'll write on it later.

So what is the next generation of this phenomenon? The Beltline in Atlanta is a good place to start. It was a scare earlier this year for BRT but the good folks of ATL realized that they didn't want to be jogging and biking next to hybrid fume puffers. Good for them and hopefully the plans will be accelerated, but all we can do now is wait and see.

Three lines are under construction...hopefully they have the same results as previous streetcar starts.

Anacostia - Washington DC
South Lake Union - Seattle
Clinton Library Extension - Little Rock

Monday, January 8, 2007

Charlotte's Next Move

Charlotte is a notable member and up and comer to the Transit Space Race. Their plans are ambitious and include 5 new rapid transit lines and a streetcar. After a 1998 half cent sales tax was raised to expand transit. The first line, the Lynx Blue Line (South Corridor) is under construction and will be complete at the end of this year.

The next line, the northeast corridor, is planned to run from downtown to the University of North Carolina Charlotte. Leadership from the University President, City Council and Ron Tober of CATS were very helpful in keeping the region on track after some costs for the south corridor were over budget and the community was worried about the long range plan. After some calls to rescind the tax from some libertarians egged on by Wendell Cox and a postponement of BRT to study Light Rail on the southeast corridor, things are looking up again.

So it comes as no surprise that even before the northeast corridor has gone into preliminary engineering in the new starts process, people are building TOD on properties adjacent to the future line as reported today by the Charlotte Observer. This is amazing and shows that new transit lines really have the ability to shape neighborhoods. I'm interested to see what happens to the next few years but as for now, Charlotte is up there with Denver in my book.

More News from the TSR

A fight is brewing in the Minnesota Legislature over Capital Transit Funding. This is the kind of spirit i like to see and it seems as if there is bipartisan support for one of the options that have been thrown on the table. According to today's Minneapolis Star Tribune -
"Included are proposals to increase the state's 20-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax by 10 cents, boost registration fees on new vehicles and authorize counties to impose a half-cent sales tax increase for transportation purposes, plus $20-per-vehicle sales taxes and annual wheelage taxes, in some cases subject to voter approval."
While the governor still opposes this, i think its a fight worth playing out. It will show if legislators in the state are really serious about funding future transit expansion sooner including the southwest corridor, the downtown streetcar and several commuter rail and BRT lines.

Sunday, January 7, 2007

Transit News

Here are a few news items that I just couldn't wait till Monday to post...

California: Caltrain to Electrify

Charlotte: Streetcar to Wait Until 2019

Hawaii: Transit Bill Signed

Muni Gets an F

I love transit, but this weekend when trying to get from the Mission to North Beach I had an awful time on what should be a rapid transit corridor. Aside from my subway under Geary, I'm going to say that Van Ness needs one too. This is the 101 corridor from LA to Oregon and it's always packed. Muni wants to turn it into a BRT corridor but once again that will just make people mad. Making a 6 Lane Urban thoroughfare into 4 lanes is a good idea most of the time. And people don't go fast on this street because there are too many stoplights.

But in this instance, taking away a lane for buses is A. A bad idea and B. A bad idea. Why? Because making a major road like this go to 4 lanes is like a snowstorm blocking planes at the airport in Denver. No one will get anywhere. If there was a subway, it would have taken me 35 minutes instead of an hour to get where i was going. 25 minutes is a HUGE time savings and worth it to the folks who want to get to the north side of town out of bus traffic. So instead of planning this long term, it should be done now, with the Geary Subway.

But we have no money says MUNI. There is tons of money out there. As referenced in the article above, Don Shoup (king of parking), states that parking in downtown San Francisco is too cheap. I have never driven downtown at any time other than 11pm or Sunday afternoon but the reason is I don't want to have to worry about parking. It's so much easier and faster to just take the train in the subway. But apparently if I did find a space downtown on the street it would be cheap cheap cheap.

While San Francisco has taken steps to make transit friendly and parking harder to come by it comes as no surprise that they still cater to the automobile. It is so entrenched in our society that even the most dense metropolis' can't get away from it. So if we can't get away from it, lets make it as expensive as possible. Another funding source that is being discussed is closing off downtown from anything but Taxi's, buses and rail. This is a great idea and it would raise money for transit, specifically the subways that are in planning but need funding.

Saturday, January 6, 2007

Possible Capital Funding Sources #1

As a part of this blog, I'd like to toss out possible transit funding sources. These ideas are meant to spur ideas and thoughts about how to pay for the transit infrastructure that cities desperately need. Included in this discussion will be ways that the Feds can better fund and operate the New Starts program to support these other funding sources.

So today i'd like to throw out the first idea. A developer parking in lieu fee. Along major urban corridors in the United States, developers are facing a harsh reality. Parking spaces are required at suburban ratios along corridors that should be served by urban transit. There should be an exchange where parking spaces can be traded for transit money. So what would happen is a parking space costs a developer a certain amount of money, say 20,000 dollars in a very urban area. Usually a certain amount of spaces are required. So what if half of the spaces were required could be traded away for a half price solution. So if 50 spaces are required, then 25 of them could be traded for 50% of the cost meaning the developer builds 25 spaces but then pays $10,000 for each space he doesn't build into a capital fund for transit expansion. This single project would raise $250,000 for transit projects in the city and allow the developer to use the savings to build more housing or make the housing available more affordable. This solution has never been used to my knowledge in this fashion but its about time cities start looking at better ways to fund capital projects that will propel the transit space race forward.

Salt Lake City to Portland: Our TOD is Better than Yours

Salt Lake City shows that even a conservative town can be a haven for good transit. As one of the success stories of the transit revolution, the city basked in the glow of exponentially higher than expected ridership and the success of the 2002 Winter Olympics. So it comes as no surprise that this city which completed its first light rail line in 1999 would be a major competitor in the transit space race. Not only are they just competitors, they are taunting the other teams.

Case in point yesterday's article in the Salt Lake City Tribune. The article, about the Depot TOD to be envisioned around a Trax expansion to the intermodal hub showed that the city is pulling no punches in an effort to show everyone who they think is boss. Van Turner, Chairman of the Salt Lake City Council, had this to say.

Parks would take the place of backyards, and galleries, clubs, grocery stores, coffeehouses, restaurants and other retail would create the kind of neighborhoods cities such as Portland, Ore., have built along with their transit systems. City officials have visited Portland many times for inspiration, Turner said. The Depot District, he said, will someday draw the same kind of attention. "These old railroad yards are where we can build the city we want to be," he said. "Portland may be the model now, but soon we'll be the model."

Portland are you gonna take that? I'm not sure if Salt Lake is going to surpass Portland's transit system though. Portland has 4 operational light rail lines and one that's about to be under construction, a commuter rail line under construction, and an operational streetcar. There are also 3 possible streetcar extensions and another planned light rail expansion...not to mention a possible extension over the bridge into Washington.

Compare this to Salt Lake City which has two Trax Lines and a commuter rail line under construction and a small Trax expansion under construction. They just passed a sales tax for four more Trax expansions
(Mid Jordan, West Valley, Airport, Draper) and a commuter rail expansion so they are up and coming. All of this and a planned streetcar could put them up with Portland. It's a very exciting time and I hope they do build a better TOD, perhaps even gloat about it. Because if they do it will just make other cities want to be that much better...which is in the best interest of all of us.


Thursday, January 4, 2007

Twin Cities Want In the TSR

The Twin Cities was well known for it's street railways but not always for the best reasons. So it comes as no surprise that the only other metro region to have a regional government besides Portland would want to put together a light rail system. The most recent light rail success story in the United States turns out to be Minneapolis' Hiawatha Line. So successful is the line, that is has already surpassed it's projections for the year 2020 by 6,000+ riders a day. That's astonishing and it gets better.

This one success spurred the legislature to create a dedicated funding source for operating revenue for Metro Transit. Previously they were allocating funding every year, moving with the whim of the political winds. Now that they have an operating funding source, they need a capital funding source to match with Federal New Starts money for expansion projects.

Today Hennepin County realized as did all the other counties that this was necessary to build a real transit network. While the governor opposes the sales tax, he's going to have to get onto the idea quickly. The region can't afford to be left behind in the TSR. It's doing well so far and has a bit of a head start over places like Phoenix, Seattle and Charlotte but it's going to take more than the Hiawatha line to attracts jobs and the creative class.

Even if the governor doesn't agree, the mayor has been looking at a streetcar network.

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

A Real Hero

This is what a real hero does. He helps people he doesn't even know and then does not ask for anything in return. I think we need a few more folks like that. The world would be a better place.

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

(The Other) Subway to the Sea

With Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa planning the subway to the sea on Wilshire in Los Angeles, I think Mayor Newsom should start his own program in San Francisco. One of most ridden bus lines in the United States, the 38 Geary is always plastered with faces on the windows because it is so full and needs more capacity. The Geary Corridor also has the limited service 38L which acts as an express bus. So why are they going to spend millions of dollars to take away a lane and save riders only a few minutes while using the same buses?

The first step of the second subway to the sea is the 3rd Street light rail which opens in the next few months. The next step is the central subway project which leaves a spur going west to link up a future Geary Subway before it turns off to go under Stockton(which by the way should continue past broadway). The decision to build the GS to at least Masonic though is very far off while they wait for more money. But really the line is ready to go.

So the problem with this picture is that while the United States FWHA would put in 90% of the cost for a road that desperately needed to be built, they would do it. This is the top example of what is happening with the new starts program. Funding for major urban rail projects is getting stymied for artery clogging BRT and unneeded roads by folks who don't like to invest in infrastructure needed to make cities work. aka the libertarian movement. Where would they be without the Federal Highway Program in their arguments? Probably arguing for better transit to support the free market.

The point is that projects like Geary are the projects that need to be funded. Folks shouldn't be plastered on the windows bus service is not adequate. This is why the case needs to be made for a major transit infrastructure initiative that rivals that of the Highway expansion of the last century. The first project? Geary Subway to the Sea

Monday, January 1, 2007

It's a New Year, The Right Time for a Transit Revolution

Welcome to 2007! It's gone by fast but this last 10 years has been very productive in terms of what has happened in the world of transit and its only going to get better. First we have as always mentioned the Transit Space Race. But inside of the TSR which is mainly Rapid Transit, we also have a transit revolution that includes the stalwart workhorse from a century ago, Streetcars.

As move on into 2007 we'll see more and more news about these pedestrian accelerators. Even today on January 1st we have articles from Minnesota and Ohio discussing what Mayors in Minneapolis and Columbus would like to build into their legacies. They are even thinking of innovative ways to finance them rather than through the FTA. Many other cities are thinking about this as well and perhaps (shameless plug approaching) this book will help move the revolution. It will be an exciting year never the less.

Update from a few days ago: Tampa News Says that Folks There Want in the Space Race. - Hat Tip Tampa Rail Blog