Friday, October 31, 2008

Friday Night Linkage

Time to figure out which route is best for the Southwest Corridor in Minneapolis.
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Pelosi for HSR. Major firepower will make sure that this project gets its federal funding in the next congress.
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A Streetcar for Middletown Connecticut?
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Is a DDOT Streetcar ever going to get built?
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More on Denver's property increases near light rail:
As I've mentioned previously, many of the people that I've talked with on my trip have mentioned that transit is not good where they are, and it's a deciding factor not just in what neighborhood they move to, but what city they move to. We don't have any data yet on the West Corridor, but anecdotally, I have seen a lot of competition for properties on the west corridor. We lost a bid on a property that was listed for around $100,000, even though we bid $25,000 over the list price.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

California's money would be better spent on local projects. High-speed rail for occasional trips between SF and LA is a luxury that the state can't afford while citizens (particularly of San Francisco) are stuck with inferior transit for their every-day trips.

Pantograph Trolleypole said...

You're just like the person who says beneficial transit improvements are a luxury. We need to invest in every mode. So stop pitting modes that do different jobs against each other. This country is a bunch of wimps when it comes to investing in our future. Get me a bond for $10 billion for Metros in San Francisco and Los Angeles and I won't hesitate to pull the lever for them.

Anonymous said...

I agree! That anonymous person sounds like Cox and O'Toole, and indeed would give legitimacy to Cox and O'Toole. We're wimps when we invest BRT as a "substitute" for rail, and I'll specifically admit that I think the O-Train should have been built instead of the Transitway here in Ottawa.

Anonymous said...

> We need to invest in every mode.

Yes, but you need to start where the money serves the most people. I'm tired of seeing money spent on huge projects that serve minimal numbers of people--which is what this is--while local transit in the cities languishes. You're dreaming if you think you can have it all at once. States are already up to their eyeballs in debt.

Pantograph Trolleypole said...

It's a matter of priorities. Why are we in debt? Because of people who think everything comes free.

crzwdjk said...

Why are we in debt? Because all the money is spent on roads. The Bay Bridge replacement has cost $7 billion so far, and provides not one bit of extra capacity, and in fact precludes future use of the bridge by trains. That alone could have built a new BART tube and probably made the bridge sufficiently safe from a total collapse. And remember, significantly more people die of car accidents than earthquakes, so the reduction in traffic caused by the new BART line would probably save more lives.