Podcast: The Indian Transportation Context

This week I’m chatting with Akshay Mani, a sustainable transportation planner who has worked for Cambridge Systematics in the United States and the World Resources Institute’s EMBARQ program in India. Akshay joined us from Chennai to talk about transportation and the growth of Indian cities.

Most Read: 82 Foot Buses for the Orange Line

Yesterday's most read article was about a piece of legislation (bill text) that would allow 82 foot buses on the Orange Line BRT in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley.  The article mentions that 65 foot buses have been in operation since 2007 when the longer buses were first tested and put into service.

Metro 65 Foot Bus via Flickr User L.A. Urban Soul

In doing some research looking for the bills that allowed the original change from 60 to 65 feet, I found a few strange things including no record of a bill passing that would allow for 65 foot buses.  SB 650, which was the original legislation, reached a third reading and was vetoed by then Governor Schwarzenegger.  But by veto time, the subject of 650 had changed.

The California Vehicle Code still says that articulate buses have a limit of 60 feet but according to the MTA, "Metro has been granted an exemption from Caltrans to permit operation of the 65-foot vehicle exclusively on the Orange Line transitway."

So they finally passed the bill to make 82 feet totally legal, without exemptions, and with 17 extra feet.

This bill would authorize the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority to operate articulated buses that do not exceed a length of 82 feet on the route designated as the Orange Line in the County of Los Angeles. The bill would require the authority to establish a route review committee prior to operation of those buses, as specified...

The question is, why wasn't it legal before?  And why an arbitrary length such as 82 feet?  Well 82 feet equals 25 meters.  So it seems as if it's cluing off of international standards. But then there are 30 meter (over 100 foot) buses used in Dresden, so I'm not sure why not go all out if they might be available.

Auto Tram Extra Grand Used in Dresden

We've seen longer bi-articulated buses in action in places such as Curitiba on dedicated right of ways and in European cities but why haven't they found their way to the United States?  If I were to venture a first guess, it would be that we don't have many lines that necessitate the length.  The few that do are on busy city streets where turning and visibility with much smaller vehicles becomes an issue.

Research in the US (TCRP 75) focused on higher capacity buses found that articulated buses or "artics" were good at some tasks but not others.  The one task that agencies said overwhelmingly that standard articulated buses in their fleets were better was turning radius.  They found however that the buses were underpowered and poor at climbing hills and fuel economy.  The under-powering in one instance led to longer running times on corridors.  Another issue brought up was maintenance, with managers saying that another axle meant more repairs and less reliability.

However a case study of King County Metro in 2007 found that the buses were more cost effective per seat mile and had less maintenance issues than their 40 foot siblings.

Safety issues reported were instances where older articulated ends had a propensity to slide out wide on turns in addition to difficulty seeing boarding passengers towards the rear of the vehicle.

It was hard to find information on buses longer than 60 feet or even safety discussions, however in TCRP 90 it was noted that articulated buses have larger turning radii and overhang.  There also is a need to have longer bulb outs and stops to accommodate longer vehicles, which of course would increase costs. Maintenance facilities need to be set up for longer buses as well and I've heard that if maintenance managers had their way, they would get rid of trains and artics and just run 40 foot buses everywhere. Unfortunately for many of them they have customers.

I know this isn't a completely exhaustive look at longer buses but I was curious about them, after making claims without researching before that it was a safety issue that was keeping longer vehicles off the roads.  It still feels like this would be an issue when operating along side autos, bikes, and especially pedestrians, but for now, this is what I know.

I'm interested to see how LACMTA will implement this new rule on the Orange Line, and whether it will lead to increased ridership, as well as increased fighting on the bus vs rail argument.  As a frequent bus and train rider here in San Francisco, I will say I will always choose the rail route if possible.  But we can discuss preferences at another date too....    

Podcast: Houston Part II - Transportation Time

This week we continue our conversation with Christof Spieler on Houston, this time focusing on transportation including discussions about BRT, High Speed Rail, the bayou bike network and implementation of the bus re-imagining program.

Giving Up and Release Valves

So it seems as if the Port Authority in Pittsburgh is giving up on a rail trip between the two largest employment centers in the region. Perhaps they'll get real BRT but given that opposition always goes to the lowest common denominator such as in Berkeley, you can bet there will be a fight over dedicating the lanes.

I'm disappointed because I feel like this is a travel corridor that could benefit from a direct link from the existing light rail system. However no one wants to actually invest in transit infrastructure these days. I can hardly blame them, once it gets built they have to fight for every penny to operate the thing. If we're ever going to get a real mode share out of transit, we're going to have to start investing in something real. Not necessarily in big projects, but real headways and dedicated lanes for places that will never have rail.

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I guess I'm in a pessimistic mood tonight. New Jersey is thinking about stopping the ARC tunnel for road projects (blech) and the Twin Cities is thinking about how they are going to serve the suburbs of tomorrow when people can't drive. Newsflash! Peak oil isn't our only problem people. What about those folks who can't drive because they are too old! Paratransit is expensive.

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This article irked me for some reason. In it Mary misses the major point about development and land value around transit and even "urban renewal" lessons. She complains about the high rises around transit close to single family neighborhoods.

That, of course, is precisely the problem with Charlotte's love affair with too-tall transit-oriented development zoning smack next to low-scale, historic Dilworth or - this will come - NoDa. Even if nothing's demolished, making land values so high so swiftly via zoning encourages large, expensive projects that will drive out small-scale enterprises.

You want to know why that property becomes so valuable? Because it is scarce! Contrary to popular belief, there is not enough supply of urban housing to meet the demand, so the speculators come in and jack up the prices. I bet you wouldn't have this problem if transit was built out such that neighborhoods didn't gentrify because people wanted the quality locations and access. In places like New York City or Chicago that have extensive transit systems to all kinds of neighborhoods, you see that transit stations are the more diverse income places than the region as a whole.

This is the problem with our thinking here. We complain about the results of our actions but don't think about the underlying actions themselves. Given that Charlotte is building its system line by line, you'll see development speculation and value increases acting as a release valve on the downtown market. If you built all the lines at once, that pressure gets relieved five or six ways instead of one way.

Right now this is just my theory, but when Denver and Houston open up their lines at relatively the same time, I am going to say that you are going to get a more diverse housing type in new stations than we've seen along corridors that are a first big transit investment in a city. The reason being is that they will meet the actual demand, instead of be a small rock in the pond.

So if regions are feeling for local businesses and the skyrocket land values around transit, the escape valve that creates greater opportunities in places that want to change is to build greater transit networks. More escape valves means greater distribution of different development and less pressure and speculation.

Stop Spacing and Arterials

Rob has a good evaluation post up about the slow going Health Line BRT in Cleveland. Ultimately the planners weren't thinking of Rapid Transit and probably had too many people to please when they decided to have so many stops on the dedicated ROW. But this isn't just an issue that keeps BRT below 10 miles per hour, the T Third line in San Francisco has a similar issue. It has its own ROW down the center of Third Street, yet it has so many stops and crossings that the schedule maxes out at 12 miles per hour. Compare this to Rob's example of the Red line in Cleveland that goes 25 mph.

But its a balancing act of serving the most people possible and making the line go fast. For example the FTA sometimes goes to far and the running joke is that the cost effectiveness rating would be a great measure if you didn't have to have stations on the line. But something we might think about when planning these lines is that perhaps we don't need stops so close, and also that signal priority for buses and trains is imporant in making these generally longer haul services competitive with auto trips.

So Much for Faster

One of the claims of BRT is that its faster to implement. As we know from work here in the Bay Area and other parts of California is that with all the environmental regs that sometimes isn't true at all. Poor cars, they just have too many buses in their way. It's too bad really since places like San Francisco and LA should have had bus lanes a long time ago. There's more than enough ridership on the lines to justify the dedicated lanes.

Disappointing CAP

I'm a bit disappointed that the Center for American Progress would be pushing natural gas BRT as a strategy instead of electrification with clean energy. They also have the fun generalizations about BRT such as "And construction of BRT systems cost 30 times less than a subway system" and "which operates like a subway system". I believe we've discussed this before in that once you get to the point where you're building real BRT the costs are much much higher than these 30 times claims.

If we're going to assume that BRT is a solution for heavy traveled corridors that aren't dense enough in riders for light rail, there is a case to be made for electrification and trolley buses in terms of public health (particulates) and energy (one power plant vs many). While CNG is much better than diesel, zero particulates should be the goal. We continue to see fossil fuel based solutions when we should be looking even further down the road.

Construction Impacts

One of the complains about new transit is that it will destroy homes and businesses. However with the appropriate strategies the affects are decreased. A new report out states that 85% of businesses were retained along the new LRT line in Seattle. The same won't be said however for some housing in Chandler where a rapid bus line is going in. Not a lot of housing gone, but enough to write a newspaper article about it.

Extended Chicago

Chicago is looking to extend their Red, Orange, and Yellow El lines at their ends. I'm not going to say that I know Chicago as well as some other cities but I'm wondering if 9 miles of rapid transit on the outside edges for $1.7 billion is a higher and better use than greater capacity in the core? Especially with the Olympics coming up.

Considering the North South deficit of rapid transit on the Western edges of the El network, would North-South LRT/Rapid Streetcar lines and dedicated bus lanes be a better use of money? What do you all think?

1000 Words

This is likely what the United States looked like in parts of the 1950s and 1960s. These days complete neighborhood deconstruction wouldn't happen in the United States, especially not being paid until after your home had been demolished.

The Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, who was at the meeting, said that the government had not decided on what to pay as compensation.

“Even, beside that, the process of determining the amount of what to pay as compensation is not easy. But we would ensure that those who are qualified receive the payment. Nobody would suffer deprivation,” a report quoted Mr. Fashola as saying.

Importance of Employment Centers

Jarrett has an interesting post on how LA is more like Paris with their polycentric form than a more monocentric place like New York City. I've been looking all week at LEHD data, mapping out job clusters and have noticed that many places in the United States are polycentric. This is also something Richard Layman talks about a lot as well, but in a slightly different way.

For example, the Twin Cities has a number of job clusters that could be made walkable if given a push. It's quite possible that this is a better way to look at transit possibilities, rather than the traditional hub and spoke. Jared makes this point, but the proof is in how our regions are laid out and how people already commute. I don't have the maps here now, but most of the major clusters in the twin cities draw residents from around that cluster. Meaning many people live closer to where they work than we might have thought, they just don't live close to the major center of the region, but rather thier own major cluster.

This all leads up to talking about how to fill in the centers and connect those people to thier cluster. Chris Leinberger talks about Walkable Urbanism and building up centers. You can see this in DC where places have grown up around the Metro lines. In other regions, places have grown up where there are metro lines such as Atlanta, but also have grown densely but not as walkable in other places. Many of these places could be added to and reconfigured for walking.

I once thought Phoenix would be hard pressed to change its ways. But it has really good bones and a regional grid that is almost unmatched in the United States. There are also two major places outside of downtown that could be even more dense than they are today with greater access. They could already support high capacity transit, the one area north of downtown just got attached to the new light rail line.

North Central
Camelback Road

But you also have to do it right. In my travels to Denver, I noticed that the Tech Center which has the most jobs outside of downtown has fairly lousy access to the light rail line. This place will not transform as easily as it might have with the line running straight through the center of the density existing, density you can tell was created by cars.

Denver Tech Center

These pop up in other regions as well, and usually represent the best place to connect downtown with another major job center. These corridors also make for the best starter transit lines, especially if you're having to work with the cost effectiveness measure, because you're going to get the most riders from them. Houston knows this for certain, because in connecting Downtown to the Medical Center, they were able to build the highest passenger density new light rail line in the United states.

Medical Center and Rice University

In Atlanta, it's Peachtree outside of Downtown on MARTA and Buckhead just a bit further north. The point I've been trying to make is that more of these places could be created and ultimately connected together in a web with better transit. But it's much easier to demonstrate in pictures than with just words.

Peachtree

Looks kind of like Arlington no?


Buckhead Station in Atlanta

Which kind of looks like Bethesda


The biggest thing I think we see here is how if there is a station, the density fills in between the lines. The Phoenix example is just density for cars, not people. This all can change though, and more centers could pop up around the region to foster more walkable urban development. These centers need to be connected by transit, and if connected, will follow Jarrett's ideal:

If you want a really balanced and efficient public transit system, nothing is better than multiple high-rise centers all around the edge, with density in the middle, because that pattern yields an intense but entirely two-way pattern of demand. If balanced and efficient transit were the main goal in Los Angeles planning, you'd focus your growth energies on Westwood, Warner Center, Burbank, Glendale and perhaps new centers in the east and south, while continuing to build density but not necessarily high rise in the middle.

This way we can accommodate the complete market for housing, not just the segment that is single family, and most can have access to quality transit. We can also cut down on VMT while serving our polycentric regions with quality transit of all types.

Could BRT Carry 7 Million New Yorkers?

Streetsblog is at it again with BRT. When do we get a streetfilm on Berlin or London's or Tokyo's or Hong Kong's or Moscow's or Paris' or Helsinki's or (name amazing world city with a subway here) Underground? Probably never because we only take good ideas from third world countries. (insert joke about becoming one here)

On the east side of Manhattan, the right BRT configuration would carry almost as many commuters as the Second Avenue Subway, for a fraction of the cost.

For a fraction of the cost you get a fraction of the ridership and a fraction of the service. How many buses and how many Union wages would it take to get that level of service? Let's all imagine how much it would cost operationally to carry ~7 million daily subway riders on buses every day in addition to the 2.3 million people that already ride buses in New York. Let's see what kind of a city New York would be without the Subway. There is a specific crowding issue that needs to be addressed on the east side and if you amortize that $5 billion over the lifetime of the tunnels it is well worth the investment over centuries of use.

Instead of taking everything Walter Hook and the BRT/rubber tire/World Bank lobby say as gospel, how about talking to other people who have written a few books on the subject. Say a certain professor at UPenn who has written three tomes on transportation operations and planning.

Then how about talking about these issues:

Paying union wages for 30 second headways
Fumes that come from the buses because they won't electrify
Using more oil for IC engines
Roadway damage that will occur along the way
Replacing those buses every 12 years or sooner
Crowding that is acceptable in Curitba and Bogota
Speeding buses and pedestrians
Bus traffic sewers on the streets
Actually taking lanes from drivers when you can't even get road pricing

You want less people to ride transit? Then build inferior transit. In all actuality though, this country needs more Metro Subways. You know, the kinds of things they have in first world countries on the European continent. Washington DC is an example of a place that has developed more recently around the subway. Regions that build BRT will always be car cities. If you want to truely transform regions, we're going to have to think bigger.

I think a lot of people talk about Arlington County because of the great success it has had in development. Yet no one talks about what Atlanta was like on Peachtree just north of downtown or in the Buckhead area just north of there before MARTA. Not a lot of people seem to realize that San Francisco is much more dense now because of BART and Caltrain connections as well as the Muni Metro than it ever would have been without. In fact, certain companies have pushed the MTA in San Francisco to make Muni better or they will leave. They wouldn't be saying that if we had a system that actually worked.

The problem with places like San Francisco and Atlanta is that they didn't go far enough. They built a couple of lines and then stopped. If we truely want to see our cities transform, we need to go further and without BRT as THE substitute idea for Heavy Rail or Semi Metro Light Rail. It's an outrage to think that people actually think this is a real alternative to transform our cities and turn the population to transit. It's just us being cheap. We're already cheap with transit, and look where that gets us. To more people riding cars and more sprawl.

It's the Priority, Not the Perception

Carol Coletta who has her own NPR show called Smart City muses on buses and their image issue:

As I travel U.S. cities, it is unusual for public transit not to come up as a priority. But buses are rarely mentioned. Cities want the sexy stuff -- light rail, trolleys and trams. I was reminded of this as I was reading again about Bogota's Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and London's newly redesigned buses.

Aside from mass implementation, there is not much that can be done to improve the feel of riding the bus. Oakland tried this with buying the Van Hools (a whole other discussion) and many other agencies have tried or are trying small fixes such as San Francisco's stop spacing redo. It's still a bus and it has it's function in the transit spectrum. The problem is that it runs in traffic with cars and stops every other block. And all United States systems are woefully underfunded, bus or otherwise, such that better diversity in service is not provided.

But then there is this:

And the TransMilenio carries none of the negative stereotypes associated with buses.

Say what? Just because Enrique Penalosa says that doesn't mean it is so. I've obviously never been to Bogota nor plan on going, but the BRT there has many freeway centered sections and still runs on rubber tires and still operates using a third world pay scale for its drivers. This means no pedestrian friendly TOD opportunities around the station and you're still on the bouncy bus when the concrete shifts. Not to mention the crowding and operating costs.

Flickr photo by Pattoncito

I understand the allure of BRT, and I honestly think that more bus routes should get a lane such that BRT is more the norm in dense urban areas. This only comes with a change in our own perceptions of what is a priority, not so much the current perception of what buses are. This means building more metro systems, more light rail, and dedicating more lanes to transit and bikes. That is a fundamental shift that needs to happen, not just focusing on making buses a tiny bit better by renaming them.

Excuses

Notice they don't say that it's not what they want or need, they just say that they can't figure out how to pay for it since the FTA process is so F'd up.

Montgomery County planners have recommended that a bus rapid transit system be built along the Interstate 270 corridor, saying that the other choice, a light rail line, would be too expensive to win federal funding.

This is a bullshit excuse. We spend billions on roads and interchanges to nowhere and get screwed on transit we need. Have fun I-270 dwellers. Guess what, there's more than enough money to widen the freeway.

The Montgomery Planning Board staff also called for I-270 to be widened with express lanes for carpools and toll-payers.
...
State transit officials have said that a 14-mile bus rapid transit system would cost about $450 million to build and that light rail would cost $778 million. The highway widening is estimated to cost $3.8 billion.

Anyone smell the stench of global death?

Horseshoes & Hand Grenades

"Officials laud transit center, buses as ‘close’ to light rail"

Why don't you try and sell it a little harder...

The bus lines are designed to imitate light rail systems used in other cities. Many parts of the route have dedicated bus-only lanes and the buses will stop at raised platform stations, where passengers will buy tickets before boarding. “We’ve had a lot of discussion in this valley about light rail. This is the closest thing we can bring for the cost of a bus,” Snow said. “It is really a train-on-tires concept. It’s designed around the light rail concept. It looks like it’s a train.”

Total references to superior transit to the bus they are building in the article: 9 I'm not going to say whether this corridor should or shouldn't have had light rail over BRT. But it seems to me that people might be disappointed when they don't get the train you're promising.

More Busway to Tollway

Reader Jon points us to this LA Times article discussing new tollways. They don't mention that those HOV lanes were once dedicated bus lanes. The El Monte busway to the East was opened in 1974 as a bus only facility. The Harbor Freeway Busway was expected to get over 60,000 riders yet ended up with just 5,000. Now it will be a toll road. How long until the Houston HOV lanes that carry 40,000 bus passengers a day get the treatment?

Knew It Was Gonna Happen

I've been waiting for that day. The day when the Busway in Miami is handed over to the cars. We knew it was gonna happen...somewhere.

Now they might get their wish if county commissioners and other local elected officials approve a proposed plan to convert the Busway into -- among other alternatives -- a four-lane highway with express toll lanes where private vehicles would share the road with buses. The revenue would then be used to fund the cash-strapped county transit agency.

This is one of the things I fear with BRT boosterism, that eventually the road will revert to cars. To some degree my fears are unfounded, but this should give us caution.

Initial Take Aways from the 2010 New Starts Report

Once a year Santa Transit comes and brings us the New Starts report (Warning 12mb) which lets us know which cities have been naughty or nice (err qualified for federal help building transit). The 2010 version came out this Friday and there were two places that caught my eye, Austin and Denver.

Austin

It looks like Austin has screwed itself yet again, this time by applying for federal funding to build rapid bus along the best corridor for light rail in the city. So if you live there don't expect anything that goes where lots of people go outside of downtown or riverside for perhaps another generation. I'm disappointed in it myself and it's getting harder to find a reason for me to ever move back. As bad as it is here in San Francisco (and it's pretty bad by international standards), it's way better than Austin, which for all its progressive action can't seem to shake the state off its back or get rid of the leaders at Cap Metro who are just begging for the transit agency to be dissolved. The bad PR is adding up. Just like the Oakland Airport Connector study by Transform, they call this street running bus BRT. Please stop. Either that or name it what it is, bus repackaged transit.

These lines look familiar?

Looks sorta like a certain transit plan we had in New Starts in 2001.


Denver

For a region who's been under the gun for spiking Fastracks costs they aren't doing themselves any favors asking for 39% and 28% for the Airport and Gold Line corridors. With Congressman Oberstar looking for modal parity, making highways and transit always pay the same share, it seems like only asking for this much match is silly. Now this might have something to do with the fact that you can only have one project at a time and currently they are funding the West corridor. Yet Houston has two corridors in currently which could get funding. Places like Utah have even made deals to get multiple lines funded. They shouldn't have to go at it mostly alone, just like the federal highways system, these lines are of utmost importance to regional productivity. It seems like they should get thier due as well.

Finally...

It's also funny how the new starts report never seems up to date even when it comes out. With Sunrail "not quite dead yet" and the Silver Line III tunnel dead things seem to be decided pretty fast. In any event, I'm sure I'll have more things to talk about with this report but just wanted to share my initial reactions.

2015 Rail Deadline for Orange Line?

I was reading some comments on Curbed LA about the Orange line extension and came across this comment:

Thankfully, Metro had the foresight and built the Orange line to Light Rail Spec, so that in the future it will be relatively easy to convert it from bus to rail. All we need is the support of the people in the valley and its done.

I also believe Metro used state funds earmarked for rail projects when constructing the orange line, and there is a mandate that the corridor must be converted to rail by 2015 or metro must pay back the funds. We might see the conversion start within the next couple years, especially with Valleyites being choked in traffic and their envy of trendy urban/suburban communities like Culver City and Santa Monica getting rail and them being snuffed by metro.

I thought to myself, this seems a little strange. Can't be true. But check out Kimberleigh Richards post and got to her page on Prop 108.

Specifically, §2701.06 reads (again, emphasis mine): The money in the fund, upon appropriation by the Legislature, shall be available, without regard to fiscal years, for acquisition of rights-of-way, capital expenditures, and acquisition of rolling stock for intercity rail, passenger rail, and urban rail transit and for capital improvements which directly support rail transportation, including exclusive busways which are converted within 10 years after completion of construction into rail lines, grade separations to enhance rail passenger service, and multimodal terminals.

Part of the deal seems to be that the MTA needs to pay back money to the state that was used to buy the ROW if its not rail in 10 years. How much is this?

This obligation was acknowledged by then-CEO Franklin White in his October 21, 1994 memo to the MTA board of directors in which he responded to questions raised at the October 13 Planning and Programming Committee meeting:

Question: Does the MTA incur any financial loss if it does not build a rail project along this line?
Response: MTA ... has an obligation to pay the State of California $44.8 million in the event that it does not proceed with a passenger rail project on the SP right-of-way, unless CTC agrees to waive such repayment.

As of the end of 2007, the "then-present value" of the original $44.8 million was $67.4 million; if the inflation rate remains approximately the same, by October 30, 2015 (the tenth anniversary of the Orange Line beginning passenger service) it will be $83.1 million. While no one can say for certain whether or not the CTC would waive the repayment (which would presumably come due on that date, based on the Prop 108 language), the state's budget problems in the intervening years seems to predict that they would.

Very interesting. I wonder if this would actually happen or if its just a law that is not enforceable. I'm assuming that they would not make MTA pay it back. But who knows. Anyone know more about this?

Wee Hours Linkage

I'm kind of a night owl and its sometimes nice because the next days news comes out right before I go to bed. It's also bad because the next days news comes out right before I want to go to bed :)

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Apparently the TA really likes BRT on Geary. Whatever. After riding the bus on the HOV/BRT lane from LAX to Union Station I realized why the rubber tires just don't cut it. I couldn't read the news on my Iphone without getting seriously ill. I feel bad for the people who will have to ride that bouncefest in from the Richmond every morning. Sure it will be a faster bouncefest, but a bouncefest nonetheless.

The next sick part though, the completely ridiculous cost estimate of $5 billion dollars for surface subway. If it really does cost $100 million a mile and it's a ~6.5 mile line with ~2 miles of subway, why the hell would 2 miles cost $4+ billion dollars???!!! And why does it cost $100 million a mile on the surface? It's not like the T-Third with drawbridge retrofits. Someone at the TA is a little too close to those medical hash dispensaries. Plz to have new engineers!!!

I guess it really doesn't matter. The Richmond is never going to get a Metro, BART or otherwise. I'm sorry guys, you've been deemed second class citizens to the TA and Muni. Well maybe third class, because everyone who rides Muni is already second class.
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And we wonder why a ton of suburban roads get built?

The city of Charlotte has 75 percent of Mecklenburg's population, but only has 1 of 9 voting members on the MTC.

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I think we need new engineers in the bay area. All these cost estimates are insane. The airport connector is just another example of it. If there is one place I would like to see intelligent design, it's here. And 80 foot buses? Come on Transform, you know thats not possible. The Orange line had to get special permission from Caltrans to run 65 footers, just five feet longer than the usual artics.
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If Microsoft wants a light rail extension so bad, why can't they pay for it. It's thier own fault that they located so far away from the center of the region. Job sprawl has consequences, one of them being high capital cost for extensions. Papa Gates should foot the bill for this one.
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Does the Peninsula want to pay for a tunnel? I'd be interested in seeing a poll on the issue of a tunnel. I wonder if the NIMBY's would get rejected for thier high cost plans.