A Suburban Double Standard

An interesting quote from the folks in Massachusetts.

Egan said that Governor Deval Patrick and Aloisi remain committed to bringing rail to the region because "we will not get the same economic bang for the buck" with bus service.

This is in response to the South Coast commuter rail alternatives analysis in which they were examining express buses as an alternative. I never understood this need to study the alternatives to a commuter rail line like express bus when for the most part the reason to build the line would be to take advantage of the rail ROW. It's either cost effective and useful or its not.

Now on the issue of bus and rail and the quote above. It seems like a bit of a double standard. Why would you say something like that to the suburbs about rail when you are doing exactly the opposite in the core with the Silver Line BRT tunnel. Can't have it both ways guys.

Square the Wagons!

Engineering is starting on the circle line in Chicago. It looks like it might be a real one, unlike Boston's half hearted attempt. It seems these rings are all the rage, but as usual Europe is beating us to it.

Appreciating Bus Drivers

Tomorrow is Bus Driver Appreciation Day in Washington. Is it all over the country? Should be. I'd like one of those cookies at STB. If you don't already, thank your bus driver when you leave the bus. They can have tough days, and you never know when a kind word will make it better.

The Usual Conversation

Sigh. Can we get past this type of discussion about light rail and BRT already?

Indian TOD & FAR

In Pune India, the government is changing the zoning along the BRT line to a level not seen anywhere else. I can only assume that the term FSI is the same as our FAR or floor to area ratio. It's interesting how terms work out in different languages. A FAR of 4 in the US means you can build a 4 story building using the whole plot of land or an 8 story building using half the land.

The proposal states that 4 FSI will be granted to properties upto 200 meter distance on either sides of the BRTS routes and 500 meters on either sides of the Metro routes.
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"Nearly 30.50 km of Metro and 120 km of BRT routes are to be developed in Pune. For these routes to be successful, enough ridership and high-population density is required. Therefore, additional FSI is necessary. The mandatory reforms under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) also calls for densification along the Metro and BRT corridors," the proposal states.

Bounce on the Bus Goes Up and Down

While riding the 704 Rapid on Santa Monica Blvd in LA two weeks ago, I took a video. There were a number of times where I almost fell down and many more times where I became unbalanced trying to keep my suitcase upright and my body off the floor. I tried to keep the camera level. But here's the result of a 40 second stretch.

Energy Question

So I've been thinking a lot about the BRT report and comments on the (edited from CCT: Purple Line) in this post. The WRI study states that BRT is better for reductions in GHGs than LRT because LRT comes from dirty sources such as coal. Ok, I'll bite. Here's Greg Fuhs (from WRI) very fair comment at the end of my last post:

What we (and MTA) are saying is that by building a medium or high investment BRT system in the corridor, this would reduce GHG emissions from current levels by getting more people out of single vehicles and moving them more efficiently along the corridor than is currently the case. The significant fuel savings from this system would lead to the reduced GHG levels.

The reason light rail would increase GHG emissions over No Build is due to the electricity source, which for this region is primarily coal-fired power plants. While people would leave their cars and move more efficiently along the corridor with light rail, the coal plant emissions generated to produce the electricity required for the Purple Line would exceed the emissions savings from getting people out of their cars.

Now I understand this argument, but I have to dive in a little deeper. I'm wondering if the following thought is true. If you build an electric system, bus or rail, more electricity has to be produced during peak periods where the rail line is more efficient than the buses burning diesel. At the same time, during the off-peak, does the powerplant have to produce extra power or does that energy already exist in the grid.

I've heard ideas about the power grid benefitting from off peak power usage because the plant was going to run no matter what, but I'm wondering if the GHG's are already being produced, therefor any other emissions such as those from the bus are on top of what already existed from the power plant whether the light rail line was there or not. If this were the case, doesn't that reduce the emissions factor of the LRVs because the emissions are already out there from the coal plant? Does anyone know the answer to this or other ideas?

MLK Linkfest

It was a nice day today and I took a bit of a walk around my neighborhood looking for odd things, I'll get to that in the next post, but I had a few articles I needed to get out so here they are:
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Steve at Urban St. Louis has an amazing set of three aerial photos that show the degradation of MLK(before it was called such) over time due to "urban renewal" among other things. Check it out.
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Matt discusses the coming Metrocalypse during inauguration.
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India is talking high speed rail.
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Cleveland gets 6th annual ridership increase. Things going well.
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Richard Layman reposts a comment he originally left here about the WRI Purple Line study. Apparently the Shell Oil* funded think tank has been working on BRT studies around the world, but has never recommended light or heavy rail.
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An El Paso paper editorial states that a rail line should be on the cities to do list.
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A Dallas Morning News editorial calls for new buses to be CNG. How about more trolleybuses? Figure out a way to integrate the restructuring of the energy grid and the highest ridership routes in order to facilitate the reduction in particulate matter on the corridors and the long term alternative energy strategy. Buses are a 12 year investment, what will happen in 12 years? my guess is a lot.

Leave Something Out?

I have to take issue with reports like these. The reason being is that it seems like these folks are operating in this vacuum and aren't considering holistically what will happen in the future with these types of investments. This is part of the problem in much of the environmental community and one of the reasons why there needs to be greater education on the values of transit not just in transportation but its affects on development and land use. There seems to be this massive disconnect and I haven't seen anyone in the main stream environmental movement quite get it yet.

The World Resources Institute has issued a report that states BRT is better than LRT for the Purple Line. The question is how they came to this conclusion. It's littered with the usual objections to light rail with a few new ones for good measure. My favorite quip is the "we like light rail but not in this instance" which we've seen about a million times before. In the report, they even admit to thinking short term.

Major capital projects implemented in the near-term will shape the long-term future of transport in the region. WRI urges regional planners and other decision makers to consider current needs and concerns in the context of tomorrow’s transportation challenges, especially regarding traffic congestion, fuel costs, and climate change.

So what you're saying is that we should look at everything? Well you forgot a few things guys, like changes in development patterns, particulate matter and lifecycle costs in terms of construction. Replacing all the buses every 12 years is always good for the environment. Another annoying FTA related issue is the no build alternative. It's not really a no build but rather a basic bus service. Of course incremental change from a bus line to BRT is going to be more "cost effective". The other bus line doesn't even exist! Then there is this:

As illustrated in Figure 7, only the Medium and High Investment BRT alternatives reduce CO2 emissions, with 8,883 and 17,818 fewer metric tons per year, respectively, compared to the No Build scenario. All of the remaining alternatives increase annual emission levels compared to No Build.

Energy consumption from roadways decreases with introduction of LRT, but the resulting emissions reduction is not sufficient to counterbalance the effect caused by the high electricity CO2 emission factor. While we anticipate that this emission factor will decrease in the future due to increased use of renewable energy sources and likely GHG reduction legislation, these drivers have not been included in the AA/DEIS. Further consideration is given to the electricity emission factor in the following sections.

Again. The no build doesn't even exist, so how is the BRT line reducing emissions and LRT isn't? Well the truth is it is reducing emissions because the alternative isn't the no build but rather nothing at all. Both lines reduce GHGs in the transportation sense. What we don't know is exactly what the reductions in VMT are going to be from land use and whether the land use patterns will create more incentives to walk, creating even less car trips and development patterns that themselves save infrastructure and energy costs. Not to mention they say nothing about particulates from a single source of pollution versus multiple sources that spew along a whole corridor.

In all reality, the Purple Line should be a subway. Bringing it down to light rail is bad enough, but all the way down to bus rapid transit would be a wasted opportunity to change the corridor. But for once, could someone do an analysis that includes land use change, the issues of air pollution, the real lifecycle costs? This analysis shows how much affect the FTA policy has on what our future will look like, and that is upsetting. Let's stop leaving out the whole picture.

Setting New Timelines

Yonah discusses issues related to the Columbus plans for a light rail line using the stimulus funding. I would note that it was partially because of the FTA's cost effectiveness index that this corridor project got killed. They gave Columbus a large CEI for both light rail and BRT projects. It just shows how they have always been looking at the wrong metrics and hold transit to a different standard than roads.

That brings us though to the issue of what that CEI has wrought in terms of projects moving forward around the country as well as thier timline.

One of the problems with the current thinking on transit and the "ready to go-ness" of them is that people think that the current speed at which transit projects get done is how it has always been. This is wrong and simply a function of how broken the funding system has become. Obviously it shouldn't have taken Charlotte 10 years to build their first rail line but it was trying to get through the federal funding program that took so long. This gives lawmakers a poor idea of how actually long it will take.

We need to push back hard on assumptions that the lines can not be started within a three month or even a year period after the stimulus money is let. That assumes also we don't get rolled by state DOTs (aka highway departments) which is another outrage entirely. There should be some sort of experementation with design build in these transit projects, especially since many of them will be street running, even with thier own ROW. It's not as if engineers will not be in need of funding for thier businesses either. This recession is hitting everyone, not just construction workers.

But we can see how fast things can go when they are planned from Portland and Seattle. Portland announced the alignment in 1997 and the line was open in 2001. In Seattle, it took 5 years from thought to operations. This is half the time it took Charlotte to open and possibly shows that if you have an alignment and the funding, it can be designed and moved forward in short order. In the next few years we'll have a few more examples with Salt Lake moving so fast on thier lines, hopefully a few more because of the stimulus.

Attack on the 72 Rapid

A little light hearted Oakland post.

Rail Opponent Cliche Fest

Ryan points out the dumb comments the Post starts its article out with:

"Despite its substantially higher cost"

He goes on to comment:

Despite its substantially higher cost, I ordered the delicious steak the other night, instead of the potted meat. Despite its substantially higher cost, I bought a nice bottle of wine instead of a plastic jug of horse spit. Despite its substantially higher cost, I opted to burn a pile of money, rather than shell out for a copy of the worthless Washington Post.

I'll do you one better! How about all these wonderful anti rail cliches from US News and World Report:

Democratic bleeding hearts

social engineering program

nice thing to have. But

at a fraction of the cost, buy swank new buses

half the cost of light rail, build a dedicated "bus rapid transit" system

riders of the proposed Purple Line already take mass transit to work

proponents are actually hurting the cause

Who thinks US News should stick to college rankings?

Let Them Eat Cake

...and drive on dedicated bus transitways. Yet another reason why the pavement without rails means cars. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.

The Ottawa Sun added that at today's council meeting, councillors "also voted in favour of directing staff to review opening the bus Transitway to vehicular traffic."

Who's next?

Friday Night Linkfest: Streetcars & Secretaries

Streetcar projects are still having problems getting past the FTA Cost Effectiveness measure. Can we rewrite this thing already?
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Sources say former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk is one of two supposed finalists for the Transportation Secretary job along with Steve Heminger from the Bay Area MTC. The article says nothing about what Kirk has done on transportation issues and only that he was an early supporter and friend to Obama. Who wants cronies! Anyone have any more info on this person? I will note that he was in Office when light rail started running in Dallas.

Heminger on the other hand took any mention of electric transit out of the report for the recent Revenue Policy Study. It was put back, but he's also famous around the Bay Area by progressive transport nerds for his stance on promoting HOT lanes as the only way short term to cut congestion and pollution.
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Rep Peter Defazio is certain that an Obama administration will fund the East Side Streetcar project in Portland. This could bode well for other projects.
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This is heartening, but I'd really like to hear more about it than this.

While details have not been finalized, the bill is expected to include tens of billions of dollars for highway, mass transit, airport, and intercity passenger and freight rail improvements.

Bush's transportation philosophy "seemed to be, 'This is what the federal government should be responsible for and nothing else.' And the 'nothing else' category was public transportation," said William Millar, executive director of the American Public Transportation Association, whose members include transit agencies.

Obama, on the other hand, has described himself as a strong advocate of mass transit.

While Bush proposed what some lawmakers described as "starvation budgets" for Amtrak, Obama has pledged support for the passenger rail carrier and for developing a national network of high-speed passenger trains.

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The BRT - Light Rail saga continues on the Purple Line. A bad frame was used at a recent meeting. David Alpert fixes it.

It's too bad Gonzalez is thinking about the project using this analogy. A Lamborghini and a VW both get you from point A to point B, and except in a drag race, in pretty much the same amount of time. Not so with the bus versus light rail option. The light rail is faster, carries more people, and would use its own right of way for big chunks of the route, avoiding a lot of traffic. A better analogy would be, if the County builds a new school, should they buy big yellow buses or little golf carts to transport kids to school? Even if they're much slower and hold fewer students, they cost less, so why not?

More Silver Line

Bumped Post

Update 12.11.08: The Boston Globe is reporting that the Silver Line is getting down-rated to a Medium Low in the next New Starts report coming in February. This means that it would not be able to get funding because a medium rating is required. It's primarily due to the debt load of over $8 billion that the MBTA is carrying. Bill also mentions the atrocious ridership of the existing Waterfront Silver Line segment, half of which is going to be cut. It costs $9.16 per boarding in subsidy versus the Washington Street Section which is 48 cents. Amazing.

Bill reports that the folks at Boston Common don't like the Silver Lie BRT tunnel. Why would you tear up an existing usable tunnel that held rail vehicles for a poorly thought out bus tunnel? It just doesn't make any sense. But alas I'm sure it will continue to go through its approvals...

Just Like Light Rail, Only Cheaper?

Not so much. $60 Million a mile. This is based on ripping up track and laying down a new road and running buses on it. But here's some quotes from Hartford, which has been planning this project forever and where some people are having second thoughts.

Legislators have begun to wonder, not irrationally, if a rail connection might be the better alternative.
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When well-executed, bus rapid transit isn't much different from light rail. It is a transit vehicle — an articulated bus — running on a fixed path, a roadway instead of rails.
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The advantage of rail is that it feels more permanent. But good busways also feel like they'll be there for a long time.

Ughh. You mean isn't much different since light rail is transit too? I agree with Richard.

I think it's fine to explore BRT, but at the same time, let's not argue that it can do the job as well as fixed-rail transit.

Let's get real and stop trying to think that these buses act like trains. There is a reason we don't call buses trains. Just because you have an articulation doesn't mean you can couple. Anyway, we shouldn't have to keep repeating how rail is better than bus on the necessary rail corridors. It's annoying this even has to be discussed anymore.

How Long Does It Take to Build a Road?

Apparently more than 7 years. Give me a break. What is wrong with this picture? It's not just BRT, it's all transit. I guaranty that if this were a road without a bus on it, it would be done next year. Why is it so hard? It's not like they haven't been working on it for years already.

Meanwhile, AC Transit officials have released a proposed timeline that has completion of the Environmental Impact Report process by the 3rd quarter of 2010, final design for BRT by the 1st quarter of 2011, beginning of construction by the 2nd quarter of 2012, with completion of the project tentatively scheduled for the spring of 2015. But the project still has to complete a complicated approval process involving winning federal funding grants, approval by city councils in Berkeley, San Leandro, and Oakland as and final project approval by the AC Transit board.

A Shrinking Market Not Suitable for Rail Investment?

A lot of discussion about the auto bailout is out there by people much smarter than me so I'll leave that to them. But in a discussion about Detroit and its possible shrinking city status because of a drawn down auto industry, the Urbanophile states that transit expansion or initial construction of light rail doesn't really make sense in a low or no growth market. In the case of Detroit, he believes that a shrinkage strategy should be employed and money should not be wasted on movement and economic strategies such as light rail.

Detroit wants to build a big rail transit system. This is a variation on "silver bullet" thinking where Detroit will build light rail on Woodward and suddely life will be pumped into the city. It's possible I guess. But while that strategy might be appropriate for higher growth locations like Columbus, I don't think it is where declining cities like Detroit need to be spending their money. Detroit has much higher priority needs than this.

Perhaps this was made for greater discussion today by an article about Buffalo's light rail line, which is one of the new light rail lines that was built after the 1981 light rail return spark in San Diego. Buffalo was one of the cities that was low growth building new transit versus many of the high growth regions. Expansion also was stalled by politics and a lack of priority. Extensions have been on the books for a while and as of now, they total over $1 billion.

After San Diego, the class of the late 80's light rail included Portland, Sacramento, San Jose, and Buffalo. All of these lines have been successes in some ways and failures in others. San Jose for instance runs straight up the corridor it should, but the land use decisions along the line and its slow speed perception have doomed it so far too low ridership compared to peer lines. But we've learned a lot since then about focusing development, ridership induction, and urban design.

One thing those lines did that we know better about today is that they were designed to bring people from the suburbs to the Center City acting as extended parking lot. The lines that have succeeded the best today are those which connect multiple places and destinations. An example of this is Denver which just opened its southeast corridor just a few years ago which connects the Tech Center, Multiple Universities and downtown Denver. It has similar ridership to the Houston light rail line which connects downtown with the biggest medical center complex in the world. They both attract similar ridership with similar counts of jobs even though the lines have different distances (numbers on this are forthcoming).

The lesson from this is that if Detroit or Buffalo as shrinking/low growth cities are looking to bring people from the suburbs to downtown and hope that the line works without combining every other planning and infrastructure tool, it will be doomed to fail. A key to making expanding transit work on major corridors is the connection of destinations as well as a focusing program on bolstering those destinations.

One of the major mistakes that Buffalo made in its planning and subsequent allocation of funding was that it didn't take the line out to the University which was just a few miles further away. Cleveland, which is a city that is in a similar situation as a low growth city has made the Euclid Corridor their priority and have recently redone the whole street with BRT. They have also invested heavily with new public infrastructure and civic buildings. Obviously you know where I stand on the technology but the investment infusion and focus is something Cleveland did right. This is in stark contrast to the waterfront line which they built and just waiting for things to happen. They did not. Another simple improvement Cleveland could also do is move the Shaker Heights line further out a mile or two into a major suburban job center connecting that center with downtown with rapid transit.

So if you are a place like Detroit, Buffalo, or Cleveland which have a negative or low growth outlook, if there is a high capacity corridor that is ripe for investment, just holding back on the transit is not going to solve anything. In fact, you're taking away an organizing tool from the toolchest and increasing your longer term city and transit operating costs which all too often in these cities means service cuts, especially with a high cost energy future.

Weak market cities need those destination connections and a reason to organize or else there is likely to be a vacuum and development will happen in the business as usual sprawl fashion instead of focusing it making things even worse. Just because a city is low or slow growth doesn't mean development doesn't happen. The important thing is to be more fiscally conservative in your investments that promote new development. The long term viability of the city depends on creating value and not spending money on frivolous infrastructure such as road or water extensions that will make life even worse further down the road.

Of course these need to be long term strategies instead of short term fixes. Just building a light rail line and stepping back only works in Sim City. But if we're serious about helping these cities out, giving them the investment tools and pushing them to make the right investment decisions will go a long way towards a better livable environment, reductions in energy consumption, and long term fiscal strength.

Not a Train, Never Will Be

BRT is not "rail-like". It is not a replacement for rail but rather an upgrade on a specific corridor from what exists. Buses in their own lanes are better, but they are not "rail-like".

In addition, the opposition needs to stop whining about the bus bringing higher densities to the corridor and reducing parking spaces. Parking is not free and the pavement has a better use than storing your car. You live in the East Bay on the best corridors to reduce VMT and oil dependence, and I imagine you talk about being green all the time. Yet you oppose density and better transit that will help that goal.

Cunradi agreed parking space losses are a serious issue. To offset the impact, the transit district will consider developing parking lots or garages, or installing parking meters on commercial side streets so the spaces turn over faster, he said.

Greg Harper, an AC Transit board member from Emeryville, said the fear of denser development is an underlying fear that has fueled opposition to bus rapid transit.

The transit district should not be responsible for replacing parking. The city should not be responsible for paying for parking for specific merchants or anyone for that matter. Parking is not free. Losing a number of parking spaces is a small price to pay for better transit.

Also a bit of warning to those who think that BRT is "rail-like". BRT will never be replaced by light rail. There is no example of BRT ever being taken out and replaced by rail. Once its there, that's it. Buses. That is not to say that it doesn't have its place in the network, but if a corridor needs rail, and buses are used, an upgrade is a long time coming, if ever.

Friday Night Linkfest

More requests for the Orange Line to be Light Rail. They even quote us. But please stop using the most recent light rail line in Los Angeles is the end all of cost estimates for light rail. It would NOT cost $150 million a mile to build light rail.
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Dan at HugeAssCity hopes for better urban design for the Viaduct replacement. I hope for a rapid streetcar instead of just the waterfront trolley.
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I don't see why they can't charge for parking at Metro Stations during inauguration. Perhaps that would pay for the extra rush hour service that's going all day.
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Good thing the opposition in Salt Lake didn't get UTA rolled into UDOT. From Transit in Utah:

UDOT puts $3.9B in projects on hold. While I have mentioned this over and over again, I must hammer this home. If a certain group of puppets from a certain so called riders union would have gotten their way and transferred UTA over to UDOT, transit funding would now moved over to highways and that is the goal of the people who run that organization.

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There are seven Tram companies in Poland. Seven. Some of the models look pretty sweet.

As many as seven companies are active in the tram building market in Poland, suggesting that competition may develop in the coming years. In many ways the market is quite open, as conditions are similar in the various cities.