No You Don't Like Trains

Robert as usual has the goods. Anyone else tired of people falling for the "I'd like another proposal besides this one later because now is not the right time" crowd? It's never going to be the right time for someone out there. Or the guys like O'Toole and Cox that say, we're huge train fans, we just think they cost too much blah blah blah.

An interesting discussion I had tonight with a colleague. He reminded me that the Howard Jarvis people that wrote the Anti Prop 1a junk study with Wendell Cox are the same folks who got Prop 13 passed...

Governator Signs Sprawl Bill 375

Curbed LA has coverage of what other people are saying. I hope to read up on it some more and give my own views soon.

It's Like Getting a Raise

Taking transit that is...

Jeanne Whitworth, wearing a dark blue jacket and skirt, settles into a Sprinter car at the Oceanside Transit Center, awaiting the four-stop ride to Rancho del Oro, where she lives. Whitworth, who works in downtown San Diego, commutes weekdays on both the Sprinter and the Coaster, a conventional Amtrak-style train, which intersect at Oceanside.

The two trains take an hour and a half. Whitworth, 42, could be home 15 minutes earlier if she drove there from Oceanside. "But I don't have to fight the traffic," she says, and she's saving a tank of gas every month. "It's like getting a raise."

But the highway mentality and misunderstanding of investments for people versus cars are still out there.

Cooke, a retired Marine Corps major-general, contends that $500 million would have been better spent adding two more lanes to six-lane Highway 78. He's also critical of the train's taxpayer subsidy, saying that everyone riding the Sprinter "is getting a free ticket to some degree."

Going Underground

Instead of being NIMBYs, why aren't more people thinking big like Palo Alto when it comes to High Speed Rail in their community.

$3 Frakkin Billion Dollars

Apparently no one cares at the state level. In the last 3 years, $3 billion dollars have been channeled away from transit projects. Sick.

HSR Smackdown

Ah good ole Wendell, we knew you were fibbing, just didn't think it was this bad.

California HSR Could Go Green

If it passes. I'm fairly optimistic that people will see through the bs that a lot of the opposition is peddling but there are some that are already being pushed by their right side. Apparently the California Chamber is coming out against the bond measure. I never thought it was out of the realm of possibility that the line could be run completely green, but its good to see on paper.

A leading energy specialist has reported to the California High-Speed Rail Authority that the state's proposed high-speed train system can run with zero greenhouse gas emissions. The zero emissions strategy report was presented by Navigant Consulting Inc, a leading consultant on the energy, electric power and natural gas industries at the Authority's most recent board meeting held in San Diego. At the meeting, the Board adopted a renewable energy/zero emissions strategy for the high-speed train project.

Follow "The Market"

Let's keep doing what we've been doing and expect different results.

Pulling Together Land Use & Transportation

It passed. AB 375 got the votes it needed to move forward bringing together transportation and land use planning.

Senate Bill 375 – commonly referred to in the popular press as the “climate change smart growth bill” – is going to become a law. The newspapers have been calling the legislation “precedent setting,” but it’s got nary a new idea in it. If you peel back the layers, you’ve got what old-timers like me call a “growth management law” – one that ties transportation funding to growth patterns.

It'll be interesting to see how this works if it works. According to Bill Fulton, Contra Costa County has adopted similar measures, but that hasn't stopped the sprawl in Brentwood and other places or moved transit funding away from roads there. Much of the transportation funding is going to a 4th bore in the Caldecott tunnel.

In somewhat related news, the Governor changed his mind and decided that he will sign bills that will go to the voters, not wanting to withhold them from a public vote. This means HSR prop 1a will be on the ballot.

Sunday News Links

The Orange Line BRT estimated initial ridership on a hunch. Models drive me crazy, but this seems a bit nuts as well. From the LA Times:

MTA officials denied that they lowballed Orange Line ridership predictions but conceded that their forecasts might be more art than science. "We didn't put it into a computer model," said Rod Goldman, the MTA's deputy executive officer for service development. "A lot of it was our educated guesswork based on our experience."

Charlotte's mixed use market is doing better than single family homes. Seems to me like this might be from lack of supply over the years. Complaints of expense just prove this point. From the Charlotte Observer:

“There's an immediate crisis feeling about the price of gas, but there's also a different living preference now,” said Laura Harmon, economic development program manager for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission. “Those of us who might be baby boomers didn't have those options. But now the millennials and so forth are wanting to live differently.”

As noted in the guest post by J.M. it will be interesting to see how Norfolk's light rail line comes out. But while they were pushing forward, their sister city rejected the idea. Now the local paper thinks its time to get back on the train.

Finally comes a blog post from Bill Fulton's blog. Seems that Starbucks has bucked the trend of picking the 100% corner and instead is concentrating more on auto orientation in Redding. Really? Seems a bit strange to me at this time that they would want someone to get in their car making them think about gas to go buy an expensive cup of coffee. But the poster makes a good point that its partly the citizens that are to blame.

The Starbucks with a drive-through window at the edge of downtown? That one stays. So does the Starbucks at the other end of downtown inside of Safeway. But the coffee house at the most visible corner in downtown? The store that was supposed to anchor a cornerstone redevelopment project? It’s closing.
...

Ultimate responsibility, though, lies with the community. Redding is a town where people rush to the newest franchise restaurant. Earlier this year, they lined up overnight for the opening of a Chipotle in a rebuilt strip center. Seriously. It’s a town where Wal-Mart, Costco, Target and Home Depot have big boxes within walking distance of each other – although you’d take your life in your hands trying to make the trip on foot.

In other words, most people who live in Redding don’t care about having a vibrant downtown full of local flavor. And no one – including an urban planning journalist who thinks he knows better – can make them care.

Group in Sacramento Shuts Down Road Expansion

No more automatic expansion. The judge found that the road expansion was pre-ordained and alternatives and impacts weren't looked at closely enough.

Neighbors Advocating Sustainable Transportation (NAST) and the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) filed the suit because CalTrans’ analysis of the project’s air pollution and climate change impacts was inadequate, and the project did not consider options that did not involve widening the freeway.

Some key points:

1. Did not complete a Vehicle Miles Traveled count and associated air quality impacts from increased VMT

2. Did not look at a range of alternatives including a transit alternative to meet their goals.

3. Did not adequately address ghg emissions as a result of the freeway widening.

This is interesting because it might make Caltrans think twice before just pushing through with freeway expansion. It's been a push through since the 1950's that the only alternative was road widening. I'd be interested to see how this affects other projects around the state if at all.

Possibly Billions for US Transit in Climate Bill

The word on the street is that an amendment will be introduced by Barbara Boxer to the Lieberman Warner Climate bill that would raise $171 billion dollars for transit (see title VI subtitle B). While this sounds good, it is only pennies. Over 50 years, thats only $3.42 billion per year which compared with the last transportation bill was $244 billion over 6 years, most of it for roads.

Now there is another pot of money that could possibly be used for transit. There will $544 billion available as energy block grants. The money is available for states that reduce GHG emissions. Some of that money could go to transit as well. Now this is just an amendment and while its got some support, it still needs votes.

We'll let you know more as it comes online.

Acela Gains Travel Share on Airlines

Showing what is possible for the future of many corridors across the country, the Acela (Kinda High Speed Rail) has been gaining share on the airlines in the same corridor. It kind of strikes me as silly that anyone would want to go through crazy security lines and airport traffic when you can just hop on the train in the city.

Wired has a few reasons why the train is gaining.

Environmental Elitists

John at RT Rider discusses the behavior of the faux enviros in the California Statehouse this last session.