Linda Johnson questioned Nixon's light rail talk during her answer. "I think we need to get real here," she said. "The economy today is in a crisis, so the bottom line is, where's the money coming from?"
Why not from money that would usually go to freeways to nowhere? Seems to me if the economy is shot, you're not going to need those freeways for a while anyway. With more people taking transit and gas getting more expensive, its time to shuck the excuses.
A subway under Geary downtown and through the Western Addition, surfacing at Steiner Street, was proposed as early as 1936. It would have used conventional streetcars, and, had it been built -- at a then-projected cost of $13 million -- it might have forestalled the automobile expressway.How much would a similar subway cost today? In the billions of dollars. It's needed but expensive. If we don't do it sooner, it will have to be done later, and at an even greater expense. Such is the cost of waiting. If we had done it before, the tunnel would be there for good and we wouldn't have to lay down billions.
And that money, at least historically for big transit projects, comes from familiar coffers: the federal government, which supplied the bulk of funding for previous MetroLink expansions. Plesko said many blame Metro for not wanting to build in Madison County, when in reality it's the lack of federal support preventing it.I often complain about the federal process and the new starts program because Todd Plesko is right, they are awful. But so are MPOs. They have enormous power to program more money for transit and less for roads than they let on, but people have been so lopsided in focus on automobiles that if you dare take away thier highway money you're the devil.
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Plesko said the Bush administration has severely sliced funding for light rail projects in recent years, forcing cities hungry to expand systems to lobby heavily or chalk up the cash themselves. "If you want federal funds, then you must compete for them. The current administration makes it really hard to get light rail," Plesko said.
An August 2007 study by the Federal Transit Administration entitled “Contractor Performance Assessment Report” compared average weekday boardings for completed projects with the predictions made during the EIR process. Of 19 New Starts projects (mostly light rail), 16 had boardings below the forecasts, with some as low as 20-30 percent of forecast figures.First off, the busways in this study were either in freeway right of ways like Houston or built on an existing freight right of way as a new road like in Pittsburgh. These bear no resemblance at all to the arterial running Oakland BRT plan and should not be compared to them as much as I think these first generation busway projects show that buses are no replacement for rail.
Ridership forecasts for busways performed even more poorly, according to the report, where “none of the available busway forecasts proved to be accurate. It appears from the limited sample that forecasts of ridership on busway projects . . . will not exceed 41 percent of the forecasts.”
Studies by Pickrell (1992) and Flyvbjerg (2005) suggested that many earlier rail transit projects exceeded projected costs and failed to achieve first-year ridership predictions. But much of what Pickrell classified as cost overruns where actually adjustments due to design changes...The FEIS numbers are also from the late 80's early 90's when ridership models for transit were still being honed due to the fact that we had just started building transit projects again after a long time off with a few metro subway lines in between. I'm not going to say things were perfect and there were some mistakes made, but I feel like now the FTA is starting to overcompensate for that. Recently ridership has been going over estimates like Charlotte, Denver, Minneapolis etc etc. In this report, the ridership estimates are extrapolated which make it look a bit worse if you look at the numbers without looking at the year they were forcast for. I'll also note that building automated guideways was a bad idea back then. 6% of ridership is really bad.
Ridership forecasts are developed to reflect trips in a particular year. For eleven of the twentyone projects included in this study, the ridership forecast year remains in the future (as of this writing).
The Capital Costs aren't anything different from what you would find with major freeway projects. Some over and some under the final estimate. But my main problem is using this report against transit at all, especially since the processes are completely different now. I know this report will get used again against transit at some point in the future, but I really wish it wouldn't, because without context, its worthless.
According to statistics, China plans to build 65 urban rail lines with a total length of 1,700 km through pouring a huge sum of CNY600 billion into UMT construction through 2015, In light with its near term UMT development layout. In the past several years, the three Chinese metropolises of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou all have advanced in a rate of building 30 to 50 km annually.50km (31 miles) annually?? Per city?? Imagine if we built 50km of subways annually here. Obviously they have some issues with environment and antiquities but this type of investment and movement is surely amazing to the United States which takes ten years to build a line.
It is likely to be many years at best before the Foothill project completes the lengthy and rigorous New Starts process, assuming the FTA allows the project to remain under consideration.The FTA process for most places recently has taken 10 years from first application. Lines such as Charlotte, Phoenix, Seattle , and Oceanside (Links to New Starts Report Dates) which are just opening started planning thier lines in the end of the last decade. So LA County Supervisor Mike Antonovich writes back saying the DOT and Ma Peters (Thanks Ryan) told him differently. (which makes me laugh as it should any of you all who have watched the process of the FTA over the last few years from your own experience as well as on this blog) Here's his comment:
The information in your letter to Congressman David Dreier is not consistent with what I was told last month when I was in Washington D.C. meeting with the Secretary of Transportation and the Chief Counsel of the Federal Transit Administration. Both made it quite clear that the reason the Gold Line Foothill Extension project has not been able to progress under the FTA’s “New Starts” program was due to the MTA’s failure to prioritize the project as part of its long-term project list.When Mary Peters tells you something about transit and the FTA it's kind of common knowledge now that you can't believe a thing she says. That's a great excuse they give though. Not only will the Gold Line be hard to fund through the federal process that favors BRT, it is impossible they will be able to get $320 million out of the deal. In the history of new starts, the only cities that got 80% of thier project costs paid for were back in the late 90s. 80% is what the match is supposed to be and what highways get, but the New Starts program is underfunded. I dare anyone however to find a project that gets more that 50% in the most recent new starts list. Recently its been more like 50% or for example Salt Lake City signed an MOU to fund 4 lines at 20% federal match.
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.
As a society we say “don’t drink and drive” but in this case actions speak louder than words. Zoning and land use policies have an impact on the built environment that often promotes driving and limits other transportation options. These regulations to some extent mandate how we get home from work and unfortunately how we get from the tavern, home. Many regulations are involved in this problem but with adjustments to the three below a real reduction in drunk driving can be promoted.
But his latest project is one that comes from the heart: He is trying to develop an Indian version of Silicon Valley, a sustainable city spread over 11,000 acres in northern India that he envisions will be home to 1 million residents employed largely by world-class universities and A-list companies that act as the country's idea generators. He calls it Nano City. One problem: Until recently, Bhatia knew nothing about developing cities.Knowing nothing doesn't really matter so much when you have experts that can help. You guys know I'm biased, BRT wouldn't cut it in my city.
3. Cars are More Energy Efficient - People are starting to get all righteous with the Department of Energy Databook which shows transit is much more efficient than a single driver car. Yet the databook assumes cars all carry 1.5 people per car and thus adjusts its numbers accordingly. Are you !$&#%^ kidding me? Istook takes this as gospel and doesn't mention anything about those pesky things like people that take transit also walk and bike more, and drive less over all. You know, this kind of thing. From the 1994 Portland Travel Survey...Roads have gone unbuilt because the "user pays" principle of transportation has been violated. Highway trust funds (your highway user taxes) have been siphoned off. Whereas other forms of transportation receive subsidies, drivers pay subsidies.
Supposedly our fuel taxes go to build and maintain roads and bridges. But for many years at least a fifth of the money has been diverted into high-priced mass transit projects, bicycle paths and tourist attractions instead. That's a huge factor in the backlog of unbuilt and unkempt roads and highways.
Nor does transit save energy. U.S. Department of Transportation figures show that transit buses actually consume more energy (in BTUs) per passenger mile than autos do! Further, as charted by the U.S. Department of Energy, American buses average 4,650 BTUs per passenger mile, compared to only 3,702 for autos. Rail travel does slightly better, with 3,172 on average, but rail's energy consumption figures are higher in cities due to stop-and-go nature of commuter rail.Again, that assumes 1.5 people per car. And rail always operates in cities, so I'm not sure what he is getting at here except to say, here's what the numbers say, here's what my brain thinks. One would argue that cars energy consumption is worse in cities because of stop and go as well. I'm really confused with this idiocy.
But not everyone is thrilled with the prospect of having to sacrifice our freedom of mobility because "green" politicians chose to "save the planet" by hampering our country's ability to produce affordable energy.Is it really a choice? And why does freedom of mobility mean all car all the time. I feel like I can move quite freely here without driving the car, I at least have the choice to do so. But the real meaning of this is "Why won't they let us drill until the carbon chokes us?"
I don't remember the last time I tried to force my friends and relatives to ride mass transit over taking the car. In fact, I own a car and there are many times when it is useful to have. No one is forcing them to take transit, I just want options. I want to have the choice. And I know that is the wrong frame, the choice frame. But what else is there? How can we talk about these things using the right frame. If I were a Karl Rove disciple, I would just say driving cars funds terrorism. That would be the end of it right? Anyone got a good frame?Trying to force everyone onto mass transit will never work. But be prepared for those who will use today's challenges to push us in that direction – perhaps as brutally as the professional pushers who cram riders into the cars of the Tokyo subway system.
It's time for drivers to stand up against efforts to demonize the automobile. Forcing people to use a particular mode of travel is not the American way. Life is better when you have the freedom to drive, not just find a ride or wait at bus stops.
