Tram Trains

This is something I'd like to see more thought on in the United States. The Tram Train:

Netherlands has been building a intercity light rail network for the past years, reusing previous sections of tram lines, metros and heavy rail and extending them with new sections of elevated rail and tunnels. The RandstadRail currently operates on the southern region of the “round city”, namely connecting the Hague to its suburbs and Rotterdam.

Check out the photos at the link. I think it's a great idea to have regional railways that turn more into light rail in city centers. This is what Austin would have had to a certain degree with the first light rail proposal in 2000. A light rail line with limited stops in the burbs with greater connectivity in the center city.

Austin's Transportation Race

Apparently people want more commuter rail. It's really annoying that the poll wasn't more specific asking about more urban rail types proving that the conversation in Austin is far behind what it could and should be. What is interesting though is the crosstabs of the mayors race with questions about issues and specifically commuter rail.

If you look at the gender breakdown in the details, you'll see that the transportation issue is mostly a male one in the mayoral race but more women would vote for more commuter rail. But its also more of an important issue for the youngest age set. The good news it seems is that the two leading candidates have the votes of people who care the more about transportation.

Now here is the kicker I'm sure M1ek and AC will post on. The part of the city that wants commuter rail the most is central. My hunch is that people in central Austin weren't thinking about more commuter rail lines when they said yes to this question which is why the questioning of urban rail or streetcar or light rail would have been much better. Will the candidates get this out of the polling? Probably not. Perhaps they have done thier own polling on the issue but I imagine not. I could be wrong.

Thursday Linkfest

H Street Streetcar tracks going in ???
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It looks like some electrification will make the difference between Zurich and Munich. About an hours difference. That's a lot of time.
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Some twists to the NAACP vs the Streetcar story in Cincinnati.
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Certainly the repeal folks in Charlotte would have given up by now. They got shellacked 70% to 30% in the last repeal try but gosh why not come back for more pain. Anyone want to explain why these folks get a voice at all after such a drubbing? Especially when the highway overruns were far worse than the LRT line that is performing beyond expectations.

But I did find out why it will cost so much:

The Lynx extension's 50 percent cost escalation from the 2006 estimate is largely because it's become more complicated. The original plan called for 10 bridges to separate the train line from roads. The plan now calls for 16 grade separations, including burying 36th Street under rail lines in NoDa. Despite the higher costs, the success of the Lynx Blue Line (between uptown and south Charlotte, along South Boulevard) still makes the project viable, CATS said.

In other words, the improved ridership from the South Corridor allowed the line to enjoy a "rail bias" in the ridership model that was demonstrated by the first line. Also, 16 grade separations is really going to bust any budget, though I still don't think $100 million per mile is low enough.
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Sign of the times: Edinburgh won't move forward with a tram spur due to the economy.

Increasing Capacity Without a New Tube

I thought this was an interesting post from a recently opened local blog Switching Modes. It also could fit well with Transbay's recent post on how to fix the central freeway by making a BART connection in the inner Mission neighborhoods. I still think we need another transbay tube but not just for BART but for standard guage trains and high speed rail to Oakland. That would allow trains like the Capital Corridor a direct shot into San Francisco.

Locating Stations is Hard

Where does the station go? Novato has chosen to tell SMART not to put a station in their downtown. After looking at the map, it seems a bit silly to me.

But Eklund and other council members were concerned about the lack of parking for those who would take the train and the relatively small job centers. Councilwoman Jeanne MacLeamy said she expected as many as 1,500 new jobs to come to the Atherton area in the coming years on top of the 1,500 already there. There are about 500 jobs near the proposed downtown station.

Why not have a policy to push more jobs onto the urban grid that exists downtown. It's also the most connected to the residential neighborhoods meaning it will be easier for people to get to the station without cars. Stop designing for cars!!!

The top is a close up of the two stations under consideration. The downtown station was ruled out which with the experience of Caltrain seems a bit silly. The yellow box shows the jobs they are talking about which have a huge parking lot outside of the building. Why not develop the downtown more and create a reason for people to live in downtown Novato and take the train to other cities?

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.

Pre Easter Linkfest

Here's a few links from the wide world of transit:

In Denver, the Daily Camera posed a question about the possible Fastrax expansion tax hike to fill the funding gap for all the lines. There were a few interesting nuggets in some ranting. Most of all though, they aren't really seeing the one possible solution to this mess, shifting money from roads to transit. Here's one from an anti growth guy who doesn't quite get that growth happens whether you like it or not, but he makes an interesting point about paying for your impact.

The fundamental reason we need more transit and more roads is growth. And the fundamental reason that taxes keep going up and service levels keep going down is the failure of the majority of the Legislature to impose impact fees on new development to pay for growth-related infrastructure. Why don't they impose such fees? It's simple - these fees cut into the profits of developers and land speculators, and they are big contributors. In this pro-development political environment, transit doesn't solve problems; it just encourages more development but in different places.

The commenters also leave much to be desired. This is one reason why we need to stand up to the likes of O'Toole, because his crap gets distributed through article comments like this.
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Could inadequate transit cost Tampa?
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California State cuts to transit are killing local agencies. It makes them look for more funding and look like the bad guys in all of this. Adequate blame should be announced in some way or another.
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No more stepping into the street for a streetcar in Toronto.
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Trains jammed for Arizona Diamondback games. Also, it seems to me that because sports fans are going to be perpetually confused about transit TVMs, why not just allow tickets to be POP.

Metro estimated that 5,000 to 6,000 fans used the trains for their trip to and from Chase Field on Monday. The process repeated itself, but in smaller numbers, Tuesday and Wednesday.

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A two station solution for the transbay terminal CAHSR issue?
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More cuts, Boston.
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Hippocrite, thy name is Tim Pawlenty. Remember when he vetoed funding for expanding Twin Cities transit? Now it's all cool when Joe Biden sez.

Lost Luggage

Do you ever have to worry about this on rail?

Dedicated Funding Source

In the long run, there was not a single person writing in the National Journal transportation panel section that said the VMT tax was an inherently bad idea. Very interesting.

On a similar note, Tennessee is looking to give regional transit authorities the ability to have a source.

First, it would allow other major municipalities in Tennessee to establish their own Regional Transportation Authority, like the one already in place for Middle Tennessee.

It would then allow a local RTA to take one of two routes in order to establish a dedicated funding source for regional transportation. An RTA could take a dedicated funding proposal to voters for a referendum, or it could ask a local legislative body like Metro Council to pass a law created a new funding source for mass transit.

Nashville recently opened the Music City Star which hasn't performed as well as perhaps it should and is also looking at alternatives on two other corridors. It seems as if these projects could be sped up by a dedicated source. We'll be watching to see how this progresses.

Don't Party On the Tracks

If a first grader gets it, you think that everyone else would as well.

"You should never have a party on the train tracks," said Max Schultz, first grader.

H/T Meg M.

Ogden, Utah Photos

I spent a few days talking about streetcars with some folks in Ogden, Utah. Fortunately or unfortunately I didn't have access to the internet the last few days because of my schedule, but I did take a few movies and pictures. I wish I would have had a little more time for a vlog but perhaps if I go back. Also, if I do disappear for a few days, you can check me out on twitter as well. I still have to figure out how to use it more effectively but for the most part its random observations when riding transit or where i'm located.

Anyway, Ogden is a really neat little city and they have a spectacular downtown with some great old buildings and the nearby streetcar suburbs . It was the center of much of the railroad's east west movements. Much to my surprise, this wasn't Salt Lake City's role. I got to see the Front Runner Commuter line from a far and took some pictures of the old downtown. I'll have some more cool stuff up tomorrow or Sunday.

And if you wonder why we should keep moving towards better land use and transit that lowers emissions...take a look at what Temperature inversions do to Salt Lake City. They just became a non-attainment area.



This is 25th Street, really cool main street which used to be a really seedy part of town. Tons of cities would kill for buildings like these.



Front Runner Commuter Rail

Lazy Saturday Links

Looks like BART will get some WiFi after all.
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Where will the next commuter line be?

Fred Hansen: “This is the first state’s first commuter rail project. I don’t think it’ll be it’s last.”

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54% of Cincinnati jobs (City of, not region) are in the core. That is some pretty good job density, excellent for transit.
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In DC, 43% of folks in the core walk or take transit. Would biking get them over 50%? In transit zones in DC, in and outside of the core, the number of people who walk bike or take transit was 42% in 2000.
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Personally I think asking bikers to pay a user fee on roads that are generally paid for out of local sales, income, and property taxes is silly. A lot of the times bikes aren't even allowed on freeways which are paid for with gas taxes that people think pays for streets, but doesn't. This is the same as asking urban dwellers who do own a car but don't use freeways or state highways to subsidize the folks who do even more. Sure they get indirect goods movement benefits but they could also pay indirectly for that with a little higher price at the store, much like people pay for free parking at grocery stores through more expensive goods.
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The Aces train we talked about last week is on the go.
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Mad press for Streetsblog. An article in Planetizen about discusses how they are trying to change the urban discussion. And the founder Mark Gorton got some good press in Wired. For those annoyed with Muni, Gorton is looking for the solution!

Portland, Oregon has already used his open-source software to plan its bus routes. San Francisco, whose MUNI bus system is a frequent target of criticism, could be next to get the treatment. Gorton says he's in talks with the city to supply transit routing software for MUNI that will do a much better job of keeping track of where people are going and figuring out how best to get them there. San Francisco "overpaid greatly" for a badly-supported proprietary closed-source system that barely works, according to Gorton, putting the city under the thumb of a private company that provides sub-par support.

"They're frustrated and thinking about replacing it completely, and see the value of open-source because then they won't have any of these support problems," he said. "And they won't be constantly at the mercy of the private companies that have these little mini-monopolies."

Good luck with that. We hope it works out.

Information Underload 101

This is about the 100th article by Ben Wear about the cost of the Capital Metro Commuter Rail Line. Sure it's something citizens want to hear about, but in a more intelligent world, he would be asking questions about how the system is only going to have a few runs a day and the technical details of what would fix that or how it got to this point that anything even needed to be fixed. You know, information that would keep something disappointing like that from happening again. Or possibly how light rail downtown could possibly realign development in Austin or even how there are a billion different ways to fund transit lines with innovative ideas. But no, Austin is stuck with yet another article about the cost of the line.

As you all know, I'm not a reporter. But if I were to write a column on transportation, I would probably educate myself about what the best practices are around the country and fill my feed reader with every single piece of transportation information I can to inform my writing. I try to do that anyway but I don't get paid to write and I don't have a whole city to inform. But newspapers wonder why they are losing readers and market share to other sources and I would say its because the information they give is just too basic, especially on issues such as transportation.

While blog commentary will never take the place of reporting, they are creating an elevated discussion about niche issues such as transit and development. As I was discussing with a colleague the other day, if we were relating blogs to college courses, newspapers are often the intro courses and blogs the upper level electives. Feel free to look at the course schedule.

Update 1.30.09: David has more on newspaper issues including simple things they can do like linking out.

When Three Ps Come Up Aces

I got an email from a friend of the blog with a link to the Aces Train. Apparently it is a public private partnership run through the Casinos in Atlantic City and New Jersey Transit in which there is direct service between New York and Atlantic City with a stop in Newark. Shuttle service would be provided between the casinos and the station and ticketing would be done through Amtrak. It does come with a steep price tag however. $100 round trip and $150 if you want to go first class.

What is most interesting is that this is a public private partnership (PPP) in which New Jersey provides the tracks and the casinos provided the railcars and operating costs. I wonder if they will get commuters as well? Though $50 might be a bit steep, the seats look comfortable. However it has been a long time coming. It has been in the works for a while and still hasn't started though this time its slated for Feb 6th.

Inaguration Sinkhole

Looks like the news is on hold, at least anything I would find interesting enough to post on at great length. At least Governor Rick Perry is kind enough to let locals vote on taxing themselves for a North Texas rail network. Thank you oh benevolent 38%er. Seems like there are a few (at least 2 as of today) of those low marks in Texas these days. Who wants LBJ and the Great Society Subway idea back?

Voltron of Transportation

My good friend Mike who blogs now over at Transit Miami sent me this link about Boston looking to combine all of their transportation agencies into one super agency. I'll leave it to Bill to say whether this is a good idea or not but I don't think super agencies feel like they have to serve the needs of the transit constituency.

Now the only meaningful question is who gets to be the black lion...

Round Rock Rail?

Hmm. Doesn't anyone else think they should pay their fair share before they start thinking they can use Capital Metro's tracks. And when is Central Austin going to actually get rail?

Mental Block

I took a some heat a few days ago for saying that Atlanta is falling behind. Even though they have more transit and have a big plan, other cities seem to actually be "doing" rather than just talking. But its also an issue of regional mentality. I've seen a lot of these articles over the last few years and the feeling that nothing is getting done while other cities are building makes the fact that they are already ahead not so much of a consolation. And this doesn't help either:

Olens said plum employers with skilled jobs are slipping away. “In the last two years, I’ve had two major corporations tell me they would not move their headquarters to the Cobb Galleria area because all we had are buses,” Olens said this week.

The fact that there is little movement is well known to leaders that want to move forward in Atlanta, and there are many. But it seems as if no one with the political will wants to push.

“I continue to be frustrated that we can’t seem to move in that direction,” said Sam Olens, chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission and the Cobb County commission. “We’re losing our competitive advantage.”

Two years ago, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce invited reporters to hear officials from Phoenix and other cities talk about their new transportation initiatives. The message was clear: Atlanta and Georgia could be left in the dust.

On Wednesday, Sam Williams, president of the chamber, said in a statement that “cities that have made transportation a priority, like Phoenix, Dallas and Charlotte, continue to leapfrog Atlanta with respect to regional mobility. … While these areas make progress, we seem choked in congestion with little leadership to get us out.”

TAR Gets a Bit Feathered

I'm sure many of you are familiar with Thomas A. Rubin or TAR, famed anti-rail consultant and ten page commenter to blogs and listserves. Today he released a study funded by his corporate libertarian overlords that contradicted his findings for a local Milwaukee business group earlier in the year.

A new study by a libertarian think tank claims the projected economic benefits of a proposed Milwaukee-to-Kenosha commuter rail line have been inflated and questions its ridership estimates.

But a business leader noted that the author of the study, Los Angeles-based transit consultant Tom Rubin, took a far more positive view of the $200 million project in June, when pro-transit business leaders were pushing the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority to hire him as the authority's consultant. And a regional planner said the commuter rail projections were sound.

Who knew he was going to come back on that earlier decision? Well perhaps everyone who's ever encountered one of his writings. He did state that he felt buses were a better option, such as he usually does as long as it doesn't have its own ROW. The quote of the story:

Pete Beitzel, a vice president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, suggested Rubin's opinions depended on who was paying him. "The think tank guys got real mad at him when he said it (the KRM line) was a good idea," Beitzel said. "Apparently, they hired him to change his mind."

H/T Political Environment

Stadler Doesn't Look So Bad Now

Caught this article on Portland Transport. Colorado Railcar just seemed like trouble when they came out with a vehicle for transit agencies to run without engines and passenger cars. I don't know what it was but when I first started hearing about them, the organization just seemed shady. Gut feeling I guess. A lot of people had talked about the Colorado Railcar being used in Austin. I'm glad they didn't go that direction.