USA Today Kinda Covers the Space Race

Except the articles is about freeways taking care of congestion. As I've stated before Atlanta is running scared...

Atlanta's boosters say that unless drastic steps are taken to unclog the highways here, the city won't be able to compete with fast-growing places such as Phoenix, Denver, San Diego, Charlotte and Dallas — all of which have made long-term commitments to major transportation improvements.

What the article fails to mention is that all of those cities are investing not only in roads, but heavily in light rail networks. Dallas, Denver and San Diego have a head start but Charlotte and Phoenix are planning large systems as well. This is in comparison to Atlanta which has a smaller heavy rail system. The problem is that it was never built out as planned and shows the difference between Washington DC Metro's build out which they have achieved as planned and Atlanta which stopped short of its goals. Now Atlanta is known as the road capital of the United States.

But we know that spending a bunch of money on roads won't relieve congestion. Lyndon Henry did an analysis of the big dig and found that for the $15 billion investment they made the new road only takes 1.8% of the total vehicle miles traveled of the whole region. Isn't that the same argument that the road warriors have been using about rail? Yet at a hypothetical 30 million per mile, Boston could have built 500 miles of light rail. That would have taken more than 1.8% of VMT for sure. Wendell Cox and company have been against government waste but their goals are sure. More roads and oil dependence are the answer. The USA Today article might not get it, but the transit space race is a key part of cities reducing their dependence on the automobile and creating more sustainable cities.

Seattle Voters Asked to Cement Frontrunner Status in Transit Space Race

Today articles in all of the Seattle news papers discussed a bond measure that would go on next year's ballot to expand the light rail system that is currently under construction. The 40 more miles of Light Rail and Streetcars are part of a $17 billion dollar transportation ask. It also has money to buy right of way for a light rail extension to Everett.

The Seattle system even though not complete is already having cities beg to ask for extensions. The cities that don't get extensions or aren't guaranteed stations are upset. This system should when it opens set a national example. If you want to get something done, you have to just pay up and do it. It's for the good of the community and more cars and lane miles on already congested freeways is not going to help people get from point a to point b.

This is a really huge step to expand a system that hasn't even finished initial construction. It also shows that Seattle wants to be a world class city. The transit space race has many of these cities looking to build out serious systems to make themselves more livable and while it seems like it might be a little expensive, the benefits will be returned to the communities multi-fold. Imagine if the Washington DC Subway was never built. It would have been a travesty but it would have also influenced how that region grew out instead of up along the corridors. Hopefully when democratic leaders go to pick a presidential candidate they can see how Denver is shaping up in its bid to win the Transit Space Race.

I'm not sure how to rank cities in the TSR...but if i had to pick some that are doing the best, Denver and Seattle are front runners. Portland has a head start so i didn't count it in that initial assessment but soon i'll do a comarison between the frontrunners listed in the sidebar. But the others in the race don't seem that far behind either.

Transit Space Race Profile: Denver

I've always liked Denver. The idea of the Rocky Mountains was cool and when i spent a summer in Boulder just northwest of Denver i was sold on the region. So it came as no surprise that after issues with drinking water and many other environmental issues had forced the region to be conscious about their surroundings that they would buck up and give money to the cause of sustainable mobility. This program was called Fastracks and is really what started me thinking about the TSR (Transit Space Race).

While Portland was doing some good things, Washington has been creeping in and the Big 6 (New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay and the LA-San Diego Metro Regions) creating mobility options for their cities there was a small groundswell of progressive thinking in smaller regions that led to the beginning of a reverse to what we now call the transit holocaust. While the GM Conspiracy or Idea of Conspiracy was part of this, the reality is that American's really believed that the automobile and buses were far superior to the rail lines of yesteryear. We know now that it's not quite true and that multimodalism is the way to go, especially since traffic is tying up our freeways and we are running out of room, at the same time automobiles are not as friendly to the family pocketbook as mass transit.

This groundswell led to an explosion led by Denver's efforts to massively fund transit for the region and build it fast. Now 119 new miles of rail will be built and the TOD department is going crazy trying to build out the station areas to reign in the population growth that the state will experience. The plan is to raise $4.7 Billion dollars(Local and Federal) for transit lines and have them built by 2012. It's only less than half a cent raise in the sales tax! This boost specific to infrastructure alone is unheard of anywhere else in the country and gets us to start thinking about how all of these lines might be funded in other places. It also lays the ground work for a possible program that the Federal government could promote to boost transit around the country. If conducted properly. This could be the best way to invest ever. With transit oriented development being the number one real estate product and people wanting to locate in 24 hour neighborhoods, its no doubt that this public and private investment will explode in the next few years and some progressive thinking congressman should jump on.

That gets me thinking, what if we spent the money from the Iraq War on transit...well that's another post entirely. Congrats to Denver on this monumental investment in their future and hopefully other cities in or out of the TSR will jump in whole hog.