Friday Night Linkfest

I saw this post from Streetsblog about the transportation transition team leads. This isn't the whole team, just people leading specific sections. We should wait to see who is on the teams under these folks before we get too riled up.

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Looks like the FTA finally got around to saying they would fund the University Link.

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Stimulus for California HSR?

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The Capricious Commuter is back. It's not Erik, but its good to have another newspaper blogging local transportation.

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It looks as if Washington Metro is off the hook... for now.

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David Goldberg argues that the old economy of autocentricty could be over. According to a recent study in Australia written in part by the super awesome Peter Newman, $85 million dollars in up front infrastructure costs are being wasted per every 1000 housing units built on the fringe. With the $250 million in transport costs that could be saved as well, thats a lot of money thrown away.

Euclid Corridor BRT Opens

The Euclid Corridor BRT opens this weekend in Cleveland making it the third true BRT line to launch in recent years (Orange Line and Eugene EMX). Expectations will be high, err low. Projected 2025 ridership stated in the Plain Dealer is 15,000. That's a far cry from the previous projections of 39,000 cited by the FTA. Given the amount of destinations and jobs on the line I doubt it will take long to get to 15,000.

They basically reconstructed the street and are running the same buses as the Eugene system. It's also another case of a project in the FTA process opening over 10 years after conception. I thought BRT was supposed to be cheaper and quicker to implement? Though if it started today, the project wouldn't even be funded under Ma Peters. It got a Medium Low in Cost-Effectiveness and cost $21 million per mile. I thought the reason for BRT projects was because they are more cost-effective. Basically what this proves is that the FTA doesn't want to spend money on projects that give transit its own ROW. No not painting lanes on the street, but a true separation from other traffic that makes it more effective. Today, its required to get a medium in CE as we've discussed before.

Those projects that do not currently have a rating of "medium" in cost-effectiveness would automatically be precluded from funding recommendation by the FTA, notwithstanding the merits of other criteria applicable to those projects.

This is part of the cutdown in projects that has been going on lately. It's recently dropped from 85 projects in the pipe before the 2005 "medium" enforcement to 2007. Not counting small starts, this year only has 31 projects in the New Starts report.

Lest you think that projects are rightly being cut, it should be noted that Denver's Southeast Corridor, Charlotte's South Corridor, the Los Angeles Orange Line, and the Minneapolis Hiawatha Line all had a Medium Low ratings. Those projects have all passed their projections yet would not have been funded under the current process. Anyone else tired of cost-effectiveness being used as a blunt object to bludgeon the alternatives that will truly get people into transit, including rail AND true BRT?

Let's see how this line goes. I still wish it would have been rail and electrified, but it's an improvement in the corridor, one that the FTA would not approve of these days.

Investment Spending

This is what I talk about when I get annoyed that the FTA won't build tunnels and instead points the cost effectiveness of bus rapid transit. While the cost of the tunnel is more, it sure lasts a long time, and should be amortized as such.

And as people like Minnesota congressman James Oberstar have pointed out, the failure to separate government investment from government consumption has perverse effects on how the government spends money, leading it to emphasize projects that cost less on an annual basis but more on a long-term basis, while also leading us to underestimate the benefits to the economy at large of investments in things like infrastructure, basic research, and so on.

As Oberstar said:

Many argue that our current method of accounting biases spending decisions against physical infrastructure by requiring infrastructure to be paid for all at once rather than over its useful life. Thus, infrastructure investments are not judged on their long-term economic return, but rather on a distorted view of their "up-front" impact on the budget.

H/T Bellows

Charlotte Space Race Update

In the comments of the last Charlotte post, frequent commenter J sends us to an article about the federal application for new starts funding for the Northeast Corridor in Charlotte. It's fascinating because apparently Keith Parker who is the head of the transit authority, wants to bundle three projects together for funding. The Northeast Corridor light rail line, platform extensions for the South Corridor (since its so far over ridership they need more capacity) and the North Corridor commuter rail line.

Parker wants to bundle three projects. The first is an 11-mile extension of the Lynx to University City, which is now projected to cost $900 million. The commuter rail line to the Lake Norman area could cost between $250 and $310 million. CATS is also penciling in $50million to improve the existing light rail line. It wants to extend station platforms to handle three-car trains and also wants to buy additional rail cars.

It seems like these package deals are starting to catch on as regions are seeking to build more than one line at a time. The FTA is going to get more of these after they made the deal that they did with Salt Lake City paying for 20% of their four lines.

In August 2007, FTA and UTA executed a Memorandum of Understanding to set forth their mutual expectations for Federal financial participation in two of five projects that comprise UTA’s “Transit 2015 Program.” UTA was seeking a combined $570 million in Section 5309 New Starts funding for the Mid-Jordan and Draper LRT extensions. In return, UTA made a commitment to build, by 2015, the West Valley City and Airport LRT extensions, as well as the South Front Runner (commuter rail) extension without Federal financial assistance. The current total capital cost estimate for the five projects in the Transit 2015 Program is $2.85 billion.

Now CATS will try a similar deal getting more out of the process. What this tells me is that the process that exists now doesn't really work for regions. They are looking to fill in the gaps that were missing in the last 60 years and there is just not enough money from any source to do it.

Those Pie Charts Again

Rob Puentes at Brookings used the pies to talk to congress (Grist has a greater review here, and you can get the speech transcript here). A few commenters on Yglesias' site said well duh, people in the center city are richer. Really? Well let's debunk that right now with a report by CNT on the diversity of housing near transit. Areas around transit stations are more diverse than the region as a whole.

Eighty-six percent of transit zones are either more economically diverse, more racially diverse or more diverse on both points than the average census tract (when the comparison area is either the average of all central city tracts in the region if the given transit zone is in the central city, or the average of all suburban tracts in the region if the given transit zone is in a suburb). This is especially true in regions with extensive transit systems — Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco — but is not limited to these cities. Diverse transit zones are present in all transit regions, including Dallas, Cleveland and Syracuse. Furthermore, 59 percent of residents near transit are people of color.

This backs up my point that in order to increase income diversity around transit, we need to have more extensive transit systems. That way, it doesn't become such a niche market. A few other findings from the report:

Diversity is found in central city transit zones and suburban (non-central city) transit zones, suggesting that the low transportation costs and the increased accessibility that transit offers supports diversity in both urban and suburban contexts.

Neighborhoods near transit provide housing to a greater share of the region’s lower-income households than regions overall.

Transit zones support important segments of the population in terms of both housing tenure and household size.

Transit zones have a greater than average proportion of homeowners who spend more than 30 percent of income on housing: 35 percent versus 31 percent.

Transit zones provide important mobility opportunities — and the economic benefits that accrue from it — that allow people to live with fewer cars. In three-quarters of transit zones, households have one car or less. In some small transit systems, fully 100 percent of transit zones house a majority of households with one car or less. This low rate of auto ownership is true for higher-income households in transit zones as well as lower-income ones.

Transit zones provide important environmental benefits given their high rates of non-auto travel to work and low rates of land consumption per household.

I suggest reading it, but those are the basics.

Fiscal Urbanism

Ryan Avent links to this post at the American Prospect on why conservatives should choose urbanism and transit:

In fact, one doesn't have to be concerned about climate change at all in order to support such policies; values of fiscal conservatism and localism, both key to Republican ideology, can be better realized through population-dense development than through sprawl. Tom Darden, a developer of urban and close-in suburban properties, said Wednesday, "I'm a Republican and have been my whole life. I consider myself a very conservative person. But it never made sense to me why we would tax ordinary people in order to subsidize this form of development, sprawl."

This is something I've always thought, if so concerned with fiscal conservatism, why is sprawl so pervasive? Part of the problem perhaps was communism in the 50's. Whenever you read opposing blogs or "conservative" thought in the comments, you always hear communism. I often wonder, if Moscow and Eastern Europe didn't have high rises and expansive transit networks, would we hear a different argument for sprawl? Probably. But who knows.

I do know that Representative Mica has been pretty supportive in the past. And its heartening to hear his comments. The FTA isn't helping.

But the federal government is a hindrance as often as a help, Mica admitted, throwing years worth of bureaucratic red tape in front of states that want to construct light rail lines. "As the federal government, we're a very unreliable partner, and we haven't decided what our policy is," Mica said, adding that he has been working since 1989 on building one light rail line in his central Florida home district, and expects to see grandchildren before the project is completed.

This is what causes cost overruns. Of course things are going to go up in cost when it takes 10 years to build a light rail line. You should blame that on the FTA and the political appointments of Bush, rather than the transit agencies that want it done quicker.

Why LA Won't Get 80% Federal Funding on the Gold Line

Contrary to popular hopeful sentiments from local officials we discussed the other day, getting 80% just isn't possible for the Gold Line. After being challenged over on Bottleneck blog by Damien Goodmon (Fix Expo) on my assertion that today federal projects have to have 50% local funding to get funded, maybe 60% if you have a good ridership project that can cover your ratings, I found a GAO report that stated what I remember hearing was true.

Last year, in response to language contained in appropriations committee reports, FTA instituted a policy favoring projects that seek a federal New Starts share of no more than 60 percent of the total project cost—even though the law allows projects to seek up to 80 percent—in its recommendation for FFGAs. According to FTA officials, this policy allows more projects to receive funding and ensures that local governments play a major role in funding such projects. FTA describes the 60 percent policy as a general preference; however, FTA’s fiscal year 2005 New Starts report suggests that this policy is absolute in that projects proposing more than a 60 percent federal New Starts share will not be recommended for an FFGA.

They will not fund anything over 60%. That is unless you make a deal like Salt Lake City where they will pay 80% for one project but it will equal 20% for all projects. Hopefully this helps folks realize that while highways still get 80% and bankrupting their funding account, the mass transit account has only been allowing 50% or less matches over the last 4 years. It's actually been lower in certain instances with Dulles asking for 30%. Why the feds are able to kill that project when they aren't even close to the majority financial stake is beyond me.

Roger Snoble is Right

Let's put aside for a second whether we think the Gold Line project is a good idea or not. Recent postings on the Bottleneck Blog state that Rep. David Drier has asked LACMTA chief Roger Snoble for $80 million in order to put the line into the New Starts pipeline to get a $320 match. Snoble wrote back saying they were not going to commit money because there was no way that was going to happen any time soon. He's right.

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.

So sorry Mike, if you andRep. Drier were actually paying attention to what is happening at the FTA in Washington, you would know that what you're looking to do is insane and not even the most powerful congressional teams have been able to get any more without an earmark. Mr. Snoble is correct in saying if you want the project built sooner, its better to go local, at least until the next transportation bill gets written.

FTA Shuttle Rule Thoughts

I wonder if they considered private shuttles...

A National Expansion Strategy

Since the FTA and the federal government are always looking at ways to judge projects based on how they fit into a national strategy, it might be good to think about funding transit in this way. Not because we want to be forced into the frame of the FTA, but rather it might get more interest and importance if it ties into a national strategy. Much like the 1950 federal defense highway system, this could be the national defense transit network.

The idea is that if you hop on a plane and go to Columbus, you can get to the major destinations within Columbus and then hop on a train to Pittsburgh or Cleveland and get around in those places without a car. It seems to me that if you made it easy for people from outside of the city to operate without a car, it would make it easier to operate inside of the city.

There are two components, good metro networks and good city high/moderate speed networks. The larger network should connect cities together that are larger but probably don't get as good of airplane service and major cities that generate a lot of short flight trips. The smaller networks should connect, as said before, the major destinations in a region. For example, Denver's transit network is connecting the Federal Center, the Tech Center, Downtown, and Boulder together with transit. To me, making all of these connections should make it easier for creating transit villages where people can walk or bike for many of their trips and make intercity travel easier as well.

Restructuring Our Cities and Brains

I'm starting to think we should just scrap this New Starts system. First there needs to be more transit funding period. But second, why are we making cities fight each other tooth and nail for scraps when there is clearly a need and demand for better transit. A recent GAO report covers the issues related to the program, not the least of which is how bad the TSUB formulation is and how the cost-effectiveness measure is maiming projects.

Probably the best part of the report is the graphic explaining the TSUB process (AKA cost effectiveness). It's so freakin complicated but this is at least better than all that jargon.


But if you still want the jargon, there's plenty in the report. Here is a slap in the face though:

According to FTA, such transit user benefits are the distinct and primary benefit of transit investments. Most other benefits of transit projects, such as economic development, are considered secondary benefits because they are still directly related to mobility improvements. For example, transportation investments that improve the accessibility and attractiveness of certain locations can result in higher property values in those areas, which can affect the type and density of development that occurs in the area of the investment.

The transportation literature and different experts we consulted agreed that such increases in property values are generally the result of mobility improvements. As such, they noted that conducting a separate evaluation of secondary benefits, such as economic development, may be inappropriate because it can result in double counting certain project impacts.

I personally don't think its inappropriate at all. The reason being is that the type of development that happens near transit has other benefits that don't have to do with the mobility that happens with the transit itself. There's the energy efficient buildings benefit, the infrastructure cost reduction benefit, transportation cost savings from less driving due to walkability, pollution reductions from less driving due to walkability etc etc etc. I don't think that is counted in mobility or the cost-effectiveness measure, yet they are true benefits of transit investments.

A lot of people including some "experts" continue to have their head in the sand on this issue. A particular quote on page 46 will make some of you laugh, or perhaps cry.

One expert in particular said that FTA should retain its primary focus on funding projects that improve mobility and not on those designed to change the structure of cities.

Seriously? Because mobility problems of today have NOTHING to do with the awful structure of our cities. I'm sure that person doesn't mind that big freeway social engineering experiment that has been happening since the 1950's.

Mary Peters Is After Me Lucky Charms

As we've mentioned before, she wants to take transit money and transfer it to the highway fund. Last time I checked, the highway fund was really huge, and the transit fund was rather small. And also last time I checked, why do we have such a huge surplus? Is that from not building projects like Dulles or making places like Minneapolis fight each other to the death because their CEI is a few cents high? Perhaps it has been an evil plot to take the money all along. You know it wouldn't surprise me with this group.

Cost Effectiveness Disconnect

It was mentioned in an email exchange about this article on the Pro Bus NIMBYs in Chevy Chase that just because you have a cheap project that the federal government will fund, doesn't mean that it is more cost effective. It just means that you'll get more federal money. Everyone knows about the FTA's magic computer that determines the CEI. From a January 31st article in the Pioneer Press that was archived and under a paywall.

There's a high-end computer outside of Washington, D.C., that takes all night to calculate a single fraction. Each morning, it e-mails the result of its toils -- a number rounded to the nearest hundredth -- to Mark Fuhrmann and his staff in St. Paul. And in that e-mail lies the fate of the proposed Central Corridor light-rail line connecting St. Paul and Minneapolis.

HUD + FTA (Could =) FTHA

Ryan has a post up discussing the idea of reorganization or mission change at HUD. I completely agree with him that transportation and housing go together making people's lives more affordable to live and should be considered as the strategy for addressing affordability. But what would this combination look like? The silos in Washington are pretty strong unless they are pushed a little harder . In fact, the FTA and HUD had never worked together on a project until a report done in 2006-7 on affordable housing and transit strategies.

But perhaps a way to break down the silo is to combine the two organizations. A possible model for such a relationship can be seen in Charlotte. Unlike most other cities around the country, the county and city are the same entity and the transit agency is under their umbrella with city planning, housing etc. In many other cities, the transit agency is outside of the umbrella of all other organizations which makes agency coordination much harder. The rezoning. development, and construction of the south corridor light rail line shows the power of coordination It also helps that Mecklenburg County is so big that it encompasses a great portion of the region.

Another issue is kind of the elephant in the room called DOT. The FHWA builds highways and doesn't really coordinate land use, which is unfortunate because they are likely the largest driver of new housing placement with their locational building decisions. A way to address this could be to pull the DOT and HUD along with other related agencies into an Urbanism or livability working group. Or even more strength would be achieved through a cabinet position of Urbanism that dealt with transportation, land use, poverty and other related issues.

It's a thought but we really need to start considering how to get agencies that work against each other in policy decisions to work together to aid in the greater affordability of living in the United States. Location efficiency such as is available in major cities and downtowns shouldn't be limited because transportation options aren't available just like programs like hope IV shouldn't negate gains in affordablity by locating somewhere auto dependent.

Gas Tax Holiday Talk Dead

Good. This was the dumbest idea ever! First the highway trust fund which funds transportation and transit projects is going into the red this year anyways. Second the transit fund could hold out for the next year but the administration proposed channeling money to the highway fund which would bankrupt the transit fund. A gas tax holiday would mean a lot less money from the highway fund which would almost guaranty the transit fund's death. Dumb idea proposed by people who aren't looking for solution but political expediency. I'm sure it thrilled Mary "Bikes Aren't Transportation" Peters to no end.

Spinning Mary Peters

The Baltimore Sun didn't pull any punches today. They basically say what we in the transit blogosphere have been saying for a long time; that the current FTA administration doesn't take the long view on transit investments and is stingy when it comes to funding larger projects. Well the Baltimore Sun is fairly blunt but honest about what cost effectiveness should be, which is not the bare bones penny handouts for in traffic BRT that the FTA has recently been advocating.

Recent news that a Baltimore Red Line with all the proverbial bells and whistles may not be eligible for federal funding should come as no surprise. The Federal Transit Administration funding formula is notoriously stingy, and an east-west light rail line with much tunneling would be pricey.

This is understandable, we want to be smart with our money, but they go on to make more good points...

Every new transit line must demonstrate cost-effectiveness. That's just common sense. But the Bush administration tends to view such proposals far too conservatively while appropriating too little for transit.

This is proven true by Transportation Secretary Mary "Bikes Aren't Transportation" Peters commentary which ignores what has been going on around the country and how the FTA has been manipulating ridership estimates in many communities including Portland and Norfolk by ripping planned development out of the models that estimate ridership. They just don't seem to understand the benefits of transit investment and that shows through with their rating system which offsets future planning with existing density. If you have one or the other, you end up at medium and get no boost at all. Here's her spin from her blog.

The part that frustrated me the most, however, is that the Post is calling for massive increases in federal transit investments (on top of existing massive increases to federal transit spending) while calling for an end to performance standards designed to ensure that money is invested wisely. That the Post’s writers consider it bad policy to set performance standards, demand greater accountability and require honest ridership estimates before investing billions of the taxpayer’s dollars is nothing short of shocking.

Honest ridership estimates huh? How about those estimates in Charlotte and Minneapolis? They weren't allowed a modal constant and look what happens, over estimates! The fact of the matter is that using today's cost effectiveness measures, both of those projects would not have been funded! Today the CE measure must be a medium to receive funding. Both of these projects had medium low measures because of their lame ridership estimates pushed by the FTA.

So when she claims that the Post considers it bad to set standards, she's basically saying that it would have been ok to kill successful projects as long as not as much money was spent. What she's actually doing is projecting, Karl Rove style. Here is what the Post actually had to say:

Meanwhile, the administration has slashed spending on new mass transit projects while toughening approval criteria and insisting that states and localities pony up greater shares of such projects, often up to half. That has slowed the development of projects and, by so doing, has driven up costs. And while the administration is right to push congestion pricing, tolling and public-private partnerships as means to generate additional revenue and projects, they are not substitutes for a robust federal role in building the nation's mass transit capacity.

The Post has it right. The trend for cities now is to not even apply because the line is so long for funding. There is cutthroat competition for so little money that many don't even want to bother. What kind of system is that? It's sad that the spinning from the Bush administration has bled into the transportation department but what can we expect from folks who don't even understand why its important to build a tunnel or an electric light rail line. They see in one dimension, moving people. Many of us see in multi-dimensions, moving people and building places where people can move themselves with low energy. This however isn't counted in the formulas and that is exactly what the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun are getting at.

The end of her blog post is the most disturbing, considering her punches at "interest groups". Considering she once worked for Parsons Brinkerhoff and the FTA Administrator Jim Simpson started out as a trucker, its no wonder they would try to hit down livability and transit advocates as a special interest, again she's projecting for the road lobby.

Instead of providing an informed analysis of our substantial transportation record, the Post’s editorial writers offered a simplistic rehash of special interest groups’ talking points. Instead of asking whether transit agencies are using the money they have today either wisely or well, they called for fewer federal investment standards. And instead of offering a relevant contribution to the transportation dialogue, they offered rusty rhetoric and faulty facts.

A substantial record that has called bike lanes a waste of money, has tried to build freeway toll lanes with transit capital money and taken bus capital money and given it to a select five cities to push their congestion pricing agenda. Spending money wisely includes figuring out ways to use less oil and allow people to spend less money on transportation. Rail and other new starts projects have proven their worth in this regard, which makes it hard to understand her reasoning that boosting investment and using better measures should be stalled using "cost effectiveness". Like the Post says, pricing has its place, but in her mind, Secretary Peters will always be about making it easier for cars in cities, but without alternatives we'll all choke, coughing up more of our hard earned money to get where we want to go.

FTA Privitization Program Hunts School Buses

Oh the places they will go...with their ideology. More tales of the Bush administration transferring wealth to private corporations. The FTA has decided to make it a requirement to allow charter services to bid for event transport that is now provided by the transit agency such as for baseball games and other special events. And now they are trying to make school bus service. But who is going to serve kids in downtrodden districts that no private entity wants to serve?

In the East Bay, about 30,000 schoolchildren use AC Transit buses to get to and from school, paying $15 a month for discounted youth passes. While many of those trips are on regular routes used for nonschool commuters, some of them with route numbers between 600 and 699 are specially scheduled and routed to serve specific schools. Local officials fear that the change sought by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) would ban those special routes.
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"If this came to pass, it would be a disastrous development for Oakland and for many school districts in California," said Troy Flint, spokesman for the Oakland school district. Flint said it would be "a huge financial burden" for the district to pay for private contractors, and that it wasn't clear whether private companies would even be willing to serve all of the areas covered by AC Transit.

I'm not sure what to think of this, but at first thought, its the stupidest thing I've heard yet. Especially from the FTA spokesman who when asked about AC Transit situation had this to say: "Federal Transit Administration spokesman Paul Griffo said that because the regulation process is under way, the agency cannot address specific concerns such as those raised by AC Transit." That's probably because they didn't think of it, as usual.

Dragging Them Kicking and Screaming

A few items of good news out tonight:

Rep. John Mica is from Florida and the ranking Republican on the house transportation and infrastructure committee. He has been fighting for local commuter rail recently but took a time out to gave a speech at the Dow Jones Infrastructure Conference. He discussed Semi HSR on the Northeast Corridor and improvements to Amtrak. When asked about the airline lobby, he had this to say:

"We'll drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century."

There was also news from the Ranking Democrat from the same committee, James Oberstar. He stated in a discussion with Minnesota Public Radio that new starts rules would be changing. This would perhaps allow a tunnel under the university and cut down the importance of our favorite cost effectiveness measure.

Oberstar, who chairs the influential House Transportation Committee, supports the Central Corridor project linking St. Paul and Minneapolis. The DFLer said a recently passed bill changes how the Federal Transit Administration evaluates transportation projects that are seeking federal money.

Under the old system, Oberstar said the FTA focused on what's known as the cost-effectiveness index. The CEI is a complicated formula that looks at travel times, ridership and construction costs.

But Oberstar said the index means the agency essentially ignores other factors, such as environmental benefits and the potential for economic development. He pushed for the recent changes, which will require the FTA to also give comparable weight to five other criteria.

Hopefully this means that cities start planning lines based on ridership, rather than saying, what can we build for this small amount of money.

Transport Genocide and the Revenge Veto

I like competition but not when its at the expense of working people and pits cities in the United States against each other. This isn't a strategy, its a systematic genocide by the road warriors and privatization crowd at DOT. I know that we talk about the transit space race but its supposed to be a healthy competition rather than a death match. But it's what is happening around the country. The federal government, instead of figuring out how to build the transit projects that everyone wants, is pitting cities against each other for funding. Why doesn't this happen for roads? And why, if one entity with selfish interests in mind instead of the interests of the overall consensus in a region, is a project put in jeopardy?

But an official familiar with the federal transit funding process said, "This is a competitive process with projects around the country. The more everyone's singing off the same page, the more it moves it ahead of other projects"

The most recent example of this idiocy is the Central Corridor in the Twin Cities. Basically though, after the DFL party overrode a major transportation veto by Governor Pawlenty, he decided to veto the funding for the Central Corridor. No one has come out and said it, but its revenge. Nothing more and nothing less. He is certainly in the minority on this issue in the state and is being a good little Republican and hoping to get some street cred for opposing transit it seems like it could be in part for a chance at being John McCain's second hand man.

But this also opened up an opportunity for others to kill the project because they don't like the idea that it would slow auto oriented culture. Let's not put our heads in the sand, all of this is a fight against the status quo of all cars all the time. This line is going to give Washington Street incredible people capacity, but again its all about cars.

In 2001, the Board of Regents passed a resolution stating it wanted a tunnel under Washington Avenue. If not that, a route along the northern edge of campus, through Dinkytown. If not that, a ground-level route along Washington — but only if someone could figure out how to fix the resulting traffic nightmares and how to pay for those fixes.

Since the U didn't get its tunnel because of our favorite "Cost Effectiveness Measure" it started throwing a fit over the fact that the line was going to be on Washington Avenue. All along the way though, the University threw up road blocks:

The Met Council briefly looked at the Dinkytown route but discarded it out of concerns it would be too expensive. The tunnel was in. Then, the U decided to build a Gophers football stadium on the tunnel's route, forcing a rerouting of the already pricey tunnel and adding more than $100 million to its price tag. The tunnel was out; Washington Avenue at street level was in.

...

The full weight of the U's position wasn't widely understood April 7, when Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed $70 million in state funding for the Central Corridor, citing, among other things, concerns surrounding the route through the university.

Two days later, the U released preliminary findings of its consultant's report on the Dinkytown route. The findings suggested that route would be cheaper and faster than one along Washington Avenue. The preliminary findings do not yet project ridership levels or how that route would measure up to a complex federal funding formula.

The change will not kill ridership on the line, but will lower the cost effectiveness rating. Perhaps to the point where the line does not pass muster with the FTA. How many times does it have to be said that you can't go around a major center of activity. The measures for transit are bad, this all could have been avoided with the initial tunnel that the University wanted and everyone was willing to invest in. Instead, the line is in limbo all due to the fact that the process can't measure a line for its real benefits and the government does not see the importance of new rapid transit lines enough to fund more. Lets hope this changes soon.

Congestion Pricing Dies on the Vine

I have to say that even though I wanted this plan because it would have proven the benefits of transit over cars, there is a very small piece of me that is glad that Mary Peters got the shaft. This money came off the backs small bus agencies around the country and that should not be tolerated. People that depend on transit the most were paying for these pilot projects. Not that the idea didn't have merit, but if you're going to play with money, why not take it out of the ginormous highway fund instead of the bus fund.

Eric says it best, New York just approved a citywide parking lot.