Initial Take Aways from the 2010 New Starts Report

Once a year Santa Transit comes and brings us the New Starts report (Warning 12mb) which lets us know which cities have been naughty or nice (err qualified for federal help building transit). The 2010 version came out this Friday and there were two places that caught my eye, Austin and Denver.

Austin

It looks like Austin has screwed itself yet again, this time by applying for federal funding to build rapid bus along the best corridor for light rail in the city. So if you live there don't expect anything that goes where lots of people go outside of downtown or riverside for perhaps another generation. I'm disappointed in it myself and it's getting harder to find a reason for me to ever move back. As bad as it is here in San Francisco (and it's pretty bad by international standards), it's way better than Austin, which for all its progressive action can't seem to shake the state off its back or get rid of the leaders at Cap Metro who are just begging for the transit agency to be dissolved. The bad PR is adding up. Just like the Oakland Airport Connector study by Transform, they call this street running bus BRT. Please stop. Either that or name it what it is, bus repackaged transit.

These lines look familiar?

Looks sorta like a certain transit plan we had in New Starts in 2001.


Denver

For a region who's been under the gun for spiking Fastracks costs they aren't doing themselves any favors asking for 39% and 28% for the Airport and Gold Line corridors. With Congressman Oberstar looking for modal parity, making highways and transit always pay the same share, it seems like only asking for this much match is silly. Now this might have something to do with the fact that you can only have one project at a time and currently they are funding the West corridor. Yet Houston has two corridors in currently which could get funding. Places like Utah have even made deals to get multiple lines funded. They shouldn't have to go at it mostly alone, just like the federal highways system, these lines are of utmost importance to regional productivity. It seems like they should get thier due as well.

Finally...

It's also funny how the new starts report never seems up to date even when it comes out. With Sunrail "not quite dead yet" and the Silver Line III tunnel dead things seem to be decided pretty fast. In any event, I'm sure I'll have more things to talk about with this report but just wanted to share my initial reactions.

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.

On Locking Grids

Given many cities don't have grids anymore, I find it interesting that gridlock is still in the lexicon, specifically because if we did have a grid system, its likely there would be less lock. And to my current point in the last post about congestion and its endless war, I think the editors of the Rocky Mountain News have it wrong that the whole purpose in life of transportation funding should be to keep travel speeds at current levels through increased road and transit capacity. That's hardly a laudable goal given the number of people that will likely live in Denver in 20 years and how much more VMT that would mean, more than likely wiping out reductions in emissions.

It's not only FasTracks that is short of funding, after all. Revenue for the upkeep, improvement and expansion of metro roads and highways is also far below what would be needed to preserve today's travel speeds over the next 20 years. Unless lawmakers and civic leaders think FasTracks alone can prevent future gridlock - a naive hope for reasons we'll explain - they should make sure that any future ballot issue includes more than a FasTracks bailout.

I think there should be money for maintenance and repair, but beyond that, Fastracks is just a regional commuter system. There needs to be funding for local circulation and greater frequency that will help spur denser walkable neighborhoods. Don't get all scared at density either Denver. Maybe it means a few granny flats or maybe it means high rises. Depends on the neighborhood.

Things Getting Heated in Denver

United we stand, divided we fall. Worried about how to pay for all the corridors, Mayors in Denver are worried that their city will get cut out and lines will drop off the list.

When RTD consultant Julie Skeen started to explain the assumption was simply for purposes of doing the analysis and didn't reflect the RTD staff's position on how the money should be divided, Tauer cut her off.

"Would you please let me finish because we don't trust you," he said. "This is about how we are going to cut up the pie." Denver Public Works Manager Bill Vidal urged the group to focus on finding a way to complete all the corridors. "Every time we talk like this it just ends up dividing us," he said.

Expanding or Contracting?

Two articles in two separate Denver papers paint somewhat different pictures of what is going on with the Fastracks program. One discusses the exponential cost increases that have occured on the Northwest rail line. The usual libertarians are given a voice are calling for the line to be cancelled because in their view it was a worthless investment anyway. Losing out on direct transportation from the center of cities is not a proposition the proponents want to consider, since they had hoped to develop centers around the stations, something the opponents don't think is important. It shows thier true colors really. They don't believe that climate change is a problem and they don't really believe in the true conservative idea of saving infrastructure money by building centers instead of furthe sprawl.

Instead, Calongne says, the debate centers less on transportation and more on lost opportunities for development near rail stations. "If there's no train, then a train won't go through downtown Louisville or the south part of Westminster," she said. "That's what this is about." Officials agree that's a big part of the push for rail. "

FasTracks allows all of us to develop our urban centers," said Louisville Mayor Chuck Sisk. "Transit-oriented development keeps our population densities in the core areas," he said. "We made choices not to expand and grow our population outward, and this transit piece is the important part of growing and developing our cities."

But then there is the other article from the Denver Post. It states that the cost projections are all messed up by the global economic slowdown. Sure sales taxes have taken a hit, but so have commodity prices.

Pointing to the volatility of some commodity prices, Heimowitz presented a chart showing the price of steel (using an index cost of 100 for January 2001 as the base) bouncing from 252 last year to a high of 507 in June before tumbling to 384 in September, 257 in October and 144 on Nov. 14. "People were completely apoplectic about the price of steel four months ago," Heimowitz said, "and here we are, it's a whole other world."

If it continues this way, it could be a real boost to the program and lower construction costs, especially since fuel costs are down. And a stimulus boost would probably help even more, getting these projects moving faster. So what will happen? It would be nice to say that things will continue to go down, but we know that is bad for the overall economy. Perhaps some simple balance of the two would be best. But for now, we'll have to wait and see the true effect.

Space Race Update: Denver's Whiners

I like the Fastracks program. What it has done is lead the way for other regions to start thinking about how transit is being built in this country, usually one line at a time over many years. But now that the budget has gone up a few times, a lot of people are freaking out, mostly the people that didn't want the project in the first place, like the Rocky Mountain News. Part of the problem is that they never saw the importance of the project, but another part is that they are stuck in the car oriented world of roads are the greatest thing since sliced bread.

An editorial at the Rocky Mountain News this weekend states that Fastracks should be pared down in order to deal with the cost, which sounds reasonable when you think about it, until you read what they feel like should be the priority instead.

Some of those new revenues could come from whatever tax plan for transportation emerges from the legislature in the coming years. But transit should be far behind highway and bridge construction as a priority for state transportation planners. There simply isn't enough new revenue likely to materialize.

Because new highway construction to make the problem Fastracks is trying to help solve worse is a great idea. Look, for over 60 years in Denver, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on road infrastructure just like everywhere else. I don't see why making even a $10 billion investment in transit is such a big deal.

I do think RTD is doing the best it can with a bad situation created by the people that love roads anyways. It's not their fault that costs have skyrocketed because of issues outside of their immediate control, but to say that because of the cost, this type of project shouldn't be completed is wrong headed and short sighted. In fact, if the money for expanding (not fixing) freeways in the state was shifted to transit to complete the project, they would get done faster and help direct growth more intelligently sooner. The funds used on expansion would have just allowed people to sent more of their money to foreign oil companies and increase VMT.

There was a poster who replied to the editorial saying he was tired of North Denver getting the shaft when it came to funding allocations. The favored quarter of the Southeast is getting a lot of the investment and the northern end is paying for a lot of it, yet there is a lot going on in the Northwest as well.

I can see where the corridor gets even more congested between Boulder and Denver as population fills in the gap between the two cities. The need for an alternative development strategy is great and its not going to happen with BRT going down the center of a huge freeway, contrary to what people think. I have a lot of problems with the southeast corridor light rail because it was run down the side of the freeway. Many of the stations including those in the area of the tech center are not able to help the district turn into a more walkable pattern because the stations are on the other side of the freeway. The line should have shot through the center of the building density, not around it.

But I digress. We should be measuring mobility projects on whether they can get us out of the hole we have dug. The Denver projects move the region in that direction and the locals will have to step up and push against the road building interests of newspapers and the status quo.

The New Patriotism

Denver's Mayor Hickenlooper says: Taking Transit is the New Patriotism. More from NBC Nightly News.

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.