Austin's Rail History & Route Choice Problem Part 1: History

This last week there have been flurries of articles and tweets about a subject that is near and dear to my heart.  Austin's push for rail transit was the reason I started thinking about these issues and part of the reason why I started this blog.  I even wrote my Master's Report (Source of some of the Timeline below) on the politics and history of this movement that has caused so much consternation to local advocates since the early 80s. 

I've written about these issues in Austin many times before. (Alignment, VMT Reduction, and Starter Technology Decisions)   Some of you might be getting sick of my Austin posts, but ultimately the point of this blog is to bring information to the forefront and get folks to think about the decisions they are making about transit and technology.

This is going to be a multi-post series so first let's go through the basics.  Let's do a timeline to catch you up quickly...


1960s -  In the 60's, as happened all over the country, major arterials in cities were slated to become freeways.  While many cities built an initial freeway network and loop roads, Austin's neighborhoods pushed back on getting sliced in half and limited freeway development to two major north/south corridors and East/West corridors that were far away from the city center, making arterial streets the major corridors.  Texas Freeway has historical pictures and documents. This meant that getting east to west in central Austin has to be done on surface streets. 

1973 - The Texas State Legislature, understanding that regions were growing and cities alone were too small a jurisdiction to support regional transit systems, passed a law allowing Metropolitan Areas over 600k people create a Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). At the time Austin did not have enough population.

1981 - Austin lobbies successfully to get State Legislature to allow cities over 325k people to get an MTA.

1983 - An interim agency named the Austin Area Rapid Transit System was created to be the predecessor to the RTA. A Transit service plan created in 1984 consisted of a short and long term plan.  The short term was for increases in bus service as the long term consisted of rail planning. As part of the long term rail planning for the RTA, the agency began discussions to purchase existing freight rights of way from Southern Pacific.  Additionally, there were discussions on forming a Metro Government and a bill was written by Representative Terrel Smith but never filed.

1985 - Replacing the Austin Area Rapid Transit System, Capital Metro Transportation Authority (Capital Metro) was created and given the ability to levy a cent sales tax, which was chosen instead of an emissions tax or a gas tax increase.  The first day of service and the resulting bus parade down congress made a lot of locals angry, and set Capital Metro off on the wrong foot with many at the local level as well as the state. 

1986-87 - Flush with cash from the cent sales tax, Representatives in the Legislature started trying to redistribute half the sales tax value that was being saved up for future rail construction.  Representative Terrel Smith sought to give the half cent back to relieve property taxes in the district.

1989 - Board members voted to reduce the sales tax a quarter cent to quell criticism.  While rail supporters wanted Capital Metro to keep saving for a future rail plan, others such as Travis County wanted the extra money to pay off road debts.

1990 - Funding was allocated to study rail in Austin and the board stated that a referendum would be had if they got a positive outcome from the study.  A referendum was pushed back but CAMPO put rail planning in its long range plan that year.  That very same year was the break out of Austin's growing environmental movement.  Tired of seeing developers ravage the land above the Edwards Aquifer and its recharge zones, Austinites came out in droves to an all night meeting that saw the end of a single Barton Creek Planned Unit Development, but a start to the environmental machine in Austin politics. 

1995 - Planning for a rail line, the board decided to raise the sales tax back up to a cent, which drew criticism from enemies still existing including Gerald Daugherty.  Even though an overwhelming amount of the speakers at the meeting spoke on behalf of the increase, the Austin American Statesman and others criticized the board for not having a referendum in place for rail before making the vote.  The general manager even decided to leave when the Statesman kept going after the agency. 

1997 - Because of accountability issues stemming initially from the board vote on the tax increase, the Legislature decided to restructure Capital Metro's board.  This would not be the only time the board structure would be changed. Instead of a citizen board, it would be populated by elected officials, who would be seen as more accountable to the public.  Additionally, Representative Sherri Greenburg passed a bill in the legislature that would require a referendum before the agency would be allowed to issue debt. At the same time, planning for a commuter rail line that looks like the current one would be studied, as well as others that look a little familiar.

1998 - With a restructured board and possible bills that would strip Capital Metro of its cent sales tax coming at an even faster pace, rail was considered again and consultants came up with the idea for the Green Line, which would go directly through the heart of Austin.  The line was supported more than the Red Line, which would circumvent major destinations downtown but would be cheaper due to its route on existing rights of way.  It was at this point that Capital Metro started officially stashing away money to pay for future rail construction. 

1999 - Capital Metro promised legislators who continued to write bills to take funding away from the agency that they would have a referendum in 2000. Representative Mike Krusee from Round Rock and others including Representative Terry Keel continued to hammer the agency and push bills that would take away funding authority.  Krusee's bill would require a referendum on half of the sales tax, essentially stripping Capital Metro of its ability to save money for rail plans.  This was also the year that Austin Bergstrom Airport was completed and the Mueller Airport, a few miles outside of downtown on the east side was left open for redevelopment. Planning included future stops on a yet to be named rail line.

2000 - The decision was made to have the referendum during the 2000 presidential election, in which Texas' Governor George W. Bush was on the Presidential ballot.  The hard fought contest brought out the anti-rail groups in droves, with Texas getting special visits from Wendell Cox and others to push for the rail line's failure with the hope that the extra money would go to roads.  Kirk Watson, then Mayor even wanted to put road bonds on the ballot to satiate the Road Warriors but anti-rail leaders like Gerald Daugherty wanted rail money for roads, claiming other bond money would be insufficient.

Before the election, the Federal Transit Administration gave its stamp of approval, saying other cities would be in line for New Starts funding behind Austin in the process due to the high ridership drivers.  2025 estimates put the ridership estimate at 37,400 riders (17,000 new).  Consequently, some lines from that FTA PE class (no pun intended) have gone on to be super successful, including Minneapolis' Hiawatha Line, Cleveland's Euclid BRT Line, Denver's T-Rex Line, Houston's Main Street Line, Portland's Interstate Max, and Seattle's Central Link.

But even after choosing the correct route and a majority of City of Austin residents voting for the line, the Capital Metro service area voted against the proposal.  The rail vote lost by less than 2,000 votes in a Presidential Election which had over 300,000 voters.  By that time, Capital Metro had saved over $120m for rail construction. Mike Clark Madison (Who wrote many of the linked to articles above) documented the spatial approval over at the Chronicle.

2001 - After the election, to quell mounting pressure from the legislature, Capital Metro decided to rebate a quarter cent that had been saved up back to the cities for mobility projects.  The agency continued to plan for light rail and a deal was brokered between Representative Krusee, who was the Chair of the Transportation Committee, and Capital Metro which resulted in a bill that would require Capital Metro to rebate the quarter cent until a referendum was passed.  Additionally, Representative Krusee helped to get a bill pass that would establish Regional Mobility Authorities (RMAs) that would give locals more authority to build toll roads. 

2002 - Karen Rae, who had signed on to be Capital Metro's general manager in 1998 and make the push for rail stepped down and Fred Gilliam took on those duties.  Planning for light rail continued with a new name (Rapid Transit Project) however it was decided that a referendum would not be held in 2002 due to a lack of consensus for the project.

2003 -  Representative Krusee, who had been named Chairman of the State Transportation Committee,  had his own ideas about what the next rail plan should look like.  The Austin American Statesman suggested that he would like Capital Metro to stop studying the Green Line corridor and focus on the Red Line, which consultants had chosen against in planning for light rail in 1998.  In 2000, the Austin American Statesman, quoted Krusee as saying "I wish they would be open to alternatives to light rail"  We know now that meant planning for light rail along the best possible corridor would stop and planning for a corridor that went directly to his constituents in Round Rock (which doesn't pay into Capital Metro) would commence. At the same time, Envision Central Texas was having its coming out party as a way for the Austin region to organize itself.  Unfortunately unlike Utah's process, teeth were not present.

2004 - Planning for light rail on the Guadalupe corridor stopped sometime in January.  Campus planners at the University of Texas stated they stopped hearing from Capital Metro at that point.  Route choices considered at the time were down San Jacinto street, on the other side of campus from Guadalupe, because UT considered San Jacinto to be the center of an expanding campus.  The push for rail on the other side of campus would continue to today.  Later discussions from interim CEO Doug Allen in 2009 suggested that there was not enough time to get an adequate cost estimate and firm up engineering before having the election.  He also believed that the line should have been double tracked at a potential cost of $300 million per mile to build it out properly, likely to not have to worry about retrofitting the line at a future date. 

In March of 2004, Commuter Rail was announced the community and Capital Metro planned for a referendum during the Presidential election that fall.  Advocates pushed for streetcar connections and other alternatives, but changes to the commuter rail plan were set by Capital Metro and planners for the agency after a few discussions were not allowed to interact with staff as they wanted to keep the line as bare bones as possible to court a winning vote.  Lee Walker, then Chairman of the board, believed that going over $60m for the cost of the system would be too much for the voters and Representative Krusee hinted at the time that he would be able to get the voting requirements for extensions rescinded if the rail system was kept to just the commuter rail line.  The line passed in a referendum that fall with 62% of the vote (operations began in 2010).  Contrary to the previous election, neighborhood groups on South Congress and others were not as active in opposition because they wouldn't see transit construction on their streets.

Also after the election, the Mueller Airport Master Development Agreement was signed, which would determine the terms of the redevelopment of the airport property that left over a large amount of empty land proximate to downtown.

2005 - The thought in the transit community was that 2004 would be the last chance to pass a rail referendum in Austin.  Once the line was passed, it was believed whether right or wrong, that it could be fixed with extensions and additions such as streetcars.  Capital Metro went on to study streetcars. In addition the the commuter line which was the center piece of the 2004 election, the All Systems Go plan also included BRT corridors and enhancements.  Planning for those corridors began in earnest as well.

2006 - Streetcar planning continued and a route was chosen through an alternatives analysis.  Pushes to get the Mueller redevelopment into the mix created a route the connected downtown with the east side of the state capital full of parking garages, the University down San Jacinto street through the stadium complex and out towards Mueller.  As for Rapid Bus, some finally started to take note that getting the FTA to buy new buses and shelters without giving the line a dedicated lane was not really rapid.  Council Members Brewster McCracken and Lee Leffingwell pushed back on the idea and asked the agency more questions. 

2007-08 - CAMPO, the regional MPO for the Austin area decided to take major rail planning away from Capital Metro for the time by creating the transit working group (TWG).  The 15 member group would be made up of State Representatives, State Senators, Mayor Will Wynn, advocates, the University of Texas, and other groups.  This was on the heels of Wynn calling for a rail election in 2008, though as with most every other call for election in Austin's early rail history, that idea would not come to pass.  At this point the streetcar plan began its metamorphosis into the urban rail plan, with ROMA design taking up planning for alignments and continuing to push a Mueller alignment while also bringing in a Bergstrom Airport/Riverside alignment that was similar to other plans in the 1990s.  ROMA was attached to this planning because of their initial task of creating the Downtown Austin Plan.

2009-10 - Planning continued on Urban Rail and more alignments were discussed but it failed to go to the ballot again due to the lack of a financial plan.  Capital Metro, once rolling in cash, had drawn down its reserve to build the Red Line and thus stopped funding mobility projects with the quarter cent. (The sordid background tale is here).  Also, another state audit brought more news that the agency had been mismanaged under recently retired Fred Gilliam's watch and the board was restructured again to include someone with financial experience.  At this same time, Capital Metro did its first ever look at all the routes in the bus system calling it service plan 2020.  Ridership along the 1 route continued to outpace all others with over 17,000 including the 101 that will soon be replaced by 'Rapid Bus'. That is more than double the next highest ridership non UT line (7). The long awaited Red Line would open in 2010 to service just under 1,000 riders.

2011-2012 - And here we are. Still planning for urban rail and still trying to figure out how to pay for it.  The TWG continues to look at different corridors while the city focuses on Urban Rail.  In February, Todd Hemingson laid out the process at the TWG for planning future corridors but still not much mention of the most congested and highest ranking ridership corridor in the region. 

Ok, so, I apologize in advance if I missed something about the history above.  It's totally possible (I know there must be something missing) that I did considering the number of years and number of times rail has been close to being on the ballot, new alignments were drawn out etc.

 But here is what we hopefully learned.

1. None of the alignments that Capital Metro or the City of Austin are now discussing are new.  They've all been around for a long time (see images below).  So it stands to reason that the best corridor will always be the best corridor from a ridership and therefore political perspective.  (Future posts will cover this issue)
2. Capital Metro has always been a target of regional and state ire, whether coming from state representatives who thought they had too much money, from Austin when it didn't have the money anymore, and from the Statesman, who ever since the sales tax increase in the mid-90's has hacked away at the agency, sometimes because of mismanagement, and others because of reporters that don't know the difference between a catenary and a pantograph .
3. Mike Krusee was a genius.  He was able to get rail service for his constituents in Round Rock without making them pay for it.

As for alignment histories, take a look at the maps below.  All of these plans below are from the Austin Chronicle's archives.

1995 No map. But a discussion of the Current Red Line and "Rapid Fire" buses that would bring people to the places they couldn't get.

1997 Red Line Plan and Airport Link

2000 Alternatives with Riverside Line

2000 Regional Plan - Consultants Deemed Green Line Most Bang for Buck and the Feds confirmed that point.

 

2000 Light Rail Plan

2001 Rapid Transit Project

2004 All Systems Go

2006 Capital Metro Streetcar Project

 2008 Roma Design Urban Rail

2011 Urban Rail Plan

Next up... Politics of the Current Urban Rail alignment seen above...

Loop Roads or Bust

It's been open season on long term capital improvements for fixed guideway transit.  First there's Minnesota Republicans looking to hack into transit by stealing operating money.  Then you get the fun times in North Carolina where Republicans are trying to cut out funding for the North Corridor light rail line.  But I found the article a bit funny, especially when they were saying, we don't have enough money for transit but more than enough for a completely un-needed beltway.  

...it would kill Gaston County's proposed Garden Parkway toll road, using money from that project for urban loop roads, perhaps including Interstate 485.

You know, that loop road that developers really want for their sprawl. And then...

"We wanted to target more dollars to maintaining the system we have - as opposed to building new roads, new bridges, new parts of the system," said Senate Leader Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican.

How the reporters didn't see this and do a double take on the building loops and not spending on new roads is beyond me.

No More Commuter Rail Starts

If there is one thing we've learned over the last few decades, suburban political forces are a drain on cities. For everyone wants to be connected into the downtown and its vibrancy but at arms reach. So the wall was put up many years ago, you must have a car to get there. Now many are wondering if there is an easier way to get back downtown, wherever downtown is. And then they say, well it's too congested to drive, how can we get downtown to pay and appease the folks that want transit but aren't quite sure what it is they need. Then the answer comes, commuter rail.

It's a perfectly acceptable form of transit and has its place in the hierarchy, but for some reason regions get stuck on building rail and they look at what it will cost to do the first part right and they balk. How can we appease our overlords in the suburbs so they will give us something we in the city want in the future? Why do I say overlords? Because Metropolitan Planning Organizations and transportation providers as well as the congress is stacked with people who want to suck money out of cities and into their suburban and rural districts. The safe bet is to appease them right? Wrong.

What we've seen over the last ten years is the monumental failure of commuter rail to do any regional work of value as a first line. The millions of dollars for a couple thousand riders at best is disheartening to those of us who want to see regional transit systems, not just a one and done. I've started to think about this with more clarity as the research comes in and I believe that the places who really are in it to win it will build destination based regional transit that connects a major employment corridor in the region. The headways need to be frequent and the line must run up the gut, not on the perimeter.

Houston's LRT Line

Here is the political reality facing regions today that don't have transit, especially in conservative or timid parts of the country. There seems to be this weird wishfulness that somehow commuter rail taking 2,000 people a day is exactly the way to cure congestion or spruce up economic development. However its basically a ticket to political backlash. Sure the line might have met ridership expectations but who cares? That's only 2,000 voters a day. How much induced voting demand did you create by freeing up room for 2,000 others cars on that freeway carrying 100,000 a day? Zero. It just means 2,000 more freeway voters can move into that district.

Here's what you can do. Put a light rail line down a major arterial between major destinations and all those haters that work downtown have to see the train pass them full at rush hour every day. When I was little my dad liked to play a joke on me that there were no boxcars in Bakersfield California. He still to this day will not acknowledge their existence because he knows it gets me really worked up. But the reason it got me really worked up is because I saw them in the yard downtown next to the high school ever single day. I saw them every day we would go pick up my sisters at school. If you saw a light rail train full of people at rush hour every day wouldn't you start to believe too? Once entrenched as something that works, no one pushes back, rather they want it in their part of town too. That is how systems get built.

But let's look again at why commuter rail is not the start.

1. It's got low ridership. These lines don't have that many people on them period. So people don't see the effects and they don't want more because they don't feel like they are missing anything. Lines like the Music City Star, Capital Metrorail, and Northstar are all carrying minuscule amounts of voters.

2. It's got low ridership because the schedules are bad and the schedules are bad because you're second fiddle to freight lines. If you're not giving commuters priority, why should they give you priority?

3. It was too easy. If a region builds a line because it was cheap to do, don't you think people are going to see through that and understand that you're not really putting a full effort in? I know I do. Indianapolis wants to build a cheap line because its politically feasible now. What about in 5 years. The harder the fight and the more work you put in, the more likely you'll be in good shape down the road. In running, you get out of your training what you put into it. I think the same applies here.

4. You're enabling the enemy. Same as the last point, but if you're not putting voters and supporters on the trains, you don't have a constituency for extensions or stopping service cuts.

Look at these lines according to the Q4 ridership numbers, you can quibble with these a little bit as the agencies have different numbers in the news recently but 500 +/- riders isn't going to make a huge difference.

Recently Opened Commuter Lines

1. Northstar Twin Cities - 2,000
2. Capital Metrorail Austin - 800
3. Rail Runner New Mexico - 3,800
4. Music City Star Nashville - 800
5. Frontrunner Salt Lake - 5,400
6. Portland WES - 1,400
7. Oceanside CA - 4,100

Some of these places like Portland and Salt Lake City already have regional light rail systems so a Commuter Line connecting in isn't as bad of a decision for later when you have the internal network.

Single Destination Connecting Lines Opened in Last 10 years. Again the ridership differs due to gas prices but these are in the rough area of current reality

Houston - 34,600
Phoenix - 40,300
Minneapolis - 30,000
Charlotte - 14,000
Seattle - 24,700

Now the difference between people packed into trains running downtown as well as the number of carried voters is huge. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell you which ones are going to be more palatable for expansion. So instead of looking at the "cheapest" alternative, let's find the two major destinations in a region that need more capacity and need to be connected. This is what we should be thinking of when we're starting a system. No more commuter lines as regional rail starters.

Unconventional Thinking On Charlotte

A lot of times I'll see an article or a piece that I want to comment on but hold off to see if more of a complete picture comes through. I'm glad I did this time because I've waffled back and forth on the idea of Light Rail on Charlotte's Independence Boulevard. When the debate raged between BRT and LRT on this corridor back in 2005-2006 I felt like BRT would have given the corridor a raw deal. Partly because frequencies and vehicle capacity would mean much more in operating costs even if the capital costs were lower.

At that point there was a lot of support from local mayors (like former Matthews Mayor Lee Myers) and communities for the light rail line but as usual no money. So the decision to pick a locally preferred alternative was shelved for a later date several years down the road when there might be money available.

However recently Mary Newsom at the Charlotte Observer tweeted then blogged about a ULI session that suggested that Independence should be HOV lanes and a Streetcar should be run up Monroe Road. Yonah has a good graphic for this over on the Transport Politic. Initially when I saw the tweet I thought that was a really dumb idea. I had seen the fight between LRT and BRT before and the current suggestions were for the line to be a rapid bus line in the HOV lane and a streetcar on Monroe Road.

While still rapid transit, all that type of transit would do is reward people living further and further away from the city without changing any of the land use patterns closer to the city center. The streetcar might do it but I'm starting to wonder whether line haul streetcars are a great idea for places that would rather have more rapid transit options. Just as Yonah points out, you aren't really going to be getting anywhere fast.

But then I started to warm up to the idea of HOV lanes considering that freeway alignments don't really work well for TOD considering most of the really good property is taken up by the size of the road. Especially if the road is going to be the size of a freeway at some point ceasing to be an actual boulevard. But that is the rub.

The problem here is the same problem that's happening when TTI releases its urban mobility report based on a travel time index. All the engineers at the state DOT care about at this moment are making the trip from a place outside of the Loop into downtown faster. They want to widen this road and make it a full fledged freeway. But that decision alone goes against the centers and corridors plan that Charlotte developed after they voted for the half cent sales tax initially and revamped in 2010.


The TTI travel time index is the wrong measure, especially if it is going to push infrastructure investment that drives the vicious cycle of speed to further away parts of the region. We know now rather that access is a more important measure. CEO's for Cities laid it out in their Driven Apart study, showing that travel time skews the data towards travel flow rather than closer access to work or other destinations.

What this means for Independence Boulevard is that if the NCDOT gets a hold of it and upgrades the outer sections to a grade separated highway, then the ability to change those patterns for better access to an employment node is lost forever. One of the commenters on Yonah's post noted that the outermost piece of Independence is actually a boulevard instead of a highway. Not a boulevard in the sense of a grand boulevard but it is still not a grade separated highway.

The one problem with changing it to a grand boulevard is that urban development patterns that people like are harder to realize further from the downtown or major employment cores. Because of land values and other market forces, the further you get out from major gravity centers like downtown Charlotte or the University, the harder it gets to realize new urban style development. In fact, the South Corridor already shows that development further out is harder to realize. The map below shows development projects from 2007 and before on the South Corridor. The basic distance from downtown before development starts to wane is approximately 3.5 miles. Basically, the strong market of downtown seems to be extended with access provided by the transit line. This is about a 13-15 minute trip to downtown.

Source: Realizing the Potential One Year Later

Part of the reason for this is the travel time people are willing to endure to get downtown. It's not likely that people will take the streetcar from the outer edges of Monroe Road or Central Avenue unless they have no other options. Additionally, this is why an Independence Light Rail line gets a bit tricky. But we need to start thinking of Independence not as a corridor feeding downtown but rather as a future mass that will have its own gravity. And I believe that gravity can be achieved with a strategic investment in the road to make it an urbanism changing Boulevard.

Considering the section of Independence that is already most like a freeway is within the 3.5 mile radius, its hard to imagine much happening in the short term along the Boulevard. Below shows the ~3.5 mile radius. The yellow shows the part most like a freeway already. The red shows the Boulevard and the light blue is the railroad corridor that is parallel to Independence. The Orange is the Central Streetcar.


This means that a Monroe Streetcar would be good for the inner 3.5 miles but two different service types will be needed further out for shorter and longer types of trips. This also leaves an opportunity for a Grand Boulevard that can attract business and development over time if the road is done right and parcels are slowly transformed into gridded and walkable areas. The approximately 120 feet of right of way are more than enough to build a road that would be friendly to transit, bikes, pedestrians as well as autos.


This corridor specifically could pull offices out to 7.5 miles, creating a new employment corridor which could bring land values up and with it densities over time. Creating a new center should be the goal, not making it another pass through on the way to downtown with HOV lanes for buses that are going to get 5000 riders a day at best. Additionally, by creating two centers with a rapid transit line and streetcar between, the market between the two centers gets stronger, allowing it to support the types of urban development people always draw on their maps at public meetings.

Photo via Hugeasscity

I realize this might be a bit too forward thinking for some people but ultimately we have to change our mindset about what is possible in urban places if we are to give people opportunities to choose different housing and mobility types. Yes this corridor is going to be auto dominated for the near future but that doesn't mean we have to doom it to freewaydom and forever feed sprawling development patterns further and further out. In fact, it's possible to create a new center that attracts new transit trips from within its own gravitational field.

Transit Election Central 2010

Hey everyone. This post is going to be a liveblog this evening when the results are coming in. Key things around the country include Tampa Light Rail and Governors races that could make or break HSR. If you want a preview, check CFTE. We did this in 2008 and had a blast. Join us later this evening.

Check below for a local transport issue

6:58pm PT - O'Malley Wins Maryland Governorship, Purple line safe
7:49pm PT - John Hickenlooper wins Colorado, Good for transit
7:52pm PT - Scott Walker wins Wisconsin, good thing feds signed HSR agreements
8:17pm PT - Pretty official, Tampa Light Rail dies almost 60-40
8:53pm PT - Tenafly non-binding rail measure loses
9:18pm PT - Clayton County non-binding resolution for MARTA will pass
12:34am PT - Jerry Brown wins governors race, HSR is a go

I'll fill in more of these tomorrow as I get time, kind of a disappointing day but there will be other big wins in the future.

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California --

Prop 22 - Keeps the state from raiding local taxes including transportation

36% Reporting - 63% For 37% Against

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Lots of $10 registration fees, covering high transit percentage only

San Francisco Prop AA - $10 registration fee for roads, transit and ped improvements

60% Yes 40% No
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San Mateo Measure M - $10 registration fee for roads, transit, safe routes to school


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Sonoma Measure W - $10 registration fee, 60% for transit service

________________

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Florida --

Polk County - (Loss) Half Cent Sales Tax for Transit

87% Reporting - 38% Yes 62% No
92% Reporting - 38% Yes 62% No
95% Reporting - 38% Yes 62% No
97% Reporting - 38% Yes 62% No
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Hillsboro County (Loss) - Half Cent Sales Tax for Light Rail, Roads

43% Reporting - 40% For 60% Against
68% Reporting - 41% For 59% Against
82% Reporting - 41% For 59% Against
86% Reporting - 41% For 59% Against
94% Reporting - 41% For 59% Against
________________
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Clayton County GA (Win) - Nonbinding - Asking if Voters Want to Join MARTA

46% Reporting - 67% Yes 33% No
67% Reporting - 68.6% Yes 31.4% No
77% Reporting - 69% Yes 31% No
93% Reporting - 70% Yes 30% No
100% Reporting - 70% Yes 30% No

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Oahu Hawaii - Question 1 - Would establish a transit agency to oversee rail construction



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Tenefly, NJ (Loss) - Nonbinding Question #1 Should Tenefly Rail Service be Restored

Rejected - local news reports many upset that it would not provide a one seat ride to Manhattan thus voted against the line
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Toledo, Ohio - (Win) Property Tax Renewal to Support Transit

1% Reporting - 54% For 46% Against
30% Reporting -54% For 46% Against
75% Reporting - 54% For 46% Against
84% Reporting - 54% For 46% Against

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Portland, Oregon - $125M in bonding ability for Tri-Met

55% Reporting - 46% Yes 54% No

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Texas

Austin - Prop 1, $90M in infrastructure

10% Reporting 56% Yes 44% No
37% Reporting 56% Yes 44% No
68% Reporting 56.6% Yes 43.4% No
92% Reporting 57% Yes 43% No

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Richland Hills - (Loss?) Asking voters if they want to leave the Fort Worth Transit Authority

Early Voting - 59% For 41% Against
12% Reporting - 61% For 39% Against
38% Reporting - 61% For 39% Against
100% Reporting 61.7 % For 31.3% Against
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Wisconsin

Dane County/Madison Asking for a half cent sales tax to fund a Dane County RTA

Note- Really hard to decipher results here given only advisory vote.

Music Friday - Take the Light Rail

"If your cars too spendy and your bike is too slow, it will take you anywhere you want to go"

Giving Up and Release Valves

So it seems as if the Port Authority in Pittsburgh is giving up on a rail trip between the two largest employment centers in the region. Perhaps they'll get real BRT but given that opposition always goes to the lowest common denominator such as in Berkeley, you can bet there will be a fight over dedicating the lanes.

I'm disappointed because I feel like this is a travel corridor that could benefit from a direct link from the existing light rail system. However no one wants to actually invest in transit infrastructure these days. I can hardly blame them, once it gets built they have to fight for every penny to operate the thing. If we're ever going to get a real mode share out of transit, we're going to have to start investing in something real. Not necessarily in big projects, but real headways and dedicated lanes for places that will never have rail.

~~~
I guess I'm in a pessimistic mood tonight. New Jersey is thinking about stopping the ARC tunnel for road projects (blech) and the Twin Cities is thinking about how they are going to serve the suburbs of tomorrow when people can't drive. Newsflash! Peak oil isn't our only problem people. What about those folks who can't drive because they are too old! Paratransit is expensive.

~~~
This article irked me for some reason. In it Mary misses the major point about development and land value around transit and even "urban renewal" lessons. She complains about the high rises around transit close to single family neighborhoods.

That, of course, is precisely the problem with Charlotte's love affair with too-tall transit-oriented development zoning smack next to low-scale, historic Dilworth or - this will come - NoDa. Even if nothing's demolished, making land values so high so swiftly via zoning encourages large, expensive projects that will drive out small-scale enterprises.

You want to know why that property becomes so valuable? Because it is scarce! Contrary to popular belief, there is not enough supply of urban housing to meet the demand, so the speculators come in and jack up the prices. I bet you wouldn't have this problem if transit was built out such that neighborhoods didn't gentrify because people wanted the quality locations and access. In places like New York City or Chicago that have extensive transit systems to all kinds of neighborhoods, you see that transit stations are the more diverse income places than the region as a whole.

This is the problem with our thinking here. We complain about the results of our actions but don't think about the underlying actions themselves. Given that Charlotte is building its system line by line, you'll see development speculation and value increases acting as a release valve on the downtown market. If you built all the lines at once, that pressure gets relieved five or six ways instead of one way.

Right now this is just my theory, but when Denver and Houston open up their lines at relatively the same time, I am going to say that you are going to get a more diverse housing type in new stations than we've seen along corridors that are a first big transit investment in a city. The reason being is that they will meet the actual demand, instead of be a small rock in the pond.

So if regions are feeling for local businesses and the skyrocket land values around transit, the escape valve that creates greater opportunities in places that want to change is to build greater transit networks. More escape valves means greater distribution of different development and less pressure and speculation.

Trax Siemens Debut

Ok so two posts on this is a bit much but I wanted to compare the Charlotte and Utah vehicles side by side. These are for you Gordon. It looks as if the UTA vehicles are even shorter than the Charlotte LRVs and much shorter than the Houston LRVs which are all the same series. I had read before that this was done to accommodate four car trains.

Utah Transit Authority

Courtesy of UTA

Charlotte CATS


Via Willamore Media Creative Commons on Flickr.

Houston Metro


Via Word Junky Creative Commons on Flickr.

Bonus video footage from today's car unveiling and wow is it going out into the boonies. Better do it right.

What is Austin Thinking?

Ok. I guess I should come clean. In 2004 I held my breath and voted for the Capital Metro commuter rail line when I lived in Austin. Given my small coalition of activists couldn't quite push the commuter rail line away or spark greater talk than a study of streetcars I just closed my eyes and voted for the commuter rail line hoping that it would all work out in the end. At the time there was some despair that if it didn't pass there wouldn't be another rail election for a very very long time. The 2000 loss still stung and though we kept fighting for light rail down Guadalupe during the Calthorpe led public input and other avenues it just wasn't going to happen if the leadership didn't want it to.

Ultimately all of this led to me writing my graduate school thesis on the politics of rail in Austin where I concluded from lots of reading of past articles about the process that Mike Krusee basically manipulated the system to get transit to his part of the region, even though he wasn't even a representative inside the service area. Since then he's had a "come to jesus" on New Urbanism and left state office but every time I think of what happened it makes me sick to my stomach what could have been. But it turns out that it wasn't just him. It was former GM Fred Gilliam and a whole host of people that just didn't want to push for the right route down the center of the region for fear of political retribution. And apparently they still don't because the Red Line has sapped the energy out of any forward movement and other regional entities keep proposing suburban serving lines that do nothing for the constituencies that actually voted for rail in that 2004 election.

So color me annoyed when regional planners start talking about spending $340M on a line that might get 5,800 riders to Round Rock. The current line is under 1,000 riders a day and cost $120M. This is in contrast to the 2000 plan which was $740M for 37,400 riders. I still can't believe that no one in the city looks at these numbers and wonders, why the heck do we keep proposing to spend money on these lines that won't have ridership until we have a good core connection line. Sorry for the crude paint map, but the blue line is 2000 and the black line is the current commuter rail line. Always go where the people are, not where the freight line happens to go.


M1ek has been harping on this for a long time and he's always made some good points. Obviously I don't agree with everything he says and I do wish that he'd be a bit more diplomatic and less in people's faces about it because it seems like once he annoys someone, they tune him out. But at some point folks have to start thinking about whether they are continuing to throw good money after bad and just swallow their pride. Anything less than a line down Guadalupe is the city selling itself short. And if you don't believe me, take a look at the FTA document linked above. You want riders for cheap? Connect places where people are. It's not rocket science.

New Siemens S70 LRV Debut in Salt Lake

We discussed these bad boys when the order was put in back in 2008. The thing I find interesting about this version of the S70 is that they are snout nosed and less archy on the ends than the new Portland and San Diego vehicles. This apparently was so that they could continue to run four car trains.

Here's a photo of Portland's new LRVs (with some older)


via Thomas Le Ngo on Flickr

Then the new Salt Lake City version

via Transit in Utah

I think I actually like them better. If anyone in Utah gets some photos shoot em over and we'll post them.

Perhaps a New Game

It's called, spot the wires. Sure are ruining this nature scene for everyone! This is Turin, Italy.

Bigger Thinking on Texas Stadium Site

In my post below I talked about how hard it would be to connect the two parcels over the freeway. Looks like they have thought about that.

In an article in Fast Company, the developers and city of Irving are looking to make the freeway choked property where the stadium once was into "the densest, most walkable neighborhood in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex outside of downtown Dallas." That's a pretty bold statement. But the renderings show they have some ideas about how its gonna be, and I must say, they do have a grand imagination.


Via the Irving Chamber

If they can get this done more power to them. I especially appreciate them doing it on the transit line. Now how about that transit connectivity? This type of density needs more than just one rail line.

Stadium Implosions and TOD

Well today was the day. 39 year old Texas Stadium was imploded as its functioning life was deemed over. However the death of a stadium opens up new opportunities for urbanism and some challenges.



The Loop 12 station is going to be located here when the development is finally ready for it but I question the planning of a station along a freeway or in a place where the freeway can severely hamper residential development. Part of the problem with getting cozy with the highway is that you cut off half of the walk shed from the station. In this instance, it's even more than half with the number of freeways that exist in criss cross. Below is the map of the regional transit plan and below that is the station location sourced from the environmental impact statement.




You can see Texas stadium where the main redevelopment opportunity is on city owned land. But the planned station is on the other side of a major freeway, and most of it is a private shipping company under the white blob I've drawn to show the area without a freeway barrier near the station. It's likely that this area will be best for office and some dense residential, but a grid network needs to be reintroduced on both sides for it to become a walkable urban place. It might be even better to route the transit through the center of the white blob to maximize the station area. It does move the station further away from the stadium parcel, but at the same time, it increases the probability of transit accessibility for buildings within the vicinity of the station.

It's a hard decision, but ultimately we need to stop building stations and alignments that are based on the previous freeway paradigm. Creating walkable urban places that connect to others through transit means that we need to connect opportunities, not freeway medians.

Movement Depression and the Way Forward

It's been a bit rough lately. With the economy in the tank and people not wanting to spend any money, I've had great hope that some places were continuing to move forward with their urban rail plans. But the opponents fight harder than ever because they see the threat or people don't plan things enough to go forward with any confidence. Just today, the list of articles that show how hard we have to keep working was a bit much for me to handle.

Houston - The Mayor questions whether there is money to pay for two lines of the new five line light rail expansion in the city.

Austin - The Mayor decides its not time to have a bond election to pay for a future urban rail line.

Scotland - The company building Edinburgh's tram wants to delay 30 months after the rough ride they have already had.

Tampa - Ballot issue for rail dead for now due to lack of decision in how much of the funding would go to the rail project.

Bellevue: The city council is a bunch of morons there and don't want to run the line through a dense employment center.

There is a ray of hope out there. The Mayor of Los Angeles made me feel a bit better recently when he decided that he was going to ask to get things done faster. Ask for a loan so you can save billions in construction costs and have something built for your money faster. I would like to think that is how we work in the United States. But sometimes reading all the news I do just gets so depressing. At least someone has suggested a way forward. Whether we follow it or not is up to us.

Free Parking Again

Another issue with free parking. Isn't there a market based way to take care of this issue around Mockingbird Station?

Taxing Districts

More and more I think we're going to see assessments on property owners to pay for infrastructure. This specific example comes from a Grand Boulevard in Salt Lake City moving from downtown towards the airport:

The street beautification, intended to blend with the planned airport TRAX line, would include new lighting, landscaping, multipurpose sidewalks, decorative walkways, bicycle paths and public art.

Of course people are going to complain about another tax, but I wish people didn't feel that everything should be provided for free. Improvements cost money.

The Fight for Access

I'm a bit late posting this one...

One persons station access is another persons time added to the commute:

This north-side resident found the light rail underwhelming—the train chugs along at street level at a modest speed, stopping 10 times, even stopping at times for traffic lights. It’s still faster to take the express bus from downtown. So it was interesting to hear a south-side community organizer speak Wednesday about working during the light-rail planning process to get precisely the things that annoyed me. “We [told transit planners] we wanted more stops and we don’t want intersections cut off,” said Yolanda Sinde,

I suggest reading the rest of the post as well as it delves into gentrification and smart growth as well.

The Ravages of Prosperity

It's interesting how any transit investment can be seen as good or bad based on how the increase in values affects the community. Some want better property values but others don't for fear of being displaced. So you're damned if you don't, damned if you do.

Redevelopment, as it turns out, is actually bad because it prompts higher property values (and taxes) and might gentrify the district, forcing some people to move. In other words, light rail should be prevented from doing what it does best: add value to urban neighborhoods. More stations might be OK, according to the suit, but only if nearby residents and businesses are insulated from the ravages of prosperity. At least that's the drift of the argument.

So do we just not improve anything? I'm sure that's not the answer. But these things are tough to balance.

Assume the Risk

There have been a lot of issues recently over cost estimates that are starting to rub me the wrong way. I had never mentioned it before but in my head I kept thinking to myself that the cost for LRT in Norfolk seemed awfully low. The most recent estimate was $232 million for 7.2 miles. Compared to most LRT lines that would have been a steal. Phoenix was upwards of $80 million per mile while Norfolk was hovering around $32 million. Now it's $340 million which is still ok at $47 million a mile, but everyone is going crazy.

But today I saw something interesting out of Houston. The city is going to pay up front an extra $100 million for their contract and the bid winner will assume liability for any cost overruns during the project (assuming it doesn't cause them to go out of business). My question then becomes, how come we don't make all contractors stick to their cost estimates?

While I understand that things change and work orders change, shouldn't the company which came in with the chosen bid be responsible for seeing through with their magic eight balls? Perhaps that is asking too much or asking in some instances for disaster. Cutting corners leads to bad things and I certainly wouldn't want a contractor to go cheap on materials because they were trying to make money. In any event, with all these cost overruns on projects that are making LRT look bad, I don't see why more isn't being done to make the bidders more responsible for their bids.

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Well sort of. Today the 2005 dear colleague letter that then FTA Administrator Jennifer Dorn released on the world requiring that all New Starts projects have a medium rating on their cost effectiveness has been rescinded. Many have hailed this as a huge step forward for livability advocates but honestly its only half of the picture. One of the reasons I believe that the medium rating was imposed was to build more cheap BRT projects and cut out subway and lrt projects. But another reason was to cut all the junk projects out of the funding loop. With only about $8 billion dollars available for new starts projects in the last transportation bill, it leaves the need for regions to pick up the hundreds of billions more needed to build out transit networks. One estimate pegged the total at approximately $250 billion dollars. That is a huge gap.

So while some newspapers including the New York Times believe that this is opening up the funding floodgates, they are sorely mistaken. It does however change a few dynamics that have been holding projects back. The Central Corridor in Minneapolis is a curious case. They have been wanting to add a station in St. Paul to serve lower income community however it slowed down the travel time just enough to push the line over the index. This is just one example of how suburban to downtown speedy travel is emphasized over shorter trips in denser communities by the existing cost effectiveness index. Yonah has specifically mentioned another Minneapolis project that I also believe is headed in the wrong direction.

Dropping the medium requirement also takes a step towards making us think harder about what we're really building transit for. Is it for existing population or the future population or both? A common comment about the current cost effectiveness rating is that it would have never funded the DC or New York Subways. But DC and New York would not have gotten to where they are now in terms of density without the investments in the subway. Really this is a chance to start thinking about how to make transformative investments in transit around the country. It's an opportunity we've been waiting for, but as with all big ideas, it needs money.