Podcast: Innovation, Introverts, and Uber Wars

This week we’re joined by David Zipper, managing director at 1776 Ventures, a global startup hub based in Washington, DC. A veteran of the Bloomberg administration in New York City and the administrations of Adrian Fenty and Vincent Gray in Washington, David discusses the deal DC struck with Living Social and the introduction of ride-hailing regulations during the city’s infamous Uber Wars. We also chat about transportation companies blossoming around the globe and what traits make for great innovators.

Northeast Corridor Rulez!

I appreciate the Northeast Corridor and would love for us to spend more money there. But don't screw over California or other mega regions to do it. Last week Mayor Bloomberg was talking about the national investments in HSR (from Second Ave Sagas) and it seems like he's taking the attitude that investing anywhere else is silly because the NE Corridor is where its at.

With projects in Florida, California and the Midwest garnering headlines, the Northeast Corridor has taken a backseat in Washington with only one percent of federal HSR funds coming our way. “That simply just doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

Sure it makes sense, but not in the way that he wants it to. I would LOVE if we doled out money based on merit which we're starting to do with TIGER and HUD grants but then those people that are elected called politicians in places that don't have a lot of population concentrated don't want their money all sent to the Northeast Corridor. Not to mention that sometimes I feel like people don't understand geography or population of the rest of the country (not readers of this blog of course). I can't tell you how many times people say they'll be able to hop up from San Diego to visit San Francisco. When I ask them if they like 8 hour drives they say "WHAT?!"

Also, just adding up from Wikipedia CSAs and MSAs not in CSAs, along the California HSR corridor we get the following:

Los Angeles CSA - 17,786,419
SF-San Jose-Oak CSA - 7,427,757
San Diego MSA - 3,053,793
Sacramento CSA - 2,436,109
Fresno CSA - 1,063,899
Bakersfield MSA - 807,407
Stockton MSA - 674,860
Modesto MSA - 446,997
Visalia MSA - 429,668 !B9871841047192


Merced MSA - 245,321

Then there are a bunch under 200,000. But that is ~34.4 million or 11-12% of the United States population. Compare that with the NE Corridor numbers from the New Republic blog post on Mega Regions. From the graphic we can add up to about ~44.2 or 14-15% along the NE Corridor. I left out Springfield and Poughkeepsie.

In any event, I hope these loosely added numbers put some things into perspective. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to get out of it but felt like it was close. I'm guessing that the Midwest Hub HSR network probably puts together city pairs that add up to a lot of population as well. The difference between the NE Corridor and other regions though, is that the NE Corridor exists, Amtrak from San Diego to Sacramento or San Francisco does not. Again, I'm not saying don't invest in the Northeast Corridor, or that medium speed rail is a great idea (that's a whole other post) but also let's not pretend like the Northeast Corridor is the only place where HSR can exist. It is not the center of the Universe. That is the Planet Nieuw-Vennep.

Independence Day Notes

Links and ink:

I really like the idea of setting a baseline for ridership and road usage so you can use it for performance measures later. I hope that is what they are looking at. It might also be illuminating to see regions compared to each other. I hope they would take pedestrian and bike counts as well.
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The draft streetcar network plan is out in Portland. Looks pretty extensive.
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New Jersey is expanding the transit hub tax credit to include industrial areas that use rail access.
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Smart Growth is killing cities!!! Or rather, it's more NIMBYs. Not that I can't blame them, we don't really need more high end housing in this region do we? Considering almost all of it is high end. And looking at it from a tax perspective, building four houses that are 250,000 versus a million dollar single house brings in the same taxes in property, but greater taxes in local services such as restaurants and groceries. Has anyone ever looked at those numbers?
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This is cool. Making subways rainproof FTW.
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This could bring transit sexy back.
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Colorado Railcar reincarnated?
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More NIMBY articles! This time on the peninsula HSR version. My favorite quote:

Whatever option is chosen, peninsula residents simply want a transparent process that considers their opinions, said Nadia Naik of Palo Alto, who helped form a citizens' group, Californians Advocating for Responsible Rail Design. "That would give us tremendous peace of mind," Naik said. "Nobody's done that. We get a lot of, 'Oh, you're just 50 people who complain.'"

Is it really 50?

Consummate Salesmen

I don't believe Walter Hook for a second. Any time anyone says their way is the only way for any situation I get skeptical. Case in point:

There is no other solution for American cities. If you look across the globe, the only cities that have actually shifted people from private cars back into public transit are cities that have built bus rapid transit.

The BS detector is huge on this one. Not only is Curitiba losing people to private vehicles because of the crush loaded conditions, the chief of the system has admitted they have to build a subway. Might I also add, there are many cities that aren't in third world countries that have amazing transit systems to emulate. Such as Paris, Berlin, Vienna, London, and Madrid etc....(H/T Frank M) How about a yellow tram that's six segments and comes every minute like in Budapest?



There's way more capacity there than on an articulated bus. 173 feet of tram every minute. And it would certainly do some heavy hauling across Manhattan. Anyone want to take some civic leaders to Budapest with me? As Daneel states:

The big order was for the world's busiest tram line, along the Grand Boulevard (lines 4/6). This is nothing to be proud of, the daily 200,000/hourly max. 10,500 passengers would be in the capacity range of a subway. But an orbital subway was never built, so pairs of "Industrial Articulateds" transport the masses in close succession. So when finally new vehicles were ordered, they were for the world's longest passenger trams (precisely 53.99 m; only the CarGoTram freight trams in Dresden/Germany are longer [59.4 m]). The new series 2000^II got the nickname Óriáshernyó (=giant caterpillar).

But another quip I have with Walter is his flip flopping and misleading statements. In his BRT post on Streetsblog, Hook nonchalantly states that BRT can cost as little as $8 million a mile.

Very good BRT systems have been built for as little as $8 million a mile. With the same capital budget, we could build more than twice as much proper BRT as light rail, probably 5 to 10 times more, with no loss in the quality of service, the capacity, or the speed.

First off he's comparing cheap non-BRT Rapid bus to full LRT. That is hardly an even comparison. The Healthline BRT in Cleveland which is the closest thing we have to that type of BRT on city streets in the United States was $29 million per mile ($200/6.8mi). The Portland Streetcar cost $24m/mi. If we just took lanes from cars and inserted the rails instead of rebuilding whole streets the capital costs would be comparable and operating would be much less. More riders, less drivers.

Look, if you want a big network of Rapid Bus or BRT in a major city go ahead and do it. Los Angeles has been fairly successful when they aren't trying to expand like Krispy Kreme in 2000. That is an excellent model to emulate for routes that need better transit service right away. But let's not pretend that BRT or Rapid Bus works on the corridors that actually need rail or a Subway like Second Street.

Finally, there is this:

Hook is hoping it works. He says at least one American city should have a well-designed BRT, one that really does feel like a train.

If you want something that feels like a train, then why not build a train. I'll never understand why cheap is always the best option to some people. You get what you pay for.

Pushing Back on the Status Quo

And if you didn't think JSK rocked, here's your quote of the day:

And more than a little ironic, seeing as Moses constructed his empire of roads and highways while serving for 26 years as the city’s Parks commissioner. One wonders what he would think of a Transportation commissioner who dismantled New York’s most famous street and turned it into a park.

Hiding the Good Stuff

More like you weren't paying attention. Peter King of Sports Illustrated writes about the secret sauce, no not that stuff...

It's the new green me.

It's not like I'm going to be surrendering my car now than I'm a city guy, but being without it is increasingly enjoyable. Check out this 28-hour experience that began Thursday morning:

Walk 10 minutes to the Back Bay train station to catch a train to New York. Take the train to New York. Take a cab to visit buddy Jack Bowers in the hospital after surgery. Take a cab to SI in midtown Manhattan for an afternoon of meetings.

Take the subway to Queens for Mets-Padres. Take the subway to Manhattan after the game. Walk to Penn Station. Take the train back to Boston. Walk the 10 minutes home. Not an unpleasant trip on any of the legs. You people in cities have been hiding how great it is to get along without a car.

H/T Nick C

Streetcars in New York? Ask JSK

A visit to exchange ideas could possibly spark the New York Streetcar renaissance. Janette Sadik-Kahn will visit the city to talk about bikes and the big changes in New York but might come away excited about streetcars, something Toronto never left behind.

Janette Sadik-Khan, Commissioner of Transportation of the City of New York, is in Toronto tomorrow to celebrate Earth Day and to see a Toronto icon that she wants to bring back to the Big Apple: the streetcar. “I’m very jazzed about my visit,” Ms. Sadik-Khan said today from her New York office. “The streetcar program is something that I’m looking at here. We threw away our streetcars, and you kept them. I think it’s a great economic development tool.”

I don't think that New York should adopt the streetcar model of Toronto exactly. For one thing the single cars are more like buses instead of the sleeker more comfortable european trams that can be of greater size due to modular designs. You would lose out on some of the benefits of greater capacity and energy usage. Toronto is currently looking to replace the existing vehicles so we'll probably see them make the switch soon as well. Also it's likely that a dedicated lane for streetcars will be necessary to make the lines even more efficient, something Toronto is starting to do.

Perhaps we'll see some sort of study soon. And perhaps New York can look to some of Scott Bernstein's ideas on using funding from electric companies to bring them to scale. Not everywhere, but on a few key routes that could use the capacity.

The Usual Conversation

Sigh. Can we get past this type of discussion about light rail and BRT already?

Hidden Trains of New York

Very cool article via Planetizen. It would be interesting to be there when they open up that Brooklyn subway wall and find a tipped over steam engine.

Since his big reveal in 1980, Mr. Diamond, the 49-year-old founder of the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association, has been conducting tunnel tours via the manhole with the blessing of the D.O.T. But of late, Mr. Diamond has been pushing for another potential urban architectural “get.”

Behind a wall in the tunnel, near Atlantic Avenue and Hicks Street, he believes, there is a steam locomotive lying on its side like an abandoned toy train, in “pristine condition, a virtual time capsule.” And he wants to dig it up.

Seems to me that instead of digging it up, you could do some sort of ultrasound scan or something to make sure its there before you start digging. You can check out the location on Wikimapia here.

Imagine This Story Times Millions

It's never fun when eminent domain is used. But when I think of it, it always brings me back to the thought of how many people were displaced and how much tax revenue has been lost because of the Interstate Highway System ripping through cities. One need only go back and watch Robert Caro's speech at CNU last year to understand the price of automobiling. As I've said many times before, Eisenhower marveled at and wanted to emulate the freeways between cities, not through them.

The autobahn was a rural network, without segments into and through Germany's cities. This seemed appropriate to Eisenhower, but in Washington, Thomas H. MacDonald and Herbert Fairbank of the U.S. Public Roads Administration (the name of the Federal Highway Administration's predecessor during the 1940's) saw the absence of metropolitan segments as a flaw that made the autobahn a poor model for America's future. Unlike Germany, traffic volumes were high in America where car ownership was widespread. Congestion in America's cities had long been a serious complaint that MacDonald and Fairbank would address in their vision of the Interstate System.

We sure tackled that congestion problem...that wasn't really addressed because that wasn't the point.

...MacDonald acknowledged with surprising candor that the urban components of the system were not designed to alleviate urban congestion, except to the extent that they would provide relieve to those motorists for whom the city was an inconvenient obstruction...

We all know Lewis Mumford had it right though when arguing against the highway system slashing through cities.

The key to reviving our center cities, Mumford said, "rests on the restoring of the pedestrian scale of distances to the interior of the city, of making it possible for the pedestrian to exist." He added, "We are faced, it is fairly obvious to me, with the blunders of one-dimensional thinking, or thinking very expertly about a single characteristic, a single feature that we are interested in, and forgetting the realities that surround us."

The Recycling Bin

Is anyone else tired of the same old recycled junk? Can someone remind me if the Interstate Highway System we started building in the 1950's ever turned a profit. I think it was a long term investment that granted returns in other ways. Some good, some not so good. From the Wall Street Journal on the stimulus:

We've looked it over, and even we can't quite believe it. There's $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn't turned a profit in 40 years...

How many times do you think these guys took the Acela to DC to hang out with thier cronies. I guess they don't believe in the investment. Rupert's opinion page hacks are dumber than a box of rocks. This is a gem though:

Most of the rest of this project spending will go to such things as renewable energy funding ($8 billion) or mass transit ($6 billion) that have a low or negative return on investment. Most urban transit systems are so badly managed that their fares cover less than half of their costs. However, the people who operate these systems belong to public-employee unions that are campaign contributors to . . . guess which party?

Would you like some cheese with that whine? Does no one on the R team understand how all transportation works? It's like they believe air traffic controllers come from magical fairly land and highway funds come out of an oil derrick. Where did they get these opinions from anyways? It certainly wasn't from the Manhattan news staff, most of whom I'm sure drive to work right?? I heard the cracker jack factory had some openings. Perhaps you could fill the boxes with this noise.

When Three Ps Come Up Aces

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

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

Vacation is Over Links

Well vacation will be over in the morning. I was enjoying my time off but can't be a bum forever. Here are some links for the day.
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The New York Times has an editorial asking for more funding for transit and an end to the cost-effectiveness index. Never thought I would see that!
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Folks in Tampa are hoping to expand their transit types to include a rail system.
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The debate over light rail vibration continues in the Twin Cities. A study says that it can be minimized by technology.

Absorbing Growth

If you have a robust transit system, it can absorb new travel.

Transportation officials say a new study shows a surprising trend: As New York City's population and job base grew during the recent boom, traffic didn't.

Instead, a report due for release Monday finds the transit system absorbed the influx of residents and commuters between 2003 and 2007.

City deputy transportation commissioner Bruce Schaller says that's a first for at least the years since World War II. Schaller wrote the study. He says improvements to the subway, bus and commuter rail network helped it handle the demand from 130,000 new residents and 200,000 more jobs.

Lacking a Transit Power Broker

According to Robert Caro, who wrote the epic book about Robert Moses, New York has no lack of people that can throw their weight behind transit. It's just that no one seems to feel it's worth throwing weight behind.

‘Is there power?’ ”Yes, there is, said Robert A. Caro, who called his epic biography of Robert Moses “The Power Broker.” Mr. Ravitch’s challenge, he said, was to persuade gutsy public officials to exercise power on behalf of an agenda that Moses, who championed highways over mass transit, rejected.

“It’s not a lack of power,” Mr. Caro said in an interview. “It’s a lack of vision — of a vast metropolitan area as a single whole and what is necessary to tie that area together in a way that makes every segment of the population one. There are public officials with plenty of power. That power is just never thrown behind mass transit in the way it should be.”

This is a common theme in many cities. The lack of political will for transit. But many cities aren't New York with such a high transit constituency and many in the growth machine that is any city government don't see or don't want to see that it would actually benefit them to grow inward with transit instead of outward with roads. It's been too easy to keep going the way they know, rather than the way they should go.

New Poll: Worst Rail Project in Planning

Thanks for all the input. It seems like we have a few projects that are pretty bad. Again I'm not going to let you choose more than one. You have to choose what you think is the worst. So here are the contestants based on feedback. I added in two specifically nefarious BRT projects as well.

BART to San Jose
NJ Access to the Regions Core
LIRR East Side Access Project
San Francisco Central Subway
Montreal Train de l'est
LA Gold Line to Montclair
Toronto Spadina Extension
NY Subway 7 Line Extension
Metro to Dulles (Silver Line)
MBTA BRT Silver Line Phase 3
US 36 Denver BRT
Miami Metrorail North
Anacostia Streetcar

So those are the list. Usual week for voting applies. Vote for Other if there is a project not listed.

Streetfighter!

Now that's the framing I like. I don't know if JSK is up on the list for Transportation Secretary, but she should be. I'd love to see her and Ma Peters in a match too. I suggest the read even if Dana Goldstein doesn't know what high speed rail is.

Escalades to Subways

These guys should do a PSA for transit.

NIMBY's With Rabies?

Rabid! says the New York Times via HugeAssCity. Perhaps a new group to call foamers?

Affordability and Harvesting the Green Dividend

I want TOD to be more affordable, I really do. I think that it's important not to push people out and very important to allow people to have an opportunity to use transit and save money by living by it. There's only one problem right now, rail transit is so limited in this country, no one can reasonably expect developers that see a market to not try to build to what they can get. The non-profits and foundations can come in and figure out a way to capture the value created so that some of it goes back into the community. Portland did this by harvesting value from the Pearl District and the Twin Cities is looking to harvest the green dividend as well.

But they can't do it alone. TOD needs transit. It needs a well connected network, one that most cities don't have. I think that TOD in cities with good transit has proven its worth. New York, Washington DC, San Francisco. But we can't expect cities to have inexpensive TOD everywhere when its a niche super hot market that is under built and there is no T. It's starting to look promising since the space race is heating up, but there's a long way to go.

This post was a reaction/commentary on Steve Hymon's TOD posts.