Dumb Idea

Governor of Arizona Janet Napolitano decided not to tax sprawl homebuilders and instead asked them to help raise the sales tax for transportation. First off, homebuilders are the ones that gain the most from new transit and transportation infrastructure, they should pay for it. Second, why are they still building in that desert???

Streetcar Watch

The idea of streetcars is taking off all over the country. Most areas see them as a way to increase the density of employment and housing along the corridor while revitalizing closer in former streetcar suburbs. People are also fascinated by the history.

There were a lot of stories this week covering the expansion, creation, or history of streetcar lines:

The Tempe Chamber of Commerce is creating a streetcar committee and there were articles in local papers discussing the idea: East Valley/Scottsday Tribune.

Portland has approved funding to keep the Eastside streetcar moving. The Oregonian is following the story.

The Portland City Council took a leap of faith Thursday, forced by a deadline to quickly commit $27 million toward building a $147 million extension of the streetcar to the east side.

The project carries some financial risk for the city, but the commissioners agreed that the streetcar could spark the kind of development boom on the east side that has accompanied the westside line through the Pearl, the west end of downtown, the River District and South Waterfront.

"We hope to knit together the east and west sides of the city in ways we would not be able to do otherwise," City Commissioner Sam Adams said.

Little Rock has a streetcar system and is thinking of expanding to the airport. THV has the article. I was struck again by how cheap Little Rock can get it done. Their last expansion was only 7 million a mile and the article makes it seem that they could keep the cost that low again. I've created a map that shows the extension area below and it seems like they would use former railroad ROW. This would make the costs of the line more like railroad costs which is much cheaper.

North Little Rock Mayor Patrick Hays says that a planned extension to Heifer International's headquarters would leave only three or four miles to cover to reach the airport. Hays says extending the line to the airport would allow visitors to take the streetcar directly to downtown hotels. Central Arkansas officials are looking into the feasibility of the proposal and a consultant is helping explore the idea. Running the line to the airport would cost an estimated 20 million dollars. Federal grants would cover 80 percent of the cost.

And finally, a series of History Lessons about Sacramento's Streetcar system over at the Sacramento History Blog.

Part 1: Sacramento Streetcar Suburbs
Part 2: Central Street Railway
Part 3: PG&E and It's Predecessors
Part 4: East Sacramento and Elmhurst

Phoenix Ups the Ante

Drawing on an opportunity to expand a freeway and light rail at the same time, the City of Phoenix has decided to chip in funds to fund a study of light rail on the I-10 Corridor. I often wonder the effects of running rail in the center of the freeway. It should really be on an arterial, however depending on the design it might work, i repeat might.

The Buses Role and Roll

While staying in the valley of the sun for a wedding, I needed to get a haircut before the ceremony. Of course where we were staying was not very walkable. The city is sprawl with the exception of the north south light rail corridor that is under construction and even that is a stretch. I looked up a haircut place on Yelp and CitySearch and then decided that I would walk. It was on a main corridor road and it was 101 degrees outside. When I got to the haircut place I was red and needed to cool down a bit. I saw a number of bus stops on my way there but figured it wasn’t really far enough. Well, it was far enough and I decided to take the bus back to the hotel. There were no schedules on the post. There were no route maps and a next bus indicator would have been helpful to know that I would have had to wait 40 minutes for it.

Overall it was a disappointing look into why people don’t take transit. This isn’t a bus versus rail thing but rather a convenience thing. I’m sure that this corridor I was on will be turned into Light Rail when they extend the initial line to the Metro Center, and that will allow a service improvement, but what about all of those other places that aren’t going to get light rail. What are cities going to do about bus service? Are they going to be like Portland and use all the money they saved from operating costs to increase bus service? That should be the main goal of cities building new rail starts, improve the bus system as well, which seems to be the goal of transit agencies who are doing this, specifically in Houston and Seattle. Without it, the only people riding the bus will continue to be the poor and the advocates.

On An Airplane

Going to a wedding in Phoenix this weekend i think i'll ask the nice taxi driver to take me by the new light rail line. If it was built i would be taking it, however this wedding is a year too early. Did anyone think 2008 would be here this fast? I certainly didn't.

USA Today Kinda Covers the Space Race

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

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

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

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

Chandler Arizona and the TSR

It seems that a major city building a light rail line does funny things to a small city on the outskirts. It might just want to make you join the service district after decreeing long ago that they didn't want the taxes. But now they want the trains, so they'll start paying their dues. How novel. Phoenix is in the space race, and now in order to plan for more expansions they need more partners. But this is what its like around the country. Major city builds rail, the surrounding areas yell gimme gimme. I'm not saying its bad, but it does point out that those anti-railistas that lurk in cities without rail yet are fighting a losing battle. City after city are catching clues and it won't be long until holdouts like Cincinnati stop trading the creative class and jobs for the right to only drive cars.

UPDATE: Not a few hours after I go to bed an article was released on how Phoenix planners decide they are going to ask for $1.7 billion dollars worth of Light Rail extensions to the original plan! Welcome to the Space Race.

The Salt Lake City Experience

Today's article in The Arizona Republic lauds Salt Lake City for its rail system and compares differences between the two systems and regions. While SLC is a very conservative place, some of the folks who thought that roads were going to do the trick were converts to rail on the first day. This is telling of what the rail can really do for a cities knowledge base and perception of major investments. As the environmental movement picks up again i have a feeling we will see more investment in alternative transportation. Hopefully, folks in Phoenix will see similar benefits of their system on the first day.