And They're Back in the Game

Mr. Setty and Demery have put the PublicTransit.us site back up. Finally we can get our hands on all of those passenger density reports they've done. Check it out as its a good amount of material to take in.

The Limited Vision Line

Some folks in LA want the 720 Rapid bus line in LA to be dedicated to democrat Henry Waxman. In fact, the City Beat Sniper wants to call the 720 the Henry Waxman Limited Vision Line. The congressman representing places such as Hollywood and Malibu, banned tunneling using federal funding after a methane explosion in 1985 during construction of the first subway segments. Looking back, it was particularly short sighted to take off the table the best way to reduce congestion on the busiest corridor in Los Angeles. And as LAist points out, it would also have allowed LA to focus on other bottle necks now, instead of 20 years later. While I applaud Waxman for the repeal of the digging ban, the short sightedness from the past will come back to haunt riders on the 720 and the rest of the city. I imagine he's figured it out, but its a lesson for other elected officials and cities (yeah you Charlotte) who might be looking back 20 years from now wondering 'what if?'

Environmental Elitists

John at RT Rider discusses the behavior of the faux enviros in the California Statehouse this last session.

Hillary for TOD?

Apparently Hillary Clinton has an infrastructure program and has pledged to raise the federal state for local and intercity rail by $2.5 billion. She also mentions the nexus between land use and transit and doesn't mention TOD by name but perhaps thats what she's thinking. I wonder though if she or her staff even know about the policy behind this or if someone told them it was a good idea. In any event i'm glad she's mentioning it. Hopefully some of the other candidates will follow suit. From her website:

Public Transit

Increase federal funding for public transit by $1.5 billion per year. Increased public transit usage is arguably the best strategy for ameliorating the energy and environmental costs of transportation. As energy costs rise, more people will rely on public transportation. Today, only 5% of Americans commute by public transit, but doubling that figure could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 25%. Public transit is also critically important to people who live in urban areas and rely on buses and trains for travel to work and school. Moreover, as the population ages, an increasing number of people will need public transit as their ability to drive diminishes. Hillary will increase federal investment in public transit by $1.5 billion per year to ensure needed capacity expansions and service level improvements.

Link federal public transit funds to local land use policies that encourage residential developments that maximize public transit usage. Over the next 25 years, a large percentage of the buildings we live, work, and shop in will be rebuilt or newly built. This presents a significant opportunity for the federal government to encourage sensible residential and commercial development that are linked to, and encourage, public transit usage. Local areas seeking large federal investments in public transit are already required to have land-use plans and policies that make investing in a high-density transit system worthwhile. Today, these requirements are focused mainly on commercial developments and not enough on residential considerations. Hillary will encourage the sort of dense residential concentrations needed to support public transit systems by better linking public transit funding with residential land-use policies. This will help to discourage sprawl and fight congestion.

Intercity Passenger Rail

Invest an additional $1 billion in intercity passenger rail systems. In the 21st Century, intercity passenger rail should be a viewed as a critical component of the nation’s transportation system. It is an environmentally efficient alternative to highway driving and short flights; it relieves congestion on roads and airports; reduces the emission of automotive pollutants; and it stimulates economic growth by linking metropolitan areas. States have been left to pursue intercity rail projects with only modest federal support. Hillary believes that greater federal involvement is needed to maximize the potential of this transportation mode. She will increase federal investment in intercity passenger rail by $1 billion over 5 years in order to help finance capital projects. These investments are in addition to those made in Amtrak.

Scapegoat the Train

UPDATE: IT WAS RANDALL O'TOOL that was cited as an engineering expert! The Austin American Statesman printed the article without his name!!! Also, there was no mention of Capital Metro in the national article. Did someone at the Statesman edit the article before printing it? And were they knowingly leaving out RandalL's name when printing an abbreviated article?

An article in the Statesman via New York Times took some potshots at rail transit today. In fact it seems they were a planned hit, something from a Soprano's episode rather than looking at the facts. In this country we are sprawling into oblivion. Many of the developments on the periphery require new roads and addressing the congestion by expanding the roads is like loosening ones belt to lose weight. But if legislators give people a break by building a rail line, its seen as a waste when money could have gone to more roads? I'm sure thats where these phantom expert engineers want it to go.

Give me a break people. Billions upon billions of dollars go into the road system every year, 80% of which is paid for by the federal government for new roads, yet this reporter decides to take a pot-shot at real transit options including I'm assuming the Hiawatha Line. Well what other line carries people as such a lower cost per passenger mile? Not the automobile and roads. If you look at the cost of a freeway and the cost of the automobile the Hiawatha Line will win hands down, so why didn't they do an honest cost comparison? Because they were looking for a political scape goat.

This makes me so sick. I'm sick of all these half baked lies on the part of people who don't like transit. What is so wrong about not sprawling and giving people an alternative to the car? 32,000 people per day take that line. That is reducing GHGs and allowing people to save money. Possibly to the tune of $10,000 a year are saved per person if they get rid of their car. Building more roads instead of repairing them is your own problem. Don't blame it on expansion of capacity that could only come with a transit line instead of ripping down people's homes along the route just as they have done on I-10 in Houston. If you want a scapegoat, blame fellow citizens and government for allowing sprawl that doesn't pay for itself but requires more and more subsidy and road repair every year.

We're choking on our roads and transit is the lifeblood that regions need to live again. Road repairs are important, but don't give me that crap that transit is taking away from roads when there is a whole gas tax dedicated to fixing them. When the McArthur Maze fell down what came to the rescue? BART! In Minnesota, the Central Corridor would have looked really good right now if it were complete, but road monkeys have been sitting on transit expansion for decades. No one will ride it right? Hell yes they ride! Right now regions are choking on their own fat, the fat that is cars, highways, and a way of life based on wars for oil. It's time we got the facts instead of someone's factually incorrect opinion.

Transit Trading Cards

I've been asked a lot and have been thinking a lot about what makes transit cool or not cool. A lot of it has to do with image but a lot of it I think is generational and can be changed over time. As I was walking home from BART today I noticed a the 48 Muni passing me up the hill. It was one of the new hybrid electrics like the one below.



Then I got to thinking, what are the statistics for that bus? What kind of grades can it operate on? How much power is produced by the motor? Then I immediately shot back to when I was a little kid trading Ken Griffey Jr. and Craig Biggio baseball cards. I knew everyone's stats and had them memorized. I also had micro machines and my friends and I liked collecting them. My favorite was the Star Wars A-Wing fighter. I can still tell you that it can go 120 MGLT, faster than any fighter ship in the Star Wars galaxy (At the time of my last guidebook, it might have changed).



But why can't we have transit vehicles portrayed in the same way with stats and figures? Why can't we take a wikipedia entry and make micromachines out of the Siemens Combino or the S70 vehicles (which do not have a wikipedia entry)? There could be old time streetcars as well with Birney Safety Cars in a set with PCCs. Add in some historic buses. The point is that you can give younger folks, and even folks my age a reason to get excited when they see transit. Kids would know all of the streetcar types and would get excited when they saw them in cities. It would also make the city seem more interesting to kids who might never have been exposed to it living in the burbs.

The only reason I know about rapid transit is because my dad and I used to ride BART to the auto show at the Moscone Center during Christmas holiday on our visits to my grandparents house. Pop culture feeds kids cars in the form of hotwheels, power wheels and micro machines, if we want to change views of transit, we have to look at how they get into our sub conscience so early. Perhaps trading cards, perhaps hasbro?

Rail on Daily Kos

Over at Daily Kos Daneel aka DoDo over at The Oil Drum Europe is doing a series on rail.

Part 1. Local Rail
Part 2. Rapid Transit

It's an interesting series and spawned a lot of discussion when some bus oriented folks tried to spread talking points from some libertarian think tanks including the Cascade Policy Institute. My favorites included the use of Portland's stat sheet to point out that buses were better than rail in operating hours and also someone arguing on behalf of the Bus Riders Union talking points. One person went so far as to say that each LRV costs $12 million which is ridiculous.

In any event i'm going to re-post some excerpts of my comments below...

...More stats from that ridership chart (Portland, 2004) that matter... Lets look at subsidy per rider, .62 cents for rail to $1.20 for bus, the cost per passenger mile (because we are comparing two different service types) .68 cents for bus versus .29 cents per passenger mile for rail and Max carries 41% of the passenger miles!...

...his argument really revolved around the thought that you could replace a whole system with buses, but then you look at how much they cost per passenger mile and staffing those some 6,000 buses would have broken the operating bank...

...So lets look at the cost of buses versus trains in real costs...just vehicles. In 2007 your transit authority buys two LRVs for six million. It carries 464 passengers per two car consist with one driver. 60 foot articulated buses (nothing longer is legal in the US nor should it be if it is on the same streets as cars) carry 90 passengers max. So to carry the load of the LRT you need about 5 buses. Those 5 buses cost about a million each, each need a driver and have to be replaced in 12 years which means in 24 years you have spent 6 million on two LRVs and 10 million on 10 buses not to mention inflation for the 12 year bus replacement. Then, you have the costs of paving the roads, which in the case of the Orange Line in LA are already messed up (photo proof) But no one ever adds those costs in. Nor do they mention that rail attracts 34-43% more riders...

...Let's also look at energy usage...The Department of Energy Oakridge Lab puts out data every year. The most recent shows rail on top again. 4,318 BTU per passenger mile for bus versus an average of 2,978 BTU per passenger mile of any rail (Amtrak, Rapid Transit and Commuter Rail)...

And so on and so forth. Go ahead and check out Kos. If you aren't a diarist over there you might want to sign up so you can take part in the discussions. However it takes a week I believe before you can post because they don't want folks to just make up names and jump on.

The Rapid Streetcar

In light of recent high costs related to light rail and advancements in construction, a new option for building rapid transit networks are available for cities worried about costs. The Rapid Streetcar concept is gaining popularity and cities around the country are looking into ways to build starter light rail lines. But what is the rapid streetcar?

Streetcars are cheaper because of their lower infrastructure requirements. Often there is no need to relocat utilities, right of way does not need to be purchased and the stops are smaller and the vehicles more pedestrian oriented. Streetcar stops are also closely spaced if the goal is to be a circulator or short line transport mode. However if a longer distance transit mode that mimics light rail is what you're looking for, but your city is on a budget, the rapid streetcar might be your choice.

Many cities have taken up the mantle of the rapid bus to be their cost effective alternative to light rail, but only do this based on cost, not because its what the citizenry wants. Recent Rapid Bus movements in Oakland, San Francisco, and Charlotte have shown that people really want light rail on a budget but haven't been able to engineer their systems to reduce costs and are therefore left with an inferior transit mode for their stated goals.

But by using streetcars in center lanes with single tracking and passing sidings at stations you can get the same performance as light rail on 10 minute headways. Streetcars aren't single vehicles either. Skoda streetcars have couplers on them as well that would make them multiple car consists. The lighter vehicles are about 66 feet long as opposed to 90 foot LRVs yet you can still get increased passenger capacity and lower infrastructure needs. You can see in the picture below from Skoda.

This fascinating development in value engineering is nothing new and has been rarely used in the United States if at all. A recent extension of the Portland Streetcar to Lake Oswego might be its first test. Literature on the subject has been presented at TRB by Lyndon Henry and has been extensively covered by Light Rail Now! Recent publications including Raise the Hammer in Canada as well as the folks in Kansas City have been looking to this option. This technology and engineering arrangement is a smart way for cities to get rapid transit and build the system they want and can afford, not the system they settle for.

Sprawlista Argues for...Well...Sprawl

The LATimes has had a dust up session much like one they held a few months ago over transit and smart growth. Basically they pit sprawl loving auto junkies versus transit or growth experts. It's a good read with lots of interesting points. I think the best part about it is that it allows us to hone our arguments against the knuckle draggers out there who just don't get it. I'm not a fan of Robert Bruegman, mostly because he distorts facts to get the desired outcome, but more so because his arguments sound like they are coming from a 1950's highway engineer who doesn't have to worry about VMT, Energy issues, or quality of life. I mean basically he's throwing all of today's issues. When you read these, keep in mind that he doesn't address any serious issues of the day. He skirts them.

Day 1. Density is LA's Undoing... Seriously...thats what Rob says. In fact he even makes the old basketball trash talk, you can't stop me, you can only hope to contain me.

Day 2. A Greener American Dream... let us hope this is what happens. Although Rob B. Makes a fool of himself when he argues that basically we should just let inertia take us where it will.

Day 3. Mass Transit... Rob argues for PRT while Gloria Ohland argues for housing choices. I'm glad she reframed the issue on him. The transit doesn't work because it doesn't address sprawl attitude is getting tired. If there were better, cheaper technologies out there, then wouldn't we be using them now? I mean just today we pushed the gas standards up to 35 mpg by 2020. While incredibly weak, we're been letting the auto industry get away with murder by babying them. Toyota isn't going under. I want moving sidewalks and those speed tubes from Futurama, but they aren't coming as long as the auto and concrete lobbies are in Washington. And right now the most efficient way to move people on a per passenger mile basis, and most fuel efficient is rail.

Day 4. It's Coming Soon...

I would do more commentary but really i'm just annoyed that people think like this. And really, if you don't know that sprawl is bad by now, then you might never get it. Is anyone else tired of the inertia and the same old arguments about the free market. Well if the free market worked the way the libertarians wanted it to, we would have transit and we wouldn't have ridiculous sprawling suburbs. If anyone gets a chance, they should check out Jonathan Levine's book, Zoned Out. It puts all that junk to rest, at least in my mind.

Ben Wear Can't Have It Both Ways

Ben Wear has no right to complain about gas prices when he continually harps on Capital Metro and promotes bigger toll roads. Given the state of the world, gas prices are only going to get higher. Something needs to be done about transportation and urban form in Austin if folks there are really going to address this issue. However constant Nimbyism by groups like ANC and rampant misinformation about the benefits of transit from road warriors like Wear's friend Jim Skaggs keep Austin in transportation limbo.

Its hard for me to take his 'poor me' shtick seriously when he rails against alternatives to his plight. In fact, it makes me wonder if he actually knows what the heck he is talking about. If not rail or transit, then how is he going to reduce the cost of transportation. Is it more wars? It certainly isn't with toll roads or hybrid technology. A recent publication by the Brookings Institute and the Center for Transit Oriented Development states that families who live in transit rich neighborhoods pay less than 10% of their incomes on transportation. This doesn't mean they stop driving, it just means they are less dependent on the car for every life movement. In sprawling areas, this cost escalates to 25%. For a family making $35,000 that is over $5000 back in their pockets each year. That's a real tax break for working families that could be created by investments in transportation alternatives. His Prius solution is only a savings of $1560, but that could be negated if toll roads continue to proliferate. Also not included is the cost of auto ownership in general.

So if Austin is going to have an honest discussion about issues facing the region including affordability, then there needs to be more information and action on alternatives to the automobile. Complaining about gas prices just doesn't tear at my heartstrings anymore, because Mr. Wear like many others, have dug their own hole.

National Transit Planning

Seems like Canadian Mayors are taking matters into their own hands. If only Transit Agencies and Mayors in the United States were so proactive, maybe we would have a national plan by now.

Two Coasts and No Car

Today was the most amazing day of transit and flight ever. Here is a review, wake up at 4:30 am ET and walk to Suburban station in Philadelphia. Take the R1 commuter train (electric of course) to the Airport. I hop on an airplane and fly to Atlanta then San Francisco. Since I wanted to be back in time for my friend's graduation, i needed to be in Berkeley by 2:00 and my plane was to land at 12. In between, i needed to go home and drop my stuff, eat, and get to the other side of the bay. So I had to choose between my car and BART. I chose BART. I rode BART to 24th and mission and walked the half mile to my place. After taking a shower I ran out the door and back to the BART station. As I got to the station the Dublin-Pleasanton train was pulling in. I took it to the Lake Merrit station and transferred to the Richmond train that came 3 minutes later. I got to Berkeley at 1:45 and got to the Greek Theater at the top of the hill for the graduation 5 minutes before 2pm and about 12 hours after I woke up. What is most amazing about this is that i didn't need a car. Because of the amazing mobility options in the city in which i live and which i visited. If we are to become a country that is mobile, there need to be transportation systems that even on a Sunday schedule will allow us to get where we want to go. In order to get there in most places things need to change. Obviously.

Building a Transit System

A lot has been said about different transit modes over the years but I'd like to offer some commentary on some advocates including sometimes myself. While we want to believe that there is a silver bullet for congestion out there but there isn't. What is needed is a system. A system where people can choose to take another mode instead of driving everyday everywhere. While some freeway opponents want to believe we can just expand our freeways, that is not possible. The reason being is that your never going to relieve congestion that way. However much room there is on the freeway, it will always fill up. Always. But if we have a transit SYSTEM, people can avoid that. Is it really so hard to understand?

Here is a quote that relates from Molly Ivins, who recently passed away....

"It's hard to argue against cynics -- they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side."

Kay Railey Hutchison?

Kay Bailey Hutchison has this to say about transit in Texas. She's a supporter but how much? Enough to tell Culbertson to shove it? I guess we should ask her.

It's a New Year, The Right Time for a Transit Revolution

Welcome to 2007! It's gone by fast but this last 10 years has been very productive in terms of what has happened in the world of transit and its only going to get better. First we have as always mentioned the Transit Space Race. But inside of the TSR which is mainly Rapid Transit, we also have a transit revolution that includes the stalwart workhorse from a century ago, Streetcars.

As move on into 2007 we'll see more and more news about these pedestrian accelerators. Even today on January 1st we have articles from Minnesota and Ohio discussing what Mayors in Minneapolis and Columbus would like to build into their legacies. They are even thinking of innovative ways to finance them rather than through the FTA. Many other cities are thinking about this as well and perhaps (shameless plug approaching) this book will help move the revolution. It will be an exciting year never the less.

Update from a few days ago: Tampa News Says that Folks There Want in the Space Race. - Hat Tip Tampa Rail Blog