Football Stadiums

Ok. I get it. They want more money. Stadiums such as football that get used 8 times a year are pretty much worthless in urbanism. But don't pretend that the Sprinter line is going to help bring lots of people to Chargers games. There's just not the capacity of the San Diego Trolley, which carry thousands of people to Chargers/Padres games. The Sprinter just doesn't have that capacity, mostly due to lack of train cars.

Chargers officials have said the site in Escondido is especially attractive because it's close to the Sprinter light rail line and freeways that provide easy access to San Diego, coastal North County and Riverside County.

Is it just me, or are all football stadium planners just transportation illiterate? Maybe it doesn't really matter 8 days a year.

Colleges Are Good Destinations

If you want ridership and transit trips increased, connect to colleges and Universities. Because of their centrality and concentration of students and jobs, it's a win win for both the city in which the University resides and the University itself. Urban campuses can save money by building space for students instead of the car and bringing students to a central place by transit can very seriously reduce all day trips that increase congestion. College campuses have people coming and going at all times of the day and are not a simple commute pattern, making congestion in the area worse.

Gotta Have More Trolley

Another short film from the start of the week. This one is from the Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego across from the convention center.

In San Diego...

Whew...sorry I was gone so long....what did I miss? I was in Houston for a little while and now I'm in San Diego for the ESRI International Users Conference. Learning some interesting things about the future of Geographic Information Systems and what we can expect in the future, like real time data updates from mobile phones. Cool stuff.

So after things wrapped up I went and took a few pictures. You know me...

So the next two pictures are from Barrio Logan in San Diego. A case study was done of the Affordable Housing near the station in the New Transit Town. I was a bit underwhelmed but understand that it was a step in the right direction. It's a not so great part of town that could really use some infrastructure boost and movement on what has already been accomplished. As of now it seems a bit stalled and not much attention has been paid to details outside the station area.



Here is downtown from the convention center.


And here is the end of the Orange Line where two cars were coupling into a three car train for the evening rush hour.

Sprinter Line Opens for Press

The Escondido-Oceanside rail line did a test run for the press this weekend. 15 stops and 22 miles of DMU operation will hopefully be coming January 15th to connect communities between Oceanside and Escondido with San Diego by way of the Coaster Commuter Rail.

News Coverage of the event...

LA Times
AP
San Diego Union Tribune

Train Splits

Nick over at 295bus asks, why can't we split trains? Well it seems as if the Sprinter in Oceanside will do it. I've heard a lot of people marvel at how trains split to go in different directions once they get to a certain station, mostly in Europe, but often wondered why we couldn't do that here.

Ridership Levels High in St. Louis, San Diego

From Adron at Transit Sleuth, Metrolink ridership in St. Louis hit an all time high. From the transit agency newswire:

“The new extension is certainly the reason why ridership is rising to these levels,” said Todd Plesko, Metro’s Director of Planning and System Development. “While we knew ridership would increase because of the additional eight miles and nine new stations that now offer more choices, no one really expected it to climb this high this fast.” Early predictions for the Cross County MetroLink Extension forecasted an average of 18,900 additional daily riders by the year 2025. However last month, after only eleven months of operation, MetroLink ridership totaled more than 88,000 boardings per average weekday, an increase of more than 27,000 additional daily riders—much higher than predicted.

Not to be outdone, San Diego rocked this months ridership as well. Average weekday boardings for July were just under 120,000 per day. This was likely helped by the huge Comic-Con convention and 4th of July celebrations.

California High Speed Rail

Anyone Want to See an HSR Video? I can't wait to take it to see my sister in Bakersfield more often! Hat tip to Orphan Road.

Transit Networks & Highwaymen

It seems these days that the folks from the Road cult are squealing pretty loud. I think they are afraid that they will be swept away by the transit space race. While that more than likely will never happen in my lifetime, one has to wonder what they are so worried about. They have after all most of the money for transportation going to roads. It seems to me like a little kid who just can't share his cookies. It's funny too when they cite choices, you can choose a car, or a car. It's your choice. Right?

Wrong.

The fundamental problem with this is that it's exactly what has caused congestion in the first place, letting everyone believe that they are free to have a piece of road at any time without any congestion. In fact some wish that it was in the constitution. Well where is the logic in that? If we look at nature and floods we see what happens when too much water wants to be all in one place. And so it should come as no surprise if everyone took geology or physical geography some time in high school that this would happen. Yet we keep building one mode of transportation. It's kind of like putting concrete at the bottom of a river to channel it. None of it seeps in to the ground just like cars magically get through traffic. And it seems to me that building all of these transitways for buses just encourages more cars. They might have 2 more people in the but its still a car. It's still VMT and pollution and sprawl.

But if you give people a choice they will take it. But it can't be a half cocked choice. Buses in freeway medians in Houston have shown that they only attract so many riders. I have a theory that it's because they travel in the middle of a freeway. Transit is a pedestrian oriented mode. Freeways are not pedestrian oriented. This is another reason why Houston's 5 transit ways garner about 43,000 riders a day while Portland's Max and Streetcar with 5 lines is over 100,000. Per day. It's why the San Diego Trolley is over 100,000 per day. Network and pedestrian orientation are what drives transit, and more freeways amplifies the inhumanities of single occupancy vehicles. 100,000 people in cars is no small amount of extra concrete for roads and parking spaces.

No one was meant to be that selfish every day of their lives. Yes you can be selfish sometimes. I know I am. I drive to my Gramma's house. She lives in the suburbs where the bus stops running at 3:30pm. It's 3 miles from the BART station and while sometimes I walk, some days i just don't have the extra 2 hours to spare (BART is lame in that they won't let bikes on rush hour trains). But everywhere else I walk or take transit whether it's a bus or a train. Tonight I went to concert by taking the J Church to the 45 Union Bus. Powered by alternative energy from Hydro, $1.50, no parking, no hassle. It's the power of networks and human scale quality transit which it seems some of the highway and HOV people miss.

I saw someone somewhere say that the Blue Line in Chicago which has 12 trains per hour could be replaced with an hov lane and 100 buses per hour and this would be revolutionary. I'm not sure what that person was smoking, but it must be bad stuff.