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.

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.

Light Rail Kills Babies 2

That's what the opponents told the folks in Salt Lake City. They've come a long way since then and are probably doing the best job of just getting things built of anyone in the country.

But now the opponents are going with the next common denominator attack. If they build light rail, say they should have built BRT. If they built BRT they would be saying only use buses such as is happening in Oakland. This is at the time when UTA is actually building out a real transit network with all different transit modes including streetcars, light rail, BRT and bus networks.

"I don't think it's done any great favors to transit down here," said Salt Lake City resident Stephen Pace, who led the anti-rail group Utahns for Responsible Public Spending. He said UTA should have focused instead on buses that have the same right-of-way preference over cars as trains, but are more flexible and require a less massive investment.

This is the ugly side of the mode wars where people who fight it don't think ANY money should be spent on transit, even if they say in public we should. It's not a nod to smart planning ideas but rather what is cheaper. It shows because these attacks come amongst vigorous transit expansion in all modes. It's also interesting that opponents are starting to attack the conservative credibility of UTA's leaders. A lot of the anti-tax folks are coming out to argue against any spending via taxes.

Pace rails against the "so-called" elected officials who champion fiscally conservative values but are "just as deep in the federal trough as anybody else" to fund TRAX extensions into their communities.

It makes me wonder, what is fiscally conservative anyway in terms of development and infrastructure expansion? Is it doing nothing?

This is also happening in Tampa where anti-tax conservatives are starting to feel as if they were left behind by their elected officials who understand that infrastructure is better funded collectively. The polarizing effects of the national debates are starting to trickle down to pure ideologies.

How ironic that Republicans, one of whom I first supported over 20 years ago, and one who pledged never to impose new taxes when he came seeking my assistance in running his first campaign several years ago, would be the leading proponents of a new tax that could siphon as much as $300 million per year from the residents of Hillsborough County.

What's even better is that the author of the Tampa article also believes that people have a choice whether to spend money on gasoline or not, even when they construction of the communities they live in are based on the automobile alone.

Sharpe writes that the proposed tax increase of $85 per person is "... less than the three-week price rise in the cost of gasoline." Perhaps. But the option of paying for gas is ours and not an imposed burden by our government.

Funny that imposed burden.

Tuesday Night Notes

China is having the same issue with urban growth that we have with VMT. It seems as if they are growing so fast that it negates their sustainable development goals. This is just like driving in that we increase it so much that its likely to negate any fuel economy gains we make.
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Tampa is looking at a transit tax in 2020. By the time they implement it and build something, I'll be 50. When I think about all the things that happened between 1950 and 1970 I'm amazed that we can move with such sloth these days.
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Houston residents are getting ancy about their lack of euclidean zoning regulations. I kind of like the lack of definitions inside the loop. It's a nice experiment in what can happen, even though there really are parking and setback regulations.

Sports Stadiums Seeking Transit Stops

If the A's stadium is located near the Warm Springs station it will be much better than if it were in the wasteland 2 miles away. (I would prefer it be in downtown Oakland on the current Auto Row) I have never been to an A's game without taking BART and I can't imagine getting to the game any other way. The freeway is always jacked. But I think they might have been waiting for funding, and it seems to soon be assured.

On the other side of the country, the Tampa Rays are looking to locate near a rail station. This is in a place that hasn't even started the most serious movements toward rail lines. But its nice to see the team looking ahead.

Tampa's Endowment Experiment

The Tampa Streetcar has an endowment for it's operations that picks up part of the tab. It was created when the line started and has been dwindling ever since. But much of that is because stocks have tanked.

In 2007, the endowment accounted for about 40 percent of the streetcar's $2 million annual operating budget. That still left the endowment at about $3.3 million.

But in the past year, the fund plummeted to $1.4 million, partly due to its contribution to operating expenses, but mostly because the endowment was invested in securities that took a beating on Wall Street.

If this idea was brough forth in the early 90's this line would be operating a surplus from its endowment but given what has happened it's getting crushed by market conditions and perhaps overly aggresive investment. As property values have increased along the line, I'm surprised a more proactive approach at capturing them and putting them into the operations as well. At some point the city will have to take over, but no one should call this line a failure when they do. With 1,200 riders a day on limited operating times and over $1 billion in development along the line, it has shown what can be done with a lot of vacant line and a streetcar.

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.

Breaking Development in the Transit Space Race

Something big happened today. The Utah transit authority and the FTA signed an agreement that would allow the federal government to pay for 20% of Salt Lake Cities 5 line rail expansion. I'm not quite sure yet who got the better deal, but I think it was the Utah Transit Authority. According to the Deseret News:

UTA general manager John Inglish said the letter of intent, known as a memorandum of understanding, was an unprecedented agreement between a state agency and the Federal Transit Administration. Normally, transit agencies approach the federal government for funding on projects one-by-one, not as a package deal, he said.

Because the letter of intent applies to all five projects, Inglish said his agency will save what would have been years of waiting through a lengthy federal funding process.

So instead of going through the New Starts process while waiting for the FTA to reject their projects or cause cost inflation and change station locations to fit the ridership model which favors bus projects, they can actually plan to come in under budget and on time and with the projects the voters wanted. The memorandum of understanding states that UTA will fund two light rail lines and a commuter line on it's own while the FTA pays for 80% of two other light rail lines.

Ever since the New Starts program started, the federal share has been dwindling for fixed guideway projects. Starting out on the same footing as highways, federal funding began at 80% of the project cost but has since dwindled to 50% with a 10 year waiting period. While 20% overall might be a little low, the signing of the document today by the UTA has opened up options for cities that want to get into the transit space race. Cities that have been able to raise local money yet have a master plan to build a transit system. This fits into one of the reasons why I started this blog, which is to document the transit space race.

This might be a good model for cities that are just now looking to build light rail networks or who might want to get back into the hunt. Now it should be said that in keeping up with Denver and Portland, Salt Lake City had a referendum to raise their sales tax to fund their rail extensions. I know there have been a few thoughts that this might be happening but UTA was traveling under the radar until this announcement. Other cities might take notice and see this as an opportunity to make a deal with the FTA. Minneapolis is looking to build 3 more LRT lines, Tampa just announced a new rail plan and Birmingham is starting to think about it.

Houston tried to do this a few years ago but the idea got blocked by former Rep Tom Delay and John Culbertson. They asked that the FTA fund the first two rail lines while they built the next two locally. They were asking for 50% of the total and before that they were trying to use the main street line as a match. Because they couldn't get it through though, they had to downgrade some lines to BRT.

As I said before, this is a pretty big deal. It might signal a big change in how transit expansion is going to get funded. Hopefully it moves back up from 20% and perhaps the death of the process that has caused so many problems by taking quick decision making away from local jurisdictions.

Tampa Not So Fast in Space Race

David Pinero over at Tampa Rail mentions the second coming of a Tampa rail plan. It's ambitious and according to the St. Petersburg Times, a vote on a half cent sales tax might come in 2010. 2010 however is three years away, which could be long or short depending on the outcome. Personally I don't think its fast enough. They need to plan it up and strike fast and hard. Unfortunately during that time period, they are still going to be building more roads and congestion is going to get much worse. They might have rail by 2020 at this rate.

- A primary rail line with four main stations: downtown St. Petersburg, the Gateway-Toytown area, West Shore district and downtown Tampa. It would cross the bay on a new structure between the Howard Frankland's two spans. The current bridge was designed with that in mind, although it would be expensive.

- Radiating out from that primary "spine," you'd have "ribs" - railways and express buses to the beaches, Clearwater and the University of South Florida, eventually reaching as far as Brooksville, Lakeland and Sarasota.

- Ferries traveling between downtown St. Petersburg, Tampa, Bradenton and possibly Apollo Beach.

Train, boat and bus fares would cover only a fraction of the costs. Local transit officials think the most realistic way to start paying for these things is to follow the lead of numerous other cities, including Miami and Jacksonville: Ask voters for a half-cent sales tax.

By that time, the initial space race will be over. Denver, Salt Lake City, and Dallas will each have over 100 miles of rail lines and Tampa will have a small starter line. As my old track coach Bubba used to say, Pick It Up!

When Is a Streetcar a Streetcar?

It's a good question. Streetcars are a subset of light rail and can have a number of characteristics of larger light rail. They can be grade separated such as they are in Tampa, they cost less to construct because they are lighter and don't need as deep of excavation, and yet some light rail such as in Portland or Dallas run in the street. In designing these systems, perhaps we should start looking at designing for streetcars instead of semi-metro LRT. Rapid Streetcar anyone? We don't need the heaviest vehicles if we can couple lighter ones do we? Can't we have diamond lanes? or perhaps a streetcar toll lane. If you want to drive on the lane, you're gonna have to pay a price, and that could possibly pay for the line. Of course the price would have to be high to allow cars and streetcars to run with optimal efficiency. Hmmm...

Tampa Close to Space Race Entrance

The mayor has pledged her second term to transit. Let's hope it doesn't turn into BRT. More from David Pinero.