The Option of Urbanism: Subsidizing the Rich

Here is another view of it from the Option of Urbanism. We've been taking quotes for the last week from the book.

According to Myron Orfield's Metropolitics, the affluent outer-ring suburbs in the favored quarter "dominate regional economic growth and garner a disproportionate share of the region's new roads and other development infrastructure." Orfield also pointed out that much of the funding for this infrastructure is raised from the region as a whole. For example, all car-driving residents in the region pay gas taxes to partially support the building of highways, and taxpayers of the region as a whole pay the rest of the money through their income, property, and sales taxes.

So this happens for roads, but people yell and scream bloody murder when they are taxed for transit and "it doesn't help me directly". The worst part about this as well is that cities are slowly signing on to their own declines.

The unlikely consequence of this pattern of infrastructure development is that the whole region pays for infrastructure that tends to be placed in the favored quarter; the poor pay for the infrastructure of the rich. According to Orfield, the central cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, for example, pay $6 million a year to help move their middle class households and businesses to the edge of the region.

Part of the problem is the regional competition for jobs. Minneapolis has a tax base sharing program that might alleviate this a little, but most regions are not so lucky. And there is still exporting going on to places like Bloomington and Eden Prairie.

M1ek has discussed this before and James Rowen covered a similar issue for Milwaukee in talking about how much they give to the regional planning commission, and how little they get out of it. Perhaps this is something that needs to be put in mayor's and city council members faces. DC, for all its flaws has the right idea of trying to take care of its citizens instead of the folks who take advantage of their services during the day, but drive back out at night.

What's Going On Out There

In case you missed it:

The Washington Post has an interesting article on the affects of gas prices on housing. Great graphic as well.

Federal spending is about 4 to 1 in favor of highways over transit. Today, more than 99 percent of the trips taken by U.S. residents are in cars or some other non-transit vehicle, largely as a result of decades of such unbalanced spending.

I do wonder how long Alan Pisarski will keep drinking his own cool aid. He mentions that the trend of driving will continue and that jobs will keep pushing towards the periphery. Technology will save us!

Pisarski and others say technological advances, telecommuting, flexible scheduling, carpooling and stringing errands together can reduce vehicle use. After all, most vehicle trips and miles are compiled not on commutes to work but on other trips.

Not only will this continuation of sprawl exacerbate the problem, his reasoning of shorter trips proves the need for more walkable communities. He also derides apartments in a complete misunderstanding of demographic trends and market preferences as well as a bit of snobbery.

In other news, the New Republic has an article about demographic inversion about people moving back into cities.

Chicago is gradually coming to resemble a traditional European city--Vienna or Paris in the nineteenth century, or, for that matter, Paris today. The poor and the newcomers are living on the outskirts.

Mary Peters Is After Me Lucky Charms

As we've mentioned before, she wants to take transit money and transfer it to the highway fund. Last time I checked, the highway fund was really huge, and the transit fund was rather small. And also last time I checked, why do we have such a huge surplus? Is that from not building projects like Dulles or making places like Minneapolis fight each other to the death because their CEI is a few cents high? Perhaps it has been an evil plot to take the money all along. You know it wouldn't surprise me with this group.

If You Live in DC...

tell Mayor Fenty how you feel about hiring a progressive new transportation director, hopefully someone who doesn't look at level of service like its gods will. Check out Greater Greater Washington for more info and a tool for sending the Mayor your thoughts.

Enlistment Bonus Goes to the Car

So many times I've heard that people are excited to get enlistment bonuses so that they can get a new car. And now I know the reason why, because army bases are notoriously inaccessible by transit. More from Imagine DC.

Having served four years in the United States Army, I can assure all of you that I find most military bases damn near impossible to get to and get around without a car. Absolutely horrible. Why do think so many bases are surrounded by car dealerships? Every soldier needs a car. And every base at which I've been stationed, sergeants and petty officers warn their troops about getting ripped off by said car salesmen. I was once in a battalion where I was required to attend a briefing specific to this matter!

Country Club Disguise

So some Country Club members are against the purple line, so they decide to set up a "grass roots" movement. Why couldn't they just oppose it on their own? What are they afraid of? I'm guessing being seen as a bunch of country club folks against a transit line. isn't as good as a grass roots movement. It might look like they are thumbing their nose at commonfolk. Kind of like this guy.

Tyson's Corner, Cars

An interesting article on Tyson's Corner from the Washington Post which is in the middle of a fight for a Metro extension. I don't know much about the area, but this article makes Mary Peters and Jim Simpson look ridiculous for trying to kill Metro. It doesn't say anything about it in the article, but this quote tells me a lot.

Tysons' dependence on the automobile, and a place to park it, is dramatic when compared with other areas. With about 120,000 jobs, Tysons features nearly half again as many parking spots in structures, underground and in surface lots. That's more parking, 40 million square feet, than office space, 28 million square feet. Tysons boasts more spaces, 167,000, than downtown Washington, 50,000, which has more than twice as many jobs.

More spaces than jobs? Who pays for all of those? And doesn't that number tell you something about the benefit of good transit? Yup.

Been Thinking About Transit Density Part 1

Richard has been pushing Belmont for a while now so tonight I broke down and bought the book.

Some thoughts before I read it though based on what I've read in Richard's posts and my own evolution in thinking.

I had a bit of a thought today that should have come together sooner but I was looking over Google Earth at a way to connect commuter rail/HSR directly to downtown San Jose instead of the current just outside of downtown location of Diridon station. It seems to me that what is needed in each city around the bay is a local metro that moves people quickly around the central city. Each of these metros can be connected by commuter rail lines like Caltrain along commuter corridors but the most beneficial systems will be those that serve future density, not just existing transit.

I started writing this post before going to Washington with the hope that on the plane I could make some maps. The good part is that the trip reaffirmed what I wanted to back up. That an in town metro is important to vibrancy and movement in a city. Serving the suburbs should be done, but the way we are going to make our transit systems work is with good circulation in the center to build up core density. If we could see where Washington DC was before Metro and where it is now, you would see a huge difference in the city. If the current naysayers were around then to kill projects, that project would have never been built, and the city would look very different.

But other cities should look to the future in the same way. The future benefits outweigh current costs and with more people preferring to live a city life, its got an increased benefit of soaking up growth that would usually cause gross distortions in where people live and work. This is the option of urbanism like Chris Leinberger says.

So we'll start at Oakland. Previously I made a fantasy map for an Oakland Metro that you see directly below.



This was based on getting people in and out of a city, and not really a core urban strategy. I realize that now, but when you compare it some of the Subway systems that work really well it doesn't really look quite right.

Vienna's Metro looks different. There are a number of lines that criss cross a number of ways. The same with the Washington Metro.



With that being said, here's a more core system. I've come up with these for San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose as the major regional centers but am thinking about doing other cities as well. The Space Race focuses so much on suburban serving transit that the core again is left out. But perhaps this is the way we should rethink it. We'll start with Oakland.



Now all of these maps will be at the same scale for the Bay Area. The circles are about 5 miles across and show a primary core that could densify in corridors and the core soaking up a lot of housing need and with less energy usage from density, walkable neighborhoods, and easier access to close districts.

Now I'm not sure that this necessarily needs to be a Metro Subway. It could be a dedicated lane streetcar or light rail. However a subway can go from end to end without having to stop at a light and stay on schedule with faster speeds. This facilitates use. But it might work in a smaller city with a smaller sphere than the five miles for core circulation. We should think about these implications and ask, what will get us the most riders and most future benefit instead of just thinking about cost and as I've mentioned before just bringing people into the center of the city.

DC Photo Dump

I just couldn't wait to share my favorite pictures from the trip. I even got a movie of the Metro.

1. Pop Quiz: Fancy Restaurant or Airplane food?




Airplane food! So my original flight to DC was full by one too many people and they were looking for folks who might not mind a bump. I wasn't in a hurry and they noticed I was by myself so the desk agent asked if I wouldn't mind taking the red eye. Before I said anything he said, "I'll put you in first class and give you a voucher for another trip" I said sure!

Lucky I did too because my friend Teresa who I was staying with got stuck in Chicago that night and didn't make it home. So it was a win all around, especially when dinner came on the flight. I highly recommend Virgin America. Even without first class, there are power plugs in every seat and its already wired for internet when they work out the details. But that power plug is huge, especially since my battery is fairly drained from constant usage.

Anyway, who knew they used silverware anymore, and the ravioli was excellent.

2. Did Spain win Euro 2008? That's what the people at the Dupont Circle Fountain were celebrating:





3. The war memorials are very hard to visit. It's really sad and people sitting in front of the names of their loved ones at the Vietnam Memorial sobbing doesn't help matters either. It's a must see. I got a shot of the Washington Monument reflected in the Granite of the Vietnam Memorial.



4. I got in about 5:45 Am from the flight and just decided that I might as well walk the Mall. It was a very interesting morning. Got this shot of the clouds blocking the sun with a silhouette of the Washington Monument.



5. It was also touching to see the young ones getting into history. Here a dad and his two kids have a seat to read the Gettysburg Address at the Lincoln Memorial.





6. And a transit blogger's trip is not complete without photos of the Metro. I of course hopefully did one better by getting this short movie of a train arriving.

Sunday Evening Roundup

Whew, it was nice to get away from the computer for a bit. I'll have a post about it soon. But for now, I went through the good ole Google Reader and found some particularly interesting stories from the last few days:

Salt Lake City has signed an agreement to build the "North Temple" or Airport rail line. They are starting to make good on their promise of 70 miles in 7 years.

Becker said the rail line is being viewed as a "demonstration project" for responsible energy use and sustainable development. The mayor also announced plans to recreate North Temple as a "grand boulevard," a makeover that will feature four lanes with the TRAX line running down the center, a "refinished" viaduct, the addition of two bicycle lanes in each direction and new landscaping features.

Bruce Katz from Brookings hits the nail on the head when it comes to the election and policy from Washington as it pertains to infrastructure investment. This from the Christian Science Monitor:

Ultimately, its goal is to revolutionize the way the US views its metropolises. "If you're going to get serious about the economy, then you've got to get specific about how you're going to leverage metropolitan economies," says Bruce Katz, director of the metropolitan policy program at Brookings.

Even though America's 100 largest cities generate two-thirds of US jobs and three-quarters of domestic economic output, much of the policy coming from Washington – and from the presidential candidates – is still rooted in a Jeffersonian ideal of hamlets and small towns, Mr. Katz says.

Prague Post has an article about Washington DC's Skoda streetcars. It has a good amount of information so check it out.

Manufactured through a now-defunct joint venture between Škoda and Inekon, the trams are still in the Czech Republic, stored at the Ostrava Transport Company. Fortunately the trams are under warranty and, like cars, are taken out regularly (without passengers) to keep them in good condition and tested. They are expected to be moved to Washington later this year.

Oklahoma's large cities are in the bottom of the barrel when it comes to transit. No wonder when your state senator says that spending money for the DC metro is like stealing money from your children. I think GW has a monopoly on that action. More from CNN Money.

And finally we have this comedic gem from the Arizona Republic's letters to the editor. It made me wonder where people get all their misinformation.

Congratulations to all the contractors and land speculators that profited from this billion-dollar boondoggle, (How many non-polluting buses could have been bought for the same money?) and to our politicians who shoved it all down our throats.

Great job.

"Light rail" is as good as an idea now as when are city forefathers shut down our trolley system back in 1948. Ironic, isn't it? Ah, the wonders of "modern technology."

Remember, trains with overhead wires aren't modern and the only people that like them are contractors and speculators, unlike those super modern highways which are built purely to serve the people . Didn't you get the memo?

Steal an Opportunity for Our Children's Future, Fund Metro!

Senator Tom Coburn doesn't know that highways are subsidized just like transit. Why else would he make a comments like this:

But the Davis bill, as it is currently constructed, will likely never make its way past Coburn. “I’m happy to be a roadblock to that bill,” Coburn tells WTOP. “It’s $1.5 billion they want, we (the government) don’t have the money to pay for it, so where are we going to get the money?”Coburn doesn’t think one penny of funding for Metro should come from American taxpayers. “How dare us say we are going to steal opportunity from our children so that we can have a ride on the Metro. I think the vast majority of Americans would disagree with that.

Wha?! Is this guy serious? No Tom, they disagree with YOU. Even Republicans disagree with you which is why Tom Davis (R) is trying to get the funding through. I feel bad for progressives in Oklahoma, first the Global Warming denier Inhofe and now Transit denier Coburn. What is it with politicians from non-transit non-urban regions telling dense regions benefiting from transit what to do in terms of transportation policy? Get rid of these bums already. Like its not bad enough that $1.5 B is chump change in an Iraq day.

H/T Second Avenue Sagas

"He Had No Transportation Experience"

Anyone know an arabian horse judge for the DOT job? Today in the Washington Post there was an expose on Tyler Duval, a Bush appointee because of connections ("It was a friend of a friend thing") and DJ Gribbin who was a family friend of Dick Cheney. Their goal is to reduce the roll of government in transportation expenditures and instead privatize everything. But transit means nothing to them because as it stands, it can't be sold off to the highest bidder. So as we've been saying, they have been trying to kill transit as evidenced by their recent try to get toll roads into the new starts program.

Even if the next president reverses its policies, the Bush administration will leave a legacy of new toll roads across the country, a growing number of public roads leased to private companies, and dozens of stalled commuter rail, streetcar and subway projects -- including the $5 billion extension of Metro to Dulles International Airport.

As mentioned in a post by Steve Davis at Smart Growth America, one of the targets Duval and Gribbin hope to get rid of with congestion pricing is earmarks. But as he also mentions, earmarks are a small part of the total expenditures with most of the money going to state DOTs who spend it without goals or measures of success on freeways. But many of the earmarks are projects that have merit, but can't wrestle funding away from We've seen this in the last week where there has been a fight over an earmark for the Central Corridor, a very worthy project.

But here's a catch with the congestion money giveaways. The funding for those pilot congestion pricing projects came from funds that usually go to replacing buses in cities and the small starts program. Congestion pricing has nothing to do with funding for buses in rural areas or in cities that need to replace older buses but have seen their funding continue to sucked up by gasoline prices.

"I couldn't believe they could get away with this, to just take that money away," said Mark Munson, director of the Regional Transit Authority in Dubuque, which has been frequently forced to deny trips to the elderly and disabled because there are not enough buses and volunteers can't fill all the gaps.

Duvall is unapologetic, saying the traditional pork-barrel process of divvying up transportation dollars is bad policy. The proof, he said, is the fact that increased government spending on transportation has not slowed congestion.

If pricing is implemented, there should be a real plan to give people an alternative of real rapid transit. The New York plan is great because they have plenty of alternatives to get places in the pricing zone. Ryan discusses the need to do both as well. And Frank at Orphan Road warns us to be wary of going too far.

This is the reason why it really matters who becomes President next. Political appointments really have a huge push on policy and if we keep the same trajectory, we'll be stuck with these two guys for 4 more years.

And if you think there were a lot of innocent contractors on the death star, Ryan has some conspiracy theories for you as well. I'm not sure if they are that far from the truth given what has happened since Bush took office.

Two Views of Gentrification

There was an article in the Washington Post discussing the renaissance of Columbia Heights around the Metro Station. $1 Billion dollars worth of development is rising from the ground with apartments, shops, and the usual chain stores like Target the ubiquitous Bed Bath & Beyond. It's TOD at its best.

But the redevelopment with affordable housing we see as awesome is seen completely differently by a number of people around the country that see their neighborhoods change before their eyes. In a recent This American Life (if you don't listen I highly recommend it), there was a discussion about 'The Plan'. 'The Plan' theory is the idea that the white population of DC uses planning and backroom deals to get rid of the african american population; condemning their public schools and infrastructure while using the land to build condos and upscale shops. It's not just about the real estate market, but blatant intent.

It's interesting to see the Post article the day after listening to the podcast, mostly because of the stark differences in the views portrayed. The awesome redevelopment around transit versus the displacement of residents and a plan to dilute the population with whiteness such as sushi.

Located near the District's geographic center and bound by 16th Street and Georgia Avenue, Columbia Heights' disparate narratives play out on the neighborhood's Internet mailing list, in which one posting last month was headlined "Sushi Coming to Columbia Heights!" Another updated viewers about a late afternoon shooting.

Black residents made up just over half the neighborhood's population in the 2000 Census, although their share had declined since the previous count while the numbers of Hispanic and white people grew. From 2000 to 2005, home buyers' median income rose from $76,000 to $103,000, according to the Urban Institute .

I suggest listening to the podcast before reading the article, and seeing if you can spot the differences portrayed.

WMATA and Joint Development

The Washington Post has an article on the restructuring of the Joint Development (Read TOD) program at WMATA. This is good news in that they will look at better development around the stations rather than just building anything to get money. This should pay off long term.

Too often in the past, board members said yesterday, land around stations was sold mainly to raise cash. The new rules focus on increasing transit-oriented residential and commercial development to encourage Metro ridership and reduce automobile traffic. The Ballston corridor in Arlington and Columbia Heights and Gallery Place-Chinatown in the District are considered examples of successful transit-oriented development.

The Glorious Transit Web

It's the web 2.0 and if you have a cause for transit, create a badge so it gets more recognition. Below are a few badges I've seen and causes I'm down with, others I'd like to see a badge for in no particular order:

Sound Transit 2.1
Austin Guadalupe Light Rail
California HSR
Geary Subway
Subway to the Sea



I've also been thinking about the need for a national transit campaign infrastructure. Everyone is really good at keeping up with the local causes but does there need to be some central place for organizing or getting the word out? I'm interested in the model that is used by Daily Kos or MyDD where they have a blog but also have user diaries. Instead of diaries however, because everyone has their own blog, perhaps it would be campaigns. This central blog would have contributors from each metro area discussing what is happening on the battlefield and where things are headed. Many of the blogs do that but this could be a central place to see what is going on nationally kind of like what the City Transit aggregator is trying to do. Perhaps it's a glorified version of the City Transit Aggregator.

Another important thing about this national info hub would be the ability to raise money around campaigns like Act Blue does for Democrats and Slatecard does for Republicans. Basically there are a whole lot of people out there who are interested in national transit policy and could use this as a way to get involved locally where alot of the big decisions are being made and help influence policy at the national level that helps cities get the funding they need for local projects. What do folks think? Is it something that should be fleshed out? Would people be interested in this kind of thing?

Dulles Rail Gets a Slight Boost from House Republicans

While Mary Peters and Company are looking to stymie transit development around the United States, several lawmakers are having none of it in the DC area. Is this a start towards looking into the cost effectiveness measure as a false measure of the benefits of transit projects? Hopefully. While they don't discuss that issue specifically, the Washington Post has more on the push the project is getting from a couple of house bigwigs:

Two Republican leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives have asked the Transportation Department to move forward with the "critically important" but struggling plan to extend Metrorail to Dulles International Airport.

Minority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) and Deputy Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) sent Transportation Secretary Mary Peters a letter this week, saying: "It is vitally important that this project move forward. Open dialogue between Virginia and the Department of Transportation will make certain that lawmakers are best able to alleviate the burden of increasing traffic congestion and transportation demands across the entire national capital region."

A Step Towards Death, But the Ledge Is Still Far Away

The Washington Post is reporting that the FTA has all but killed the Dulles Rail project. Everyone is saying almost because they know it isn't dead. Governor Kaine, Senator Warner and others are going to fight back hard and I expect you'll see some congressional intervention. Virginia Transportation Chief Pierce Homer told the Washington Times, "We believe there will be rail on this corridor, the only question is whether there will be a federal partner in doing that."

At issue according to Administrator Simpson is funding for the capital maintenance backlog of projects that Metro has not completed along with the change orders not submitted in writing to the FTA. Officials dispute the amount but any backlog has been exacerbated by the year to year funding that is not permanent and often in doubt.

Much of Northern Virginia has been planning their new growth along the rail line because they learned from the Rosslyn Ballston Corridor that has created walkable neighborhoods, boosted tax base and shown that TOD is a real solution to autocentricity. This is a real blow to their efforts as well.

But what does this mean for everyone else? The implications of this death are not just for Metro and Northern Virginia but the rest of the country as well. Heavy Rail line expansions have been limited lately due to costs because the FTA doesn't measure all the real benefits of these projects. If this project goes down, what does that mean for expansions of Heavy Rail in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Baltimore and Miami? Other regions are building light rail and staying away from heavy rail completely. A complaint is that the areas aren't dense enough, but neither was the Rosslyn Ballston corridor before that was built, so the economic development issue needs to be addressed before the next transportation bill comes out.

For more commentary on this, I suggest a visit to The Bellows, or DCist for commentary and comments about the project.

"...They Wasted Everyone's Time and Money"

Update: I wrote this post last week and this morning right after posting, there is an article in the Washington Post about Mary Peters Ideology when it comes to transit and investment in infrastructure. You can find it here.

In the Washington Post there was an article which discussed that even though the Dulles Airport Extension to Metro has gone through all of the hoops that the FTA has set up for it, it might still not get funded. Why? Because the Bushies don't like rail transit. In fact they don't like it so much that they are willing to kill it because of a famous road project that cost way more than it was supposed to and still hasn't delivered on its environmental offsets; The Big Dig.

Federal officials remain skeptical of the plan to extend Metrorail to Dulles International Airport and might reject it, even though their consultants recently found that the proposal meets requirements for full funding, government and project sources said.

Officials with the Federal Transit Administration say they are concerned about the price tag and the specter of another Big Dig, the Boston project built by the same contractor in charge of the Dulles rail line, which took years longer and cost millions more than planned, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations are sensitive. In addition, the agency has been reluctant to promote large-scale transit projects.

And what is this comment about moving away from infrastructure as Quade points out? Surely that can't be true? Why didn't they say the same thing about three other projects in the New Starts pipeline that have big budgets? Seattle's line to the University($1.6 Billion), New Jersey's Access to the Core ($7.3 Billion), and the Long Island East Side Access Project ($2.6 Billion). But the Dulles project is about $2.06 Billion. So what's the rub? Why pick on this project? This screams a basic ideological bias. But tell us something we didn't know right? Congressional backers of the project even stated to the Post:

Officials on Capitol Hill, in Richmond and at the airports authority's headquarters have speculated in recent days about what the problem might be. Some say the FTA has long been skeptical of expensive rail projects; in recent years, it has more often championed bus rapid transit projects.

Bingo. There has been no recent evidence to be against big rail projects. In fact does anyone know of a big rail project that hasn't delivered recently? I know the Silver Line BRT in Boston hasn't delivered on promises and locals call it the Silver Lie but light rail projects in Denver, Houston, Charlotte, Minneapolis and St. Louis have delivered, all of them far exceeding ridership projections.

But basically the DOT is waging an ideological battle. And so far, as Ryan states at The Bellows quite succinctly, "...they wasted everyone's time and money".

As the linked Post piece makes clear, it’s not the Silver Line’s specifics that are the issue, it’s an ideological opposition to big new transit lines. I think that’s dumb, but I think it’s even more dumb to nonetheless pretend that normal operating rules apply with regard to consideration of big new transit lines only to back out for ideological reasons after all the planning has been done and construction is underway. At any moment during this process, the feds could have said, we’re not going to go ahead with this money, because we don’t like new heavy rail lines. Instead, they wasted everyone’s time and money.

This comes just a few days after the release of a National Surface Transportation Commission Report panned by DOT Secretary Mary "Bikes Aren't Transportation" Peters where the dissenting side led by the Secretary claimed falsely that there were not enough cost-effective rail projects to spend money on. Looks like there is a project in DC that needs some money and has merit. And there are more like it such as the Subway to the Sea in Los Angeles.

But in addition, there have been rumors floating around that certain pieces of that report pertaining to light rail and electric transit were approved by the commission but taken out mysteriously before the final printing. When learning about pro-rail segments being taken out of the report, Commissioner,Staunch Conservative, and rail advocate Paul Weyrich stated,

“It is disappointing that after the paragraphs indicated were passed by a nine to three vote that someone without ever asking me would see to it to do away with these important policy considerations, Weyrich said to NCI. “ It is the kind of gutter politics which make people hate their government, and Washington in general."

Now we know where the battle lines are drawn. It's time for a new direction.

Subsidizing Suburban Metro Riders

Check out this graph by Robert Goodspeed. He looks at how much more subsidy suburban riders get going into DC than urban riders. Once again the suburbs not paying their weight for services.