Bridge Design & The Central Corridor

Update: The Mayor has made it clear that he wants the bridge to handle light rail at a future date and doesn't necessarily have plans for a line now.

So the Mayor of Minneapolis and the Governor are having a bit of a spat over whether the I35W Bridge should include light rail. Initially the Gov and his lackeys said that there is no room, and emergency funds stipulate that the bridge must be built using the previous footprint. Ok, thats fine, so then why are you building a 10 lane bridge to replace an 8 lane bridge?? Personally I don't think that LRT should be on that bridge anyway but don't lie about what you can and can't do. Perhaps a provision that it could be built at a future date would suffice and priority transit lanes would be a good addition but it doesn't really make a lot of sense from a ridership standpoint for the Central Corridor unless you were going to build a line to the Northeast at some point.



If you look at the picture, the red line is how the light rail would work over the bridge in a sorta kinda way. The orange line is the existing Hiawatha Line and the Yellow is the planned central corridor line. Look how the yellow line goes through the University (Yellow Boxes) rather than around it. (Hmmm, lesson for Austin?) Basically they got it right the first time so they shouldn't be trying to fix it wrong.

Now there are whole other issues at play with the retrofitting of the existing bridge to handle Light Rail and the possible tunneling under the University but really any cost savings that would have come by crossing the I-35W bridge would have lost a lot of ridership because people would have had to walk further. So Mayor Rybak, i love your spirit and willingness to fight for LRT, but save your chips for another day.

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.

Single Tracking to Save Cash

RTD in Denver while moving towards its goal of new rail lines is deciding to cut some of the budget on the west corridor by single tracking the western most section of the line. While this is making some folks in Golden a little worried about service levels, i'm sure that they will have the foresight to reserve the ROW for future expansion in order to facilitate expanded service should they decide to single track.

This is the way that Sacramento and San Diego went initially, later expanding to double track when the funding permitted. It should be considered in other settings as well for cost savings.
From the Rocky Mountain News:

The project originally included two tracks on that final segment. But in 2005, faced with cost increases, RTD decided to cut service on the outer leg to trains every 15 minutes instead of every five minutes. That allowed RTD to reduce the number of train cars it had to buy, saving more than $12 million.

Then last year, with costs still escalating sharply, RTD realized it could run 15-minute service on a single track west of the federal center by including a short passing track near Red Rocks Community College. The move saved another $33 million.

Jefferson County planners and commissioners objected, saying if RTD's ridership estimates are wrong and more growth occurs than anticipated, RTD would be locked into having inadequate track capacity to handle it.

Jeffco had asked RTD to consider running 10-minute trains, which would have required a second passing track.

Madison Mayor Kills Streetcar Proposal

Mayor Dave was getting hammered on all sides for his streetcar proposal (mostly by people who don't like public transit anyways). I guess the lesson is to not make your idea the end all be all and educate everyone involved. There was no route picked and no one understood how they worked. A lot of folks stated "They aren't right for Madison". They don't really know that, they are just scared of change. Unfortunately the opponents of everything made the streetcar their glow point, hopefully other cities will learn from this. Some folks in Madison are outraged, and rightfully so. This is a mistake not just on Dave's part, but some of the blame could lie at the feet of Kathlene Falk. Perhaps someday County Executives who root for the suburbs and City Mayors (This means you too Milwaukee) can get along and build transit networks that help everyone, not just folks who were not smart enough to figure out that traffic to downtown is what happens when you sprawl. As Portland has shown, 9,000 riders a day , even with 12 minute headways, does a lot for circulation and city vitality.

Transit Board at Portland Transport

A cool new tool for folks to use. They explain more at Portland Transport:

Transit Board is a web browser interface designed to be used in a fixed location, perhaps as a kiosk or as an intranet page for a company office, allowing users to see multiple transit lines departing from a particular place or general vicinity.

One TMA has already implemented it.

There are two ways to set up a Transit Board. One requires help from the admins at Portland Transport, the other can be done on a do-it-yourself basis.

The first model requires defining something we call a 'choice set', which is a list of transit stops and specific lines that serve them. If you'd like to do this, send e-mail to webmaster@portlandtransport.com and we'll work with you. With the custom approach we can tailor colors and create special messages as well.

The do-it-yourself form just requires a URL with a list of stops.

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.

Taxing Air Travel for Rail

They are doing it in England but its a rather small country where the rails are competitive, could it work here? Perhaps a carbon tax on flights shorter than 300 miles could produce enough money for high speed rail capital startups. The airlines might even be able to get tax breaks if they build their own high speed lines. Just a thought. The BBC reports:

The Liberal Democrats say they would put an extra £10 tax per ticket on internal flights in Britain to help fund improvements to the rail network. They are also proposing to put a toll on road freight, while encouraging private investment in railways. The party says it would generate £12bn in five years and be a temporary measure, without specifying how long. The proposals are part of a package aimed at making Britain's transport system carbon neutral by 2050.

A fund source for California HSR? Carbon tax for flights between SFO and LA or San Diego?

National Transit Blogging

I love reading blogs and have been reading ever since the 2004 election. I just keep finding more good ones with better stories. The national transit blogosphere is getting bigger as more people contribute making it more exciting as well. Here are a few of the many blogs I like to read, the others are in the blog roll at the bottom right.

RT Rider: Life Saving Value of Transit

Want to stop the war? Ride the bus.

OK. That's a bit of a stretch, but everyone can agree that if America were to reduce its reliance on foreign petroleum supplies, national security would benefit.

In January of this year, the American Public Transportation Association released "Public Transportation and Petroleum Savings in the U.S.: Reducing Dependence on Oil," a study prepared for the association by ICF International, a global consulting firm that specializes in the connection between transportation and energy.

Sacramento Regional Transit's local system is part of a national effort that, according to the report's executive summary, "reduces U.S. gasoline consumption by 1.4 billion gallons each year.

Transit Miami: Stupid Legislators

Republican Patrick McHenry, an ignoramus congressman from North Carolina is attempting to hamper efforts of other congressman who are writing a provision to encourage increase bicycle use. Apparently McHenry openly opposes the paltry $1 million proposition yet he openly favors wasting Billions more in Iraq, you know, "fighting the war on terror..."

The U.S. infrastructure is falling apart McHenry, quit wasting our money building a new one in Iraq...Bikes aren't a solution, but, they are part of the puzzle...Here is an e-mail I received word for word from a loyal TM reader:

Last Saturday the House of Representatives passed Energy Independence legislation that amends a section of the IRS code to include "bicycles" in the definition of transportation covered by the qualified transportation fringe benefit.

Introduced earlier this year by Congressman Earl Blumenauer as H.R. 1498, the provision calls for a $20 monthly benefit for riding a bike to work.

However, according to Blumenauer, even this modest amount sparked some heated opposition — even ridicule — from other House lawmakers.

Urban Planning Overlord: Light Rail in Downtown Milwaukie

There's a tussle breaking out over the preferred location of light rail tracks in downtown Milwaukie. The original plan would use a grede-separated right of way along the existing train tracks. But the Waldorf School (next to the tracks) doesn't like the noise and wants the MAX line to use two downtown streets. The merchants don't like that idea.

Hartgen the Hitman: Charlotte

There was an article in yesterday's observer written by professor emeritus David Hartgen about why Charlotte shouldn't continue on with the Space Race. Well let's go over the reasons why he didn't do his research and got all the facts wrong. For shame, but not unexpected from someone who has written papers for the uber libertarian road warriors at the Reason foundation.

Let's dissect shall we?

You asked me to state the basis of my concerns about continued funding for light rail corridors in the Charlotte region. My concerns are based on the following observations:

• The key transportation issue is traffic congestion, not "choices." The county grew 36 percent in the 1990s and 19 percent from 2000 to 2006, and population will increase 300,000 by 2030. Most newcomers will drive. Congestion will double, to Chicago-like levels, even if the current plans are built. This threatens job access.

No one ever said that road construction was going to stop, nor does transit ever seem to lower congestion, mostly because of induced demand, where people will use a free service until it is all used up. This happens with roads. If everyone moved to transit, then others would find that the roads were wide open. So for example on the Hiawatha Line in Minneapolis there were 34,000 riders taken off the road in q3 2006. Since 40% of riders are new to transit, that would mean around 13,600 cars were taken off of the road, but that space will be taken up by other drivers who find the space.

• Transit system costs are high and out of line with use. The 1998 vote was based on a $1.1 billion plan; now the estimate is $ 8.9 billion. Of the region's $12-13 billion transportation budget the transit system would consume two-thirds but serve just 2 percent of commuters. The other 98 percent will stew in congestion....

This has nothing to do with the specific plan, but more to do with inflation and materials costs. From almost 10 years ago when the plan was passed, costs have surged. The producer price index has gone up 28% between 1998 and 2006 while the consumer price index has only gone up 23.6%. This is a lot. Also, the roads in Charlotte have been developed at a cost of billions upon billions of dollars over the last century and costs for those roads today are high. Houston's I-10 expansion has been hit by the same type of cost increases, yet you don't hear the libertarians crying over that one.

• ... Even if the transit forecasts are to be believed, transit's effect on congestion would not be noticeable. The transit share will be only 2-3 percent of work trips, and 1-2 percent of regional travel, too small to affect even corridor congestion. Far from providing "a choice," the system would do little for most commuters.

The 2% of commuters has been debunked many times. In fact, the trips he is referring to are all trips including truck trips and trips that aren't served by transit in rural areas. On corridors where transit is available, the commute trips are more competitive between 22% and 40%. This is obviously meant to mislead the public into think that transit is ineffectual where if it were deployed on all corridors, it would do almost half the work on them. The Big Dig takes less than 2% of trips but many people at the Reason Foundation see it as something that should be done in more urbanized areas.

• Rising densities will increase congestion, not reduce it. Most growth will go to the edge of the region and to nearby counties, not to transit corridors. While a higher share of work trips will be by transit, the remainder will use the street system, adding to congestion. Cities with high transit shares (New York City, Chicago, Washington, etc.) have worse, not better, congestion.

As places grow, they get congested. Now imagine New York, Chicago, Washington DC etc without transit? If all of those 100s of thousands of people got out of the trains and into their cars, the region would be in a world of pain when it comes to congestion and carbon emissions. This is a ridiculous argument. No city has built its way out of congestion, its what comes with cities, transit is a way to mitigate that by providing predictable travel times and an alternative to sitting in the congestion that built up on that brand new freeway.

• Areas our size exclusively operate bus service, not light rail. Austin, Columbus, Birmingham, Jacksonville, Orlando, Hartford. Syracuse and Rochester all have bus-only service. When the South Boulevard Line is completed, Charlotte will be the smallest city in the U.S. with a LRT line (excepting a two-car line in Little Rock).

This is a flat out blatant lie. The city of Charlotte is larger than light rail cities Denver, Seattle, Washington DC, Portland, Sacramento, Cleveland, Minneapolis etc etc. And if we are going by Metro Region, then Charlotte(24) is bigger than Portland and Salt Lake City while slightly smaller than Sacramento and Pittsburgh! Birmingham and Rochester are in the 50s versus Charlotte at 24. Research Professor?

• Many cities much larger than Charlotte also rely largely on buses. Kansas City, Detroit, New Orleans, Nashville, Memphis and Louisville have bus-only systems. Buffalo, San Diego, Sacramento, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Houston, Dallas, St. Louis and Salt Lake City have just one LRT line each. Our present and future densities do not warrant transit.

All cities rely on buses, and 68% of the tax in Charlotte is used for Buses so cutting the transit tax would take out a lot of the transit capacity. But buses serve a different role than light rail. Systems are for different functions and buses are feeders to the longer haul operations of light rail which are cheaper per passenger mile. He also didn't do his research on each of these cities. New Orleans had three streetcar lines(Canal, St. Charles, Riverfront), San Diego has three operating lines(Green, Blue, Orange), Sacramento has 3 operating lines(Watt, Folsom, South Corridor), Minneapolis is planning three more lines (Central, Southwest, Northwest),and a streetcar system, Baltimore has heavy and light rail as well as commuter rail, Houston is planning 5 new rapid transit corridors to go with its light rail line, Dallas has 2 light rail lines and is building two more to go along with its commuter rail, St, Louis has 2 lines, and Salt Lake City has 2 lines and is building 4 more and commuter rail. EVERY CITY HAS MORE THAN ONE LINE and is planning for a massive expansion.

• The recent UNCC study inappropriately compares Charlotte with larger cities that have light rail service. Since those cities have generally higher transit operating and construction costs, the comparison is not appropriate. The report should have compared Charlotte to other mid-sized bus-only systems.

Charlotte isn't a tiny town anymore. It will grow to be larger, and in ten years time, many of those systems which were bus only are going to have rail. I don't know if I would want to aspire to be any of the bus only systems he mentions. Mid-sized cities are ranked in the 50s, not the high 20s.

What should be done now?

• Repeal the transit sales tax. Operate the South Boulevard light rail line but build no more. Instead, focus on express transit and improve bus service. Add point-to-point service with smaller vehicles. Implement a "fair fare" policy that riders pay no less than 25 percent of costs. Review route performance. Contract out services. Use higher fares, federal operating assistance funds, and local funds budgeted competitively; transit should not have a dedicated fund source.

Basically they say put it on the backs of working people, while they build more roads. This does nothing for the budgets of families that often pay more than 20% of their incomes for transportation. Transit is a way to reduce this cost but they want you to buy more cars and gasoline. Why shouldn't transit have a dedicated funding source? There is no reason why there shouldn't be a funding source to pay for transit when there is a funding source for roads. Transit is an important part of a region's economic competitiveness, if it is neglected, the region will suffer.

• Make congestion relief the primary concern. Like Atlanta, set a goal for congestion reduction, and select projects accordingly.... Increase funding: about $4 billion more is needed to hold congestion at current levels.

Oh yeah, Atlanta the king of congestion where they want to build a tunnel under the city for all the cars is a great act to follow. Charlotte has been the envy of cities wanting such a transit network as is planned there yet they want to be more congested and auto oriented like Atlanta? Give me a break. And San Francisco should be more like Houston right? $4 billion to hold congestion at current levels? You mean he can't solve the problem and reduce congestion with roads? This is what they claim can't be done with transit yet they can't do it with roads either, and when they do it with roads, it is going to result in libertarian's nightmare of takings galore for the expansion of the freeway, yet they don't care.

• Redirect the region's focus to roads. Remove bottlenecks, improve signal timing and add arterial turns. Consider HOT lanes (high-occupancy-toll lanes on freeways) for use by both transit and other vehicles.

Focus on roads? Regions have focused on roads for the last century and look where it has gotten everyone. More congestion!

• Implement regional flex-time and ridesharing programs to lower traffic demand....

These actions will put our region back on the path to a high-quality road and transit system that we can be proud of.

This is the worst letter I've seen written on behalf of the other side. Surely they can do better than this, but again I'm expecting too much from a libertarian think tanker. Charlotte will make the right choice and this will be over soon and the libertarians will go back to their anti-tax holes. Hopefully where they stay until they drown in Grover Norquist's bathtub.

245,000 Dead Drivers (& Passengers)

Streetsblog led me to a Los Angeles Times article on the death toll on our highways since 9-11. Why is no one else appalled?

Suppose 245,000 americans had died in terrorist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001. The United States would be beside itself, utterly gripped by a sense of national emergency. Political leaders would speak of nothing else, the United States military would stand at maximum readiness, and the White House would vow not to rest until the danger to Americans had been utterly eradicated.

Yet 245,000 Americans have died because of one specific threat since 9/11, and no one seems to care. While the tragedy of 3,000 lives lost on 9/11 has justified two wars, in which thousands of U.S. soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice, the tragedy of 245,000 lives lost in traffic accidents on the nation's roads during the same period has justified . . . pretty much no response at all. Terrorism is on the front page day in and day out, but the media rarely even mention road deaths. A few days ago, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that 42,642 Americans died in traffic in 2006. Did you hear this reported anywhere?