Support for Transit by the Brick Yard

71% of people in Indianapolis would pay to fund transit. Seems like a movement is growing. However, I personally don't like the idea of starting with suburban commuter rail. Given that urbanites will pay for most of the line to the suburbs, its just another example of exporting tax base.

Drinking Your Milkshake

Snotty legislators get theirs. Gotta play the clip.

The Liberal Light Rail Agenda

I really wish they would cut this out. So what if we want a different lifestyle?

Is the TTC Really Dead?

The Trans Texas Corridor is what keeps a lot of ranchers and landowners up at night worrying if their property is going to be cut into pieces by the largest land grab in state history. As of now, it might be dead. What a huge waste of space. It was supposed to be a quarter mile wide for trucks, pipelines, cars, and trains or so they said. I won't count my chickens until the smoke disappears but I hope it doesn't just die, but goes down in a fantastic fireball that takes slick Rick and his hair with it.

"I want to clear this up. I did not vote for the Trans-Texas Corridor and you're welcome to look at the voting records," he said in a broadcast by KXAN in Austin. Then Craddick, a Republican who was debating his Democratic opponent, Bill Dingus, in Midland, stuck a fork in the Trans-Texas Corridor and declared the ambitious plan done, according to KXAN. "Everybody in Austin knows it's dead," he said. "Everybody across the state knows it's dead. It's just something to be talking about."

When in Doubt...

make stuff up. Don't let those silly facts get in the way.

The Stakes of Stim

In track when teammates of mine used to get stim it was usually attaching wires to their muscles and turning a knob so that electricity would course through and loosen them up. Similar to the knob turn, folks in Congress are looking to pull the lever on a stimulus package to get things going. This idea isn't new. It was what got us through the great depression and built some of the most sturdy bridges, lodges, and infrastructure ever. These days when we build, it seems so cheap. We're always looking for shortcuts, but we shouldn't be doing that this time. We should be investing in our future, and hopefully it's a green one.

In Portland, city officials are already preparing lists of infrastructure projects they might launch with an infusion of federal money. It would be a nice silver lining for Portland if the economic crunch bought a refurbished bridge over the Willamette, or a streetcar extension.

This would be a big boon for cities that have projects ready to go. As I said in an earlier post, it will be a huge deal for cities like LA and Seattle to pass their transit measures. Salt Lake City, Denver, Portland, and Houston already have a lot of engineering done for their new lines and if infused with stim, they could push that money to other transit projects to extend thier networks furthering the gap between them and those which are falling further behind.

If for instance Seattle drops the ball, it will be harder for them to seek stim money for projects that were rejected on a ballot measure. Though it might be a boon for thier streetcar infrastructure, regional transit might suffer from a crisis in confidence where opponents claim the win and the upper hand in cash direction. With the stakes so high for federal funding opportunity, it's important that these measures pass, else an opportunity that happens once in a century to double up on much needed transit capital spending could be lost.

Mapping the Tube

From The Bellows. It's a 25 minute documentary from the BBC. If you have the time, take a look. Steve B, I thought you would enjoy this one.

The Earl of Transit

The push for an infrastructure stimulus is ramping up and Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Portland is taking the lead.

After years of defeats and futility, Blumenauer is convinced the odds are increasing that Congress could approve this investing as much as $50 billion to improve infrastructure with more next year if Obama is elected.

I'm sure we'll see more discussion of this as we get closer to and after election day. Depending on who gets elected, it could break either way. I've already seen a number of opposition blogs and talkers posting an earlier post from the DOT's economist that was posted to Ma Peters blog. That post has also been discussed by Ryan as well. I remember when people were saying Gore and Bush were the same. Even though they were different, no one would make such a statement today with the current candidates and on issues like this.

TODcasts Available from MTC

Even if you can't be in the station areas, these Podcasts about TOD in the Bay Area are interesting and have a lot of information. I highly recommend them if you're in the area and want to go TOD sightseeing as well. There are five of them including Hayward BART, San Pablo's BRT, San Francisco's Third Street Corridor, Redwood Caltrain, San Jose Downtown. Check em out.

Repaving on the Orange Line

While the transit agency is blaming the contractor, the contractor is blaming the weight of the buses. The total cost will be about $2 million dollars to repave to the right strength. I wonder how soon the pavement will deteriorate on the rest of the line that was built correctly. Does anyone know how long until they fixed the Pittsburgh busway? I can't seem to find any information on it.