Roads & Bridges

Everyone remembers the constant repeating of Roads and Bridges during the campaign and during the process for the stimulus package. I'm pretty sure when he was discussing this he meant existing roads and bridges instead of new ones. Well this wasn't so clear to the road warriors:

"The President's strong support for roads and bridges serves him well. Despite the controversy over the Economic Recovery package, 94% of Americans supported the President's call to increase infrastructure investments. Roads and bridges rank #2 in importance among infrastructure priorities for the American people. And while Congress only provided 3.6% of the Economic Recovery funds for roads and bridges, the President's consistent promotion of highway infrastructure made his views crystal clear.

I think its funny that when roads and bridges are discussed, people on the road side automatically think highways. It's like a dog whistle but in this case it might not mean what they think it does, which to us should be heartening. There are also plenty of complaints about tolling and the feeling that there won't be enough money to build the highway system all over again.

1. The proposal implies that the 87-year old budgetary mechanism known as "contract authority" be deleted from the budget. Without contract authority, multi-year highway projects cannot be fully-funded.
2. There is no mention of President Obama's support for roads and bridges anywhere in DOT's budget framework.
3. "Road pricing" is discussed as an option in the budget framework, despite Secretary LaHood's opposition to tolling existing roads.
4. There is no room in the budget for any substantial increase in highway funding, despite the President's recent call for investment levels that would rival the funding for construction of the Interstate Highway System.

Perhaps Mr. Obama tricked us during the election with the whole roads and bridges comment on repeat. I for one would welcome the trick if it meant we are changing the way we're funding new capacity and alternative transportation modes. We will see.

People Love the Trains

The new Siemens SD70s in Portland are popular. And they haven't carried a revenue passenger yet.

Does This Look Familiar?

I believe it looks like the creation of sprawl. If you wanted this to happen, why are you in the city at all? Why not just move to the exurbs. It already exists like that there. It's another example of the car companies and traffic engineers fantasy that everyone wants a car and everyone can have a car if we just pave the city with lanes to accommodate it. It's just cleverly repackaged as a promo for GPS navigation. Fortunately, we're beginning to think differently about the roll they play.

Preserving Affordable Housing Near Transit

In a recent report, my day job with the National Housing Trust looked at the number of expiring section 8 and 202 units near fixed guideway transit stations in 8 cities. In these cities, 63% (65,000) of the units that are located within a half mile of the station will have their section 8 and section 202 housing contracts expire in 2012.

This is only eight cities with rail transit but when you think about the mobility that transit allows for people who already have a hard time, it's an even bigger deal when it disappears. A recent Center for Housing Policy report found that low and moderate income families spend as much or more on transportation than they spend on housing. So you can see why it would be important to preserve housing such as this near transit stations in order to give folks more opportunities than they would have if they lived on the periphery. There should be a concerted effort to preserve these affordable units near transit.

So imagine my hope rising when the MacAurthur Foundation along with Enterprise Community Partners pledged $3.5 million dollars to fund new and preserve affordable housing units in the Denver region near transit corridors.

ULC — a nonprofit group affiliated with the Denver Foundation that buys, preserves and develops urban real estate — is expected to be the sole borrower of the fund, and will be responsible for buying property for the TOD housing and partnering with local companies for site redevelopment.

For the TOD housing project, the ULC will target three types of properties — existing, federally assisted rental housing; unsubsidized rental properties; and properties that currently are vacant or used for commercial purposes that have desirable locations for new affordable housing.

This is a way to get out in front of the market. If used intelligently, much of the money could be used for landbanking along future transit corridors then provided to affordable housing developers who could never get in on the market later on. I hope this is replicated in other cities soon.

File Under, Are You Serious???!!

I just couldn't help myself. I had to share these two insane articles with you all. I keep telling myself I'm not going to post this drivel, but these are pure comedy.

Randall O'Toole - Save Washington Metro by Privatizing It
Reason Online - Rant against the Cinci streetcar, comparing it to a monorail

A good measure of our success over the next 4 years will be how crazy we can make these guys. Looks like we're off to a good start.

Related Comedy: Parking

From Seinfeld:

George: Look, I have my system. First I look for the dream spot right in front of the door, then I slowly expand out in concentric circles.

Elaine: Oh come on, George, please put it in a garage. I don't want to spend an hour looking for a space.

George: I can't park in a garage.

Elaine: Why?

George: I don't know, I just can't. Nobody in my family can pay for parking, it's a sickness. My father never paid for parking; my mother, my brother, nobody. We can't do it.

Elaine: I'll pay for it.

George: You don't understand. A garage. I can't even pull in there. It's like going to a prostitute. Why should I pay, when if I apply myself, maybe I could get it for free? (he hears a horn honking) What? What do you want? Go around me, I'm looking for spaces.

And people wonder why there is so much traffic!

Vintage Trolley Bus

I love the English Russia blog. You have to see these pictures of old trolley buses still in service that look like they have been to hell and back. I'm glad Muni keeps its trolley buses together better than this.

Extra: If you don't have a ROW, run your tram on the ice.

Midweek High Speed Rail Links

My feed reader is getting bombarded with high speed rail articles. It's crazy how much attention something gets when leadership in this country gets behind it. In addition, things are heating up in California and the nuts on the Peninsula are trying to weasel out. Some of the anon comments on Robert's HSR blog are quite hilarious. I'm paraphrasing but when you say "Rich people live here and will sue so move the alignment to where the poor people are" it's time to rethink your priorities.
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An article in the San Jose Mercury News discusses the possibility of trenching. This is a better option than ending the line at San Jose and running Rapid Rail (which I assume is BART or electrified Caltrain) up the peninsula.
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One of China's High Speed Rail lines is going to start construction soon. Ahead again.

Groundwork started Thursday on a high-speed passenger rail line that will link Shanghai with Hangzhou in east China with trains that can run up to 350 km per hour.

And if only the United States worked like this...

Rail capacity in the Yangtze River Delta region has reached saturation point, said Yu. He said that during peak travel seasons, cargo transport was often suspended to make way for passenger trains.

Firefox warned me about the site so probably not a good idea to click...but if you must.
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It looks like Richard Branson wants to wring more money out of the trip between San Francisco and Los Angeles. He has me sold on Virgin America. Robert says he'd rather an agency cover it so we can pump profits back into expansion.
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Newsflash. People who are bashing high speed rail as a Disneyland Ride are out of touch with America. It would also do them some good to get out of thier congressional district, state, or Washington DC once in a while to that crazy socialist Europe part of the world. I mean, Bulgaria will have HSR soon! BULGARIA!!!

LRT Number Crunching

I got into a debate on Streetsblog about passenger miles and capacity and saw a calculation I had never seen used as a reason that light rail sucked. It's an interesting calculation but it tells me nothing. GaryG states:

You simply multiply vehicle revenue miles by vehicle capacity in passengers to get total revenue capacity in passenger-miles. You then divide actual passenger-miles by revenue capacity passenger-miles to calculate the share of capacity that was actually used to transport passengers in revenue service. The calculation works out to an average occupancy of about 14 passengers per light rail vehicle. Each vehicle has a capacity of 140 passengers or more.

This makes no sense what so ever to me. First off, averaging anything over the whole day seems silly to me. Do we talk about roads being a waste when they don't carry cars at midnight? Another thing is that there's no filter for the peak period which is what of these lines relieve pressure on. The telling thing is that when we looked at the New York Subway, it was only 28 passengers per car. It reminds me of that calculation done a few years ago that all transit systems except for BART are worthless.

Anyways, my argument was that we should look at cost per passenger mile to see the efficiency of each mode. There was a fight about capital costs as there always are from people who think buses can do any job rail does but it led me to the 2007 National Transit Database numbers in easily readable format. Check out some of these numbers:

Cost Per Passenger Mile 2007

Denver
34 cents Light Rail
67 cents Bus

Portland
39 cents Light Rail
93 cents Bus

San Diego
27 cents Light Rail
71 cents Bus

Houston
53 cents Light Rail
55 cents Bus

Minneapolis
42 cents Light Rail
72 cents Bus

San Jose
103 cents Light Rail
155 cents Bus

Buffalo
1.63 cents Light Rail
1.24 cents Bus

Muni
116 cents Light Rail
101 cents Bus

Perhaps light rail in San Francisco is a waste. We should just rip out the tracks, no one likes riding on rails anyways...right? Wouldn't it be nice to toss a three car train on the N or KLM? Perhaps making Muni less like a bus stopping at every stop sign in the Avenues and on Church would help too.

Trains Vs Trucks?

I think this is a perfect example of single mode network thinking. Yes the rail lines don't go to the back of the Best Buy but they shouldn't. The rail lines do certain jobs well and trucks do other jobs well. Why not work together?

In transit, my favorite example is the CityCargo tram. Yes it's a tram that delivers cargo, but it has little electric trucks to deliver directly to the door to merchants in Amsterdam. It only works with both modes.

Dedicated Funding Source

In the long run, there was not a single person writing in the National Journal transportation panel section that said the VMT tax was an inherently bad idea. Very interesting.

On a similar note, Tennessee is looking to give regional transit authorities the ability to have a source.

First, it would allow other major municipalities in Tennessee to establish their own Regional Transportation Authority, like the one already in place for Middle Tennessee.

It would then allow a local RTA to take one of two routes in order to establish a dedicated funding source for regional transportation. An RTA could take a dedicated funding proposal to voters for a referendum, or it could ask a local legislative body like Metro Council to pass a law created a new funding source for mass transit.

Nashville recently opened the Music City Star which hasn't performed as well as perhaps it should and is also looking at alternatives on two other corridors. It seems as if these projects could be sped up by a dedicated source. We'll be watching to see how this progresses.

Meeting Hints at Greater Transit Funding from Obama Administration

I was reading through an article on Mayor Ralph Becker snagging stimulus money for Salt Lake City and noticed a passage that stood out near the bottom:

Becker on Friday also huddled with Obama's Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, whom the mayor says suggested Salt Lake City's transit plans dovetail with the White House's so-called Livable Communities Initiative. There is "no question" that will translate to a bigger Beltway bankroll in the future for streetcars and a downtown TRAX circulator, Becker said.

Salt Lake City has a massive plan for expansion that includes five new transit lines and they have started recently talking about streetcars. I've seen a number of different livable communities initiatives in the past including an old FTA version and one from when Al Gore was Vice President but hadn't heard of a current one. Has anyone else heard of this initiative? I know LaHood mentioned it in his confirmation hearings but we haven't heard many more details except on the White House Urban Policy Page it states:

Build More Livable and Sustainable Communities: Our communities will better serve all of their residents if we are able to leave our cars to walk, bicycle and access other transportation alternatives. President Obama will re-evaluate the transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account.

If this is what the Obama administration is going to follow, we can see Mayor Becker's comments as a sign that they could be looking to act on it. Let's hope they do.

Listen for HSR Story on NPR

Tomorrow morning NPR is going to run a story on High Speed Rail on Morning Edition. In case you miss it, here's the transcript.

No Vote for Austin?

Kirk Watson is pushing a bill in Austin that would allow an urban rail line, whether its light rail or a streetcar without a vote. The bill would specify that Austin or any other entity could build a line and have Capital Metro operate it but Capital Metro would have to go to referendum to expand the commuter rail network if greater than one mile.

This seems fair to me considering the 2000 election for light rail passed overwhelmingly inside of the City of Austin. Ok. Now get it passed and get building already. Preferably from the Triangle to Riverside to start.

Oscars Lame Again

Located at Hollywood & Highland, how many so called green loving stars took the subway to the Oscars? ZERO!!!! They closed the station again for "security reasons". LAME. They are making traffic worse for themselves when they don't have to and contributing more to the problem.

Hidden Trains of New York

Very cool article via Planetizen. It would be interesting to be there when they open up that Brooklyn subway wall and find a tipped over steam engine.

Since his big reveal in 1980, Mr. Diamond, the 49-year-old founder of the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association, has been conducting tunnel tours via the manhole with the blessing of the D.O.T. But of late, Mr. Diamond has been pushing for another potential urban architectural “get.”

Behind a wall in the tunnel, near Atlantic Avenue and Hicks Street, he believes, there is a steam locomotive lying on its side like an abandoned toy train, in “pristine condition, a virtual time capsule.” And he wants to dig it up.

Seems to me that instead of digging it up, you could do some sort of ultrasound scan or something to make sure its there before you start digging. You can check out the location on Wikimapia here.

Stealth Developer

There's an op-ed on Planetizen discussing the MTA in Los Angeles as a stealth development agency. I don't know if I would go that far. I think most people know they have eminent domain power and that they can redevelop property close to the stations but it's not as powerful as say the rail agencies in Hong Kong or Japan.

If any transportation agency was going to be a true development agency it would have even more power to land bank and develop properties than is currently allowed in the United States. In fact, this is how transportation worked during the streetcar era. Property was the main money maker rather than transportation, the transportation was the hook. But it created some great places such as the inner ring suburbs we now love. I would love to see transit agencies have more power to develop, but surely that won't happen because of property rights activism among other barriers.

Metroplex Residents Want Rail Too

Utah residents on the Wasatch Front are looking for expansion in transit while those in the Dallas Fort Worth are as well. Fortworthology has more:

This is big news for the Rail North Texas proposal: a new survey shows that 85% of voters surveyed support the regional rail plan

An Urban A's Stadium

Since their Fremont plan crashed and burned and neighbors close to the future Warm Springs BART station have shut down the second option the A's are now going to have to look elsewhere for a stadium. They might even start looking in San Jose for a place. Not that I don't like San Jose, but Oakland is a much better place for a baseball team and they have so much history here, I'd like to make another suggestion. What about an Urban Stadium in downtown Oakland?

Other Urban Stadiums around the country are a success and most of them have really good transit access. A few examples are in Colorado, Boston, and Chicago. The Rockies Play at Coors Field - Access at Left to Union Station which will be the major hub of the Fastracks commuter and light rail network.

Fenway in Boston - Access to the Green Line


Wrigley in Chicago - Access to the Red Line


For an example, look what San Francisco has been able to do in SoMa with AT&T park. There's even an urban Safeway as seen in the picture below.


So why not accomplish two things in Oakland, extend good transit up Broadway and have a built in audience for restaurants and retail in a refurbished Auto Row until it takes off on its own. This would help stem the extreme retail leakage to Emeryville and San Francisco that Oakland suffers from. Having this anchor ramp up redevelopment of auto row and the hospital district would go a long way. I had a little fun with this and photoshopped in a stadium just south of 26th and north of 24th just west of Broadway where there is an empty auto dealership.


Another need is extending transit. It's easily walkable(.3 miles) from the site to the 19th street BART station/AC Transit 2oth street transit center but it would be nice to either have a subway extension to Kaiser or at least a streetcar line. Such a streetcar line has been proposed in other places such as at SF Cityscape.

Obviously the stadium would be a tough sell because there would be so many landowners but its a fun excersise. I would go to tons more games if it were located here which is close to my work downtown. Is anyone in A's land interested in an Urban Stadium? Thoughts from locals?

Urban Planning for Kids

A quick shout out to my buddy Tim Halbur. Aside from introducing me to a sweet Chinese New Year Scavenger Hunt that we do every year, Tim and Chris Steins (both of whom work at Planetizen) have written a book for kids based on the transect. I haven't read it yet but the New York Times has a profile on it today that I suggest reading. Apparently planning is getting cooler than it used to be. Congrats Tim!