Building a Transit System

A lot has been said about different transit modes over the years but I'd like to offer some commentary on some advocates including sometimes myself. While we want to believe that there is a silver bullet for congestion out there but there isn't. What is needed is a system. A system where people can choose to take another mode instead of driving everyday everywhere. While some freeway opponents want to believe we can just expand our freeways, that is not possible. The reason being is that your never going to relieve congestion that way. However much room there is on the freeway, it will always fill up. Always. But if we have a transit SYSTEM, people can avoid that. Is it really so hard to understand?

Here is a quote that relates from Molly Ivins, who recently passed away....

"It's hard to argue against cynics -- they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side."

The Cost of Sprawl

A little food for thought on smart growth.

For a suburban home in somewhere like Oakley California or Spring Texas it costs $8,500 per housing unit to provide water and sewer infrastructure. Compare that to in a neighborhood like West University in Houston or Berkeley California where that same house only costs $6,540 to hook up to the water and sewer if it were single family detached.

Now if it were attached in West U or Berkeley it would cost $5050. And if it were a multi-family unit it would cost a measly $3,800. So perhaps someone can elaborate on why a 500 home subdivision that includes roads in the suburbs (not included in the above numbers) is market driven while the 500 unit building downtown is subsidized. According to the research, that apartment complex downtown just saved $2,350,000 in water and sewer alone. That doesn't even count roads and the negative externalities of driving or detached housing and energy use etc etc etc.

Data from Sprawl Costs by Robert Burchill et al. from Island Press.

Sacramento Wants in the Transit Space Race

So Sacramento needs to make some Capital improvements to their transit system in order to participate. Well Dr. Beverly Scott of RT is way ahead of the other Sacramento regional authorities and is said to plan a bond measure to pay for new rail and bus infrastructure by 2010. It's a good thing too because if they want to build a streetcar and the Downtown Nantomas Airport Light Rail line along with their 20 year vision they are going to need some more funding.

More from the Sacramento Bee

Houston We Have a Problem...

From Texas Transportation Institute Data. This is provided over at publictransit.us from a friend in Portland. While it would be good to see total expenditures and regions of similar size, this is really interesting information. Houston is always the dream of Cox and O'Toole while Portland is the planning dream world. I think the best number on here is the very last one. Congestion cost per person. Apparently building freeways doesn't work like they thought it did.

It's easier to read if you click on it. Enjoy!

To Subway or Not to Subway

Apparently the FTA has given Tyson's Corner another opinion on the possibility of a subway tunnel. Live from the Third Rail has some good coverage and I tend to agree with the quote below:

It is disappointing that the national transit agency, which is supposedly interested in providing funding for high-quality transportation projects, has such trouble seeing through its foggy glasses and cannot recognize the advantages of a subway. It is heartening, though, that local businessmen and activists may be able to turn the situation around and convince Virginia's politicians that only a subway makes sense.

Kay Railey Hutchison?

Kay Bailey Hutchison has this to say about transit in Texas. She's a supporter but how much? Enough to tell Culbertson to shove it? I guess we should ask her.

Transit Space Race Update: Atlanta

I missed these articles but it is a good example of whats going on in the space race, specifically that folks in Atlanta are worried that other southeastern cities are going to eat their lunch.

A recent article in the Gwinnet Daily Post claims other cities are leapfrogging Atlanta for transit supremacy in the Southeast.

While Atlanta’s inner core has been served for decades by the MARTA rail system, efforts to connect the city with its more distant suburbs via commuter rail service have languished. As a result, smaller Southeastern cities like Nashville and Charlotte, N.C. — which now features light rail — have moved ahead of Atlanta in offering commuters an alternative to driving on clogged highways. "They’re beginning to outstrip the transportation hub of the Southeast,’’ said Emory McClinton of Atlanta, a member of the State Transportation Board and longtime proponent of commuter rail.

In December, the former king of Road Warriors in Atlanta had this to say in an Op-Ed in the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

How then does Georgia expect to compete for industry and jobs against cities such as Miami, Charlotte, Nashville, Dallas, Denver, and Orlando, whose transportation alternatives are more than a decade ahead of Georgia's? Commuter rail just started operating in Nashville. Denver, Dallas and Portland have light rail in operation, while Charlotte is in the advanced stages of comprehensive regional alternative transportation planning.

Hopefully Atlanta wakes up from its congestion creation machine soon. They do have some interesting projects going on including the Beltline, The Brain Train, The Peachtree Streetcar and the embattled Lovejoy Commuter Rail. Those will help but a possible expansion of MARTA along with other improvements would go a long way.

Straphangers Rejoice!

Apparently short riders on Washington Metro were getting the shaft. Now they've put in 20 spring loaded handles on a single car to test them out. I would think they would want to put them on more than one car but at least they are starting to think about it. When i was riding BART to Lafayette from Oakland, it was always packed at rush hour in the afternoon. There would always be someone who couldn't quite reach and just had to hope that everyone else would hold them up during acceleration. Maybe BART will be next.