Bush Calls for Oil Use Reduction

Where have we heard this before? Oh yeah, last years state of the union address and he hasn't done anything about it. But here is what disturbs me about this statement year after year. Yeah it sounds good but really he just wants people to continue driving, continue sprawling and have folks not make any sacrifices or hard choices. His call tonight is going to be for alternative fuels for cars, fuels that still need petroleum in some way to succeed, and fuels that still allow us to sprawl.

Bush wants 20%? I think we can do better than that. Alan Drake already says 10% can be done easily through transport electrification. Changing vehicle standards can add even more and incentives for workers to use transit instead of their cars would push consumption down even further. Bush will talk about congestion pricing but what about a larger gas tax. But why can't we do it? Because there are still too many incentives to get in your car and drive, too many neighborhoods where your car is the only way around and too many reasons for the government lobby to just say lets just keep doing what we are doing. So as Bush tells us tonight we need to cut down on oil consumption but keep on driving, just know that his suggestions aren't pushing people to stop sprawl which is a major consumer of our energy and land.

Six Flags Astroworld to be a TOD

I have many memories as a young adult going to AstroWorld to ride all the roller coasters and hang out with my friends. That however is no longer possible. AstroWorld has been sold to developers to do TOD. At the very end of Houston's very successful Light Rail line, Astroworld is prime real estate for TOD and there is talk of routing the end of the line through the site. Tim VanMeter's group is working on the TOD plan which hopefully means it will be done right.

Is Cincinnati In?

As the transit space race heats up Cincinnati's paper takes a really big leap in beginning to advocate for rail. Perhaps this bus city with some short sighted leaders is changing its stripes to keep up with the rest of the country. I'll be watching with interest. So what are people saying?

Brian at Cincinnati Blog says the region shouldn't be involved in a city streetcar project.

The Gentleman Agitator discusses midwestern cities reluctance to embrace progress that doesn't include a bus.

The Cincinnati Post asks leaders to get their head out of the sand.

An article from earlier in the week.

Insert Track, Pave Road, Repeat

Most cities pay for neighborhood and city roads through bonds financed through the general fund which usually comes out of property taxes or taxes that aren't the gas tax. These road projects are big money for contractors but I wonder how much more it would cost when designing roads to add in a lane and rails for light rail or a streetcar. It doesn't seem like it would cost that much more aside from steel for the rail itself (which has been skyrocketing over the last few years) and a bit of extra engineering.

At some point streets downtown need to be reconstructed anyway so why not build light rail when already replacing the street if its in the cities future? Generally costs for reconstruction of the street and utility relocation are blamed on the transit authority and lumped in with the cost of the project which allows project opposition to cite high costs as a reason not to make the capital investment in rail infrastructure. But with this method we go back to the way it when streetcars were first built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, where they were the reason the street was built and paid for at all.

This forward thinking is going on in Charlotte. Even though they aren't running streetcars until 2019, they are going to build the line into the street when they replace Elizabeth Avenue downtown.

Last year, Grubb helped persuade the Charlotte Area Transit System to redirect the streetcar through a proposed development off Hawthorne Lane. He was aware of the city's $277,000 purchase of steel streetcar rails. They will be laid during an estimated $10 million remake of Elizabeth Avenue that includes sidewalks, streetlights, sewer lines and underground utilities. The all-in-one construction effort could start by summer.

Transit agencies and Cities could be more forward thinking in this respect as more rail infrastructure is planned and built. However there needs to be provisions for this type of forward thinking in the new starts process and the NEPA process as well...but lets take it one step at a time.

The Real Reason You're Broke....

Bus Chick has found an article that talks about what American's seem to do best...spend money and burn oil. None of my friends seem to be complaining about the cost of a car, probably because like me they drive it once a week. Although my roommate thinks that BART is way too expensive if you're going with two other people to the east bay. But it seems that the problem is not with carpooling but rather single occupancy vehicles, more specifically their costs. Why are we trying to subsidize housing so much when people are just gonna blow that extra money on their auto...

Americans are spending more on their vehicles than ever before -- more than $8,000 a year on average -- and it's driving some to the breaking point. Credit counselor Bill Thompson of Jacksonville, Fla., estimates that one out of every four clients his agency sees has overspent -- sometimes dramatically -- on a car. "They may be spending 15% to 20% of their (take-home) pay on just the car payment," said Thompson, who supervises credit counseling for the nonprofit Family Foundations, "and that doesn't include insurance, gas, maintenance and all the other costs of owning a vehicle."

Quite Amazing, perhaps transit is a part of the affordability solution. To take a look at how to address this issue through transit, check out the Affordability Index.

What If...

Today there was an article in the New York Times discussing what people could do with the $1.2 Trillion dollars that will be spent on the Iraq War. Well what if we spent it on fixed guideway? If spent in Capital projects alone, (there would have to be more funding for service) we could build at $30 million per mile 40,000 miles of Streetcars and Light Rail. Of course this is an oversimplification since some areas would be good with BRT and others streetcars and some would need to be in Subway but that is an awful lot of transit. If limited to the 100 largest cities, that is still 400 miles of rail per city.

Also lets think about return on investment and TOD. Imagine if it were all streetcars and we got 500% of our investment back in development. That would be $6 Trillion dollar economic boost. Of course again its oversimplification but you get the idea. There are other issues to deal with as well including TOD infrastructure, ped improvements, steel costs from such a large infusion in cash but if it were all under the buy America act, we could mass produce streetcars like the PCC streetcar in house and make TOD the standard instead of the rule.

As noted by Ed Tennyson this money that we are spending on the war didn't likely exist anyway but we can always dream…but lets dream of a world where we wouldn't even have to go to coal mines at home instead of oil fields afar to get our energy to move people until of course a better alternative energy source came along.

The Social Capital of Transit

When i was in school i took a class called Public Health and the Built Environment. My professor Dr. McMillan often rode the #3 bus to school had a whole class day devoted to social capital. That day she told us of an encounter she had on the bus one day of a lady who was lacking enough change to get on the bus (In Austin it's still 50 cents). Obviously anyone that was standing there with the woman would give her the extra change she needed to get on the bus and its telling of the generosity of Austinites that her ride was paid for through the kindness of strangers.

But when does this type of kind interaction happen in your automobile? Sure you let people cut in front of you in a traffic jam, or you might let a pedestrian go in front of you but as a personal observation it seems like one never gets to truly interact with people like on transit. Some folks don't want to be bothered by people of different social status' whether higher, lower or even student but i think it allows people to be more able to empathize with life situations and stages. Younger folks learn how to give seats to their elders and older folks might find from looking at the kids that its a great idea to bring an ipod when in transit. Taking transit might be good for the environment and good for your pocketbook but it seems like it also might be good for your conscience.

Ostrava Streetcars Delivered to Portland

The New Portland Streetcars have arrived. Check them out over at Portland Transport. A little more about Ostrava from Commissioner Sam Adams' blog. Part 2 of this blog discusses the issues of the Buy America act and why if streetcars are to make a major comeback with federal aid, there needs to be an American made streetcar.

The Madison Debates

Lately there has been a fervent debate in Madison Wisconsin over whether streetcars would be good for the urban environment there. In the Capital Times, Op-Eds for each side have been flying back and forth but most of the opposition is using the misinformation of Randal O'Toole and Wendell Cox (What great names for villains). The most recent one written by Ward Lyles of 1000 Friends of Wisconsin rebuffs the arguments made by local folks who don't know all the facts with data from the National Transit Database and professional anti-rail propaganda as stated by Randal O'Toole.

As a circulator system, streetcars are a great idea. They combine the stop spacing of buses with the economic development potential and ridership bump of semi-metro type light rail to which streetcars are related. They are not meant to go fast but rather act as pedestrian accelerators and meld with the urban environment. In Portland, the streetcar carries almost 9,000 folks a day and has helped to spur $2.8 billion in development. This development was not just because of the streetcar but as a part of the total planning package, the Pearl District and South Waterfront areas are becoming the most European like neighborhoods in the West.

In Madison like their sister city Austin, streetcars should only be part of the transportation solution as circulators connecting major destinations in the downtown. Cities such as Denver, Salt Lake City and Seattle are already way ahead of the game in thinking about transportation in bigger terms than just a single mode. All of them are building light rail, thinking about streetcars, and operate many different types of buses.

In some corridors streetcars work, in others light rail is more apt and in freeways with HOV lanes there might be an opportunity for express bus service but all of the modes are needed to beat dependence on the single occupancy automobile. This is something Madison, Austin and other towns need to be talking about if they want to have a transportation sea change like the previously mentioned members of the transit space race.

The Salt Lake City Experience

Today's article in The Arizona Republic lauds Salt Lake City for its rail system and compares differences between the two systems and regions. While SLC is a very conservative place, some of the folks who thought that roads were going to do the trick were converts to rail on the first day. This is telling of what the rail can really do for a cities knowledge base and perception of major investments. As the environmental movement picks up again i have a feeling we will see more investment in alternative transportation. Hopefully, folks in Phoenix will see similar benefits of their system on the first day.