Culbertson Not the Coldest Beer in the Fridge

So here is another idiotic writeup by Mini Tom Delay. Rep. John Culbertson asks Metro to put the rail down Westpark which in his opinion is a good idea. What he doesn't know however is that the FTA would never fund that route. The ridership is too low to get a favorable rating in the New Starts program yet he pushes it anyways. Any guess as to why? Well he thinks that he needs to hold metro accountable but really it's because he hates transit. Can't we get rid of this guy like we got rid of Tom Delay?

Tram Blogging

How About some Tram Blogging? This yellow Siemens Combino Supra is from Budapest. It's reportedly one of the longest trams in the world with 6 modules and 54 meters long(177 Feet). That's almost 3 articulated buses. Very Cool. This picture was taken by Marcus Tschaut.

The Next Modern Streetcar

The next modern streetcar to open will be the South Lake Union Line in Seattle. Currently under construction, it was the brainchild of land owners in the South Lake Union neighborhood that would allow them to connect up an underutilized industrial properties that could be redeveloped with downtown. The downtown end consists of connections to the new regional light rail, monorail and buses.

Most of it is going to be paid for by the landowners taxing themselves. Paul Allen, former Microsoft exec, and the other owners plan to change the neighborhood with high rise apartments and biomedical research facilities. It will be an impressive transformation and they are relying on the streetcar pretty heavily. The idea was conceived based on the success of Portland, so hopefully they will match the experience there.

Houston Representatives (D) Want LRT

Well now that big bad Tom Delay is gone looks like Houston residents might get what they actually voted for. Being from Houston I've been watching this with interest. Tom Delay and his little buddy Rep Culbertson were so anti-transit yet so powerful they were able to get Metro to change its technology from LRT to BRT. This made all the voters mad because they felt like they'd been tricked. This also put Metro in a bad political situation weakening their ability to have a little more leeway. While we don't know if they can actually get it changed, we do know that Culbertson is a jackass and will build 10 lane freeways all day knocking down houses, but when it comes to light rail, if its built next to a house he's gonna stop it or put in a bus.

Planning Hard or Hardly Planning?

This post had a bit of thinking about how smart it is to be forward thinking in your transportation planning. Well today in the Salt Lake City Tribune it seems like in a plan for a new 8 lane freeway they didn't look at whether it would be prudent to reserve space for transit. They only looked at as the articles states...

But Wasatch Front Regional Council staffers, who are updating the agency's long-range transportation plan, only evaluated which mode of transportation - vehicle or transit - would get people to their destinations the quickest, said council executive director Chuck Chappell. That means streetcars or BRT wouldn't be cost-effective, he said.

Wouldn't be cost effective? What does the cost effectiveness of a reservation for future transit and smart transportation planning have to do with planning for a freeway? Well it does have to do with cars and auto-centricity that seems to be prolific around the country. At least the press is smart enough to pick up on the highway good ole boy network that still persists at regional and state DOTs. Perhaps because of the heads up it will change during the meetings and final planning.

APTA Calls Bush on His Auto-Centricity

Bill Millar, President of the American Public Transportation Association called out President Bush for not mentioning transit as a way to reduce oil consumption. The following is an excerpt but the full text can be found here...

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) is disappointed that, in his State of the Union address, President Bush did not recognize public transportation usage as one of the ways Americans can reduce their dependence on foreign oil. We urge Congress and the Administration to increase investment to make public transit services available to more Americans and to include incentives that will encourage greater transit use in the energy legislation that will be developed. The millions of Americans who use public transportation each day know it saves gasoline. APTA commissioned a study entitled "Public Transportation and Petroleum Savings in the U.S.: Reducing Dependence on Oil" so that the President, Congress and our citizens can have the right facts before them to make informed decisions about how to solve our country's energy issues.

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.