Seattle Streetcars

I'm not sure how i missed this but Seattle has been having workshops on future streetcar networks in the city. There are some good suggestions. Check it out here.

The Forbidden Railyard

Telstar Logistics has an excellent post about some streetcars that have been stored in the woods of Tahoe. Great Pictures too. Check it out.

Tales of Transmilenio

I think the post below to the Light Rail_Now Yahoo Group is important. The BRT phenomenon is getting out of hand with people saying that its just like LRT but cheaper. Well its not just like LRT for several reasons.

Non Level Boarding - You can't build a bus that lines up exactly with the curb. And taking a bus like Oakland has and just painting it rapid isn't the same. I'm not sure why the equity people are letting them get away with this given that LRT is first class and BRT is obviously third world.

Ride Quality - You can make roads as smooth as possible but in terms of ride quality its night and day. Buses lurch forward, trains glide on the rails. I took buses in Austin to school for 5 years, it wasn't always pleasant during stop and go traffic. Now I take BART and Muni Metro and its amazing the difference.

Operating costs - Operating costs on LRT are lower. It's proven by the data in the National Transit Database. You can hook trains together, buses are limited to 60 meters and no one would allow anything longer on the roads. Labor is the biggest factor in costs and buses cost more because there must be more of them in order to reach the capacity of LRT. This is something critics often ignore.

Attraction of Passengers - When the Yellow line opened in Portland, it was the ultimate test. It basically replaced a bus line that had operated the same route giving a somewhat real comparison of ridership between the two. Guess what happened? 100% ridership increase. That's right, the line doubled its ridership by putting in LRT.

Attraction of TOD - Buses don't do it because developers don't trust them. Even fixed guideway BRT isn't trusted. The reason is because that road can be opened to cars, and that bus line could be moved. Rails in the ground signify people are in it for the long haul and investing in their future.

There are many more but let me continue by saying that these comparisons to third world countries systems are way off base. This is proven by the Hartford Example. Hartford is building a BRT line and guess what the cost per mile is according to the FTA. $55 million a mile where they paved over a rail right of way. Why not build rail? Eugene just completed an BRT line that is single tracked. They are saying you can do it too! But they never tell you the tricks. Below is a comment from Lyndon Henry responding to arguments for BRT in an article by US News and World Report. Enjoy.

The promotion of "BRT" as some kind of "just as good but cheaper" alternative to LRT is a swindle.

The Bogota Transmilenio "BRT" system featured in the article would easily cost more than LRT in fully allocated lifecycle costs while delivering far fewer benefits. Transmilenio consists of a fully segregated 4-lane busway with specially designed extra-long buses operated by dirt-cheap Third World labor. Loadings are far beyond
what US urban travellers would tolerate and ADA compliance is dubious. Average speed is 26 km/hr, or about 16 mph - about as fast as a slower LRT.

The busway was installed by appropriating existing street lanes for transit - no wonder it's hailed for its "low cost"! Where is there a large American city in which the transit agency can simply appropriate four lanes out of a major central-city arterial for dedicated transit use?

The costs of surface Transmilenio are almost invariably compared with those of an underground metro - and, gee, the surface busway always seems to come out ahead. Duh. How about comparing with the cost of a comparable surface electric LRT?

Not mentioned in the article is the fact that Bogota has an extremely transit-dependent population - Colombia's per-capita motor vehicle ownership is approximately 6% that of the USA. And the country is very poor, with per-capita income about 1/5 the US average. Factoring this into the $350 million cost of Bogota's Transmilenio busway system results in an equivalent cost of about $1.3 billion in the USA, or about $55 million per mile for Bogota's 24-mile system. That's about on a par with some US LRT systems with subway sections - such as Minneapolis' s Hiawatha line.

Why is it that just about every "BRT" promotion I see boils down to a huge flim-flam for dummies?

Don't fall for the BRT sham. It's too good to be true.

Industrial Land and TOD

As the Portland Example became more prominent, many cities are looking for industrial land to change into mixed use neighborhoods. While that is good and has done a great service for the Pearl District, it seems as if changing all industrial land uses into neighborhoods might not be a good thing.

Given that some industrial lands are still viable as such, pushing out the industry by routing light rail through it can either be good or bad depending on what your goals are for the corridor. Some places such as Oakland might be better served by saving industrial zones to keep jobs and tax base. Of course if there is a station adjacent, what is better for the city and region? Is it that short term tax base or the long term ridership goals of the transit agency? Is it the housing and reduction of VMT through TOD or is it being able to keep vital industry such as shipyards in Oakland's case. Where else are the ships going to go? It's an interesting dichotomy that is only beginning to pop up in planning and land use for these systems.

So how do we figure which industrial uses should be changed over? The Pearl was a railyard that was abandoned and snatched up by developers. It's proximity to downtown made it very valuable after all the details were worked out. Now its the hottest address in the northwest. Minneapolis citizens however are worried that they will run out of industrial land uses unless some of them are protected from rezoning. I want to say that is short sighted and there is plenty of land for industrial uses, the old ones disappeared for a reason, but i'm not sure if i have all the facts to make that claim yet.

The Central Subway and Beyond

Today there were numerous articles about the planned Central Subway for San Francisco. There is political backing for going forward with the project even with the objections from some who say it's too little for so much money. I wonder if today's anti-transit folk would argue against BART, the Washington Metro, or even the New York City Subways. They probably would.

The Central Subway for some of its faults is a good project section. It begins to address the North South rail deficiencies that plague the City and completes the second of three segments that will connect North Beach to Downtown and Bayview. I personally can't wait to use it.

Extra Note: Here is a link to a PowerPoint for converting the Geary Subway to BRT then LRT.

The Big 2% Dig

After some digging, the folks at Light Rail Now! have brought together some interesting data that could hold some opponents of rail to the fire for their road warrior tendencies. The common theme in road warrior circles is to disparage transit for its low percentage of trips. But when we look at one of their favorite projects, the Big Dig, it is found that...

Boston's "Big Dig" (Central Artery) Interstate highway tunnel project cost a whopping $14.6 billion (that's billion with a B) for about 8 miles. It carries approximately 200,000 vehicle-trips a day.

Assuming all these vehicles travel the full 8 miles, with an average occupancy of 1.6 persons, that's about 2.6 million passenger-miles a day – and includes both local, commute-type trips as well as lots of through, intercity trips (so they're not readily comparable to Boston's local mass transit). According to the latest study (2005) from the Texas Transportation Institute, the Boston urban area experiences about 90 million vehicle-miles/day, or roughly 144 million person-miles (using the average occupancy shown above).

Thus the "Big Dig" project carries only 2.6/144 = a "puny" 1.8% of total urban area road traffic! And for a nearly $15 billion investment! Yet this project – far from being denounced for this ostensibly minuscule travel impact (and in stark contrast to the incessant denunciation of rail and mass transit) – has been widely hailed and favorably cited by the Road Warrior community ... including Wendell Cox (a major advocate of urban roadway tunnels as a "solution" for congestion and alternative to public transport investment).

While not all transit projects pencil out, there are a lot of them that are held to a higher standard than road projects. For the Big Dig project, that $14.6 billion dollars would have bought 486 miles of Light Rail at 30 million per mile. Of course that's just a simple estimation, but imagine what that could have done for travel in Boston Proper. How many trips over 1.8% could have been made by transit. The larger question is how much VMT could have been reduced by this investment. This should be brought out and hung before the urban road warriors. More roads for more sprawl doesn't cut it anymore.

Seattle Viaduct: No On Two Counts

The Alaskan Way Viaduct is dead. Well at least for the week. Seattle Voters said no to both the Elevated and Underground options. Many call for a surface street with transit. Seems like a good idea to me. San Francisco did it, Portland did it, Milwaukee did it. Why can't Seattle? They'll have to pull it down eventually or it will fall down.

Space Race Timeline Statistics from Ed Tennyson

It's interesting to see this year's transit totals go back to 50 years ago levels. Here's what rail guru Ed Tennyson has to say about it. It's a lot of rail...

From 1984 just after the rail renaisance started to 2004, Light Rail gained 274 %, Regional Rail 57 % and Rapid Rail 40-some percent but buses lost half a percent despite 20 per cent more service, That was devastating for costs.

The Big Announcement

And it's out. Toronto is "doing the deal" as my college track coach Bubba would say. This is a major step forward and announces that they aren't going to sit on their laurels. $6 billion and 120 km (75 miles) of rail. Should Toronto be a part of the Space Race?

Toronto Expansion Soon

I know its not in the US but Toronto has a rather large streetcar network and soon they are going to be announcing something big. A few billion dollars for a real light rail system. Stay Tuned.

Update: Looks like a $6 Billion Dollar Plan for Reserved Guideway Rail Transit. More details to come...