Automobile Anachronists

Every time I read someone stating in a letter to the editor or on a message board that rail transit is a 19th century technology it makes me sick. We all know the first electric streetcar was run in 1888 in Richmond Virginia by Frank J Sprague. However this was behind the fuel injected automobile by 3 years. Karl Benz (Of Mercedes Benz fame) invented that in 1885.

While autos and street railways were around before these two inventions, these are the predecessors to the vehicles on both sides that we now know. So next time you hear this, please be sure to let that person know that the automobile is a 19th century technology as well. In fact, electric cars are 19th century technology yet no one has a problem trying to develop them now. In fact, the electric vehicle was the first to 65 mph just before 1900. In New York there were electric taxis before the turn of the century. Imagine that.

The market for automobiles in the US was principally divided between electric and steam. In 1899 1575 electric vehicles, 1681 steam cars and 936 gasoline cars were sold. In February of that year the Electric Vehicle Company ordered 200 vehicles and the next month announced that it would introduce electric taxi-cabs on a massive scale. The industrial and technological network under-pinning the electric vehicle industry also seemed to be strong. The producers of electric vehicles had easy access to commercially obtainable components, since they used the same motors, controllers, switches, and batteries as the the streetcars, albeit in smaller size.

Streetcar Funding Source

Columbus has come up with a rather innovative funding initiative for their streetcar line. They are going to put a surcharge on event tickets. So whenever you go to a hockey game you'll pay a few extra dollars on your ticket. But it won't be for naught. If you have a ticket, you get a free ride on the transit line. Sounds like a great plan.

Coleman plans to send a proposal to the city council before the end of the year in which the city would add a 4 percent surcharge on tickets to most concerts and sporting events within six blocks of the streetcar route.

Another 4 percent surcharge would affect people parking in lots and garages along the line from Downtown to Ohio State University, and parking-meter rates in area would rise an average of 75 cents per hour.

“I'm so convinced this is the right thing,” Coleman told an audience of streetcar supporters last night at City Hall, referring both to the idea he first raised in 2006 and the new plan to pay for it.

Here is the line map courtesy of Xing Columbus, the local transport blog.

Fast Pass Art

I've collected a good amount of transit passes over the past few years and noticed that Muni had perhaps the most colorful. Well someone else noticed, actually a lot of people noticed and John Kuzich is creating art with them. Very cool. Check it out.

H/T Rescue Muni

Obama on Congestion Pricing

REPORTER: Later, in an exclusive interview with WNYC, Senator Obama said he supports congestion pricing.

OBAMA: I think Mayor Bloomberg's proposal for congestion pricing is a thoughtful and innovative approach to the problem.

REPORTER: Obama said congestion pricing should not replace federal funding of mass transit.

Obama just keeps getting better and better.

H/T Streetsblog

The Language of Transit

Who else thinks the word subsidy needs to be ejected from the lexicon of transit advocates and opponents? Dan at Permanent Campaigns writes a piece for MassTransitMag on Language which should start a larger discussion on framing the issues we care about.

We transit advocates have a problem: bad language. Listen to what we ask for:

Operating assistance
Formula funding
Guaranteed appropriations

Boring!

Right now we seem like we’re still on the welfare train, asking for government handouts without any compelling, exciting opportunities for the nation to embrace.

Our Low Gas Taxes

Stephen Rees has a post up from the Economist showing gas taxes around the world. On this list we're the lowest! Yay....or something...not. We don't pay the full price for the externalities of using oil. Not only that, we've developed in a way that forces our dependence on it.

Last week I filled up my tank and saw it was about $50. Not a big hit considering the next time I go back to the pump will be about a month and a half from now. Last year I figured out that I spent 4% of my income on transportation. The average American spends 17.5%. So imagine if every person had an option to reduce their transportation costs by 10% or more. For a family that makes $35,000 per year, thats $3,500 that could go to a new home, to education, to local businesses, or to better food. Otherwise that 10% goes to an oil company, which I must say paid my dads salary which kept a roof over my head and well fed, but also makes a lot of fat cats at the top rich, and can send money to folks that don't like us.

If we paid the true cost of gas and everyone could have access to transit like Fred, Adron, or Ben we'd be a lot better off as a country and investing more in our respective communities.

Sprawl and Regeneration in Budapest

Sprawl is not limited to the United States. In fact my favorite transit city is under attack from all flanks. Budapest is feeling the horrors of eurosprawl and like everywhere else, it comes with a cost.

"We've exchanged [Victorian-era] London-type smog for Los Angles-type smog," laments Janos Zlinszky of the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe. "The nature of our environmental problems is shifting."

Across east-central Europe, a region once blighted by Communist-era pollution, economic development is bringing on a new set of environmental problems and, in some cases, bringing back old ones.

The main culprit? American style suburbs. Never would have guessed.

Budapest's worsening air pollution is due in large part to the advent of American-style suburban housing developments and shopping centers, according to Andras Lukacs, president of the Clean Air Action Group. "Several hundred thousand people have moved out of central Budapest and gone to these new so-called residential parks in what used to be green areas," he says. "Each day they come back to their jobs here, but because public transportation isn't so good out there, they take their cars."

But public transit is awesome in the city. They are building two new subway lines in addition to the three they have already. During communism, the transit share was 80% but that system came with a heavy price including an underinvestment in all infrastructure. Many buildings are falling apart and have to have some really hefty scaffolding. Here is a photo I took of the big box sprawl. It was noticeable on the train so I took a shot. The photo below the sprawl is some building scaffolding that keeps building pieces from falling while they are repairing it.

AC on Density #2

I mentioned AC's post on Density earlier. In his most recent post, he calculates the weighted densities for 34 regions. I'm wondering how San Jose had such a high density. Perhaps for the same reason that Los Angeles' density is relatively high, due to natural boundaries hemming in exurban growth. Atlanta on the other hand is flat as a pancake and is the worst sprawl offender.

Want to Chat With Fellow Transit Nerds?

I like discussions on transit. It's fun to sit around and shoot the breeze about whatever is going on. Here in San Francisco there used to be forums over at the SF Cityscape where the folks would gather to talk about transit, but its migrated over to Ess Eff. Cityscape still has some awesome resources including a huge blogroll.

As forums go though, I don't think there has ever been one about the transit oriented lifestyle but over at the Metro Rider LA Fred Camino and the gang have done just that. So if you want to go talk transit, check it out. And if anyone wants visit Frank up in Seattle and jump start a conversation there, he's got one too, although the comments section to his blog and over at STB are pretty lively. And down in my hometown of Houston Christof and the gang have the CTC forums.

Are there any other transit forums out there? I know there are a number of yahoo groups with epic battles taking place daily between the transit folks and anti-planners/libertarians but I hadn't seen any in other places.

Greening Car Myth + Capacity Issues

In Forbes, Michael Repogle writes an article on the problems with auto travel increases even in the face of new technologies.

A key arena for innovation will be finding ways to grow the world's communities and economies while at the same time reducing how much driving the population is doing. The forecast growth in motor vehicle traffic--60% over the next two decades in the U.S. and many times that in China and India--threatens to overwhelm gains won through increasing vehicle fuel efficiency.

Which is the main rub, that VMT will increase so much that it will overwhelm any solutions we come up with such as everyone having a Prius type gas sipper. The only way to solve this issue is with more compact development and better transit.

The key to success is to keep car traffic from growing to unsustainable levels to begin with. A 2007 Urban Land Institute study found that shifting two-thirds of new U.S. growth to compact neighborhoods where cars are not the only transportation option would save 85 million tons of CO2 annually by 2030. That figure is more than the combined annual emissions of over 16 million regular passenger cars.

While Michael claims the transit solution is BRT, I think he's been drinking too much of the Bill Vincent cool-aid. In keeping with most BRT peddlers out there, he spreads the rumor in a major print medium that BRT is cheaper than LRT. With most new BRT lines in the United States built as hybrid buses instead of trolleybuses, and just operating as express buses they are not helping the problem either. In suburban areas and less congested routes BRT will be a major part of the solution, but in urban areas, it is a necessity that we build rail lines that can have multiple car consists and have major capacity. The Orange Line in Los Angeles which is already at capacity and takes 15 minutes longer to finish the same distance as the Gold Line LRT, even with its speed limits. The LACMTA is looking to expand it but there is hardly room for more people.

The thing that bothers me most is what if a lot of people need to use transit in cities? On some lines, particularly in San Francisco, there is a capacity problem. A recent study to open up Muni for free rides showed how overwhelmed the system would be if a substantial number of new people hopped on due to free rides. This scares me a bit. New York City has been handling massive increases quite well but even they need to expand and are in the process of building new subway tunnels. If we ever have a big shock and a ton of people hop on transit, there are going to be problems. And not having the capacity of a subway system spine here, it will show the limits of buses as the only solution as peddled by many rubber tire advocates. Buses will always be the bones of a transit system, but our spine should have capacity to move more people than a 60 foot bus.