Why LA Won't Get 80% Federal Funding on the Gold Line

Contrary to popular hopeful sentiments from local officials we discussed the other day, getting 80% just isn't possible for the Gold Line. After being challenged over on Bottleneck blog by Damien Goodmon (Fix Expo) on my assertion that today federal projects have to have 50% local funding to get funded, maybe 60% if you have a good ridership project that can cover your ratings, I found a GAO report that stated what I remember hearing was true.

Last year, in response to language contained in appropriations committee reports, FTA instituted a policy favoring projects that seek a federal New Starts share of no more than 60 percent of the total project cost—even though the law allows projects to seek up to 80 percent—in its recommendation for FFGAs. According to FTA officials, this policy allows more projects to receive funding and ensures that local governments play a major role in funding such projects. FTA describes the 60 percent policy as a general preference; however, FTA’s fiscal year 2005 New Starts report suggests that this policy is absolute in that projects proposing more than a 60 percent federal New Starts share will not be recommended for an FFGA.

They will not fund anything over 60%. That is unless you make a deal like Salt Lake City where they will pay 80% for one project but it will equal 20% for all projects. Hopefully this helps folks realize that while highways still get 80% and bankrupting their funding account, the mass transit account has only been allowing 50% or less matches over the last 4 years. It's actually been lower in certain instances with Dulles asking for 30%. Why the feds are able to kill that project when they aren't even close to the majority financial stake is beyond me.

China Numbers Update

This isn't minor planning:

According to statistics, China plans to build 65 urban rail lines with a total length of 1,700 km through pouring a huge sum of CNY600 billion into UMT construction through 2015, In light with its near term UMT development layout. In the past several years, the three Chinese metropolises of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou all have advanced in a rate of building 30 to 50 km annually.

50km (31 miles) annually?? Per city?? Imagine if we built 50km of subways annually here. Obviously they have some issues with environment and antiquities but this type of investment and movement is surely amazing to the United States which takes ten years to build a line.

Rising Property Values

The issue of rising property values is a blessing and a curse at the same time around new transit lines. On one hand, rising property values show improvement and that the line is making the area more desirable. On the other hand, rising property values show improvement and make an area so desirable that current residents get pushed out.

But it can help both if planned appropriately. If you know what happened in previous situations, you can plan for accommodating all parties. The value captured due to the infrastructure investment could pay for the transit, or even new affordable housing offsets. This is the possibility in Calgary, where property values rose 628%. That is double what housing prices rose in general. Amazing.

H/T to PC

An Investment

Annually the New Starts program funds about $1.7 billion in ongoing projects around the country. Chump change. Check out Public Transit in Ottawa. They are discussing a $4 billion dollar investment in the city. $425 billion is the adjusted cost of the federal highway system. Certainly would be higher today because land costs much more. However look at the investment in Toronto, Canada.

Toronto is planning a $55 billion dollar transit investment. Our cities are hardly discussing a few billion per region in transit over the next 20 years, yet Toronto is planning a steady $2.2 billion a year for 25 years. Some of it is quite controversial such as an east west subway line, but its interesting that they are talking about a multi-year investment for a single city that is larger than the federal share of funds for all cities in the United States.

Electrifying

The Seattle PI makes the case for electrified transit.

Sports References in Transit

Growing up I was asked by my uncle if I was a Niners fan or a Cowboys fan. Yes I mostly grew up in Texas but of course I replied Niners due to the fact that you couldn't even call my Noni's house during a 49ers game and my mom always told me that Nono (read grampa) went to games at Kezar stadium. So when the game was on we were watching. So imagine my smiles when I saw this reference in the home of the Cowboys. Bill Walsh would be proud.

Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, calls it an example of the "West Coast offense." The approach, which Morris says is used in some western states, calls for pooling money from various revenue sources for use on whatever transportation projects are most needed. Currently in Texas, each source of money is dedicated to a specific use, such as motor fuel taxes being devoted to build highways.

Expect to see more "West Coast offense" in North Texas, especially if the Legislature approves a plan being assembled by local officials to finance a regional rail transit system.

Houston Chronicle: Metro Is So Far-Sighted They Are Short-Sighted

What? Perhaps its because Houston has been such a car oriented city for so long, the editors at the Chronicle aren't sure how transit will work when there is a new energy reality. Before we get into more details, I'd like to debunk the myth that commuter rail lines primary transit function is to get people to airports.

Houstonians will still lack a reliable, affordable public transit option to get to the region's two major airports. Such links are a primary function of commuter rail in other cities.

It's nice to have a link to the airport, but they aren't the primary function. But let's talk about the reality of airports in an energy constrained future. Given that flights are having trouble currently with gas prices, I can't imagine what would happen when it gets even worse. Building lines to airports just to go to the airport seems a bit silly to me, at least when people are fighting over such small amounts of funds as it is and shorter flights could diminish extensively. If we were a place like Vienna with an existing extensive transit network, we can build lines directly from the Airport to the major subway transfer station downtown.

But for Houston, the North Line could be eventually built to have an express train on tracks that serve the neighborhoods to the North. But hopefully by that time there will also be High Speed Rail in Texas. Now we're just voting on it here in California, but if it were to happen in Texas, it would not stop at the airport but downtown at the commuter rail and light rail hub. And when you get off of that train, it is more important to have a network that gets you to all of the major job centers (orange below) and places of housing density in the core of the region rather than have an easy link to the airport. Christof always has wonderful maps...



Now they are looking into commuter trains and complaining that the inner-city network is shortsighted. Well what happens when those people get to the hub downtown on those commuter trains without a circulation network? I would guess less ridership because their trip ends there, they aren't going to hop on a bus to get to other parts of the city. It seems to me they are actually quite smart in fixing up the light rail network.

Long-distance commuter rail lines could relieve growing traffic congestion on area freeways, but there is no single agency empowered to plan and build them. Some major roadway projects, such as the recent Katy Freeway expansion, include no provision for future rail systems.

Not that commuter rail isn't needed on some corridors, but Houston has rather good express buses that take HOV lanes downtown from the far flung suburbs. My dad took one of these downtown to work every day which brought me more appreciation for transit. In addition to these existing facilities though, commuter rail could prove to quicker to get through the process of construction than light rail making the initial city circulation network genius. The issue of networks and overlapping service needs to be addressed more extensively, because we keep having these suburb, urban debates when we need to bring every different type for their strengths and build them all together. As discussed before, you wouldn't build a freeway without arterial and local streets, so why would we do that with transit modes?

Subway to the Sea Moves Along

Slowly. But at least they are paring it down. It goes from this:

to this:


Of course its going to take a large chunk of green to make this happen but how else are you going to build people moving capacity for increased density along the line. Here's the badge again, if anyone wants to use it.

Orange Line Full, Driving Away Riders

We've covered this issue before, but here's an article written by a suit and tie guy that loves to ride this bus who is getting fed up with the crowding. It again shows that Americans are not the same as Brazilians and are not willing to put up with that type of passenger crush load in its buses. Thus the comparison to Curitiba again gets fresh debunking.

I take the line at least once a week, sometimes two or three times. That’s not bad for a guy in a suit and tie. We’re a rare breed on the busways of Los Angeles and a segment of the population that the MTA wants to attract. I live near one end of the line at the Chandler subway in North Hollywood and work at the Business Journal at the other end of the line in Warner Center.

So he's even reverse commuting away from downtown Los Angeles but to another major job center that is surely growing. Yet the end to end run time is getting slower. As said before, the Gold Line is the same length and 15 minutes faster. It's also been able to take the ridership hit because of two car trains and now we see ridership jump to 27,000. Over the last year, that's a 39% increase versus the constrained 8% of the Orange Line.

And the buses seem to be getting slower. It’s supposed to take 45 minutes to cross the Valley on the Orange Line. It’s five minutes longer than that many times. That may not seem like much, but if I’m spending 50 minutes traveling I might as well be in my car and in control.

Sure the Gold Line was a bit more expensive to build but the Orange Line won't be able to take much more growth, so something will have to be done soon that will make the Orange Line much more expensive than it had to be. Hopefully things will get fixed before more people start talking like this.

The point of all this: I don’t really want to ride the Orange Line anymore under these conditions. A champion of the service has become disillusioned. And considering this city’s track record on mass transit, I’m skeptical things will be fixed.

First Ever Elevated BRT in China

Wonder how much this cost them.

Brian in the comments links to the webpage for this new line. Tons of pictures there like this one...