Less Driving...Again

VMT has dropped again. Looks like we need more roads.

"The decline means Americans are consuming less fuel and emitting less CO2 (tailpipe emissions), which is a positive development," Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said in an interview with Reuters. "But it is a challenge to how we fund transportation today."

Hmmm...

Getting Out of Cars

If you live near transit, you're more than likely to walk, bike, or take transit to work.

Wenceslas Makeover

Trams cross the square where the Velvet revolution took place but they might soon run through it. Thought there are detractors, it would be interesting to see what happens.

Mr Pečený’s view is shared by the man currently redesigning Wenceslas Square, Jakub Cígler. The Prague-based architect says that reintroducing trams would transform the ‘dead-end space’ into a ‘living thoroughfare’. Indeed, streetcars did historically wend their way up and down the boulevard, until as recently as the 1980s.

I didn't get a picture when I was there, but here's one to set the scene.

Flickr by TJFLEX2

Operational Flexibility

Single track, private ROW, in street...

What the Question Should Be

The view that transit is a luxury we can't afford in this time of economic peril is getting quite ridiculous. From the papers all over California that don't see the high speed rail investments as important for the states future to Virginia Beach politicians asking where they were going to get money for the extension of the under construction light rail line to Virginia Beach.

Linda Johnson questioned Nixon's light rail talk during her answer. "I think we need to get real here," she said. "The economy today is in a crisis, so the bottom line is, where's the money coming from?"

Why not from money that would usually go to freeways to nowhere? Seems to me if the economy is shot, you're not going to need those freeways for a while anyway. With more people taking transit and gas getting more expensive, its time to shuck the excuses.

Trade Ya a Rail Line for a Runway

So say the Tories which would build a rail line instead of a third runway at Heathrow. Stephen Rees has more.

It's Like Getting a Raise

Taking transit that is...

Jeanne Whitworth, wearing a dark blue jacket and skirt, settles into a Sprinter car at the Oceanside Transit Center, awaiting the four-stop ride to Rancho del Oro, where she lives. Whitworth, who works in downtown San Diego, commutes weekdays on both the Sprinter and the Coaster, a conventional Amtrak-style train, which intersect at Oceanside.

The two trains take an hour and a half. Whitworth, 42, could be home 15 minutes earlier if she drove there from Oceanside. "But I don't have to fight the traffic," she says, and she's saving a tank of gas every month. "It's like getting a raise."

But the highway mentality and misunderstanding of investments for people versus cars are still out there.

Cooke, a retired Marine Corps major-general, contends that $500 million would have been better spent adding two more lanes to six-lane Highway 78. He's also critical of the train's taxpayer subsidy, saying that everyone riding the Sprinter "is getting a free ticket to some degree."

New Skoda T15 LRV

As you all know, I'm a fan of light rail vehicles. So much so that I went running down an ally in Prague leaving my family wondering what the heck I was doing. Well I was chasing a tram I never quite saw up close but my dad was lucky enough to snap a photo after I had left to go home of the T14.

Looks like a nice tram no? Maybe a bit like a caterpillar or worm. Well Skoda has come out with a T15. Not to be confused with Luke Skywalker's T16 which bullseyed womprats, I'm not a huge fan of this new offering. At first look, it reminds me of the Peugeot my parents had when I was a kid and looks kind of like a bus rather than a train. Obviously with all the "bus that looks like a train" comments on BRT going on out there I'd like for trams and LRVs to be destinctive. But decide for yourselves. What do you all think?

Streetcar Networks

There are some regions which are building light rail, and some which are building light rail and streetcar networks. We see in the space race that the leaders are starting to look even further into the transit spectrum with multiple modes.

The most recent entrant? Salt Lake City

Fresh from a Northwest transit tour of Portland, Seattle and Vancouver with 28 city and business officials, Mayor Ralph Becker says a new streetcar network, beginning in downtown, is a priority for his freshman administration.

This is in addition to plans for Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, Washington D.C., Ann Arbor, and a study starting soon in Fort Worth.

Charlotte Space Race Update

In the comments of the last Charlotte post, frequent commenter J sends us to an article about the federal application for new starts funding for the Northeast Corridor in Charlotte. It's fascinating because apparently Keith Parker who is the head of the transit authority, wants to bundle three projects together for funding. The Northeast Corridor light rail line, platform extensions for the South Corridor (since its so far over ridership they need more capacity) and the North Corridor commuter rail line.

Parker wants to bundle three projects. The first is an 11-mile extension of the Lynx to University City, which is now projected to cost $900 million. The commuter rail line to the Lake Norman area could cost between $250 and $310 million. CATS is also penciling in $50million to improve the existing light rail line. It wants to extend station platforms to handle three-car trains and also wants to buy additional rail cars.

It seems like these package deals are starting to catch on as regions are seeking to build more than one line at a time. The FTA is going to get more of these after they made the deal that they did with Salt Lake City paying for 20% of their four lines.

In August 2007, FTA and UTA executed a Memorandum of Understanding to set forth their mutual expectations for Federal financial participation in two of five projects that comprise UTA’s “Transit 2015 Program.” UTA was seeking a combined $570 million in Section 5309 New Starts funding for the Mid-Jordan and Draper LRT extensions. In return, UTA made a commitment to build, by 2015, the West Valley City and Airport LRT extensions, as well as the South Front Runner (commuter rail) extension without Federal financial assistance. The current total capital cost estimate for the five projects in the Transit 2015 Program is $2.85 billion.

Now CATS will try a similar deal getting more out of the process. What this tells me is that the process that exists now doesn't really work for regions. They are looking to fill in the gaps that were missing in the last 60 years and there is just not enough money from any source to do it.