New Tech & Electrification

If you were a city, would you want to be the first to implement an unproven technology whether it's hydrogen streetcars or super fast charging streetcars? I know that makes it tough for innovation but it seems like a lot of risks and on a political level it means career death if the program crashes. That being said, there are lots of interesting ideas out there that might deserve a look. In addition to the two above, the inductive motor looks interesting as well.

One thing though, I really really don't get the hate of overhead wires. They have been proven since 1888 and create no point source emissions. Get over your personal aesthetic people. If you were so concerned with wires, you should also be concerned with that smog stuff as well. As I've said before, it may look bad to you, but my lungs don't care.

On a similar note, some Railroads are considering electrification as well as allowing corridors to be used for wind power transmission. This idea has been around for a while and I'm glad they are finally catching on.

Drinking from a Firehose

Here's a few tidbits from the last few days. I'm sorry for the outage but I was in Denver for CNU. The next few weeks should be a bit more stable.

Beijing wants to be a transit city...that means not waiting for more than 5 minutes for a bus. That would be awesome.

In peak hours, the minimum departure interval for subway trains will be shortened to 2 minutes; the waiting time at bus stops will be reduced to 3 to 5 minutes; public transport will account for 45 percent of the journeys in downtown areas.

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Forclosure is hitting the Lindbergh MARTA development. The area is seen as a model, but apparently that doesn't help get or keep funding.

“We worked 10 years to get to this point and to make such inroads and transformed the entire neighborhood,” said Harold Dawson Jr., president of the Harold A. Dawson Co., the project’s developer. “And unfortunately these lenders can’t see the forest for the trees.”

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Carrollton looks like the place to be in North Texas when it comes to TOD. The New York Times gave them a nod. Though what is even more interesting is that they are looking at getting Korean investors to build some of it.

Mink hopes to bring Korean developers to prospect for business around the city's three Dallas Area Rapid Transit rail stops. Those transit stations are scheduled to open in December 2010.

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Winston Salem is looking to use energy grants to plan the streetcar. I thought that was rather innovative.

The city hopes to apply for a discretionary grant through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program from the U.S. Department of Energy as soon as funds are available. Winston-Salem would be in competition with other local governments for the money.

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The Ragin Cajun is stumping for streetcars in New Orleans.
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Salt Lake Mayor Becker hopes the US Conference of Mayors will be able to push harder for more streetcar money.
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Looks like we have another I-10 situation in OK. I don't understand paving over rail ROW. It just doesn't make any sense in these times.
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Why bar the car when you get the milk for... wait that's cow. Well why are people buying cars if they have the zipcar option.

Comment Rejection

At the moment I have comment privileges on posts that are older than 5 days. If the post is older than 5 days the comment gets moderated. I don't think I have rejected a real comment yet, just a lot of spam, which is why I set it up that way. But today because my fingers were dumb I accidentally rejected two comments. Apparently once you reject you can't go back, even if you hit the back button. In any event, I took a screen shot of the two comments and posted below. If you wrote them (Bob + MV), I'm really sorry I deleted them, I didn't mean to. Perhaps you can post them again. This is the only way I could save them...

Of Montréal Electrification

Looks like Montreal could reap the benefits of electrification sooner than others.

Agence Métropolitaine de Transport and Hydro-Québec agreed on May 5 to invite proposals for a study to determine the feasibility of electrifying four of Montréal’s commuter rail routes totalling 250 km.

In Calgary they ride the wind. Here they could ride the wave.

I Wear My Sunglasses At Night

Over at Politics and Place they're talking about the effect of train goggles with an excellent discussion on this issue that I mostly agree with. Yes I have them too. Apparently I'm a Choo Choo Head. I won't go into the dog whistle effect that the term choo choo has for rail transit opposition but it's there and it's strong. But as Paz states:

Munch on this for a second. If all of the sudden every streetcar and commuter train that ever ran was to suddenly reappear, would we still need buses? I would argue "absolutely, yes".

Ditto. As Bruce McF always says, buses and trains should be friends.

Knew It Was Gonna Happen

I've been waiting for that day. The day when the Busway in Miami is handed over to the cars. We knew it was gonna happen...somewhere.

Now they might get their wish if county commissioners and other local elected officials approve a proposed plan to convert the Busway into -- among other alternatives -- a four-lane highway with express toll lanes where private vehicles would share the road with buses. The revenue would then be used to fund the cash-strapped county transit agency.

This is one of the things I fear with BRT boosterism, that eventually the road will revert to cars. To some degree my fears are unfounded, but this should give us caution.

More Rock

There are tons of songs out there that deal with driving, wish there could be more like this...



Be careful though. It's kind of catchy...

Via BART's Blog

Silo X: Single Project vs. Complete System

There's been a lot of talk over this study today. It comes at a perfect time for journalists to skim the abstract and form their own conclusions before actually digging in to the details. What the study does though is look into the life cycle costs of different transportation modes. As Jebediah states in his post:

What’s totally missing in their “complete” estimates for these various transportation modes are the virtuous effects of rail: creating denser communities where people tend to walk more, own fewer cars, live in smaller abodes, and spend less time stuck in traffic jams.

Where could we get such a look into that community? Why Portland of course where they began preliminary calculations of these things in a basic way for transportation and building emissions.

This can and has been replicated (pdf pg 53) in other places such as Over the Rhine in Cincinnati. Hopefully other places will look holistically at the benefits of the whole package instead of just these news hopping studies that continue silo thinking. It is certainly good to look over the life of projects, but as mentioned, it's only the life cycle of that individual transportation project and nothing else related.

Oh Noes! Streetcars Go Slower!

The Salt Lake Tribune apparently doesn't get the point of Streetcars AT ALL.

According to the UTA's own study, capital investment for expanded bus service on 2100 South would cost only $10 million. The streetcar would cost $37 million. Buses are more expensive to operate, but you could run expanded bus service for 26 years on the difference in capital cost between buses and the streetcar.

Great, run buses on a private ROW that has a ton of development potential. No comments on the difference in development that will result or the benefits of electric transit. Also, they apparently also haven't even taken a look at Portland, Tacoma, or Seattle to see if people actually ride.

TRAX has shown that Utahns will ride trains when they won't ride buses. That might be another point in the streetcar's favor, except that Utah doesn't have experience with a slow-moving streetcar system.

Oh noes! Not a slower moving streetcar! It operates nothing like Trax in downtown Salt Lake!!!

Links & CNU Coming

The Reconnecting America site will have updates from the CNU this week on its twitter aggregator for the CNU17 hashtag. If you use twitter, I'll be tweeting from @reconnecting.
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Jarrett at Human Transit asks if Sim City rotted our brains. I've been playing since the early 90s and I'm pretty sure that if I didn't go to planning school I would have no idea that zones didn't need to be separated.
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Poor drivers, they just get no respect. No one loves them anymore. The Heritage Foundation is trying so hard its sad to see them twist the statistics without giving a full picture.
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A group files a civil rights suit on the Central Corridor. How much should be spent on gentrification mitigation on rail lines? Is there a limit?