Joe Metro

Favorite Lyrics:

Northbound, now we start to pick up more college kids
They try to study on the ride
To make up for the fact that they probably kicked it hard last night
And I ponder if it's time to save up and get a car
And pay for the gas that we're takin' from the war
I'd miss all the colorful faces, the places, and spaces I've embraced with

H/T Reader AMBrown

Magical Matching Funds

It looks like Senator Murry pulled a Pelosi in setting the terms of her own matching funds which again shows how the New Starts system is broken. People will continue to write in these rule changes for specific projects if the system continues to not work for them.

Murray's provision requires the FTA to count money from tolls and state gas taxes as part of the expected 40 to 50 percent of the light rail line paid for from "nonfederal" sources.

The historical precedent for this was set by Nancy Pelosi when she decided that the Third Street line could be the match for the Central Subway and wrote it into law. Supposedly Houston has a similar deal writing in the Main Street Line as a match for the future network as well, but it hasn't really been mentioned much.

Included language allowing Houston METRO to get credit for state and local funds already spent on the design and construction of the existing Main Street light rail. This means METRO will be credited an additional $324 million for future FTA-approved transit projects.

The point is that if lawmakers are going to continue to toss these things in, it probably means they are ready for a cleaner transportation bill that allows regions to spend money on what they need, instead of what there is money for specifically.

More Notes

Not sure if you all enjoy the shorter link posts but they can be easier when I'm short on time.

A really cool look at how the Bell Red corridor could develop over time with LRT.
~~~
An off topic but related issue, how Berkeley is paying for the city's solar panels is pretty innovative.

the city itself just issues a bond to pay for the upfront costs of installing the panels, and the homeowner then repays the government over the course of 20 years via a small line item on the property-tax bill. (This way, if the home is sold, the costs of the panels get passed on to the new owner getting the benefits.)

Not sure how this relates to transit but there must be something we can learn from this, especially since better access increases property taxes.
~~~
Germany is looking at speed limits on the autobahn. It's good for the environment, even if it is fun to drive so fast.
~~~
El Paso is looking to redevelop a strip mall infested street with BRT. No definition of BRT included.

The Short End of the Stick Is Still Long

The transportation bill is stuck and as its written might increase transit's share of funding by a whopping 2% and the road people are already going nuts.

Utah transportation officials fear a proposed six-year federal highway-spending bill will siphon money from new roads in growing states like Utah and reward transit systems instead.

Why these strikes extreme fear into their hearts I don't know. Perhaps because they know that people are starting to change their minds about the great freeway subsidy experiment. What I do know is that it's a little bit funny that on the same day that the Moving Cooler report came out supported by government agencies including the Federal Highway Administration, a new website from AASHTO came out as well touting 'REAL' solutions to climate change that include cars, cars, and did we mention cars? Their big suggestion? Reduce annual growth in driving through smarter driving. But initially they were on the committee for Moving Cooler but were conspicuously absent from the final report pages. It seems as if someone decided to take their ball and go home because the results didn't cater to them.

But it's interesting that AASHTO was trying to cut them off at the pass after being part of the team. It's also likely that groups like AASHTO are more aligned with county and state DOTs than they are with cities, which means that if AASHTO exerts its power on congress, it's likely to push further away from the interests of cities. In the stimulus and in the climate bill, cities have been getting the shaft even though they are the nation's biggest economic engines and have the most to lose.

Washington's omission is troubling to metropolitan areas like New York City and Chicago because they are the dominant source of carbon dioxide in their regions and will face the earliest impacts.

Those in the status quo of road building have much to lose as well if we are to believe thier howls, even if the opposite of Transit expansion will benefit places like Salt Lake more.

Utah's reluctance to embrace more transit money puzzles him {Rob Puentes}. The Wasatch Front's train system is growing, he noted, and he believes it makes no sense, at a national level, to fight carbon emissions with energy policy while ignoring them in transportation policy.

The Utah Transit Authority finds the bill a possible upgrade because it streamlines the grant process for new projects, spokesman Gerry Carpenter said Tuesday, although it's too early in the legislative process to comment on details.

Yeah, you know that broken new starts process. Congressman Oberstar gets this which is why I'm glad he's on our team:

"When highway planners sit down to build a roadway," Oberstar said today, "they don't go through the gymnastics of a cost-effectiveness index," as transit planners are currently required to do. "They sit down, get the money, and build a road." Expanding transit, the House chairman concluded, is difficult "if you've got a millstone around your neck."

But all of this leads to the fact that Salt Lake City and other regions need to do something other than the status quo proposed by AASHTO (people are already lowering driving habits because of the economy), because on many days of the year, look how well the AASHTO way works out for them:

Alone in a Sea of People

I actually like to go get a bite to eat on my own and have seen a few movies on my own. A few folks I know are amazed because they could never go out by themselves. I think that if there are things you enjoy and you want to do, why not do them! If you can get friends to come, even better.

Cities are funny places. You're not quite so alone in your neighborhood when you meet all the people that live and work in the establishments around you. I know the bartenders and the bagel makers as well as the local sushi chef. That last one is a bit hard since he notices when I don't come back every week and gives me a hard time. But cities are places you can do that. I certainly couldn't do that in Austin, at least not where I was living on 38th street. But my friends lived further away there as well, so I had to drive. Here many of my friends are within a bus ride or a short walk. Makes it easier to run into them unintentionally on the street, which always feels good.

Things Going On

Check out this really cool/not cool video of the swaying Manhattan Bridge. Kind of freaky when you think about how many full bends it took to break that really hard chewing gum in an old pack of baseball cards or a paperclip.
~~~
Tom Toles is a great cartoonist.

Via GGW
~~~
Matt Johnson has a map of ridership on the Washington Metro. Pretty informative and good lookin.
~~~
Saying yes to the ballot measure that would outlaw streetcars in Cincinnati also outlaws any type of rail. What were they thinking?
~~~
2/3rds in California is really annoying for tax increases. Over 62% of citizens in Marin voted for the train yet they are fighting about whether the Sonoma+Marin = 2/3rds rule applies. When do we get rid of prop 13 again?
~~~
Shanghai Subway to be longest etc etc etc. The Chinese are moving fast.

Via Metro Librarian
~~~
Houston one step closer to sprawl inducing road.
~~~
A New York woman who owns a house near Columbia Pike doesn't like what will happen (italics mine):

A streetcar line would encourage further development along the Pike, generating windfall increases in property values to adjacent homeowners. I am one of those homeowners and lived in Arlington from 1991 until 2007. As much as I like to see my home value go up, I do not consider this an adequate justification for the proposed system.

Of course it's not the only consideration. But what happens when all that further development is walkable and lessens the need to drive everywhere for everything.
~~~

1000 Words

This is likely what the United States looked like in parts of the 1950s and 1960s. These days complete neighborhood deconstruction wouldn't happen in the United States, especially not being paid until after your home had been demolished.

The Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, who was at the meeting, said that the government had not decided on what to pay as compensation.

“Even, beside that, the process of determining the amount of what to pay as compensation is not easy. But we would ensure that those who are qualified receive the payment. Nobody would suffer deprivation,” a report quoted Mr. Fashola as saying.

Begin the Begin

I think Tom Radulovich hits the nail on the head with the basic tenants of this post. Infill stations are a no brainer, especially where suggested and core capacity and operating should be addressed. Don't forget to check all the rosy ridership assumptions at the door. However I don't think we can just sit and rest on our laurels. We need to find ways to build in greater capacity within Oakland, San Francisco and to a certain degree San Jose so people don't rely on thier cars as much. And while there are several BRT lines on the books, that is not going to be enough to deal with the rising tide of need. The longer term needs to be considered right now including that second tube and more urban extensions. Currently the plan calls for that tube, but more and more outward extensions are planned, meaning more and more funding will go to places that shouldn't get it. It's an export of our tax dollars to elsewhere and a practice that should be rectified.

San Francisco should have built a true Metro long ago and I still believe that is one of the major things this city can do to enhance existing service and get people out of thier cars (There are also a million little things that should be happening as we speak) As other cities have shown, 10,000 passengers per mile is possible with greater network connectivity. If we have core rapid transit within San Francisco and Oakland with quality bus and trams as redundancies and networks, there's no reason why we can't get a million more trips a day. Sure that might sound like a daunting number, but we need to look into the future of what is needed.

When my grandmother was born, there were still streetcars in every major city and very little automobile traffic. In her lifetime, there has been a huge change. Systems such as BART and WMATA have been constructed and the region has invested billions in its highway systems. We CAN invest in our future again. There's no reason why another Great Society Subway can't be constructed. And for those who say we don't have the money or that we're asking for the impossible, take a look at yourself and ask why that is.

You can call me a dreamer or an ivory tower thinker. Worse things have happened. But I'd hate to look back and see some kid like me drawing fantasy lines on a map and wishing that we would have invested in his generation, instead of just thinking of ourselves and our own defecits of imagination. If we listened to the same types of people that said no then, we wouldn't have a BART or Muni system to worry about now. Imagine San Francisco without rapid transit at all.

While we might not be able to plan and construct Metros right now, we can start to think about how a better region can emerge from our planning. Just because we don't have money now doesn't mean we should toss out these ideas or shouldn't plan for them. It just means we need to incubate them, for that point in the future when they should bloom.

Music Monday: Not Too Late for Coffee

We'll hit that all night diner...act like big city kids in a small town.

Sunday Night Notes

The mean green of UNT have done another study looking at the economic effects of constructing light rail in the Dallas region. The study says $5.6 Billion in economic benefits just from construction, not from development near the stations.
~~~
This seems to be an issue all around the country. State roads are under state control, so it becomes harder to get local changes on them including transit. Places that are designated as State Roads seem to add another level of bureaucracy, even if they likely get gas tax money for repairs. This issue is popping up in Ogden Utah as well as on Van Ness.
~~~
I wish alignment decisions weren't so political. The realistic solution is to look at the numbers for the starter line as we discussed in the job center post below. Check the places with the highest bus ridership and see what major job centers need to be connected. Granted I'm not familiar with Tampa, but you wouldn't need a million dollars to do a study of where the first line should go.
~~~
The FHA is going to start giving mortgage credit for living near transit. This is part of the ACES bill better known for its fights over cap and trade:

Similar concessions on loan applicants' incomes would be extended for properties located in areas close to employment centers or mass transit lines. No concessions would be made for homes in far-flung neighborhoods that eat into family incomes because of long commutes, which would add to carbon emissions.

~~~
An interesting article about the folks who operate out of coffee shops and other people's houses for work by internet. The digital nomad.