Light Rail Kills Babies 2

That's what the opponents told the folks in Salt Lake City. They've come a long way since then and are probably doing the best job of just getting things built of anyone in the country.

But now the opponents are going with the next common denominator attack. If they build light rail, say they should have built BRT. If they built BRT they would be saying only use buses such as is happening in Oakland. This is at the time when UTA is actually building out a real transit network with all different transit modes including streetcars, light rail, BRT and bus networks.

"I don't think it's done any great favors to transit down here," said Salt Lake City resident Stephen Pace, who led the anti-rail group Utahns for Responsible Public Spending. He said UTA should have focused instead on buses that have the same right-of-way preference over cars as trains, but are more flexible and require a less massive investment.

This is the ugly side of the mode wars where people who fight it don't think ANY money should be spent on transit, even if they say in public we should. It's not a nod to smart planning ideas but rather what is cheaper. It shows because these attacks come amongst vigorous transit expansion in all modes. It's also interesting that opponents are starting to attack the conservative credibility of UTA's leaders. A lot of the anti-tax folks are coming out to argue against any spending via taxes.

Pace rails against the "so-called" elected officials who champion fiscally conservative values but are "just as deep in the federal trough as anybody else" to fund TRAX extensions into their communities.

It makes me wonder, what is fiscally conservative anyway in terms of development and infrastructure expansion? Is it doing nothing?

This is also happening in Tampa where anti-tax conservatives are starting to feel as if they were left behind by their elected officials who understand that infrastructure is better funded collectively. The polarizing effects of the national debates are starting to trickle down to pure ideologies.

How ironic that Republicans, one of whom I first supported over 20 years ago, and one who pledged never to impose new taxes when he came seeking my assistance in running his first campaign several years ago, would be the leading proponents of a new tax that could siphon as much as $300 million per year from the residents of Hillsborough County.

What's even better is that the author of the Tampa article also believes that people have a choice whether to spend money on gasoline or not, even when they construction of the communities they live in are based on the automobile alone.

Sharpe writes that the proposed tax increase of $85 per person is "... less than the three-week price rise in the cost of gasoline." Perhaps. But the option of paying for gas is ours and not an imposed burden by our government.

Funny that imposed burden.

Infrastructure Spending

There's an article in the New York Times that discusses the lack of major infrastructure projects around the country funded by the Federal Government. For the most part it seems as if major infrastructure projects are having to go at it alone locally.

Another approach is to finance new projects several notches smaller in cost and boldness — and in contribution to economic growth. Denver and Salt Lake City, for example, are extending light rail and bus lines into the outlying suburbs, at a cost of less than $5 billion apiece.

The Federal Government is a limited partner in these investments. For example while the Feds pay 90% of freeway expansion, more recent experience for these transit projects shows there is only a 50% match, and in more recent new starts reports that has been sliding down. Denver for example is asking for less than 40%.

With federal funds dwindling it also begs the question, if the Federal Government is not going to give regions funding for projects, why are regions sending the federal government any gas tax money? Sometimes it seems like a fairly inefficient funnel. Ultimately the MPO is the acting federal government at a regional level where there usually is no real governance. Since regions are the economic engines for the country, it makes a little sense but the federal government has too much power to tell regions what they can and can't spend money on.

But the benefits of having the federal funding mechanism dialed into the region is during a severe downturn. Ultimately that funnel can become a spigot pushing projects faster than they would normally go by providing jobs. In thinking about it this way, perhaps something they can do to help places like Denver or Salt Lake City is take over the capital funding for already under construction projects and allow those cities to use their existing capital money for operations or other projects. There are plenty of places that already have transit networks that could get pushed up if there were a guaranteed capital outlay.

I don't quite understand why the large goal oriented projects have stopped or are at least slowed. My only guess is that things have become so politicized and the no taxes groups have taken over the political landscape, making everyone else afraid to make a decision without getting hammered politically. Ultimately there needs to be a way to pay for needed infrastructure improvements, even outside of a crisis.

The Usual Statements

Will there ever be a day when we don't see this sentence in a newspaper article?

Huntersville Mayor Jill Swain said the N.C. Department of Transportation, "from the top down, recognizes that north Mecklenburg's roads are overwhelmed, and Barry Moose's comment shows we need to move the traffic through our area faster."

More sprawl subsidy on the way!

Austin's Trends

There is a lot to like but a lot to reframe in a recent article in the Austin Chronicle. CAMPO, the local MPO is looking to go a different direction with the regional transportation planning they've been doing and has stumbled upon visioning as an acceptable way to move forward. Unfortunately survey respondents are split between what is basically the Envision Central Texas model and the sprawl as usual. But why are they split? Is it because they weren't told the true costs or that they don't mind wasting their money? A telling part of why folks might not have chosen the more sustainable method is the following:

The trends concept is basically a recipe for continued sprawl: It leaves regional development patterns up to current policies and market trends. It assumes that all $2.4 billion worth of projects in the current investment pipeline get built.

Market trends? Since when was sprawl market based? I always assumed it was fueled by a big fat subsidy to home owners through unequal housing subsidies and road subsidies. I must be wrong since the frame is that it's actually the market pushing that direction. The biggest challenge for advocates as shown by this paragraph is reframing the debate. We need to jump on it and own it. We should be the fiscally responsible ones, the ones who care about whether locals get to keep their hard earned money. It's also because shifting demographic and market trends are swinging away from what they used to be.

I do like the idea of allocating 50% of monies to the centers in the region which would go along way towards improving transit ridership numbers and hopefully focusing growth on employment as well as housing. Hopefully they actually build transit into the centers instead of around them. I'd probably focus on that first along with better pedestrian and bike amenities.

But there are many other considerations to deal with. First is affordability. How much does that housing and transportation cost eat up a family budget. How much money is going to be left in the typical Austinite's pocket by this plan? What are the citizens going to get out of it? That determines how the local economy grows. This should be part of the decision making matrix. Too often these decisions are made in silos. Integrate them with housing plans, water plans, employment plans, state plans, school district bonds and every other plan under the sun. How are you going to house your workers affordably? Is it more affordable housing plans or is it allowing greater supply creation? How are you going to provide energy on a smart grid to all these people? How does that work together with transportation? Trolley bus wires? We could go on...

Another is how much money can be saved in terms of infrastructure if you go with the centers plan. If you spend less on sprawl, how much are you going to have in your pocket for other worthy investments? Transform did this in the Bay Area with stunning results. Hopefully we can focus on what people care about, saving money. In the end as Professor Davies always said, if you want to get people to pay attention, "hit them in the pocketbook".

Monday Night Notes

Hartford has been brutalized by parking. The loss of tax base to the virus of surface parking is staggering.
~~~
Can you reduce GHGs and still grow?
~~~
Is Paris more accessible than London? Some physicists say yes because the ants told them. Via Price Tags
~~~
Can space be found for affordable housing in New York City?
~~~
An interesting thought, the city as a living machine. How can we bring cities back to a pre-city natural state while still growing? This is an idea that is being explored in many places. A variant on this was discussed last year when discussing plans for the Lloyd district in Portland. It opened up some interesting discussion in the comments.

Station Locations and Employment Centers

I don't quite get why folks in Bellevue are so set on keeping transit out of the center of the employment district. For some reason many of them irrationally believe that the line will end life as we know it, yet in all respects the line will improve the center's economic standing by providing more access to the jobs for the regional workforce. The solution of one Bellevue council member is to place a station along the freeway and provide a long walkway to the center of the district.

Others argue that Denver has a bus connection, so why should it be that big a deal that the employment center is connected to the train station by a bus? For one thing, Denver's bus mall is dedicated to transit alone and has buses coming so often that you can always see the next one approaching. I seriously doubt that a place which has fought against light rail so hard would put dedicated bus lanes downtown and run such a service. But really what is the point of rapid transit if it doesn't go into the center of activity? The more apt comparison is Bellview station in Denver (funny how the names are the same) right next to the tech center, which we have discussed in previous posts. That should be used as an example of what to avoid when locating a station near a major employment center.

Apparently there is a lot of research that discusses the issue as well. Robert Cervero has looked at this issue in a paper called Office Development, Rail Transit, and Commuting Choices. Ultimately the findings show that the further the station is away from office buildings are, the less likely workers are going to use transit. If the station is near the office, workers are three times more likely to take transit to work.

Also employment density matters as well. The greater the employment density, the more people will take transit. In the Bay Area, the Cervero paper cites statistics that for every 100 workers per acre more, 2.2 increase in commuting by transit. In the Twin Cities, Professor Gary Barnes of the University of Minnesota found that the central city and CBD were greater attractors of transit ridership than suburban offices. So for every increase in 1000 people per square mile in residential density, CBD ridership increased by 2.43%, central city destinations increased by 1.15% and suburban job locations increased by .63%. Ultimately where you are going matters just as much if not more than where you are coming from.

For light rail lines, transit ridership increases the more jobs are within a half mile of the station. Using LEHD data, if you look at recently constructed light rail lines and employment within a half mile of the station, the number of jobs is related to the number of riders that a line gets. Here are a number of recently constructed lines charted against workers.

So with all this evidence why would anyone ever think about running a line outside of an employment district instead of right through it to capture more riders? The goal should be to boost and improve accessibility for workers, who make up 60% of transit ridership, not make it harder for them to use transit.

Previous posts on this subject:

Importance of Employment Centers
When Road Engineers Do LRT

Sunday Night Notes

Long Beach is looking at streetcars
~~~
Quatar has a $22B deal with Deutsche Bahn to build freight, passenger, and Metro rail lines using Siemens technology.
~~~
Having the last train leave at 6:30 is a ridership killer. Commuter rail lines with limited time tables make no sense to me.
~~~
Major developments along the North Corridor Commuter Rail line in Charlotte. My question, will it actually be Transit Oriented?
~~~
Is the housing bust going to actually halt suburbs? I feel like this will be short lived unless something bigger changes.

Get Riled Up!

Want to get riled up? Check out the back and forth at the National Journal between highway lackeys and the good guys. "You're trying to take away our freedom to drive 100 miles to work everyday!" This one from the head of the truckers:

However, many of the proposed solutions encroach upon our freedom of mobility and our right to live where we want. Smart growth land-use strategies are simply ways to encourage living in high-density areas offering mass transit, which counters the preferred lifestyles of most Americans. Instead of changing the transportation systems to modify our behavior, we should improve our transportation systems to match people’s behaviors and preferences.Personal freedom is a defining characteristic of the American way of life...

This gem is from the head of the highway users alliance:

If so, I assume you would reject policies that would limit the choice of new homes that can be zoned and built, force people to pay to park in front of their home, add high tolls to their car trips, require paid parking at suburban shopping centers, divert their taxes, and involve the federal government in local land use planning, right? Afterall, these unfortunate souls do not need to be punished for living how they were forced to live, right?

We are in total agreement in fact -- Americans should be free to live where the want to live, work where they want to work, and shop where they want to shop. And as they choose freely without armtwisting from the federal government, we should provide the transportation system that is finanically, politically, and environmentally sustainable to support that free choice. We could start our plan with the one mode of transportation that could theoretically support itself with a reasonably set gas tax paid by its users.

I just fell of the couch laughing. Man those users sure do pay for the system! We can let people live however they want as long as its with cars! This is amazing yet not surprising. This is what we are fighting against.

Match Points

Every place in the country wants to spend more money on infrastructure but none of them have it. Los Angeles and Denver want to pay for their transit systems and Governor Goodhair in Texas wants more roads but doesn't want anyone to pay. No new taxes!...? But isn't a toll a tax? All arrows point to the federal government but they aren't budging any time soon. What gives? Always money.

What I also don't get is why Denver isn't asking for a full New Starts contribution for its Fastracks money match. They need as much and even more than they are asking for, 39% and 28% for two corridors. Why can't they ask for 50% of each? Roads get 80%! I don't get it! They need the money to complete the project.

Los Angeles on the other hand is going looking for more. $9 Billion and soon. Mayor V says LA should get money because they are putting up their own, but isn't Denver putting up its own? Isn't Houston putting up its own? It's Salt Lake putting up its own?

“What we’re saying to them is we’re one of the few cities coming in with our own money,” Villaraigosa said in an interview yesterday. “You figure it out.”

Perhaps he has those other cities in mind. Cities are living up to their end of the deal and more. With the feds giving out money, many have struggled to criticize, feeling like they might get the spigot cut off. Well right now there isn't a spigot at all, so its probably time to start railing on the folks in Washington to get moving already. Apparently Peter DeFazio has already started. Get rid of the clowns that are advising Obama or at least shut Summers up and get some infrastructure spending going. LA is putting up their end, Denver is putting up their end. Metro Regions keep getting the shaft, give them a hand and create some jobs already!

E2

If you missed them, there are some really cool webcasts from PBS on many of the issues the livable communities cares about.

H/T Grush Hour