OT Running: Interview With Me Not About Transit

For those who have followed this blog a while, you know that before I liked talking about transit I ran a lot. A friend of mine from college recently interviewed me about my days as a runner and allowed me to give some tips for beginners. So if you're interested, head on over to her site to check it out. (There's a part 2 as well)

Indianapolis Follows The Wrong Footsteps

In November an Indianapolis group called Indy Connect released their long range vision for transit in the region. It's chock full of all the stuff transit geeks love including lines on maps. I'm not going to go into the details of the plan as Yonah at Transport Politic has already got that angle. Additionally, the locals at Urban Indy have done a good job getting the initial reactions from folks on the ground.

But I definitely approve of bringing down the bus headways to real levels that would start to make ridership equal that of other regions of similar size. Places like Austin, Columbus, and Charlotte are similar size with daily ridership much higher.

Austin - 108,300
Columbus - 58,400
Charlotte - 103,500
Indianapolis - 29,700

But that's not really the issue I wanted to address. Also in the plan are several commuter rail lines, light rail, and BRT that isn't really RT due to its lack of dedicated lanes in the plan. The light rail has been pushed back I'm assuming based on cost and the first rail corridor they want to build is the Northeast Line. While this looks like the deal of the century, they should really take advantage of the fact that they are late to the Transit Space Race by looking at what other regions have done and the consequences of their actions.

Politically it looks like a short term winner with a long term loser. Build the commuter rail line on an existing freight rail ROW on the cheap to get voters in suburban jurisdictions to buy into the plan. They'll vote for it because its cheap and the voters of the main jurisdiction will think they are getting a rail line because that's what you're selling with pictures of commuter lines in Chicago and Philadelphia and Austin. But the people that really want it will just get bus lines for their trouble.

Curious that last city I listed. Because they went first, Austin tested the waters with this type of plan. Back in 2000 there was a light rail election that lost by less than 2,000 votes because George Bush was on the ballot among other reasons. That line would have hit all the employment centers and gotten about 37,000 riders, more than all of Indianapolis' transit does now. But it lost, so in 2004 Austin got the politically palatable solution that is now a commuter rail line taking about 800 riders a day from Leander to the North to the outskirts of downtown Austin. Take a look at these cities aerial photos and let me know if you see something familiar.

Indianapolis - Left Yellow is the University, Middle Yellow is Downtown, State Capital and the red line is the commuter rail.


Austin - Top Yellow is University of Texas, Bottom Yellow is State Capital and Downtown


See a resemblance? Both lines skirt places people want to go. Austin's line gets around 800 riders a day. For the last 6 years Austin has been discussing urban rail to go places where the commuter rail line did not go. However the plan keeps getting pushed back for a number of different reasons that are mostly political. But if they would have done the right line first, neighborhoods all over the city would be begging for extensions to a current system. The politics would be a no brainer but as it currently stands, people are still a little hesitant to put their money where their mouth is in terms of an actual urban rail plan in Austin. That's not to say they aren't working on it, but it's a very uphill battle.

That's the political price that Indy is going to pay if they build the NE Corridor first. Forget all the good will of increased headways and higher ridership for the rest of the system. Charlotte has shown that people won't remember you for your increased ridership. I'm guessing that before the 1998 sales tax increase, Charlotte was in a similar place as Indianapolis is now. But the opposition picked apart the half cent mercilessly and focused on the train. Luckily the train was a success and Charlotte saved their half cent sales tax from repeal, but the attack was on right away. So in a place like Indy where people are much more afraid of taxes for these types of expenditures, if you're going to build a line, do it right or that cheap victory is going to end up being an expensive long term defeat.

But where should the line go? Well let's look at Austin's 37,000 expected ridership year 2000 alignment or Houston's line that passes 290,000+ jobs or even Phoenix which hits the major downtown corridor and Arizona State. It's about the job connections. These lines connected jobs to people. So where are Indy's jobs?

Looking at LEHD data from On the Map, we can see that employment is clustered around the CBD and State complex. The University is a major employer as well to the west of the downtown cluster with the big red dot. (Red = 10k jobs)


But take a look at where the Red line goes, which is the Northeast Corridor. The yellow line is my idea of where a transit corridor should be. And while there are is a fake BRT corridor that goes where the Yellow line is on the map above, it won't get the same type of TOD investment and revitalization they are hoping for unless they rig the headways really high to 5-10 minutes for Rapid service all day or build dedicated lanes for rail or bus.

But the other reason I think that Yellow line is key is because if you look at where the downtown workers actually live at densities that might warrant transit capacity like that, it's not on that red line but up the yellow one. Again LEHD data:

You could also make a strong case for the light rail line if it were a bit north on the West side and crossed downtown and hit the University. While the commuter rail line might be a good idea for a mature transit system, it's future political suicide for expansion prospects. The reason being is that the region is not going to get any worthwhile excitement in terms of sheer ridership numbers for a starter rail line. Houston got ~40,000 riders to start. Charlotte got ~16,000 riders to start and Phoenix is at ~35,000 by connecting major destinations on the corridors. If this line is like Austin and so far its looking like that is the case, I'm going to bet on an anemic 500-2000 riders at most.

Again that is a short term win looking for a long term loss. If I were Indy, I would start pushing hard to have that North BRT line dedicated ROW, or do a tram-train to Noblesville. The tram-train is likely to get killer ridership and suburban support. There is the benefit of learning from those who have gone before and made the mistakes. No need to make them again so that you're hamstrung into the future. I'm all for trains as people who have read this site over the years know, but do it right, or don't do it at all.

Making Stuff Up

I know that Robert and everyone else is going to take a hammer to this one, but it's really annoying when people like Megan McArdle just make things up or toss out random numbers to make her feelings on a subject seem right. Here's the immediate culprit that made me want to post.

San Francisco-LA, the route my fellow journalist wanted to travel, isn't even on this map; the Bay Area MSA only has about 4 million people in it. By contrast, the smallest city on the Chinese map has a population over 5 million, and that's considerably understated, because I used just the population of the city, not the outlying areas that might conceivably drive in to use the HSR.

I know that blogs are blogs, but where is the sourcing for the numbers? If I use numbers I'm always trying to cite them. Why is she using MSA of San Francisco and Oakland instead of the Bay Area CSA? The Bay Area CSA is actually 7.4 million, not 4 million. That's a HUGE difference. Not to mention that she's talking about SF to LA, wherein LA's CSA is 17.8 million people! And then where's the link to Chinese cities? A simple wikipedia search would help even a little.

Finally, there are other high speed rail lines that were built WITH regard to environmental issues and have greater similarities to the possible US system. I think a comparison to France, Spain, or Netherlands/Germany would have been more apt in this circumstance.

Anyway, posts like this are why I get annoyed at general commentators taking stabs into my area of specialty. I've also mentioned before that if they are this bad at my subject, how are they in other people's areas? The focus of blogs like Human Transit, the Urbanophile, or the Transport Politic are always going to be much more informative than most of Megan's posts. But we push back on her because more people read her blog.

Replay 6.11.2008: A Very Moving Speech By Robert Caro

Note: Tonight for some reason I was watching Charlie Rose on PBS (I don't have cable and my netflix ran out) and he had Chris Matthews and David Brooks on talking about what the Democrats did wrong. Chris made the comment as I've mentioned here before that President Obama needs to do what Eisenhower did with the interstate and what happened with Lincoln signing the 1862 Railway Act. I agree with that, but I don't agree with what he said after. He said that people will accept liberalism if it means Robert Moses. Anyone who says that does not understand the pain that Moses caused in New York. They don't understand the destruction that happened in cities around the country due to the interstate highways ripping up city neighborhoods whole sale.

In any event, that made me think of Robert Caro's speech at CNU Austin in 2008. For anyone that doesn't know what Moses did, watch, and you will now know why Robert Moses should never be repeated.




Thanks to Lawrence and Jon. Here is the Caro speech from CNU in Austin. It might make you cry, but it explains how damaging Robert Moses was to the City of New York and this Country.

Transit Election Central 2010

Hey everyone. This post is going to be a liveblog this evening when the results are coming in. Key things around the country include Tampa Light Rail and Governors races that could make or break HSR. If you want a preview, check CFTE. We did this in 2008 and had a blast. Join us later this evening.

Check below for a local transport issue

6:58pm PT - O'Malley Wins Maryland Governorship, Purple line safe
7:49pm PT - John Hickenlooper wins Colorado, Good for transit
7:52pm PT - Scott Walker wins Wisconsin, good thing feds signed HSR agreements
8:17pm PT - Pretty official, Tampa Light Rail dies almost 60-40
8:53pm PT - Tenafly non-binding rail measure loses
9:18pm PT - Clayton County non-binding resolution for MARTA will pass
12:34am PT - Jerry Brown wins governors race, HSR is a go

I'll fill in more of these tomorrow as I get time, kind of a disappointing day but there will be other big wins in the future.

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California --

Prop 22 - Keeps the state from raiding local taxes including transportation

36% Reporting - 63% For 37% Against

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Lots of $10 registration fees, covering high transit percentage only

San Francisco Prop AA - $10 registration fee for roads, transit and ped improvements

60% Yes 40% No
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San Mateo Measure M - $10 registration fee for roads, transit, safe routes to school


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Sonoma Measure W - $10 registration fee, 60% for transit service

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Florida --

Polk County - (Loss) Half Cent Sales Tax for Transit

87% Reporting - 38% Yes 62% No
92% Reporting - 38% Yes 62% No
95% Reporting - 38% Yes 62% No
97% Reporting - 38% Yes 62% No
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Hillsboro County (Loss) - Half Cent Sales Tax for Light Rail, Roads

43% Reporting - 40% For 60% Against
68% Reporting - 41% For 59% Against
82% Reporting - 41% For 59% Against
86% Reporting - 41% For 59% Against
94% Reporting - 41% For 59% Against
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Clayton County GA (Win) - Nonbinding - Asking if Voters Want to Join MARTA

46% Reporting - 67% Yes 33% No
67% Reporting - 68.6% Yes 31.4% No
77% Reporting - 69% Yes 31% No
93% Reporting - 70% Yes 30% No
100% Reporting - 70% Yes 30% No

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Oahu Hawaii - Question 1 - Would establish a transit agency to oversee rail construction



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Tenefly, NJ (Loss) - Nonbinding Question #1 Should Tenefly Rail Service be Restored

Rejected - local news reports many upset that it would not provide a one seat ride to Manhattan thus voted against the line
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Toledo, Ohio - (Win) Property Tax Renewal to Support Transit

1% Reporting - 54% For 46% Against
30% Reporting -54% For 46% Against
75% Reporting - 54% For 46% Against
84% Reporting - 54% For 46% Against

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Portland, Oregon - $125M in bonding ability for Tri-Met

55% Reporting - 46% Yes 54% No

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Texas

Austin - Prop 1, $90M in infrastructure

10% Reporting 56% Yes 44% No
37% Reporting 56% Yes 44% No
68% Reporting 56.6% Yes 43.4% No
92% Reporting 57% Yes 43% No

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Richland Hills - (Loss?) Asking voters if they want to leave the Fort Worth Transit Authority

Early Voting - 59% For 41% Against
12% Reporting - 61% For 39% Against
38% Reporting - 61% For 39% Against
100% Reporting 61.7 % For 31.3% Against
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Wisconsin

Dane County/Madison Asking for a half cent sales tax to fund a Dane County RTA

Note- Really hard to decipher results here given only advisory vote.

Tight Spaces

I think it might be a bit tough to live in such a small space, but if you had to, this is quite an interesting way to go. via Americablog

Music Friday - Take the Light Rail

"If your cars too spendy and your bike is too slow, it will take you anywhere you want to go"

Why Not Rent?

(Once again, a guest post from Ed, kindly invited by notorious density lobbyist P. Trolleypole.)

Despite the collapse of the housing market, homeownership is still out of reach for many Greater Boston residents, according to a new study by the Urban Land Institute.

So begins an article from Saturday's Boston Herald. The article spends a lot of time tossing around median home prices in Greater Boston and discussing how out of reach they are for working class households, and then talks a little about an affordable housing program that is on the MA ballot in November. The option of renting never comes up, nor is there any talk about how to make or keep rents affordable.

I'm not opposed to worrying about rising costs of shelter in cities, but the outsized focus on homeownership drives me a little crazy. This fetishization is why we have tons of awful policy in this country:

- Mortgage interest tax deductions, which distort the home market, and the benefits of which go largely to the wealthy:

The deduction is wildly regressive. The tax savings for households earning more than $250,000 is 10 times the tax savings for households earning between $40,000 and $75,000 a year, according to recent research by James Poterba and Todd Sinai.

- Fannie and Freddie, which, for example, had the US taxpayer implicitly (de facto, at this point) guarantee 95% of new mortgages in 2009, and which have a heavy single-family bias, giving sprawl a helping hand

- FHA-subsidized loans, which explicitly put every taxpayer on the hook for tons of mortgages with only 3% down (and low downpayments are a strong predictor of default, especially when prices are falling)

The list goes on.

Meanwhile, this is all in support of a system that encourages households to (1) take on massive debts in order to (2) make a huge and completely undiversified investment in (3) a highly volatile asset. So, when bubbles pop and prices drop 20, 30, 40 percent, you have made sure that a large portion of your population has seen its wealth evaporate. On top of that, being so highly indebted makes households less mobile, and less able to find new opportunities - which is why you see higher unemployment in places with more homeownership - we've encouraged people to weld their escape hatches shut.

All of which is to say - maybe it's time to rethink how we house people. Should one's shelter really be tied to one's investments? Should we be paying more attention to affordable housing policies that help renters? Should we start dismantling all these subsidies, and maybe turning some of that money to causes that help low-income renters? This aspiring density lobbyist thinks so.

Giving Up and Release Valves

So it seems as if the Port Authority in Pittsburgh is giving up on a rail trip between the two largest employment centers in the region. Perhaps they'll get real BRT but given that opposition always goes to the lowest common denominator such as in Berkeley, you can bet there will be a fight over dedicating the lanes.

I'm disappointed because I feel like this is a travel corridor that could benefit from a direct link from the existing light rail system. However no one wants to actually invest in transit infrastructure these days. I can hardly blame them, once it gets built they have to fight for every penny to operate the thing. If we're ever going to get a real mode share out of transit, we're going to have to start investing in something real. Not necessarily in big projects, but real headways and dedicated lanes for places that will never have rail.

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I guess I'm in a pessimistic mood tonight. New Jersey is thinking about stopping the ARC tunnel for road projects (blech) and the Twin Cities is thinking about how they are going to serve the suburbs of tomorrow when people can't drive. Newsflash! Peak oil isn't our only problem people. What about those folks who can't drive because they are too old! Paratransit is expensive.

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This article irked me for some reason. In it Mary misses the major point about development and land value around transit and even "urban renewal" lessons. She complains about the high rises around transit close to single family neighborhoods.

That, of course, is precisely the problem with Charlotte's love affair with too-tall transit-oriented development zoning smack next to low-scale, historic Dilworth or - this will come - NoDa. Even if nothing's demolished, making land values so high so swiftly via zoning encourages large, expensive projects that will drive out small-scale enterprises.

You want to know why that property becomes so valuable? Because it is scarce! Contrary to popular belief, there is not enough supply of urban housing to meet the demand, so the speculators come in and jack up the prices. I bet you wouldn't have this problem if transit was built out such that neighborhoods didn't gentrify because people wanted the quality locations and access. In places like New York City or Chicago that have extensive transit systems to all kinds of neighborhoods, you see that transit stations are the more diverse income places than the region as a whole.

This is the problem with our thinking here. We complain about the results of our actions but don't think about the underlying actions themselves. Given that Charlotte is building its system line by line, you'll see development speculation and value increases acting as a release valve on the downtown market. If you built all the lines at once, that pressure gets relieved five or six ways instead of one way.

Right now this is just my theory, but when Denver and Houston open up their lines at relatively the same time, I am going to say that you are going to get a more diverse housing type in new stations than we've seen along corridors that are a first big transit investment in a city. The reason being is that they will meet the actual demand, instead of be a small rock in the pond.

So if regions are feeling for local businesses and the skyrocket land values around transit, the escape valve that creates greater opportunities in places that want to change is to build greater transit networks. More escape valves means greater distribution of different development and less pressure and speculation.

The Final Countdown!

Magic from jrk on Vimeo.

T4 has awesomely put the source code for their transportation bill countdown clock on their website for share. Folks who are interested should pull it down. This is something that shows how lax our government has been on actually doing something they are supposed to do every 6 years. Instead they just put it off. Oh we have too much to do or there is an election coming up are always the big excuses. This is what we pay you for!