Holiday from Real

Why can't we have a real discussion about energy and alternatives in this country? As we continue to talk about worthless alternatives like gas tax holidays and price caps, real solutions to our energy problems get tossed aside. Today Thomas Friedman writes in the New York Times that the United States passed on giving tax breaks to alternative energy. Soon we will have tax credits for oil companies that are making record profits on the market while alternative energy credits run out. While this would not really help in the transportation sector that uses the most oil, it most certainly would have the effect of getting the ball rolling on ways to get us off the sippy cup. Even carbon taxes as Ezra Klein points out would help give us a push.

But there is another problem that plagues us now and long term. The Gizmo Green. This is the hope that technology alone and not also behavioral modifications will save us from ourselves. Barack Obama even has an ad out discussing what we can do including:

Raising fuel efficiency standards
Alternative fuel research
Middle class tax cut

Whew. Once we do that the problems will be solved! Not. That is all about cars. What about modes of electric transit? What about development patterns? Walkable, bike friendly communities? Anyone? Bueller?

Matt at track twenty-nine says it best:

Still, Mr. Obama's message leaves a little to be desired. He recently reiterated his support for Amtrak and for building a better high-speed rail network in this country, but he has not yet asked Americans to change modes, nor has he promised to significantly change the way we build transit in America.

In all of President Bush's States of the Union, he called for us to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Not once did he ask Americans to try the bus. Not once did he promise a spending package that would start a wave of new transit construction across the nation. Instead, he called for new fuels (to be delivered sometime in the future) and a switch to biofuels (also to be delivered sometime in the future).

Asking Americans to switch to transit would produce an immediate reduction in oil usage, especially if it was coupled with subsidies to reduce fares and the construction of new lines.

Seems to me we did this with the Interstate Highway Act. Not to mention that more transit means more jobs in an ailing economy. Perhaps a new program is in order to change our possible transport and neighborhood choices, not just what powers our cars. Now when buying your first house, you can choose between suburbs. It's annoying to hear folks say that the market prefers suburbs when downtowns are so expensive because of the market for living in them. I wish those people that hated living here in dense ole San Francisco would move out because its dang expensive due that pesky market demand for a transit-oriented lifestyle people sure don't like.

Road Networks Grow Like Leaves

Very cool article posted by Christian Peralta at Planetizen. The article discusses how road networks grow organically like leaves with major arterials connected to smaller collector routes.

The researchers developed a simple mathematical model that can recreate the characteristic leaf-like patterns that develop, growing a road network from scratch as it would in reality.

The main influence on the simulated network as it grows is the need to efficiently connect new areas to the existing road network – a process they call "local optimisation". They say the road patterns in cities evolve thanks to similar local efforts, as people try to connect houses, businesses and other infrastructures to existing roads.

This is important for transit. The reason being that roads have evolved over hundreds of years often one street at a time. But we always get hammered when one transit line doesn't cure all of the region's ills. The reason being that we're providing core arterial service and depend on the smaller connections to be made by foot, bike, and car. In cities such as New York where the transit system starts to mimic the road network do we see how transit can help everyone with affordability, mobility, and energy independence. I wish folks would realize you have to start small, and grow to a network.

Transit Etiquette

In my daily catch of articles I came across a really cool new blog on transit etiquette. Today, TriMetiquette discussed feat on the seats. Grrr. Check em out.

Streetcar Scalability and Capacity

Over at M1ek's I posted a few photos of some Combino trams from different places around the world to show how you can scale the vehicles to fit within any environment. Depending on the capacity needs, there might only use for one streetcar. However, if there are higher passenger volumes, then there are two ways to accommodate this. Either by coupling cars or modular design. Coupling cars is possible, below is a photo of the Skoda T3 in Plzen Czech Republic, the same vehicle as the Portland Streetcar, with couplers.


Photos Courtesy of NYCSubway.org

The next option is the modular tram. Basically, you can build to specifications you want. According to the Siemens website, they c trams from 18 to 72 meters (60 feet to 236 feet) almost 4/5ths of a football field.

Sorry for the bad picture but I stole it from Tom Furmaniak's powerpoint on streetcar tech.

Real Examples below:

Combino - 3 Sections

Flickr Photo by: Johnzebedee

Combino Ultra - 5 Sections

Photo Courtesy of Gen Gibson

Combino Supra: 6 Sections

Flickr photo courtesy of Tschaut

This is the same for the other tram companies including Ansaldo Breda, Skoda, Kinky Sharyo, Bombardier, and Alstom's Citadis Tram.

Transport Genocide and the Revenge Veto

I like competition but not when its at the expense of working people and pits cities in the United States against each other. This isn't a strategy, its a systematic genocide by the road warriors and privatization crowd at DOT. I know that we talk about the transit space race but its supposed to be a healthy competition rather than a death match. But it's what is happening around the country. The federal government, instead of figuring out how to build the transit projects that everyone wants, is pitting cities against each other for funding. Why doesn't this happen for roads? And why, if one entity with selfish interests in mind instead of the interests of the overall consensus in a region, is a project put in jeopardy?

But an official familiar with the federal transit funding process said, "This is a competitive process with projects around the country. The more everyone's singing off the same page, the more it moves it ahead of other projects"

The most recent example of this idiocy is the Central Corridor in the Twin Cities. Basically though, after the DFL party overrode a major transportation veto by Governor Pawlenty, he decided to veto the funding for the Central Corridor. No one has come out and said it, but its revenge. Nothing more and nothing less. He is certainly in the minority on this issue in the state and is being a good little Republican and hoping to get some street cred for opposing transit it seems like it could be in part for a chance at being John McCain's second hand man.

But this also opened up an opportunity for others to kill the project because they don't like the idea that it would slow auto oriented culture. Let's not put our heads in the sand, all of this is a fight against the status quo of all cars all the time. This line is going to give Washington Street incredible people capacity, but again its all about cars.

In 2001, the Board of Regents passed a resolution stating it wanted a tunnel under Washington Avenue. If not that, a route along the northern edge of campus, through Dinkytown. If not that, a ground-level route along Washington — but only if someone could figure out how to fix the resulting traffic nightmares and how to pay for those fixes.

Since the U didn't get its tunnel because of our favorite "Cost Effectiveness Measure" it started throwing a fit over the fact that the line was going to be on Washington Avenue. All along the way though, the University threw up road blocks:

The Met Council briefly looked at the Dinkytown route but discarded it out of concerns it would be too expensive. The tunnel was in. Then, the U decided to build a Gophers football stadium on the tunnel's route, forcing a rerouting of the already pricey tunnel and adding more than $100 million to its price tag. The tunnel was out; Washington Avenue at street level was in.

...

The full weight of the U's position wasn't widely understood April 7, when Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed $70 million in state funding for the Central Corridor, citing, among other things, concerns surrounding the route through the university.

Two days later, the U released preliminary findings of its consultant's report on the Dinkytown route. The findings suggested that route would be cheaper and faster than one along Washington Avenue. The preliminary findings do not yet project ridership levels or how that route would measure up to a complex federal funding formula.

The change will not kill ridership on the line, but will lower the cost effectiveness rating. Perhaps to the point where the line does not pass muster with the FTA. How many times does it have to be said that you can't go around a major center of activity. The measures for transit are bad, this all could have been avoided with the initial tunnel that the University wanted and everyone was willing to invest in. Instead, the line is in limbo all due to the fact that the process can't measure a line for its real benefits and the government does not see the importance of new rapid transit lines enough to fund more. Lets hope this changes soon.

Why I Love Taking BART to My Gramma's House

Here is a video I took with my digital camera on the way to my Gramma's last week. I had decided not to drive and call my Dad to pick me up because my folks were in town. Good thing I did!



Sometimes however I walk the three miles instead of calling for a ride. And I always go up this street:



And down this trail that was once a railroad right of way:



Needless to say I actually do go over a river and through the woods to my Gramma's house.

$8 Dollar a Gallon Gas

In Europe. They've known about how to deal with high gas taxes for a long time. Even so some are feeling the pinch, but most have alternatives. Here is an article from the San Francisco Chronicle discussing the issue:

"We are much better equipped than the U.S. to deal with higher prices and a more volatile market because we are so much less oil intensive than you are," said Noel, who bikes to work.

Europe generally has far better public transportation than the United States, with workers in countries like Britain, Belgium and France packing morning commuter trains and subways. Transportation planning increasingly factors in bike lanes, and more innovative mayors like those in Paris and London are designing schemes to facilitate alternative transport - and to make driving an ever more arduous option.

Do Things Like This Hurt or Help?

Ugh...while we've been working hard to get the word out on transit and I wrote in an earlier post that electric rail as we know was actually created after the auto as we know it, we still get folks like Jon Stewart who should be a great help doing stuff like this. I know he's trying to be funny, but does this really help the cause? Perhaps you can tell me if I'm being too persnickety. The section is 47 seconds in.



Hat tip to reader Joe C.

Overhead Wires, Pantographs, & Trolleypoles

Warning, rant approaching:

Ben Wear from the Austin American Statesman wrote an article on his blog today on the proposal for an Austin starter line by Roma design. In the article he muffed the overhead wire, not my blog, but the technology details.

Light rail, as opposed to the commuter rail opening late this year or early next year, is generally powered by electricity and has a system or overhead wires that connect to devices on the top of the cars called “catenaries.”

Sigh. The devices on the top of the vehicles can be two things, Pantograph or a Trolley Pole, just like my nom de plume. Interesting history point, the pantograph was actually invented by none other than the east bay Key System, now AC Transit, which had it's 50th tear down anniversary last week. The catenary is actually the support wire for the electric wire. From wikipedia:

To achieve good high speed current collection, it is necessary to keep the contact wire geometry within defined limits throughout the length of the overhead line. It is usually achieved by supporting the contact wire from above by means of a second wire, known variously as the messenger wire (US & Europe) or catenary (UK & Canada). This wire is allowed to follow the natural path of a wire strung between two points, which is known as a catenary curve, thus the use of catenary to describe this wire or sometimes the whole system. This wire is attached to the contact wire at regular intervals by vertical wires known as droppers or drop wires. In this way the contact wire is effectively supported at numerous points.

The messenger wire is supported regularly at structures, either by means of a pulley, link, or clamp. The whole system is then subjected to a mechanical tension. The messenger wire is usually pulled slightly to the left and right by successive supports, so that the contact wire slides from side to side(stagger) on the pantograph as the vehicle moves along (if it did not then it would tend to wear a groove in the pantograph's carbon insert). Such a system, with a single supporting wire, is known as simple equipment.

Sometimes we also call simple equipment a trolley wire which is much more aesthetically pleasing and should be used in downtown settings to minimize the visual pollution. I know this is a bit picky, but if you're going to continuously pick on the local transit agency on details, at least get yours straight.

Rant off.

Rail From the Dead

It's been a long time since the year 2000, but we're starting to see some deja vu and some longer range thinking. Here comes the rail plan revival train.

1. San Antonio. The Express News has an editorial discussing bringing light rail back to the polls.

A proposal, no matter how thoroughly defeated at the polls, is likely to resurface when the timing is right. Is the timing right for light rail in Bexar County? County Judge Nelson Wolff thinks it is.Announcing his goal to promote light rail during a recent event marking the start of ozone season, Wolff said the system would help the area meet tougher environmental standards imposed by the federal government, the Express-News reported. The new standards mean the region, which barely avoided costly sanctions for ground-level ozone pollution last year, may not be so lucky in 2010, when regulators compile their new list of "bad air" cities.In politics, there is no such thing as a dead issue.

2. Norman Oklahoma. They are trying to steal the Supersonics. Not Cool. That might give them an opportunity to build a rail line. Cool. Every story has two sides, this one just might end up in alternative transportation. Though the article says light rail, its highly doubtful thats what they mean when they say they will look at using existing tracks.

Collins, speaking to a Norman Chamber of Commerce legislative breakfast Friday, said he was able to raise the issue of light rail with the owners of the Seattle SuperSonics. He said they seemed interested in promoting rail using existing lines and stations.

Transport Electrification

There is a lot of talk here of passenger rail but little discussion of freight. I can't say that I know about the business that much but I wanted to share a few ideas that I had seen that look promising.

The first is a plan thought up by Bruce McFadden over at Docudharma. His idea is to create a backbone energy corridor along freight lines to transport stranded wind.

It should, I hope, be clear that much of the best resource is in areas that do not have the highest electricity consumption. And at the same time, that is a lot of the terrain that the transcontinental freight rail must traverse to get where its going. And, at the same time, we desperately need to get the main freight rail trunk lines electrified, by hook or by crook. Ergo, I got a grossly oversimplified policy proposal to present.

• The Federal Government invests in publicly owned infrastructure to electrify the main railroad
• In return, the owners of the right of way cede use of the right of way above the part that they need to public use, together with access to the ground level right of way for support structures
• That right of way is used to establish long distance High Voltage DC trunk lines to bring sustainable energy from the places that have it to places the need it
• In areas where there is a commercial wind resource, the usage rights above those trunk lines are available to be leased out for wind farm operators, with the lease payments rolled back into the funding for the program

Some answers to some challenges to the proposal, after the fold.

Another of interest is a plan to reduce energy consumption in 10 years through transport electrification, mostly by electrifying the freight lines by granting property tax waivers for railroads that electrify. It also includes more rail transit and trolleybuses. Alan Drake discusses that plan over at Light Rail Now! I'm not sure how feasible it is, but its an interesting idea to ponder.

Most Prolific Coach in NCAA Retires

Every once in a while I have to toss in a track or cross country blog when the news is important enough to share with the world. Tonight I tip my hat to Arkansas' retiring coach John McDonnell.

Bigger than any Football or Basketball coach in the NCAA, John McDonnell at the University of Arkansas won 42! National titles in Cross Country, Indoor and Outdoor Track. When I was in school the Hogs were always in the running for a title and beating them in a relay or at a Cross Country meet was a badge of honor. We didn't like them much as rivals but you had to have respect for Coach Mac and his teams. Congrats Coach on the many years and your contributions to the sport.

In his 36 seasons at the helm of the Arkansas track and cross country program, McDonnell redesigned the face of collegiate track and field.

42 NCAA championships since 1984: 11 cross country, 19 indoor track and 12 outdoor track

More national championships (42) than any coach in any sport in the history of college athletics.

Five NCAA triple crowns(Cross Country, Track, Indoor Track), including three in a row (1991-94).

20 conference triple crowns since 1982, including eight straight between 1987 and 1995.

83 conference championships overall since 1974 including 38 in the SWC and 45 in the SEC.

12-consecutive NCAA indoor track championships (1984-1995), the longest string of national titles by any school in any sport in collegiate history.

Coached all but three of Arkansas’ 185 track All-Americans in school history. Those athletes have earned a combined 652 All-America honors.

Every school outdoor and indoor track record is held by a McDonnell recruit.

34-consecutive league and 17-consecutive SEC cross country championships (1974-2007).

Has produced 55 individual national champions.

Has coached 23 Olympians spanning three decades and six different Olympic Games, including a gold, silver and bronze medalist.

Coached former Razorback Daniel Lincoln to the American record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase is July, 2006.

That man could coach.

Juno & Planning

There's not much that I agree with Sam Staley on, but i thought this post on Planetizen captured some of what I was thinking when I watched the film Juno.

This perception fits the landscape. As Juno is driving to meet Vanessa and Mark, we see her drive through her run-down neighborhood of eclectic single family homes and enter into the wealthier, cookie-cutter sprawl of large, well adorned ones inhabited in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

This sets up a cinematically and artistically visual contrast. It turns out Juno’s family, living in the decidedly less affluent neighborhood (albeit early 20th century sprawl), is far more stable, loving, and grounded than the picture perfect couple in the wealthier contemporary suburb.

From the looks of the neighborhood, Juno probably lived in a Streetcar Suburb.

No Party Like a Tram Party

What if we had enough rail lines and vehicles to run a party vehicle once in a while? Well you'd be doing it just like Prague.

Travelers waiting for one of Prague’s traditional trams will occasionally see something strange pull up to the station: a streetcar with a full-bore dance party taking place inside, complete with high-energy music, disco lighting and bartenders.

Negative Externalities & Congestion Pricing By Insurance Rates

While Randal O'Toole keeps trying to wedge his foot in the door before it shuts, the evidence against the autopia of Futurama gets worse. The New York Times blog goes into detail:

Which of these externalities is the most costly to U.S. society? According to current estimates, carbon emissions from driving impose a societal cost of about $20 billion a year. That sounds like an awful lot until you consider congestion: a Texas Transportation Institute study found that wasted fuel and lost productivity due to congestion cost us $78 billion a year. The damage to people and property from auto accidents, meanwhile, is by far the worst.

In a 2006 paper, the economists Aaron Edlin and Pinar Karaca-Mandic argued that accidents impose a true unpaid cost of about $220 billion a year. (And that’s even though the accident rate has fallen significantly over the past 10 years, from 2.72 accidents per million miles driven to 1.98 per million; overall miles driven, however, keep rising.) So, with roughly three trillion miles driven each year producing more than $300 billion in externality costs, drivers should probably be taxed at least an extra 10 cents per mile if we want them to pay the full societal cost of their driving.

Basically they are setting up an argument for Pay as You Go Insurance or PAY D. Man would I love this type of pricing. First off, I only drive once a week. I really don't even need to drive that but it can be a bit hard on some days to get to my Gramma's house out in the East Bay. But driving about 40 miles a week is much less than the 90 I used to run in college. And it should cost me less than it does now. But the bad economic balance is not lost on the authors of this article:

This brings us to automobile insurance. While economists may argue that gas is poorly priced, that imbalance can’t compare with how poorly insurance is priced. Imagine that Arthur and Zelda live in the same city and occupy the same insurance risk pool but that Arthur drives 30,000 miles a year while Zelda drives just 3,000. Under the current system, Zelda probably pays the same amount for insurance as Arthur.

Is this perhaps a way to get to the mileage tax as well? Everyone has to get car insurance, so what if the mileage was reported to the government like capital gains and sent to you in a 1099 type format. Then it becomes part of your tax return. This could also be coupled with your income quite nicely and lower income folks could get tax breaks. It could possibly make pricing more progressive and might also be a way to recover the true cost of driving, or perhaps provide more incentives to reduce VMT, walk, and use transit. This one market based tool has the possibility of reshaping our urban landscape, likely for the better.

Two Views of CO2

Wired has two maps on CO2 emissions. One is the per capita emissions map that shows cities are actually better at dealing with CO2 than exurban areas. The other is the total CO2 map which shows cities as the main culprits when it comes to CO2 emissions. What is interesting is that they point out the west is much worse off due to its sprawlyness.

There's a lot of information you could mine from these maps, but one thing stood out to me: the West, for all of our hippie do-gooders, isn't doing well (as a whole) from a per-capita emissions perspective. We simply don't live in dense enough situations to benefit from the efficiency gains created by urban living. Lots of infrastructure serving only a few people generates high per-capita emissions.

This comes after CNT put out the same types of maps a few years ago for Chicago. Guess where the CO2 emissions are per capita, not along the Metra lines or in the transit rich core. Interesting.

A National Infrastructure Plan

Speaker Pelosi has issued a challenge. Let's rebuild and renew America. It's a really long article basically covering her speech to the awesome Regional Plan Association which has some of my favorite researchers working for them including the awesome Jeff Zupan and Bob Yaro. Here are a few highlights:

"Rebuilding America is a national security issue. 90% of our oil imports are used for transportation. With investments in public transportation, more efficient roadways, and a broadband backbone that removes commuters from roads, we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce its implications on our foreign policy.

"Rebuilding America is an economic issue. By improving our efficiency, we improve our competitiveness and create the next generation of good-paying jobs.

"Rebuilding America is an equality issue. Earlier this month, when I held an Infrastructure Forum in the Capitol, Darren Walker of the Rockefeller Foundation spoke eloquently to us about transportation as a matter of basic fairness. As he said, the civil rights movement in America was sparked by one brave woman, and one public bus. Transportation is the road to opportunity.

"Rebuilding America is an environmental issue. Making greener choices will bring us cleaner air and water, reduce sprawl and congestion, and cut greenhouse gases, to the benefit of the American people and our planet.

"Preserving our planet for future generations is our most urgent challenge.

...

"With the economy slowing down and job losses accelerating, we must also look for opportunities to take advantage of the stimulative effect of investing in infrastructure.

"In conversations with the White House, leaders in Congress have placed a number of proposals on the table, including funding for infrastructure projects - clean water, passenger rail, transit, highways - where dirt will fly and people will be put to work that simply lack the funds to begin now.

"We will explore these options in addition to all the regular order transportation and appropriations bills which give us built-in opportunities to be innovative and creative.

"Right now, both the House and Senate are at work on legislation that has the greatest potential to address climate change yet: a cap-and-trade system, which will not only limit emissions, but also generate revenue through the sale of greenhouse gas permits. Some of these revenues could be used for public transit or other infrastructure that further reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"In order to renew and rebuild our nation, we need to engage the public in our 21st century vision.

"Once again, Congressman Blumenauer is leading the way, with legislation for a new national commission that would involve the public, members of Congress, and stakeholders all around the country to determine our priorities and look at all the dimensions of this challenge together.

Clay Chastain Keeps Attaching Conditions

Ok, let's repeat a few phrases.

Streetcars are a subset of light rail.
Streetcars are a subset of light rail.
Streetcars are a subset of light rail.

Streetcars can be coupled.
Streetcars can be coupled.
Streetcars can be coupled.

Streetcars can run in their own lane.
Streetcars can run in their own lane.
Streetcars can run in their own lane.

So with that out of the way, it seems dumb that the only way you'll accept a transit plan for a city is if you're so rigid that you limited the plan to one technology. And by limiting the plan to one technology, he's ignoring that there is a way to get what he wants with streetcars if that is a more workable alternative. This is what made Clay Chastain's plan for Kansas City Light Rail unworkable in the first place. He mandated that the line include building an Aerial Tramway over a park and that it had the electric system of Bordeaux France without an overhead wire even though the proprietors of the technology have said they weren't bringing it over anytime soon. But putting it exactly the way he thought it should be on the ballot without doing any engineering was what killed it.

On further reflection however, Chastain has come up with a possible compromise.

“This is an idea that should electrify the entire city and end the cold war between me and the city,” he says. “If there is a settlement between the parties, and the city wants me to support their light-rail plan in November, I will do so.”

Under certain conditions.

“I will do so only if the transit technology for the main spine is conventional light rail and not streetcars,” Chastain says. “And if there is a direct connection to Union Station, and if the city agrees to put on the same November ballot an ordinance in which the voters can choose whether or not to do away with Section 704 of the City Charter allowing the City Council to repeal or amend voter-initiated ordinances.”

Sigh. No wonder no one wants to work with him, he keeps attaching conditions. At the same time, the Mayor is looking to lay the groundwork for a regional rail system. He seems to be starting to look at it the right way, with a starter line. The other cities that have gotten networks started have built a small starter line first; Houston, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Minneapolis. Now they are all expanding, some albeit faster than others.

But I guess the whole point of this post was to say you can configure these transit technologies to do whatever they need to do. Just saying "I don't want light rail" or "I don't want streetcars" is silly. The things that matter are what the right of way is like and the capacity needed on the line. I can understand when folks say "I don't want it in mixed traffic." But don't write it in stone so that you can't have a small section on the line that might only have that option if the ROW in the corridor is too narrow.



Europeans laugh at us. They call them all trams.

Socialist Roads Scholars

I'm a huge fan of Alex Marshall. Sometimes he writes at Streetsblog and others in different magazines and journals. Today he's in Governing Magazine saying what everyone was thinking. The Libertarians and Conservatives who hate transit so much and are all about free markets become socialists when it comes to roads. Government intervention? Only for roads.

Given all this, I find it exceedingly strange that a group of conservative and libertarian-oriented think tanks — groups that argue for less government — have embraced highways and roads as a solution to traffic congestion and a general boon to living. In the same breath, they usually attack mass-transit spending, particularly on trains. They seem to see a highway as an expression of the free market and of American individualism, and a rail line as an example of government meddling and creeping socialism.

Among the most active of these groups is the Reason Foundation, a self-described libertarian nonprofit organization with a $7 million budget that has its own transportation wing. Some typical highway-oriented papers on Reason's Web site include "How to Build Our Way Out of Congestion" and "Private Tollways: How States Can Leverage Federal Highway Funds." Rail transit is taken on in papers with titles such as "Myths of Light Rail Transit," and "Rethinking Transit 'Dollars & Sense': Unearthing the True Cost of Public Transit." I didn't see any papers about unearthing the true cost of our public highway network.

Nope, in their minds, if you toll it, they will come. Don't get me wrong. I think congestion pricing has merits in certain instances, but wholesale tolling of roads is dumb. Depending on a single mode of transport is dumb too. Didn't anyone ever tell them when they were kids that they couldn't eat steak all the time but needed bread, milk, fruits, and vegetables?

H/T The Political Environment

Help Sacramento Enter the Transit Space Race

Update from comments: Brian also mentions that when the page comes up only scenario A comes up. Hopefully they will remedy this so that folks see all three scenarios from which to choose.

Sactown is looking at scenarios for future transit. In order to build out their network, they will need to build light rail, commuter rail, streetcar circulators and new BRT lines. I think a true network expansion is something that everyone can get behind. Well they are asking for folks opinions. So if you live in Sacramento, give them your ideas.

Scenario A - Limited Funding


Scenario B


Scenario C - Full Funding

Also, take a visit to the local transit blogs. RT Driver & RT Rider

Thanks to reader Brian Goldner for the heads up.

Steal an Opportunity for Our Children's Future, Fund Metro!

Senator Tom Coburn doesn't know that highways are subsidized just like transit. Why else would he make a comments like this:

But the Davis bill, as it is currently constructed, will likely never make its way past Coburn. “I’m happy to be a roadblock to that bill,” Coburn tells WTOP. “It’s $1.5 billion they want, we (the government) don’t have the money to pay for it, so where are we going to get the money?”Coburn doesn’t think one penny of funding for Metro should come from American taxpayers. “How dare us say we are going to steal opportunity from our children so that we can have a ride on the Metro. I think the vast majority of Americans would disagree with that.

Wha?! Is this guy serious? No Tom, they disagree with YOU. Even Republicans disagree with you which is why Tom Davis (R) is trying to get the funding through. I feel bad for progressives in Oklahoma, first the Global Warming denier Inhofe and now Transit denier Coburn. What is it with politicians from non-transit non-urban regions telling dense regions benefiting from transit what to do in terms of transportation policy? Get rid of these bums already. Like its not bad enough that $1.5 B is chump change in an Iraq day.

H/T Second Avenue Sagas

Smart Growth? No, Zev Growth!

Ah good 'ole Zev Y. in LA is up to no good again. For those who don't know, he is one of the good folks that brought us the Orange Line busway because of a law he created that said no subways or rail on that corridor. Well he's at it again saying that LA shouldn't grow denser. That smart growth thing is for sissies. But basically he is just playing politics with the frames. He's all about smart growth, just not density. He also wants to keep parking requirements...nothing says don't drive like an open parking space!

Urged on by some elected officials, city planners have decided that the "smart" and "elegant" way to grow the city's housing stock is to double the allowable size of new buildings,bust through established height limits and reduce parking-space requirements -- effectively rolling back more than two decades of neighborhood-protection laws.

What is it with these neighborhood protection folks that they actually want to stunt neighborhood evolution and affordability? It's actually not protection but rather a form of Nimbyism. What annoys me most about these clowns is that they just don't want any growth, it has nothing to do with Smart Growth at all. Here is a perfect example.

But it makes no sense to reflexively boost residential density and building size along every Metro Rapid bus route, as the city's version of the state's density-bonus law allows, when the streets that the buses travel often cross low-density, pedestrian-friendly commercial districts serving some of the city's most charming neighborhoods.

Let's not build more density near the high capacity pedestrian friendly transit. That'll make our transit work better! No one is going to go into the center of a single family neighborhood and build a high rise. All of this is just scare tactics to get elected. I for one hope he gets destroyed.

Extortion in Virginia

This is rich. Apparently Norfolk State University signed a deal a few years ago that would allow light rail to run through campus. A few years later new leadership has moved into the presidents mansion on campus and apparently doesn't like the idea. Instead of going with the original agreement, the University is resorting to extortion.

Norfolk State University wants the city to purchase its president’s home and build a parking deck near campus. The requests are part of a wish list submitted to the city in a letter dated March 26. They are some of the most expensive ideas offered by NSU to resolve an impasse with the city and Hampton Roads Transit over the light rail line under construction next to the campus. No price tags are available for the university’s proposals. However, city officials said the items are not in the project’s $232.1 million budget.

But good for the Mayor, he's not buying it.

Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim said he wouldn’t support the request under any circumstances. “I don’t think we could use public dollars for that purpose,” he said.

It seems recently that there have been a lot of anti-transit campus sentiment. The purple line in Maryland comes to mind, worried about vibrations through campus from light rail and most recently the dumbfounding move by the University of Minnesota who didn't get their tunnel through campus due to our favorite cost effectiveness measure. Now they want a rerouting that would kill the line's federal funding. Something tells me that these folks know nothing about the benefits of a line through campus for students. All over the country there are college campuses that thrive on transit connections. Unfortunately these situations above will have to be forced.

Overheard in Oakland

A real conversation I overheard today:

Girl #1: Have you learned the bus routes yet?
Girl #2: No I have only used BART.
Guy #1: BART is much better than the bus
Girl #1: I use the 51 sometimes, it comes all the time, but I can't read on it.
Guy #1: I can't either, I feel like I have no room for my arms on the bus and it bounces all over the place
Girl #1: Yeah.
Girl #2: Well I'll figure it out.
Girl #1: Just take BART if you have a choice.

I seem to run into planning related conversations in the background wherever I go. The other night I was eating sushi with a friend and one lady in front of me loudly said: "Urban Planners don't know what they are doing, they just build those roads everywhere" and made a circular motion with her hand. I didn't say anything, but I was thinking "that's the highway engineers lady."

The Affordability Index is Online

The affordability index is a different way to look at housing affordability. Since housing has been going down the tubes lately, its not surprising that the crises is hitting the suburbs of major metropolitan areas the hardest. Why? Because they are out in the middle of nowhere and its getting expensive to move around by car alone. Well folks are now starting to measure the housing + transportation costs of families and individuals showing that true affordability isn't a cheap home in the suburbs, but rather the sum of these two costs.

Take a look at the costs of different neighborhoods. In a transit rich neighborhood with all housing being equal, your cost of would be 41%. But if you had to drive everywhere, your costs would be 57%. That's quite a lot of savings by living near transit. See for yourself if you live in a transit rich or auto dependent neighborhood.

H/T Carless in Seattle.

True Patriotism

Streetsblog posted this video earlier today. I never saw it on TV, but it mentions sticking it to OPEC. Be patriotic, drink some beers and ride some bikes (or transit).

Thoughts on Transit and New Urbanism

I am a member of the CNU. I've been going to congresses over the last 4 years but have noticed that a lot of other members don't really get transit or that transit should be an integral part of NU. In a session last weekend about value capture strategies, Scott Polikov showed some diagrams of communities he helped code south of San Antonio and in Leander at the end of Capital Metro's commuter rail line. While they were nice and could probably promote more walking internal of the neighborhood, he showed boutique retail and limited transit access and circulation for both projects. G.B. Arrington, former transit and TOD planner at Tri-Met in Portland who heads Parsons Brinkerhoff's place making division, raised his hand and asked a very pointed question.

"Isn't this just walkable sprawl?"

And therein lies the problem. Much of what the new urbanism is known for is their walkable sprawl which includes the Kentlands and Seaside as the projects most representative of New Urbanism from an outsiders perspective. At the end of the day all of the jobs are somewhere else and without alternative connections to those jobs and a location on the far reaches of a region, the same VMT and overall degradation of the environment will continue.

New Urbanism in principle says the right things in the Charter, but right now we're mostly neglecting the transit and mobility. This includes the understanding of bikes. I heard that Liz Moule of Moule Polyzoides who designed the Del Mar TOD stated that its silly to have showers at every place of employment to support cycling. This angered some of my colleagues who want to make the trip between neighborhoods and work accessible by bike.

If we aren't able to build places by reducing VMT, then whats the point? Building good looking internally walkable places is nice but really at the end of the day there is a reason for building it if you have to drive to get anywhere outside of the community? Without metrics or final purpose, we don't know what we're doing. Some like Andres Duany say that its all about providing happiness. But in reality there are many people out there who are happy with their freeways and huge gas guzzling SUVs.

Jan Gehl, who was responsible for bike and pedestrian renaissances in Melbourne and Copenhagen has a simple metric that destroys any argument against his improvements. Pedestrian counts. In fact he rebuked some store owners who said that they were slowly fading due to reduced auto access. He was able to prove that they were getting much increased pedestrian activity in front of the store by before and after counts.

So if we are going to build transit and build communities that reduce the autocentricity that begets sprawl, then we need to measure the effects. Else we are no better than other ideologues that state their ideas are right, without proof to back it up. I believe that we need to measure New Urbanism to make sure its working, and by working I mean reducing VMT because if we can't do that, its just walkable sprawl.

Congestion Pricing Dies on the Vine

I have to say that even though I wanted this plan because it would have proven the benefits of transit over cars, there is a very small piece of me that is glad that Mary Peters got the shaft. This money came off the backs small bus agencies around the country and that should not be tolerated. People that depend on transit the most were paying for these pilot projects. Not that the idea didn't have merit, but if you're going to play with money, why not take it out of the ginormous highway fund instead of the bus fund.

Eric says it best, New York just approved a citywide parking lot.

China Subway Expansion

Wired Autopia has been really up on transit and transportation news. Well recently they've had a lot of news on China's huge subway expansion including a crazy map of the built out system. As they say, it looks like a bowl of chow mein.

Streetcars: Getting Out of Our Silos

This began as a response to some comments on a thread over at the Seattle Transit Blog. Almost everyone over there on that thread is supportive of streetcars, just not how they are implemented. Some want fixed guideways, some think buses are better and others believe that streetcars are worthless.

When we look at streetcars from a purely transportation standpoint, we are missing the point. We are creating silos in which to put different aspects of the city. Transportation here, land use here, city fiscal responsibility here, and the environment here.

If we are to look at the overall benefits and needs, we see that there is a great benefit to streetcars when they are appropriate which I believe they were in Portland and Seattle given the goals of these lines. The goals implicitly or explicitly were to tie downtown to a new neighborhood that would boost walkability and livability in the city for more people. There is an important lesson for how cities benefit from transportation such as the streetcar.

1. The Corridor vs. Node

Streetcars are not meant to be rapid transit but rather pedestrian accelerators within districts and areas just outside of town. If you think that streetcars are the solution to everything, you are wrong. A system is needed but how the technology influences land use is important to the decision. Given that the streetcar is pedestrian scaled, it creates a corridor of pedestrian oriented development. This is why many of the first ring suburbs have commercial strips that were once served by streetcars. It's also why many of the former interurban lines formed small towns around the station, just like light rail creates a node of development today. Two different transit modes, two different purposes.

2. Streetcar Corridors Create More Density/Value

More density means more rooftops means more close retail means more walking. This is important because when we build new neighborhoods we want people not to do the same things they do in sprawl. The key to the streetcar is increasing the envelope for density on a corridor. In fact the streetcar in Portland pushed developers to get closer to their density maximums closer to the line. 90% of the envelope was filled one block from the line. 75% two blocks and further down. Seattle is doing the same thing. Building at higher densities that would usually be built because of developer confidence in the future of the streetcar.

But why is this important? Well it means that over the long term, that piece of land will create more tax revenue than whatever dreck was built next to the bus line. So when we look at the streetcar funding issue versus the bus, how much more value was created for the community? What is the tax creation of a 10 story building over 100 years versus a 5 story building? So in the whole scheme of things, the bus is a cheap alternative that in the end costs the city more. We need to get out of that silo.

3. It Creates the Pedestrian Experience

Part of the reason for building the streetcar and creating the density is creating a good pedestrian and street environment. Who wants a bus running by your dinner? Your coffee?



But also, the creation of a pedestrian environment and pedestrian accelerators increased the area folks are willing to walk. And the creation of more of these neighborhoods on a corridor by streetcars is important because this increased walking has been shown to reduce VMT. In fact the 7,200 housing units along the Portland Streetcar line have been estimated to reduce VMT by 53 million miles a year. Thats nothing to sneeze at and will be something that decreases greenhouse gases. But all of this is not attributable to the streetcar, but to the creation of a walkable environment from the densities and streetscapes. Developers are more willing to create these densities and places with the streetcar instead of a bus.

As I have said before, its not always about speed. Creating an environment for pedestrians means also a slower environment, a safer environment. While 43,000 a year die on the highways, I heard this weekend from Rick Gustafson of Portland Streetcar Inc that the Streetcar has had accidents, but no one has been seriously injured.

So while a bus might be more flexible, as a circulator and distributer the streetcar serves a community organizing purpose. It is not for every corridor and in fact it might animate less used streets such as the North-South streets chosen for Portland's streetcar. That does not mean that the route should travel away from the preferred corridor such as Guadalupe street in Austin and Guadalupe should have a dedicated lane due to its traffic volumes. But these are decisions that should be made based on the location and with the whole vision in mind. We need to stop thinking in our silos and think about and articulate all the benefits of certain investments from all standpoints, not just transportation and moving people. After all, thats all the highway engineers do and look what it gets us, big roads that move cars faster while killing street life.

More Light Rail Traffic Density Reports

Interested in Traffic Density of light rail and streetcar systems around the world? Look no further than Publictransit.us.

A Parking Garage? Seriously?

What a racket. Two Boston area lawmakers are looking to take a large amount of funds from a pot of money that is meant for access and housing near transit and put it towards a parking deck. In fact they are looking to take 75% of the money for one deck.

Murphy, a Democrat who inserted the earmark at Keenan's behest, said the 1,000-space garage has been in the works for a decade and is needed. The garage would be shared by MBTA commuters in Salem who use the Rockport/Newburyport train line and users of a planned district courthouse in the area.

Murphy, who is vice chairman of the Legislature's bonding committee, inserted the amendment during the committee's consideration of the bill, which could come to the House for a vote this week.

"It's a legitimate project," Murphy said. "It's not like we're hiring someone's uncle to do something. I'm not going to apologize for getting something done here."

But the single-project earmark probably flies in the face of the fund's original intent.

The "transit-oriented development" fund, put in place in 2004 when lawmakers set aside an initial $30 million, has been used in the past to encourage people to live near public transit and to make it easier to get around without cars. Governor Deval Patrick has spoken often about his desire to encourage more people to live near public transit stations to encourage economic development around the stations.

Housing cars does not count as housing. Is anyone else tired of the car culture that believes its cars above everything else?

April Fools Roundup

Ok I promise tomorrow we'll get back to transit talk that is real, but before that happens, I have to share some of yesterdays pranks in the transit blogosphere:

MTA Proposes to Stop Night Subway Service - Second Ave Sagas
Coordinated Planning - Intermodality
Humor Review - Xing Columbus
Grumpy Ryan - The Bellows
Toyota to build non hybrid Prius - Portland Transport

Any I missed?

Mary Peters to Transfer Highway Funding to Transit

In an unprecedented move yesterday, Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters went before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and asked that all FY 2009 money be put towards transit expansion. "I'm not sure what we were thinking all these years." she stated before a shocked committee. "The auto is obsolete and transit is the way we must grow our transportation networks."

From the Oval Office President Bush said he approved of the move, hoping that states would appreciate the bold new approach his administration would take. "This funding would expand transit by 100 miles in every city in the United States, that means more jobs for our steel workers and more transportation options for everyone, allowing them to pocket 10% of their income a year instead of spending it on their car." Oh...and April Fools.