Most Read from November 11th

Here are Yesterday's Top Stories from The Direct Transfer Daily

Photo-Illustration by Darrow; © Richard Cavalleri/Shutterstock

- TRB Research: Linking Transit Agencies and Land Use Decision-Making Guidebook

- Boating is cool in Venice, Not so cool in Miami Beach.

- Turns out self driving cars are a plot for robot imprisonment.  So says Scott Adams. 

Guest post: Vegas Real Estate Explains it All?

Hi everyone, Ed here. Mr. Trolleypole has kindly invited me to do some guest posting here at the Overhead Wire, so I'll be writing here occasionally. Hope you enjoy. I figured I'd start off with everyone's favorite urban planning contrarian - Joel Kotkin.

Joel Kotkin is at it again.

It's funny. The links to this article from Kotkin (which also made it into the Wall Street Journal) suggested that it was about demographic trends and would include lots of evidence to show that people aren't moving to central cities anymore. But then I read the article, and the whole thing is really just a cautionary tale to the commercial real estate industry. Kotkin asserts that alleged trend of folks moving back into cities seems to be reversing itself. Now, maybe this is true. Maybe that's what the population data show. And this is an important conversation to have – it's not at all clear to me that cities are thinking rigorously enough about how best to grow, and who is likely to show up. We won't find any useful answers from Kotkin, though, who bizarrely bases the bulk his argument on price movements:

Housing prices in and around the nation's urban cores is (sic) clear evidence that the back-to-the-city movement is wishful thinking. … Condos in particular are a bellwether: Downtown areas, stuffed with new condos, have suffered some of the worst housing busts in the nation.

He then engages in some brazen cherry picking, discussing house-price declines in Miami, Vegas, and Los Angeles, and only focusing on new condo construction as opposed to the market at large. Beyond the fact that these aren’t exactly beacons of walkable urbanism, using these cities in particular to make a point is just misleading when you look at how their markets have been behaving:

These lines in the chart are the Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for the metros that Kotkin cites, along with the 20-city composite in purple (which isn’t exactly the same as a national average, but is a reasonable proxy). As you can see, LA, Vegas, and Miami all had much bigger bubbles and much bigger crashes than the nation as a whole. This means two things: 1. these are terrible examples to use for the nation, since they are where much of the bust has been concentrated, and 2. of course the market activity in these places looks terrible, and of course it looks really bad in their downtowns, which is where much of the growth had been taking place. You could make the exact opposite argument by choosing the Bay Area as your focus, and comparing price moves in exurbs like Stockton and Tracy to those in San Francisco. The truth is that this is just a nonsensical way to analyze a national trend since different metro areas have had very different experiences during the housing bust. The numbers he cites aren’t necessarily wrong, but they prove absolutely nothing, other than that people were making some crazy moves in Miami and Vegas during the housing boom.

Sunday Night Notes

Whew, it's been a little while. Still reading lots of news and tweeting nightly. Wanted to cover these few news articles in greater than 140 characters though:

Utah's possible new Senator is saying he's going to cut off the spigot for transit capital funding from the feds saying that he doesn't believe they should be spending money on state and regional priorities. I happen to disagree with this but its an interesting question of

A. what is a regional or state vs. a national priority
B. what would he stance be if it were regional freeway expansion instead of transit

Seems to me much of this debate seems to be framed by subsidization rather than investment. The language needs changing if the livable transportation movement is going to make any ground.
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The Green Line extension to Boston which is a Big Dig offset is delayed again. I'm not sure how anyone could speed it up, but it seems like the state can't really be punished in terms of money more than it already has.
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Transit Miami gets the scoop on the Heavy Rail plug being pulled in the Miami region. This will set Miami back a lot, though local officials say they will refocus on BRT. How much do you want to bet that BRT means limited stop buses only?
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I think this article about job incentives moving employers from state to state which means no new jobs are gained but tax gains for the region are less is replicated around the country when cities fight so hard for sales tax dollars that they lop off the benefits of those jobs. The one that always comes to mind is Emeryville and Oakland.

Knew It Was Gonna Happen

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

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

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

A Temple to Automobility

How much did this monstrosity cost?

Let Them Eat Cake

...and drive on dedicated bus transitways. Yet another reason why the pavement without rails means cars. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.

The Ottawa Sun added that at today's council meeting, councillors "also voted in favour of directing staff to review opening the bus Transitway to vehicular traffic."

Who's next?

New Poll: Worst Rail Project in Planning

Thanks for all the input. It seems like we have a few projects that are pretty bad. Again I'm not going to let you choose more than one. You have to choose what you think is the worst. So here are the contestants based on feedback. I added in two specifically nefarious BRT projects as well.

BART to San Jose
NJ Access to the Regions Core
LIRR East Side Access Project
San Francisco Central Subway
Montreal Train de l'est
LA Gold Line to Montclair
Toronto Spadina Extension
NY Subway 7 Line Extension
Metro to Dulles (Silver Line)
MBTA BRT Silver Line Phase 3
US 36 Denver BRT
Miami Metrorail North
Anacostia Streetcar

So those are the list. Usual week for voting applies. Vote for Other if there is a project not listed.

Stealin the Bus

Heh. Some kids like the thrill of the route:

James Harris loves public buses so much, he stole one from a Miami-Dade depot last month and, wearing a genuine uniform, chauffeured unsuspecting fare-paying passengers around South Beach for hours, police and government officials said Thursday.

Via Planetizen

Miami Faces Some Hurdles, Is the Next Dulles

Miami has been trying to build its North Corridor Metro line for a while now. Today the Miami Herald discusses an increased push on the part of the local leaders for the line.

Desperate to regain a shot at $700 million in federal funding for expanded Metrorail service, Miami-Dade leaders promised Monday to quickly improve the county transit department's financial and operational plans.

''We're going to have to have not only great planning, but great action,'' said U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, who prodded the Federal Transit Administration to write a step-by-step plan last month for reviving the county's funding application.

This is another Dulles. I fully expect to see Peters and Simpson to whip out a big red pen on this project. The Feds don't believe in Metros and will not as long as they are compared to highways using highway metrics. They've made it abundantly clear that all they care about is tolls and roads. Don't believe the lip service.

News Around the Blogosphere

Light Rail in Grand Rapids has the scoop on the rapid transit network proposed there.

Streetsblog covers the story of a man that got thrown in jail for painting his own crosswalk.

Stephen Rees discusses how privatization of the tube is leading to a £2 B pound loss now that London had to bring it back under public ownership. He states its not a result Wendell Cox will be trumpeting any time soon.

Ryan at Transit Miami busts the Hurricane and overhead wire myth.

Ben at Second Avenue Sagas reports the NYC Subway has its highest ridership since 1951.

Want more awesome blogs like these to read? Visit City Transit Advocates!

Miami Surprise + Subway Rangers

Initial funding was approved today as a part of the port tunnel plan for the Miami Streetcar.

Also, there was an article in the New York Times on how the Rangers take the subway to work while the Knicks park their cars wherever they want. Streetsblog has the coverage in the link above.