Comings and Goings

I went out for a bike ride on Sunday.  Here's some fun stuff that I saw.  I streetcar turnaround up Market street and the value of a bike lane on the Embarcadero...

F Line Turnaround



Embarcadero Free Ride

Guest post: Why can't I find parking?

(Note from Pantograph: This is another guest post from my friend Ed. If you missed his first two posts, check back down the page for more of his work)

Spend any time driving in San Francisco, and you’ll notice that there isn’t a lot of parking. Then, just before you give up and put the car in a garage, it dawns on you that while there aren’t that many spaces, there also aren’t that many parked cars. Instead, driveway after driveway chops up the curb, leaving the street space unusable. Curb cuts are everywhere, of course, but San Francisco buildings seem particularly fond of them.

The obvious impact is that these curb cuts take away parking that could serve many different users of the neighborhood – residents, visitors, and shoppers, and put it into private hands. But there are a lot of other reasons to dislike curb cuts. They increase conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles, they set up hazardous situations as cars back out onto busy streets, they encourage sidewalk parking, and they can often leave a street without room for the trees and other amenities that improve the way pedestrians experience the street. Moreover, the garages they lead to take up space that could be used for a variety of things that add to street life, like storefronts or stoops.

The desire for off-street parking in some areas is certainly valid. However, because there isn’t a price attached to installing a curb cut, we see the type of “overfishing” that plagues any unpriced resource, with some buildings sporting rows of 4, 5, and even more garage doors fronting city streets. Fortunately, this is starting to change - the city is soon going to start charging at least $100 per year for installing a cut, and there have also been efforts to slow new installations in North Beach. Hopefully these measures will lead to efficient use of the city’s curbsides.

Bad Design and Money Disconnects

Hey everyone, I realize that the posts on here have slowed to a crawl. I don't meant to neglect them but sometimes life gets in the way. You can find links from me on twitter everyday @theoverheadwire. They are also on the bottom right of the blog. But on to biz:

I've had some tabs open that I really wanted to comment on but hadn't gotten a chance. So if this is old news I apologize:

First off, Kemper Freeman stands to gain a lot of development money from light rail. It's unfortunate that his head is so far up his ass that he can't see the dollar signs and is instead wasting them on lawsuits. No matter, give all those earnings to the lawyers and watch him lose anyway.

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Second, I'm really annoyed at Yahoo's campus design. This is just more suburban crap and instead of creating buildings and a street network that actually form a true urban grid, such that other buildings could form some sort of urban neighborhood around them. This is what is wrong with our employment centers and why they aren't walkable, making it harder to take transit. Sure its better than what was there before, but it could have been used to set off a new way of developing office parks that was sustainable. Great you're next to a light rail line and it looks like a school campus. I still think Adobe is the champ for going downtown.


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Finally. If you haven't seen it yet, the 1906 SF streetcar video is pretty cool. You can find more explanation at Market Street Railway.

Wednesday Night Notes

Notes for folks:

China is seeking their own manifest destiny with trains. (Reuters)
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China's Urban property is going up in price. (Wall Street Journal)
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A new (to me) place to get all of your transport research needs!
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The most hilarious (unintended of course) trucks vs. trains conspiracy theory I've ever read. I probably shouldn't link to it, but I couldn't resist. (Examiner)
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The Pedestrianist discusses what should happen to San Francisco's Central Freeway.
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Why people underestimate the pain of their commute. (Frontal Cortex)
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Why the Expo Line goes where it goes... (via @thetransitfan)

How Things Should Work

Unfortunately it was raining pretty hard today, which means I can't get NBC and apparently AT&T service is somewhat haywire. But the Master's was on TV and there was a commercial that showed how AT&T wishes people could buy train tickets. While its nice to think that it would or could even work in this way, it will take upgrades to wireless in the subways and faster connections speeds. I wonder if they could have done this on a freeway.

Open Thread

Wow so I have been so busy I didn't even realize that I haven't posted in a long time. Consider this an open thread. I have a lot of posts I want to write but just haven't had time to write them. NJH asks in the previous post about the Central Subway starting construction. It's kind of beating a dead horse. How would you kill such a project? And why can't we close Stockton to ped traffic only? Does anyone think its going to actually get to Fisherman's Wharf at some point?

Playing with Matches

It looks like an amendment was put into the federal transportation budget that would allow Detroit to use a LRT line that it builds with its own money for a federal funding match of the next segment. The funding for the initial segment would come from foundations. While lines have been funded philanthropically before such as Galveston's trolley, I believe this is a first to be funded primarily with foundation money.

The interesting thing about this amendment is that it would allow the Woodward Ave LRT to be constructed much faster than it would have otherwise under the usual new starts process. The general wait time for funding is 10 years and many cities find that such a time commitment increases costs and stretches political will. But there is a catch, the amendment doesn't say anything about the NEPA environmental process which could hamper the project. The amendment reads as follows:

SEC. 173. Hereafter, for interstate multi-modal projects which are in Interstate highway corridors, the Secretary shall base the rating under section 5309(d) of title 49, United States Code, of the non-New Starts share of the public transportation element of the project on the percentage of non-New Starts funds in the unified finance plan for the multi-modal project: Provided, That the Secretary shall base the accounting of local matching funds on the total amount of all local funds incorporated in the unified finance plan for the multi-modal project for the purposes of funding under chapter 53 of title 49, United States Code and title 23, United States Code: Provided further, That the Secretary shall evaluate the justification for the project under section 5309(d) of title 49, United States Code, including cost effectiveness, on the public transportation costs and public transportation benefits.

But the reason why the amendment had to be created is because federal funding has lots of strings and these matches are quite tricky. And while many cities would like to skip the new starts process initially by building the first line themselves, the NEPA rules are not structured to allow this. Several different cities have tried successfully and unsuccessfully to do something similar with their match process however the key sticking point is always the NEPA process and following the environmental rules.

Initially Houston looked into using the Main Street Line as a match for the next projects but that idea smoldered. Metro did however get an investment "credit" in the form of an Earmark for future fixed guideway construction. What happened to this money is unknown, though it seems as if it was just put into the pot for the five line expansion.

In 2005 Kay Bailey Hutchinson sought to fund 100% of two lines in Houston through the same mechanism while the city saved up for three others. This was blocked by Tom Delay and John Culbertson (who is still blocking the University Line) because they didn't feel it was following the law. Of course this was just a good excuse to block light rail for those two jokers. Houston eventually put the lines into the New Starts process and is seeking 49% of two out of five lines. Because they weren't able to use the first two lines as a match, they are likely leaving $270M on the table because they are not going for funding on two they are building on their own.

Salt Lake City looked to build their five lines faster by creating a memorandum of understanding whereby 20% of the total projects cost was funded by the FTA. This would fund the Mid Jordan Line at 78% federal and the remainder of the Draper line while UTA built the others as a match. However the office of management and budget rescinded this deal in 2008 when they felt that it was in violation of NEPA. It is believed that the feds decided that this wasn't legal because when the MOU was signed all of the lines entered into the contract with the federal government. Because not all the lines went through the NEPA process, it was thought that they would be constructed outside of the rules set forth by the federal government for environmental process. The FTA is said to still be honoring the deal, even if it is outside of the MOU document.

This was also worrisome to the FTA because it was seen as a precedent that would set off a wave of deal making which it eventually did with Charlotte. In 2008 Charlotte tried to make a deal that would have funded the Northeast Corridor at 80% while platform extensions for the South Corridor and the Northeast Corridor were constructed with local funds. This deal never came to pass. Finally San Francisco built the T Third line with local funds but went through the NEPA process therefor allowing it to be used as a match legally within the federal process. Nancy Pelosi still had to put an amendment in a spending bill but the line is currently being used as a match for the Central Subway project.

With all these examples, the federal match amendment still doesn't address the NEPA issue that came up in Salt Lake City and San Francisco. Ultimately it would be nice for cities to make big deals so that they can build transit networks faster than they would ultimately be able to under the current rules that keep lines in planning for ten years. So while Detroit might have gotten this match language, I would expect the OMB to jump in at some point and derail it because once the match project is seen as part of the whole deal, it is likely that they will believe the first segment would be subject to the rules of the new starts process including NEPA as well.

Job Centers Should Be Center

As Becks notes, I think its important to start thinking 20 years ago about transbay capacity. Unfortunately we haven't had a real conversation in the region about it. A second tube (I believe with four tracks for commuter rail and BART) is certainly needed to reinforce San Francisco and Oakland as the central job centers of the region. But why waste $10B on a new tube as Rafael from CAHSR blog says in the comments when you could be creating more jobs in the regions other centers.

Instead of demanding the construction of a second BART tube for $10 billion, perhaps we should be asking why everybody and their grandmother absolutely, positively has to work in downtown San Francisco to begin with.

I'm pretty sure San Francisco's CBD only has a certain small share of the region's overall jobs, perhaps 10-15% at most. I'm guessing here but for the most part this is the case in most of the country. But the reality is that since the jobs are clustered so tightly, they demand usage of alternative transport. They also are places of agglomeration and its not an issue of the execs getting a corner office but where face to face meetings and deals happen at lunch. (This is a whole other topic but I don't believe E-working is every going to replace working in an office with other people) There is a reason why the first BART system was built, because leaders of the area wanted to be the Banking Center of the West Coast and needed that critical mass of density and prestige to achieve it.

Another issue here is that of sprawl. There is this belief that the highways and housing policies were what caused the sprawl with the thought that more people could just drive into the central city. But in reality its even more nuanced than that. We've been building these roads out but when we do that we create these job centers and edge cities on the periphery that increase the outward migration pattern. People keep moving out and towards the exact point at which they can have a thirty minute commute or less from their job center. For jobs such as finance or research or science that are transit oriented, this means less people taking transit and more people deciding to drive their cars. I'm fairly confident that less Chevron employees take transit to work these days. It also means less urban office parks with parking lots that increase reliance on SOVs even more. We see this with Pleasanton and the continued movement of people out to Stockton.

If we're truely going to be transit oriented and sustainable in this region, we can't put a cap on the jobs in the center cities and continue to push jobs out to the periphery. If you don't spend that $10B on a second tube and push for more development (residential and employment) in BART's current reach in the inner East and West bay and even more money on an actual urban rapid transit network to connect to the existing bus network, I would argue that you're going to be spending much much more money to try and get people to and from their exurban and suburban job centers let alone the difference in city services (water sewer police fire) that must be supplied to all of these new suburbs and growth.

So Much for Faster

One of the claims of BRT is that its faster to implement. As we know from work here in the Bay Area and other parts of California is that with all the environmental regs that sometimes isn't true at all. Poor cars, they just have too many buses in their way. It's too bad really since places like San Francisco and LA should have had bus lanes a long time ago. There's more than enough ridership on the lines to justify the dedicated lanes.

One More Clunker

Perhaps the streetcars of San Francisco were getting a bit upset with the lack of funding coming their way and the silly cash for clunkers program, so they decided to tag team an SUV. In all seriousness, I hope everyone is ok.

Track Trauma

I've discussed the operator side of suicides on the track before. The Mercury News goes into greater detail with Caltrain engineers.

Alternate Universe

An article on NBC 11 ponders what would have happened if the Bay Area never would have constructed BART. It's an interesting thought, especially considering the alternative they paint in the article.

We'd certainly have an electrified Caltrain running to downtown San Francisco at a faster speed than the current Baby Bullets -- and perhaps running on the Bay Bridge or in a new tunnel under San Francisco Bay to Oakland and beyond. We'd also have real commuter rail from the East Bay to Silicon Valley, the region's most vital employment center -- not the paltry ACE and Capitol Corridor services people have to make do with.

We'd have light rail, a modern version of the Key System, crisscrossing the East Bay. And we'd certainly have faster service in San Francisco, the city most dependent on public transit.

While its a pretty picture do we really think that alternatives to BART would have gotten traction without the existence of BART or a core program? In San Francisco, the construction of BART was also the time that the Muni Metro Market street tunnel was constructed. I often wish that we had built a center cities metro and connected the edges with commuter rail to places like Walnut Creek and Pleasanton. It perhaps could have lowered the cost and increased productivity of the system. But as usual hindsight is 20/20. We won't really know either way.

One thing the article points out that really hits me and should hit everyone in San Francisco.

Isn't it ridiculous that transit commuters take less time to go from Walnut Creek to downtown San Francisco than it does to cross the city?

Yes, yes it is.

Magical Matching Funds

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

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

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

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

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

Begin the Begin

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday Night Notes

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

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

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

Setting Up the Switch Hit

Supervisor Alioto Pier who represents Northern San Francisco asked in the July 14th Finance Committee meeting for TA staff to start thinking about an extension of the Central Subway to the Presidio under Lombard Street. (You can watch the video where she makes her request at 54:45 here).

It's an interesting proposal to say the least but how much of this is really driven by a want to kill the Market Street Railway extension for Fort Mason and beyond with its "visually polluting" overhead wires?

The second phase of the extension will take the streetcar down Beach Street, Cervantes and Marina Boulevard. That will involve erecting overhead power lines, putting rail tracks in the street and removing a lane of traffic. Putting overhead power lines down Marina Boulevard is contrary to Section 101.1 (b) (8) of the City Master Plan, City Urban Design Plan Element Policy 1.1, , and is contrary to the City Transportation Plan. Yet the City Planning Department states that it does not have to be involved with these plans!

The Marina Community Association is working with Supervisor Alioto-Pier and taking other steps to require the City Planning Department to accept its responsibility.

The neighborhood suggestion? Bring back the water taxi idea! If she really wanted better commute service to her district, an inexpensive option would be supporting the extension to the Presidio via the MSR extension. However in discussions with folks who live in the area, they want nothing to do with it. "It'll just bring all the tourists and riff raff and the wires are ugly" I've heard before. Again, my lungs don't care about your aesthetic. So what makes the subway expansion different? Well for one thing it's easier to kill than more inexpensive incremental MSR extensions.

Before this goes any further, I'd really like to know where she stands on the MSR extension already planned for her district and if the idea of a subway extension to the Presidio via Lombard is an honest one. Personally, I like the idea in the long term (Geary subway first ALWAYS) but I question her motives based on previous votes and a lack of understanding from her and her constituents to what transit-first really means. Alioto Pier has been pro commuter transit but not big on the transit "lifestyle".

While she supports the Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP), and wants more people to ride Muni, she doesn't necessarily feel the City should be encouraging people to get rid of their cars.

No one I know wants people to get rid of their cars, we just want the option of getting around without them. It would be nice to have a subway to the Presidio. I imagine a lot of people would use it, especialy people who come from Marin and want to skip the city drive to downtown. But Geary is first, and the MSR extension is an easy way to expand that direction with dedicated lanes. Let's see where this goes shall we?

The Story in a Story

BART pays RENT at the airport? Doesn't this sound like the SFPD taking liberties with Muni funding?

SFO built the BART station at a cost of more than $200 million and pays $14.8 million annually for debt service on bonds sold to construct the station. BART pays SFO $2.5 million per year for rent on the BART station in the International Terminal, plus an additional $700,000 for custodial and electrical support services.

Am I missing something here?

A Day in the Life

Today I had a cinco. I was on three different transit systems and on five different transport modes. This morning I woke up realizing that I needed to take my car in after the check engine light had been flashing at me lately and the throttle just wasn't acting right. Since I drive to my Grammas each week (because the bus line used to stop running at 3:30pm and is now gone) it's nice to have my car to get too and from her house.

But today I took my car to Broadway in Oakland and dropped it off. "Can I get you a courtesy Shuttle?" says the service manager. "No thanks, I'll take the bus". I walked through the showroom where everyone else was waiting for thier shuttle to take them to thier car needy areas and stepped out to the 51 bus stop. I hopped on and waited five minutes for the driver to load a wheelchair customer who almost ran him over. "Whoa, slow down man" he said to the motorized wheelchair owner who wanted to back over his feet while he held the seatbelt up for him. The rest of the trip to 14th and Broadway took about 6 minutes. Not long at all.

Later that evening when I got off work, I hopped on BART and rode to Powell. I got off and walked up stairs to the Muni Metro and hopped on the J Church LRV. I hopped off at Church and Market and walked into Safeway to buy groceries for the next few days. I walked back out and back onto the J to go home to 24th street.

That's pretty cool. I drove, took the bus, took the subway, took the Muni Metro and walked today while running a number of different errands that were on the way to my final destination. All possible because I live in a place that gives me options. I wish more people could do it this way and I know there are plenty of people out there who wish they could have the opportunity, but our leaders are denying them the option on the false premise of car superiority and lame numbers.

BART Reliability

As much as people complain about the old cars and the noise in the tunnel and the sometimes surly folk that ride BART, I feel that being on time and reliability is the strength that BART has going for it. Because it has its own right of way, it's pretty easy for BART to keep a schedule, and for that reason, a lot of people can rely on them to be on time. So I sort of cringe when people give one of the reasons for not liking BART is that it's not reliable.

It's not exactly the most reliable ride either but we deal with it because it is the lesser of two evils.

As someone who takes BART almost every day, I have to say that over the last 4 years there have been sooo many delays I can count them on two hands. That's a lot right?? As compared to traffic and services that run in traffic such as say, the Municipal Railway. I understand the gripes about the strike. BART workers get very generous pay and benefits, higher than most agencies in the country, but to say that it's not reliable is just plain wrong. If anything, that is the main reason why people continue to ride BART.

It will be a shame if BART workers go on strike because they want even more, but the real shame will be the loss of a reliable transit service that allows people to get to work at the same time every day, so when people do get back to work and more are driving, you don't have to worry about your travel time or paying attention to the road. And if there are people who use talking on the phone as an excuse for not taking BART and driving instead, I'm glad to be underground and out of your way.

More Regressive Progressives

You know the type, those who think that having a hybrid car alone will help their environmental credentials but don't do much else. They are also the ones that push against new development just because they don't like how it looks or feels, and they'll cry traffic! Those are the folks that got called out in the aptly named article: You're Not an Environmentalist if You're a NIMBY. So true. The hardest part is taking folks seriously who want to stop growth on high capacity transit corridors or in the core cities themselves. Yet with the climate that we have, San Francisco and Oakland are the best suited for emissions reducing development.