A Little West of the Mission

Is where I live. But that's close enough right? With the J just a half block away, the grocery store a half mile away and BART a half mile the other way, what's not to like? Apparently Forbes thinks so as well. The interesting thing though is this:

As some politicians see it, where you live is now a matter of national energy policy. Places with plenty of mass transit and high rates of bicycle usage have received applause from presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on the campaign trail lately. And some on Capitol Hill want to legislate shorter commutes that require less fuel.

Congressman Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) recently introduced a bill that would enable home buyers to qualify for lower interest rates on mortgages for homes located near mass transit. Although it isn't expected to get to a floor vote before November elections, it has an ally in powerful House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

H/T Commuter Page Blog

Oly Trials Update

Awesome! Longhorn and friend Leonel Manzano is going to the Olympics. Congrats Leo and all the folks who are going to represent the US in August. More on Leo from the Austin American Statesman.

Leo on Flotrack

AirFrance Getting into HSR Business

From Trains for America.

“More than half of all flights are connections, and in effect long-haul is where the value is. Short haul is just way for Air France to get passengers to Charles de Gaulle” airport in Paris, Van den Brul said.

Shifting passengers onto trains from planes would result in “significant” cost savings, a particular concern for airlines struggling to cope with record high oil prices.

Energy accounts for about 40 percent of an airline’s total costs, against only around 10-15 percent for rail.

Can't Find a Map

Someone had either commented or sent me an email with links to a Charlotte Transit map called Queen City Transit. I've searched the comments and my emails and for the life of me can't find it. I wanted to post on it along with some other fantasy maps in other cities that have been floating around. So please comment or send it again so we can share it.

Been Thinking About Transit Density Part 2

So as a continuation of this post on transit density, we're going to look at San Francisco and San Jose. This is not transit density in the usual sense of passengers per route mile as discussed by Mr. Setty at PublicTransit.us but rather station density as discussed by Richard Layman and his oft looked at take on Belmont.

For San Francisco, Eric and others have looked at what a city wide metro would look like. However I thought it would be good to look at it from the standpoint of the sphere I created for the Oakland Map. These aerials are the same dimensions as the Oakland map as are the 5 mile spheres. In the fine grid of San Francisco, you can see that a metro as envisioned below would create a tic tac toe board where getting from destinations all over the densest parts of the city would be fairly easy.



For San Jose though I took a different approach. Instead of using downtown as the center, like Oakland, I thought about how a metro could be used to reconfigure the city and employment districts of Silicon Valley. What came out of it was a more northern sphere centered around west of the airport where there is a lot of land and buildings that could be rebuilt now that their 20-30 year life might be almost over.

It was hard to not try and cover everything instead of focusing on the sphere. These city sphere metro projects could be pretty inexpensive when compared to their resulting benefit which is why its important to think about the area in much smaller terms and corridors.



In San Jose in particular, it grew up in such a spread out pattern, that serving the area, unlike Oakland and San Francisco, would be even more daunting. But its possible to use this metro as a starting point to comprehensive feeder bus and commuter rail system that connects the major cities.

Below is an example of this exercise at build out in Austin at the same scale.



So the point of this exercise isn't to say that these networks should be built with these specific lines, but to show transit density in a core area that would promote the usage of transit in the core while also starting to change the development paradigm. If this type of service were available, walkable neighborhoods would be constructed that have more opportunities to go carless. These networks could also be used as a basis for bike planning.

Tyson's Corner, Cars

An interesting article on Tyson's Corner from the Washington Post which is in the middle of a fight for a Metro extension. I don't know much about the area, but this article makes Mary Peters and Jim Simpson look ridiculous for trying to kill Metro. It doesn't say anything about it in the article, but this quote tells me a lot.

Tysons' dependence on the automobile, and a place to park it, is dramatic when compared with other areas. With about 120,000 jobs, Tysons features nearly half again as many parking spots in structures, underground and in surface lots. That's more parking, 40 million square feet, than office space, 28 million square feet. Tysons boasts more spaces, 167,000, than downtown Washington, 50,000, which has more than twice as many jobs.

More spaces than jobs? Who pays for all of those? And doesn't that number tell you something about the benefit of good transit? Yup.

Media as a Minority Opposition Enabler?

Richard discusses the opposition fighters in the debate over rail transit. What's interesting is how the media in these cities plays into the fight. In Charlotte they played up the opposition so much during the transit tax referendum that there was a thought that it could possibly win, even I was a little worried about it. But when the vote came out, it was 70-30. A classic drubbing.

What happened to drum up the opposition to have such clout? I'm not sure but the media seemed to be deep in it, and of course would bring readers to the Observer site as well as the John Locke Foundation blog which was the major source for the opposition.

Now in Honolulu we're seeing a massive media blitz, seizing on the conflict to setup and epic battle. Even the opposition leader is running for mayor, just like in Charlotte. Obviously he's not going to win on one issue alone, but it seems rather like a ploy to shine more attention on the division, even if there might not even be a real division by the vast majority on the island.

But the opposition has gotten nasty as well, not being able to win on the issues they are going to nasty depths.

In the most recent attack circulated via e-mail last weekend, a satirical illustration and text compared rail advocates to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and the Nazis. Hannemann administration officials said the e-mail "crosses the line."

The e-mail, with the subject line "People in Hawaii Are Too Stupid -- DON'T Let Them Vote on Rail," features a photo of Osama bin Laden with the message, "People of Oahu, you should NOT be allowed to make any big decisions in the ballot box. Only Mufi and his friends should decide."

It's gotten so bad in fact that the local paper has asked everyone to tone it down, something which they were enablers of and allowed to get out of hand even in their own paper. I have never seen an article on the facts or benefits, just who said what.

I think though that the Mayor has done the right thing by fighting back. There is no reason he needs to take a beating like this, especially from folks funded on the mainland by highly ideological anti-rail groups.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. This is the reason though that there has to be a strong leader at the front of these things. If not, it will die under the onslaught of a well funded opposition. The one common theme in all cities that have started with rail or have been able to continue is a strong mayor or governor pushing it hard. If you want transit, a leader like the mayor is key.

Nissan Wants Transit Link

Sign of the times. Nissan which manufactures cars outside of Nashville Tennessee wants transit service.

Had gasoline prices hit the $4 mark 10 years ago, the development probably wouldn't have happened, Emery said. But now that there is so much in Cool Springs, and plenty of land for more housing, the high gas prices shouldn't have any effect, he said. The company is pushing for more mass-transit service, he added.

They say gas prices shouldn't have any effect, but its contradictory to ask for a transit link if that weren't the case.

H/T Permanent Campaigns

Oly Trials Update

Man today was an awesome day for Texas fans at the Track and Field Olympic Trials in Eugene. Former longhorn Andre Manson was 2nd in the High Jump making it to the Olympics with former teammate Trey Hardee and my buddy Jake Morse was ever so close getting 4th in the 3000 meter steeplechase. Good job men. Tomorrow is Leo Manzano in the 1500 (Closest race to the mile in outdoor track) and its going to be a good one.

Update: Jake Morse Video



Also congrats to friend and former Colorado Buffalo Jorge Torres who was 3rd in the 10k making it to Beijing. Back in the day he hooked a few friends and I up with a place in Boulder for a summer to train. Congrats Jorge on all the hard work and your ticket to the big game. This is one of the nicest guys in distance running.

Happy 4th of July

Happy Birthday America. :) Be safe everyone.