The Hub of Progress

So my parents got me an awesome book on the History of Houston's street railways. On page 92 there's a flyer that has a picture of a streetcar, a bus and an interurban railcar in the center of a wheel. On the outside ends of the spokes there are pictures of destinations along the line such as shops, suburbs, factories, homes, offices, churches etc. The title of the flyer is "The Hub of Progress"

The text is just as interesting:

The hub around which the wheel of prosperity turns in city life is the transportation system.

Houston has grown very rapidly - to become one of the nation's leading cities, the streetcar, bus, and interurban transportation in a large way made possible the Houston of today.

They help to build new residential sections, they carry customers to the merchant, patrons to the theater and are the means by which the great army of wage earners go to and from their place of employment.

Their value to a city cannot be measured in dollars and cents. (emphasis added)

Perhaps we should remember that. Transit systems are often over analyzed in terms of cost and under analyzed in terms of benefits. We can use streetcars and interurbans to build the cities of tomorrow, while remembering that they built some of the best neighborhoods of today.

Vote for Honolulu Mayor Based on Mode

There are going to be three choices for Mayor in Honolulu, but be careful who you vote for, you could get a transit mode you don't like. The existing mayor has been pushing rail while Council Member Kobayashi is keen on BRT that would operate in its own aerial structure. But wait, if you don't like that choice, you can vote for Dr. Panos Prevedouros who is a traffic engineering professor who thinks HOT lanes are the answer.

While I wonder about building an elevated rail line instead of a subway under major arterials, why do people still think that building a huge structure to carry limited capacity vehicles is still a good idea these days. I don't get it!? What am I missing? Why do people think that more operators is a good idea when labor costs are the largest part of the operating budget and you have a ridiculously dense city with a need for a high capacity transit spine? And for good measure make it diesel or some other fuel that puts carbon in the air next to your outdoor cafe. I'm getting cynical.

Beijing Car Bans Swamp Subway Lines

I can't imagine what would happen to transit systems here if gas were to go to $10 a gallon. In Beijing today, the loop subway line was shut off from entries when it got dangerously full. A reported 1.8 million cars were ordered off the road to cut pollution for the olympics causing people to use the transit alternative.

Listen to a short story from Marketplace on the Olympic Air Cleaning.

Don't Drill, Invest in Community

An op-ed on Huffpost by Geoff Anderson and Shelley Poticha discusses why we should be eschewing drilling and investing in America's future with better transit and communities.

Encouragingly, Congress has begun to hear their constituents' calls for help. The U.S. House voted overwhelmingly for the Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act, authorizing $1.7 billion over two years to help transit agencies stave off fare increases and keep pace with ballooning ridership.

But while critically important and timely, this measure is only a minor down-payment on what is required to meet the growing demands on our transportation network. Still needed, urgently, is relief for residents of small cities and rural areas. And longer term, we have to keep pace with demands for public transportation, and give this country a reason to be proud of its high-speed trains, light-rail lines, and both rapid and conventional bus transportation options.

We need to make more of our streets safe and convenient for walking and biking to work, school, shops and public transportation stops. We have to create incentives for developers to invest in our close-in suburbs and urban centers, to meet the huge demand for affordable homes in convenient locations. Americans are not dumb: given the real choice, we would much rather invest in well-located real estate than in gasoline.

I'd like to add that again, we don't need any more carbon in our air or oil dependence.

Historical Seattle Transit Data

I hear there is an upcoming election on a rapid transit network. The Mayor urges the opponents to stop being ridiculous. Hopefully that is a future, but here is a link to Seattle Transit's past. Check out PublicTransit.us' historical light rail data.

Shirly Temple Inagurates PCC

Enlistment Bonus Goes to the Car

So many times I've heard that people are excited to get enlistment bonuses so that they can get a new car. And now I know the reason why, because army bases are notoriously inaccessible by transit. More from Imagine DC.

Having served four years in the United States Army, I can assure all of you that I find most military bases damn near impossible to get to and get around without a car. Absolutely horrible. Why do think so many bases are surrounded by car dealerships? Every soldier needs a car. And every base at which I've been stationed, sergeants and petty officers warn their troops about getting ripped off by said car salesmen. I was once in a battalion where I was required to attend a briefing specific to this matter!

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

Slow Boat to China

Another day, another China HSR expansion post somewhere in the blogosphere. When are we going to learn? Why are we sitting around doing nothing? What are we waiting for? I got an email from a reader a few weeks ago about our sloooow timeline for projects in this country. So here are some of his thoughts: J.M. Carter and the Slow Boat to China (Slightly edited for continuity and links to projects included)

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I would like to comment on the sad state of affairs that exists in this country re: the time it takes to get things done. There was a time when we could rebuild a battered and bloodied aircraft carrier in a matter of days and send it back into battle. Now, with the light rail "industry" generally we seem to be falling farther and farther behind other nations when it comes to constructing anything to do with rail transit.

Couple of examples right now:

Phoenix, Valley Metro light rail. The line running north on 19th Av. is to be extended an additional 3 1/2 miles with 3 new stations. This is less than 20,000 feet of wire and rail and maybe a substation. How long to do it? From mid '08 to sometime in '12 or as much as 4 1/2 years!

Salt Lake City, UTA Trax light rail. Just announced the start of construction on the 5 mile line to West Valley City with 4 stations. This is less than 30,000 feet in length. How long? This is maybe a joke from John Inglish, the top guy, but would you believe he actually says by '15? That's 7 1/2 years, depending on how far into '15 they go with it.

I would seriously consider applying for a job as timekeeper on both of these projects. Almost any other country could do either in less than 2 years, using the standards now applicable in the trade. The problem in public transit today is not just the knuckleheads in the FTA but rather the lack of funding and slow construction timelines in cities that already have plans for expansion. China is building heavy rail subways all over the place while India is doing the same as a close second to them. Any doubt as to where the wave of the future is now?

This really is something both the "industry" and the nation should feel frightened about. In an area where the feds -with their total overview of things-( as well as having the moneybags as leverage) really should be demanding and setting some standards, nothing is being done about absurd costs and time spans. Again and again you hear the refrain "local conditions" and "prevailing supply and demand." Have you ever heard of any US project taking a look offshore to see how others do some of these things that we are so slow with? Hell no. We just laugh at "the French" and ignore any and all innovations others have made and used successfully.

Take the proposed extension of Charlotte's new light rail line. Won't be ready until 2014 or even later (the date keeps changing) but it is at least 5-6 years away. 300 miles to the northeast in Norfolk, one of the very few bright spots in the current light rail scene, they are building a new line that- while a bit shorter than Charlotte's- is very similar to it in many ways and will even use the same S70 LRVs. Scheduled to be completed in 2010 at a cost only about a quarter of the Charlotte's Line.

If the FTA had any brains at all they would be waving this one around and demanding that it become a kind of standard for other systems. Norfolk shows it can be done quickly and right and some of these other buffoons should pay attention and maybe pay a visit.

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PT: Seems to me that we should be allowed to put light rail and streetcar lines back into streets that had them before. Why we need all these crazy huge environmental impact statements to put streetcars back in the streets many of them created is beyond me.

Thanks again J.M.

VMT & Foreign Oil

So watching the Pickens commercial below gave me a thought. He was discussing dependence on foreign oil and showed some percentages of how much we import. So I went to the data. In terms of foreign oil I went to the Energy Information Administration and pulled an excel chart for historic crude oil imports and production. Since its monthly I averaged 1970,1990, and 2005. T Boone uses current 2008 to say 70% but the most recent transportation data is from 2005. So foreign crude imports went from 12% to 44% to 66% of the total U.S. supply.

Then I went to the BTS and found the Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) charts and put the totals together. A word of caution from the last chart I put up. Correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, but I thought this was interesting and more relative. If anything I hope it starts some discussion on how this oil dependence is related to our auto dependence.
Perhaps its also related to this: Spending on highways over transit from PIRG.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that our transportation policy has led us to this predicament. I believe we all knew this, but its always good to have charts right? Thoughts?