Sunday News Links

The Orange Line BRT estimated initial ridership on a hunch. Models drive me crazy, but this seems a bit nuts as well. From the LA Times:

MTA officials denied that they lowballed Orange Line ridership predictions but conceded that their forecasts might be more art than science. "We didn't put it into a computer model," said Rod Goldman, the MTA's deputy executive officer for service development. "A lot of it was our educated guesswork based on our experience."

Charlotte's mixed use market is doing better than single family homes. Seems to me like this might be from lack of supply over the years. Complaints of expense just prove this point. From the Charlotte Observer:

“There's an immediate crisis feeling about the price of gas, but there's also a different living preference now,” said Laura Harmon, economic development program manager for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission. “Those of us who might be baby boomers didn't have those options. But now the millennials and so forth are wanting to live differently.”

As noted in the guest post by J.M. it will be interesting to see how Norfolk's light rail line comes out. But while they were pushing forward, their sister city rejected the idea. Now the local paper thinks its time to get back on the train.

Finally comes a blog post from Bill Fulton's blog. Seems that Starbucks has bucked the trend of picking the 100% corner and instead is concentrating more on auto orientation in Redding. Really? Seems a bit strange to me at this time that they would want someone to get in their car making them think about gas to go buy an expensive cup of coffee. But the poster makes a good point that its partly the citizens that are to blame.

The Starbucks with a drive-through window at the edge of downtown? That one stays. So does the Starbucks at the other end of downtown inside of Safeway. But the coffee house at the most visible corner in downtown? The store that was supposed to anchor a cornerstone redevelopment project? It’s closing.
...

Ultimate responsibility, though, lies with the community. Redding is a town where people rush to the newest franchise restaurant. Earlier this year, they lined up overnight for the opening of a Chipotle in a rebuilt strip center. Seriously. It’s a town where Wal-Mart, Costco, Target and Home Depot have big boxes within walking distance of each other – although you’d take your life in your hands trying to make the trip on foot.

In other words, most people who live in Redding don’t care about having a vibrant downtown full of local flavor. And no one – including an urban planning journalist who thinks he knows better – can make them care.

A Car in Every Garage 2.0

That's the plan an "eco-town" in the UK has put forward. In trying to sell the house, the developers are going to toss in a hybrid car and a bike with the purchase. If that means that home owners go from two diesel/gasoline to one hybrid I don't think its such a bad upgrade as long as the town is walkable and bikable enough to reduce VMT that way. The developers are going to upgrade rail links but that would be for not if there are three cars in every garage, which I'm afraid could be the end result.

Public Transportation in Advertising

My dad sent me a Shell ad from The Economist a few weeks ago. He thought it was good that they mentioned the importance of urban planning and public transport. My guess is that this was from the Shell International Office in Den Haag. It is a dutch company. I wish they would say this a little louder here, perhaps in newspapers and TV advertisements.

The United Nations predicts that half the world’s population will live in urban areas by the end of 2008 and about 70% will be city dwellers by 2050. There are expected to be more than 27 ‘mega-cities’ - each with more than 10 million people - by 2050.

More crowded cities means more fumes, more noise and more smog. So what to do?

At Shell, we believe the solution is a combination of cleaner fuels, cleaner engines, better public transport and better urban planning. We are doing our best with fuel improvements.

You can find the full text here at the Shell site.

(Full disclosure: My dad worked for shell for over 30 years before retiring.)

Cost Effectiveness Disconnect

It was mentioned in an email exchange about this article on the Pro Bus NIMBYs in Chevy Chase that just because you have a cheap project that the federal government will fund, doesn't mean that it is more cost effective. It just means that you'll get more federal money. Everyone knows about the FTA's magic computer that determines the CEI. From a January 31st article in the Pioneer Press that was archived and under a paywall.

There's a high-end computer outside of Washington, D.C., that takes all night to calculate a single fraction. Each morning, it e-mails the result of its toils -- a number rounded to the nearest hundredth -- to Mark Fuhrmann and his staff in St. Paul. And in that e-mail lies the fate of the proposed Central Corridor light-rail line connecting St. Paul and Minneapolis.

HUD + FTA (Could =) FTHA

Ryan has a post up discussing the idea of reorganization or mission change at HUD. I completely agree with him that transportation and housing go together making people's lives more affordable to live and should be considered as the strategy for addressing affordability. But what would this combination look like? The silos in Washington are pretty strong unless they are pushed a little harder . In fact, the FTA and HUD had never worked together on a project until a report done in 2006-7 on affordable housing and transit strategies.

But perhaps a way to break down the silo is to combine the two organizations. A possible model for such a relationship can be seen in Charlotte. Unlike most other cities around the country, the county and city are the same entity and the transit agency is under their umbrella with city planning, housing etc. In many other cities, the transit agency is outside of the umbrella of all other organizations which makes agency coordination much harder. The rezoning. development, and construction of the south corridor light rail line shows the power of coordination It also helps that Mecklenburg County is so big that it encompasses a great portion of the region.

Another issue is kind of the elephant in the room called DOT. The FHWA builds highways and doesn't really coordinate land use, which is unfortunate because they are likely the largest driver of new housing placement with their locational building decisions. A way to address this could be to pull the DOT and HUD along with other related agencies into an Urbanism or livability working group. Or even more strength would be achieved through a cabinet position of Urbanism that dealt with transportation, land use, poverty and other related issues.

It's a thought but we really need to start considering how to get agencies that work against each other in policy decisions to work together to aid in the greater affordability of living in the United States. Location efficiency such as is available in major cities and downtowns shouldn't be limited because transportation options aren't available just like programs like hope IV shouldn't negate gains in affordablity by locating somewhere auto dependent.

And So It Begins...

Sound Transit 2.1 is on the ballot in Seattle. Where is the support badge? :) Check out STB for some liveblogging goodness. It looks like we're going to have a fun night in November when these votes take place. We'll be live-blogging results for LA, Seattle, and perhaps San Jose during the election. If there are more, we'll make sure to cover them.

If You Live in DC...

tell Mayor Fenty how you feel about hiring a progressive new transportation director, hopefully someone who doesn't look at level of service like its gods will. Check out Greater Greater Washington for more info and a tool for sending the Mayor your thoughts.

Sugar House Trolley Gets the Nod in Salt Lake

The Sugar House Trolley in Salt Lake will most likely be constructed after receiving a 5-0 vote at council. It's an interesting addition to the TRAX expansion and isn't included in the 70 miles in 7 years Frontlines plan that TRAX is working on.

The cool part will be that it'll be a streetcar in its own ROW with a hike and bike trail along side. Below are pictures of the corridor.


My only question is whether they will allow the streetcars to run on the TRAX ROW towards West Valley or up to downtown Salt Lake. They should be able to operate them that way, but we'll see what happens. If I were a TOD developer, I would hop on that junction where the three lines meet.

In other Salt Lake news, an article in the Tribune has an interesting take on how the government can help the New West prosper. I think the New West is already taking steps to do remarkable things, but the following was interesting.

Brookings suggests that the federal government can help by providing better data and modeling on climate change, water and energy issues. We agree. Increased federal investment in public transportation would help, too. So would a national energy policy that reduces vehicle emissions.

Much like other types of research, the government can help lead the way on sustainability efforts.

DFW Fight Brewing Over Commuter Rail ROW

DART owns the right of way, the T has plans to use it. Looks like a fight is a brewing.

WSJ Article Treasure Trove of Bush Transportation Lunacy

The house has passed a bill to inject $8 billion dollars into the highway fund for projects from the general fund. It passed with a veto proof majority yet the President has threatened to veto it. As people conserve more gas by driving less and driving hybrids, they also cause the transportation fund used to pay for freeways and transit to dwindle.

Let's put aside for a second the fact that congress wants to spend more infrastructure money on roads instead of putting it towards sustainable transportation or alternative energy or railway electrification. The Decider's hooligans made me laugh then shake my head in embarrassment for this country when they made the following statements in the Wall Street Journal:

The White House called the bill "a gimmick and a dangerous precedent that shifts costs from users to taxpayers at large."

Since when did users pay for freeways anyway? I'm lost, isn't the usual argument for taking money from other pots to pay for roads that all taxpayers are users of the system in some form or fashion. But lets not take from taxpayers to help users when we could instead...

The administration has proposed covering the trust fund shortfall by shifting money out of a mass transit account.

Yeah, that's a great idea. In a time of great pressure on transit systems due to high gas prices, let's expand roads using transit funds! That will totally help us cut our dependence on foreign oil and to lower gas prices, lets increase demand for driving! I'm sorry, but what a bunch of *^&@*%$$ morons! Really?! And what's a good transportation article without saying that really tolls aren't taxes and the Republicans don't want to raise taxes:

But the administration and many Republicans oppose tax increases, instead favoring greater tolling and a heavier emphasis on private-sector investment.

Isn't relying on tolling still making people pay more money. Not that I'm against tolling in certain instances, but its still a tax. I wish someone would call them out on that. I wish someone would call them out on all of this.