"This election is huge," said Laurie Bright, president of the Council of Neighborhood Associations. If voters reject Measure KK and approve LL, she said, the combined effect could "destroy Berkeley as we know it."This is a perfect example of the idea that things should always stay as they have been. People are really afraid of change and expect others to take the brunt of what is coming anyway (growth). This was highlighted by opposition at a recent meeting that claimed they should build dedicated lanes in places that "needed it" like Walnut Creek. It's always exporting things to somewhere else rather than taking initiative and controlling it yourself. It's also a direct contradiction of Wendell Cox and others who believe that Smart Growth policies are the bain of housings costs. It actually seems as if its general NIMBYness.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Would Berkeley be "Destroyed"?
Regressive progressives are at it again in Berkeley. The November vote will determine if buses can have dedicated lanes in the City Limits and whether denser development can occur on transit corridors. The response by the opposition is fear:
Traffic Costs Transit
This article in WTOP is a little old but it discusses the importance of clearing paths for public transit and people. While a lot of people will say that congestion just means we should build more roads, places like downtowns just can't add roads, so you need to add capacity. If we don't wake up and realize this, the cost will be huge.
The Metro transit agency adds an average of 10 buses a year just to maintain the same rush-hour service. Fairfax County public schools adds 20 to 30 buses a year - even when enrollment is flat - because of increased travel times. Officials say routes that used to take 30 minutes now take 50 minutes.
The additional vehicles on the road only make congestion and pollution worse. They also cost businesses and taxpayers money. "This is the perfect illustration of the cost of congestion," said Ronald F. Kirby, transportation director for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. "And those costs are passed on to customers and taxpayers."
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Fleet Week Awesome. Muni FAIL
Today was an awesome day on the North end of the city that started with Texas(5) beating Oklahoma(1). I watched from a bar on Union Street with about 200 Texas exes and friends. Then I went with some friends to watch the Blue Angels fly over San Francisco at varying angles. All of this was great and made me pretty tired but glad I got out today. It was an amazingly beautiful day.
On the other hand. It was an epic epic Muni FAIL. In my first year here. I made the mistake of driving the 3 miles North to watch the football game during fleet week. Bad idea. No parking (when is there ever?) and traffic you wouldn't believe. The last few years, I've decided to take Muni which I try to do as much as possible. This morning I would take my usual J to 22 connection. But it started out badly. When I left my house, the NextMUNI webpage said 3 and 15 minutes for the J at 24th and Church. I got to the stop and the 3 min J was just leaving. I felt that was ok. 10 minutes wasn't bad and I would be a little late to the game but no problem right?
Not right. I waited 25 minutes for the J and the driver was chatting away with what seemed like a supervisor with a yellow MUNI vest. I was already annoyed that they were 15 minutes late and the talking really wasn't doing much harm, but because they were late more people had gathered meaning more people had to pay as they entered which always slows the whole process down. And why they have so many stop signs on Church I'll never know.
So i get to Duboce and Church where I would hop on the 22 and the next one comes in 12 minutes. It's already 9am and the game starts at 9am. I wait 12 minutes and off we go. The 22 gets there and I'm responding to texts from my friends telling them I'll be a little late but not too bad. Then some crazy stuff happens. The driver decides that at stop lights he'll read the SF Chronicle. And at one point he hops out of the bus at a stop and walks into a store to pick up a sandwich. What?!
Obviously I was annoyed. I was already late because of Muni. But this was ridiculous. So what would have taken me about 15 minutes in a subway or a car took me an hour on Muni. I know this is the reason people drive. It annoys the heck out of me that we can't get it right. Between the late train and the crazy bus driver...it was enough to make me almost declare war on Muni.
The way home pretty much sucked as well. So much traffic on Van Ness (I walked that way to see the ships from Fort Mason) I decided to go back to the 22. Well I got passed by three full buses and ended up just walking the 2 miles to the J. It was ok though. I got to take some pictures on Union Street. But for the once in a while rider, that day would probably kill your riding for about a year. Cabs it is!
In any event. This needs to be improved. And the TEP would really do almost nothing to change that trip. BRT on Van Ness could possibly help that trip but honestly there needs to be an east west and north south subway. I should be able to get anywhere in a 7 mile by 7 mile city in 30 minutes. That should be the goal. That would be quite impressive mobility for here and guess what, more people would take transit!!!
Here are some pictures and movies. The first one shows the final seconds of the game at the Blue Light bar. Pretty exciting.
The following pictures are of the Fleet Week traffic...
Van Ness
Lombard
North Point Street
People Traffic and Ships!
Marina Street - They would be dumb not to put the future F Line extension to the presidio in its own lane when you see this:
Union Street Life
On the other hand. It was an epic epic Muni FAIL. In my first year here. I made the mistake of driving the 3 miles North to watch the football game during fleet week. Bad idea. No parking (when is there ever?) and traffic you wouldn't believe. The last few years, I've decided to take Muni which I try to do as much as possible. This morning I would take my usual J to 22 connection. But it started out badly. When I left my house, the NextMUNI webpage said 3 and 15 minutes for the J at 24th and Church. I got to the stop and the 3 min J was just leaving. I felt that was ok. 10 minutes wasn't bad and I would be a little late to the game but no problem right?
Not right. I waited 25 minutes for the J and the driver was chatting away with what seemed like a supervisor with a yellow MUNI vest. I was already annoyed that they were 15 minutes late and the talking really wasn't doing much harm, but because they were late more people had gathered meaning more people had to pay as they entered which always slows the whole process down. And why they have so many stop signs on Church I'll never know.
So i get to Duboce and Church where I would hop on the 22 and the next one comes in 12 minutes. It's already 9am and the game starts at 9am. I wait 12 minutes and off we go. The 22 gets there and I'm responding to texts from my friends telling them I'll be a little late but not too bad. Then some crazy stuff happens. The driver decides that at stop lights he'll read the SF Chronicle. And at one point he hops out of the bus at a stop and walks into a store to pick up a sandwich. What?!
Obviously I was annoyed. I was already late because of Muni. But this was ridiculous. So what would have taken me about 15 minutes in a subway or a car took me an hour on Muni. I know this is the reason people drive. It annoys the heck out of me that we can't get it right. Between the late train and the crazy bus driver...it was enough to make me almost declare war on Muni.
The way home pretty much sucked as well. So much traffic on Van Ness (I walked that way to see the ships from Fort Mason) I decided to go back to the 22. Well I got passed by three full buses and ended up just walking the 2 miles to the J. It was ok though. I got to take some pictures on Union Street. But for the once in a while rider, that day would probably kill your riding for about a year. Cabs it is!
In any event. This needs to be improved. And the TEP would really do almost nothing to change that trip. BRT on Van Ness could possibly help that trip but honestly there needs to be an east west and north south subway. I should be able to get anywhere in a 7 mile by 7 mile city in 30 minutes. That should be the goal. That would be quite impressive mobility for here and guess what, more people would take transit!!!
Here are some pictures and movies. The first one shows the final seconds of the game at the Blue Light bar. Pretty exciting.
The following pictures are of the Fleet Week traffic...
Van Ness
Lombard
North Point Street
People Traffic and Ships!
Marina Street - They would be dumb not to put the future F Line extension to the presidio in its own lane when you see this:
Union Street Life
Friday, October 10, 2008
Bonds, Road Bonds
Shaking and stirred? But they pay for themselves! As one commenter brings up:
Funny how no one brings things like this up when talking about transit. Transit never has the expected usage and is a waste. Toll roads without expected usage are planning for the future.
Rising Property Value Time Frame
Hamilton, just outside of Toronto, is expecting increases in property value from light rail that would be in the new Toronto long range plan.
Somewhere in the article they discuss that it will take a year, but I'm not sure if that is believable. I often wonder with studies like this what the real time frame is. Such a quick time frame doesn't seem reasonable while a long time frame seems so far off it might just seem like regular increase. They also say that there is a price premium on living near highways.
Though I wonder how much that will change with gas prices. In a PBS special that is going to air soon, they interview a family who are spending over $1,000 a month on gas because they live so far away. Those housing prices have to reflect that truth. As my colleague Scott Bernstein says, we need to build cities that isolate citizens from these peaks and valleys of cost. I believe the biggest way to do that is to invest in sustainable transportation.
Somewhere in the article they discuss that it will take a year, but I'm not sure if that is believable. I often wonder with studies like this what the real time frame is. Such a quick time frame doesn't seem reasonable while a long time frame seems so far off it might just seem like regular increase. They also say that there is a price premium on living near highways.
Though I wonder how much that will change with gas prices. In a PBS special that is going to air soon, they interview a family who are spending over $1,000 a month on gas because they live so far away. Those housing prices have to reflect that truth. As my colleague Scott Bernstein says, we need to build cities that isolate citizens from these peaks and valleys of cost. I believe the biggest way to do that is to invest in sustainable transportation.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Seattle Streetcar Ridership Over Mark
Seattle Streetcar over ridership also...
2008 ridership on the Seattle Streetcar reached 347,000 riders on October 1, surpassing first-year ridership three months ahead of schedule.H/T Brian at STB
Transportation Secretary Short List
I'm not sure how accurate these are but it apparently was reported in Congressional Quarterly (Original here. Thanks Morgan):
McCain
- Ma Peters
- Bill Graves, president of the American Trucking Associations
- Pete K. Rahn, Missouri Department of Transportation director
Obama
- Governor Edward G. Rendell (D-PA), chair of National Govenors Association
- Jane F. Garvey, executive vice president, APCO Worldwide
- Steve Heminger, executive director of the San Francisco Bay area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission
Ma Peters. We know all about her. Someone from the American Trucking Association? Serious? Or hows about Pete Rahn, the president of the Highway Lobby! This is stark. YGBFKM!
On the Blue team, it looks much better. Governor Rendell is big on transit in Philadelphia and understands transportation is multi-modal. I'm not so sure how good Jane Garvey would be as she was a former FAA administrator and Deputy Administrator at the Federal Highway Administration (booo!!).
I'm not so sure what I think of Steve Heminger either. His MTC has already been reprimanded by Jerry Brown for keeping roads we know the region doesn't need (Read Eric's post) and he got into trouble by taking a paragraph out of the recent National Transportation Commission Study Report about electric transit that Conservative Paul Weyrich had inserted. He's recently been a HOT lane enthusiast as well.
On the other hand, he understands multi-modal transportation systems, though the Bay Area's hodge podge of 26 agencies makes it a little hard to coordinate. They also have very aggressive performance measures for TOD that only spend money on new projects if the area is willing to accept a certain amount of density. I will say he and Gov. Rendell would be light years better than any of these other highway clowns. The McCain picks are telling, and if you were thinking he would address global warming and go against the auto-oil industrial complex, you might have just gotten smacked in the face.
McCain
- Ma Peters
- Bill Graves, president of the American Trucking Associations
- Pete K. Rahn, Missouri Department of Transportation director
Obama
- Governor Edward G. Rendell (D-PA), chair of National Govenors Association
- Jane F. Garvey, executive vice president, APCO Worldwide
- Steve Heminger, executive director of the San Francisco Bay area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission
Ma Peters. We know all about her. Someone from the American Trucking Association? Serious? Or hows about Pete Rahn, the president of the Highway Lobby! This is stark. YGBFKM!
On the Blue team, it looks much better. Governor Rendell is big on transit in Philadelphia and understands transportation is multi-modal. I'm not so sure how good Jane Garvey would be as she was a former FAA administrator and Deputy Administrator at the Federal Highway Administration (booo!!).
I'm not so sure what I think of Steve Heminger either. His MTC has already been reprimanded by Jerry Brown for keeping roads we know the region doesn't need (Read Eric's post) and he got into trouble by taking a paragraph out of the recent National Transportation Commission Study Report about electric transit that Conservative Paul Weyrich had inserted. He's recently been a HOT lane enthusiast as well.
On the other hand, he understands multi-modal transportation systems, though the Bay Area's hodge podge of 26 agencies makes it a little hard to coordinate. They also have very aggressive performance measures for TOD that only spend money on new projects if the area is willing to accept a certain amount of density. I will say he and Gov. Rendell would be light years better than any of these other highway clowns. The McCain picks are telling, and if you were thinking he would address global warming and go against the auto-oil industrial complex, you might have just gotten smacked in the face.
Patriotic Beer Redux
I know I've posted this commercial before but it came through my reader again and I was about to skip it but decided maybe I'd have another listen. What I found, was that it had even more to do with the situation we're in today more than ever. Tough times call for tough men. Here's the transcript:
Ah. That's the way patriot. Let the OPECs keep their gasoline. We'll just tap into a far more efficient energy source. Man....power. If we all learn to pull our weight. Nobody, nobody will be able to siphon away, our high life.
HT Twin Cities Streets for People for the Reminder.
Ah. That's the way patriot. Let the OPECs keep their gasoline. We'll just tap into a far more efficient energy source. Man....power. If we all learn to pull our weight. Nobody, nobody will be able to siphon away, our high life.
HT Twin Cities Streets for People for the Reminder.
Sprawl Spreads in Switzerland
It's not just here. And it's not just auto dependent. But it's just as expensive.
"In 1935, city limits were clearly identifiable," wrote the Science Foundation. This is no longer the case, and many urban areas snake into valleys and along transit routes.I also imagine a 20 year moratorium on growth would not go over so well here. Though I think here it's called a growth boundary.
Researchers are proposing benchmarks to limit urban sprawl. In August 2008, a coalition of environmental organisations submitted more than 110,000 signatures to the government in support of a 20-year moratorium on new growth.
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