Forshadowing?

I sure hope so. I don't wish anyone any harm and glad the Mayor is ok, but this is something that I hope happens on a metaphorical level in the next transportation bill.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's $50,000, high-tech hybrid Chevrolet Tahoe SUV ... was put out of commission Tuesday when a Muni bus sideswiped it.

What I mean is that I hope that transit takes over priority from the auto centric bill we have today. Especially SUV's. Isn't Hybrid Tahoe an oxymoron?

The Sound of Freedom

The Katy Freeway is complete. This Houston mega freeway is hopefully the last of its kind in the United States. Stretching from Katy to Houston, this 18 lane monstrosity is now officially double the initial project cost stated at $1 to $1.2 Billion dollars. The final cost? $2.8 Billion. Presumably some of that will be made back with tolls on the center Hot Lane. But as Culbertson says, it didn't use a single earmark yet he was key to getting the money. How does that work? Too bad it used billions of dollars of taxpayer money that could have been spent more wisely. But it's the sound of freedom!

Perry noted the roar of traffic below, above and around the crowd, which was gathered on a frontage road overpass. "This is the sound of freedom we hear," he said. "These people need roads to get to work, to church and to school."

If that is the sound of freedom, I have a war in Iraq for you Governor. Sure people need roads, but do they really need the particulate matter and increased sprawl this will cause? This is all the pet project of Rep. John Culbertson, who loves him some roads. He promised that the next mega project would be US 290 but hopefully he doesn't get his way. With the Katy Freeway, Culbertson basically had the railroad right of way that paralleled the road paved over. There is a similar situation on 290 that shouldn't happen again.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority, which already plans light rail on Westpark, paid to have Katy Freeway overpasses beefed up to carry its trains if space there ever is available for them. But Culberson, whose ability to get federal dollars was crucial to the widening project, pledged not to give up a single freeway lane for Metro rail. Brandt Mannchen, the Sierra Club regional air quality chairman, expressed regret at what he termed a missed opportunity to have rail on the Katy.

The Culbertson who wanted to kill light rail all together and was a major reason for me starting this blog. Now I'm not a huge fan of rail in the freeway, especially an 18 lane freeway. But getting rid of that right of way was a mistake. And I wouldn't doubt if it were on purpose. Showing this guy the door would be a huge win for livable communities in Houston. Unfortunately at this juncture, the race isn't that close but it's tightening. We'll be watching this one on election night with the ballot measures. Mostly because this guy is a danger to himself and transit in general.

The Duke Pays

It seems as if Duke Energy is going to toss up some money for the Streetcar. I have a feeling its mostly for environmental and engineering but it'll be helpful for sure. Somewhere Over The Rhine has the link.

Kneel Before ZOD

Well not really superman. But could we see Zepplin Oriented Development soon?

No You Don't Like Trains

Robert as usual has the goods. Anyone else tired of people falling for the "I'd like another proposal besides this one later because now is not the right time" crowd? It's never going to be the right time for someone out there. Or the guys like O'Toole and Cox that say, we're huge train fans, we just think they cost too much blah blah blah.

An interesting discussion I had tonight with a colleague. He reminded me that the Howard Jarvis people that wrote the Anti Prop 1a junk study with Wendell Cox are the same folks who got Prop 13 passed...

China Rail Stimulus Package: $445 Billion

Update: I should note that this is $445 Billion Australian or $272 Billion. That is still a lot of money.

Reuters is reporting that with factory workers in China losing jobs, the government will pump $445 Billion dollars into their rail system and economy.

CHINA will invest nearly $A445 billion in its overburdened rail system as a stimulus measure aimed at blunting the impact of the global financial crisis. The investment is part of plans to extend the country's railway network from the current roughly 125,502km to nearly 160,900km by 2010, Shanghai's Oriental Morning Post reported. The Beijing News quoted a rail official as saying that, while the network needed extending, the massive investment was also intended to help lift the nation's economy as it suffers amid the global woes.

I don't know about you all, but I can't even imagine a scenario where we pump that much money into freight and passenger rail lines because our politics would get in the way. That is almost double the demand that exists in the United States for new transit lines and certainly an investment like that in the United States would be an enormous benefit for our future ancestors. Are we going to see the light? Or fall further behind?

HT ASD

Not Quite Dead Yet

Though the rail and utility portions of the Trans Texas Corridor might as well be. It seems that Craddick was only telling his constituents what they wanted to hear about segments close to them, rather than saying the whole thing is DOA.

The Metropolitan Candidate

So says Alec MacGillis in the Washington Post.

But dominating Obama's platform are ideas geared more toward the metropolis as a whole: a big investment in infrastructure, including mass transit and inter-city rail, that he now also bills as a jobs measure; a network of public-private business incubators; new green-technology industries; a White House office of urban policy that will goad governments within metro areas into working together.

Urban Bumper Sticker

Considering a lot of people around here don't have cars and take transit, the bumper sticker is not an available option of displaying your politics or causes. However, I've noticed even before the presidential election that messenger bags can have the same affect. After the election started though, they have increased exponentially around here. Mostly Obama and No on Prop 8. I've noticed people on the train checking out my bag as well, which has my own "urban bumper stickers"


I've got the longhorn patch which has brought me closer to fellow Texans randomly on BART and the Hey Mercedes buttons of my favorite band that have gotten comments from some rock kids. Though no one has said much about the SF Municipal Railway or the Market Street Railway pins, it might be because we're usually smooshed together on the J Church.

The thing though is that unlike bumper stickers, you have to be in close quarters to see what the pins and buttons say, which makes people a bit more cordial than if they were in the space of their own car. No honking on transit.

Deep Seeded Bias

Jeff Tumlin as usual gets it right:

Jeffrey Tumlin, a transportation planner with Nelson Nygaard, a BART consultant, sees the skewed funding priorities as part of a deep-seated bias against transit in American public policy. "If your road or highway is experiencing bad levels of service, it's assumed that you need to get money to expand capacity," he says. "When you're allocating money for transit, nobody ever asks how crowded buses are."

This is a pretty good article from Salon as far as msm goes. Then there is this part, which is the story of most people's life on BART if you're taking the train during peak hours. Sardines.

Four minutes later, another Pittsburgh-Bay Point train arrives and an audible groan goes up in the station: This train is packed too. Inside one car, a poster on the wall applauds riders for taking the train instead of driving: "Thank you for not gridlocking today. Thanks for taking BART." It's not even peak rush hour yet.

Second tube anyone?

HT Bus Chick