MLK Linkfest

It was a nice day today and I took a bit of a walk around my neighborhood looking for odd things, I'll get to that in the next post, but I had a few articles I needed to get out so here they are:
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Steve at Urban St. Louis has an amazing set of three aerial photos that show the degradation of MLK(before it was called such) over time due to "urban renewal" among other things. Check it out.
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Matt discusses the coming Metrocalypse during inauguration.
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India is talking high speed rail.
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Cleveland gets 6th annual ridership increase. Things going well.
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Richard Layman reposts a comment he originally left here about the WRI Purple Line study. Apparently the Shell Oil* funded think tank has been working on BRT studies around the world, but has never recommended light or heavy rail.
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An El Paso paper editorial states that a rail line should be on the cities to do list.
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A Dallas Morning News editorial calls for new buses to be CNG. How about more trolleybuses? Figure out a way to integrate the restructuring of the energy grid and the highest ridership routes in order to facilitate the reduction in particulate matter on the corridors and the long term alternative energy strategy. Buses are a 12 year investment, what will happen in 12 years? my guess is a lot.

The Problem Using Auto Taxes to Pay for Transit

The Twin Cities funds transit partially through new car sales. In this recent economy its projected that the overall taxes from this method will be $200 million less than in 2003. The problem here is funding transit through increased auto sales. If more people have cars, how likely is it that they'll need increased transit alternatives? And in an economic downturn, the idea of funding transit through purchases is antithetical due to the greater need for transit during these periods, as evidenced in the last year. Even though transit receives a higher share of the car taxes today, that means a huge deficit for transit which in all likelihood means service cuts. But for capital projects, it means that like every other city, they have to hope for some funding that is likely not coming.

Despite a ridership increase of 6.8 percent for the first 11 months of 2008, the council predicts a budget shortfall of $72 million through the next biennium "just to maintain existing transit service and fund committed service expansions."

To me this is the problem with the stimulus, cities and regions which are the major economic drivers of this nation are getting the shaft when DOTs (aka Highway Departments) want to build new capacity to the outskirts. There's no more room for expansion in cities without tearing out more of the urban fabric. For too long we've funded roads to nowhere and with 50 years of the same policies, we have the problems we are in now. It's not like this is a new theory or something being tested, the new capacity idea has been tested for 50 years! We need to figure out a way to either make highways go through the same process as transit or loosen the strings for transit so lines can be built much easier. This also means more money for transit is needed in the stimulus package. Its time to start catching up.

The Obama Train

President-Elect Obama
Originally uploaded by will.quale

The Dark Side of the Stimulus Package

Here are some bunk stimulus links.

TPM Election Central 1 and 2: Transit Wars

Even the Environmental Defense Fund, considered a relatively centrist player in the phalanx of Washington green groups, had a bone to pick with the transit part of the stimulus plan. Fewer than half of the 50 states have publicly released their priority transportation projects, according to the EDF, making transparency from the nation's governors a crucial missing piece.

Wall Street Journal: Return of the Oberstar

Some members of the House transportation committee objected to the proposed level of investment during a Democratic caucus session Thursday, and several members later spoke out during a committee meeting. Highways and Transit Subcommittee Chairman Peter DeFazio (D., Ore.) suggested the committee draft a letter or resolution to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi objecting to the transport section of the stimulus bill.

Open Left: Oberstar Strikes Back

Basically CBO got numbers from the Bush administration DOT that said it was not possible to spend money on these projects within 90 days, meaning they're not "shovel ready". Oberstar explains that's BS and it's ridiculous to be taking numbers from the Bush folks at DOT that are getting ready to high-tail it out of town.

Grist: Help Me Joe-B1 Kenobi

All this comes just as Barack Obama and "Amtrak" Joe Biden get ready for a railroad trip along said corridor. They'll be traveling from Philadelphia down to Washington, D.C. this weekend on their "Whistle Stop Train Tour." Maybe the trip will give them a few hours to think about transit funding.

"Experts"

Case in Point, David Spurling.

"Sperling is the co-author (with Deborah Gordon) of Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability, a book that considers the environmental impact of so many automobiles and suggests ways that politicians, car companies and the general public can curb car-ownership and reduce climate change."

While most of the talk is on technology, he discuss the roles of transit, land use, and bicycling and car-share. "Mass transit won't solve our energy and transportation problems," states Sperling. The average bus passenger contributes as much greenhouse gases as a car driver because the buses aren't full, he explains.

Wonder which O'Toole he got that data from?

Sports Stadiums Seeking Transit Stops

If the A's stadium is located near the Warm Springs station it will be much better than if it were in the wasteland 2 miles away. (I would prefer it be in downtown Oakland on the current Auto Row) I have never been to an A's game without taking BART and I can't imagine getting to the game any other way. The freeway is always jacked. But I think they might have been waiting for funding, and it seems to soon be assured.

On the other side of the country, the Tampa Rays are looking to locate near a rail station. This is in a place that hasn't even started the most serious movements toward rail lines. But its nice to see the team looking ahead.

Handing Out Money

Looks like the FTA had a busy end of the year giving out funding grants to cities around the country including Money for:

The West Corridor in Denver
The Seattle Link Extension to UW
The ARC in New Jersey
The Mid-Jordan Trax in Salt Lake City

Anyone seen any other news?

Leave Something Out?

I have to take issue with reports like these. The reason being is that it seems like these folks are operating in this vacuum and aren't considering holistically what will happen in the future with these types of investments. This is part of the problem in much of the environmental community and one of the reasons why there needs to be greater education on the values of transit not just in transportation but its affects on development and land use. There seems to be this massive disconnect and I haven't seen anyone in the main stream environmental movement quite get it yet.

The World Resources Institute has issued a report that states BRT is better than LRT for the Purple Line. The question is how they came to this conclusion. It's littered with the usual objections to light rail with a few new ones for good measure. My favorite quip is the "we like light rail but not in this instance" which we've seen about a million times before. In the report, they even admit to thinking short term.

Major capital projects implemented in the near-term will shape the long-term future of transport in the region. WRI urges regional planners and other decision makers to consider current needs and concerns in the context of tomorrow’s transportation challenges, especially regarding traffic congestion, fuel costs, and climate change.

So what you're saying is that we should look at everything? Well you forgot a few things guys, like changes in development patterns, particulate matter and lifecycle costs in terms of construction. Replacing all the buses every 12 years is always good for the environment. Another annoying FTA related issue is the no build alternative. It's not really a no build but rather a basic bus service. Of course incremental change from a bus line to BRT is going to be more "cost effective". The other bus line doesn't even exist! Then there is this:

As illustrated in Figure 7, only the Medium and High Investment BRT alternatives reduce CO2 emissions, with 8,883 and 17,818 fewer metric tons per year, respectively, compared to the No Build scenario. All of the remaining alternatives increase annual emission levels compared to No Build.

Energy consumption from roadways decreases with introduction of LRT, but the resulting emissions reduction is not sufficient to counterbalance the effect caused by the high electricity CO2 emission factor. While we anticipate that this emission factor will decrease in the future due to increased use of renewable energy sources and likely GHG reduction legislation, these drivers have not been included in the AA/DEIS. Further consideration is given to the electricity emission factor in the following sections.

Again. The no build doesn't even exist, so how is the BRT line reducing emissions and LRT isn't? Well the truth is it is reducing emissions because the alternative isn't the no build but rather nothing at all. Both lines reduce GHGs in the transportation sense. What we don't know is exactly what the reductions in VMT are going to be from land use and whether the land use patterns will create more incentives to walk, creating even less car trips and development patterns that themselves save infrastructure and energy costs. Not to mention they say nothing about particulates from a single source of pollution versus multiple sources that spew along a whole corridor.

In all reality, the Purple Line should be a subway. Bringing it down to light rail is bad enough, but all the way down to bus rapid transit would be a wasted opportunity to change the corridor. But for once, could someone do an analysis that includes land use change, the issues of air pollution, the real lifecycle costs? This analysis shows how much affect the FTA policy has on what our future will look like, and that is upsetting. Let's stop leaving out the whole picture.

A Good Time to Buy ROW

Seems as if we have a golden opportunity to take advantage of the financial crisis. One way is the lowered value of property. Virginia Beach, perhaps looking to extend light rail from Norfolk, is setting aside $10 million as half of a $20 million payment to buy Norfolk Southern ROW for the line. Just a short time ago, it was worth about $50 million.

Negotiations have stalled before because the city and railroad company officials couldn't agree on price. The city also has considered condemning the land. Norfolk Southern appraisal last year valued the right of way at $50 million, said Robin Chapman, a company spokesman.

"That was done at the height of real estate values, and property values have declined since then," Chapman said. "We are nevertheless insistent on getting fair market value for it." He wouldn't say how much the company would take.

Books on Rail Policy

Ryan asks what some good books are on Rail Policy. I'm not sure if this is what he was looking for, but I think Stephen Goddard's Getting There is a good read.