Progress

Here's a fun site for you all to try out if you haven't already. You can create these:

Using What You Purchase

Looks like Norfolk Southern is going to be asking a bit more for the ROW between Virginia Beach and Norfolk. Half of it will be used for the existing light rail line. It would be pretty worthwhile to buy now though because it will only get more expensive.

Though I would hope that they don't use the whole thing, at least further east towards the beach. The closer the ROW gets to the beach, the closer it gets to a large Naval Air Station, which is likely not too great for mixed use development unless at some point it is shut down and the property is redeveloped. Close by however is a major shopping district that could be recast after its useful life as a new center for Virginia Beach. Currently it has a lot of parking spaces ripe for redevelopment. You can see the difference between the two probably paths below.

You can also see in the aerial below that there is a wide median for ROW. However such a large street could use a boulevard reconfiguration to calm traffic and create better pedestrian scale development.


The extension to Virginia Beach also seems like a good line from a job connection standpoint as well. Three miles from the end of the current line under construction and west of the Naval Air Station above is this job and entertainment center below called Virginia Beach Town Center.

The point however is that while this is a good line, they need to look long and hard into where it goes, and might want to think about how much the ROW is worth beyond the Naval Air Station. It's probably worth buying and keeping for the future because if the NAS is decommissioned, a rapid streetcar could connect the station with the beach and start and end at light rail stations as well as circulation. But it's something to look into.

Attempted Robbery

It's always a bad idea to start letting the state take money from transportation funding to plug holes. Look at where it has gotten us in California, $3 billion dollars gone and transit gets screwed. Well here is another case where putting your foot down is a good thing. The State of Hawaii wants to steal the transit tax but Mayor Mufi is saying no. Good for him.

When Three Ps Come Up Aces

I got an email from a friend of the blog with a link to the Aces Train. Apparently it is a public private partnership run through the Casinos in Atlantic City and New Jersey Transit in which there is direct service between New York and Atlantic City with a stop in Newark. Shuttle service would be provided between the casinos and the station and ticketing would be done through Amtrak. It does come with a steep price tag however. $100 round trip and $150 if you want to go first class.

What is most interesting is that this is a public private partnership (PPP) in which New Jersey provides the tracks and the casinos provided the railcars and operating costs. I wonder if they will get commuters as well? Though $50 might be a bit steep, the seats look comfortable. However it has been a long time coming. It has been in the works for a while and still hasn't started though this time its slated for Feb 6th.

Rising Values Near Transit in UK

There is an article in the Times of London on whether purchasing a home near transit is a worthwhile investment. In London people are willing to pay a premium to be near a tube stop and values around areas that will soon be stations are rising quickly.

The extension of the former East London Tube Line will run from West Croydon and Crystal Palace to Dalston Junction, and will connect with the Tube network at Whitechapel. A second phase, due to open in 2011, will continue the line through Canonbury to Highbury & Islington Tube station. The average house price has already risen from £187,800 in 2001 to £317,959 in 2007, according to Hometrack, and gentrification has arrived in the form of the Dalston Culture House and the relocation of the Vortex jazz club to new premises, as well as several new restaurants.
...
A 2005 report by the Passenger Transport Executive Group found that all UK tram schemes have led to increases in commercial and residential property values, in some cases by 15 per cent. Rental prices have risen by 7 percent.

What is most interesting though is something we never think of here in the United States. The warnings to some are that retailers won't be around until closer to the time that the new station opens.

But buyers must be prepared to wait. “The change will not be instantaneous. Some people who would never have considered living in an area without a Tube line will come immediately. Others will wait for the retail and restaurants.” Scotford urges buyers to be aware that retailers may not arrive immediately to the area because current leases will take a while to expire. But it should not take too long.

The fact that they expect retail that is within walking distance is a little bit different. Here there are a whole heap of issues surrounding the type of retail and whether there will be enough parking because around the station extensions, there is generally not enough density to support such retail without parking or other help from cities, but there it's expected. Kind of an upsetting commentary if you ask me.

The Overhead Wire is Done

No not me or the blog, rather the wires that bring electricity to streetcars and light rail. Yonah brings our attention to an MSNBC article in which Bombardier unveils their new technology advancement.

The innovative principle of the PRIMOVE system is rooted in the principle of inductive power transfer, a technology used in cleanrooms in the computer chip and automotive industries. With Bombardier's introduction of PRIMOVE, inductive power transfer comes to rail vehicles for the first time.

Apparently they have been testing in Germany since 2003 and the system apparently can work in all weather, unlike the Alstom APS system which reportedly has problems with ice and snow. Now we wait for commercial installation and testing under real life conditions. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Clean Air

One of the things I harp on constantly is the need for clean air which is part of the reason that I like electric transit. Well Matt at Orphan Road has some news about lifespans and clean air. Seems like it helps people live longer. Who knew?

The Over Under

The East End in Houston is building a light rail line. To perpendicularly cross the freight tracks, Metro has proposed building a bridge. The neighbors want an underpass. My first question would be what happens to the underpass in the medical center when you get a torrential rain storm, something that happens quite often in Houston. Does it flood? If so, it doesn't seem like a great idea, however aesthetically pleasing. Does anyone know of other lines that have a flooding problem?

One Million Riders

You know you want to say it like Dr. Evil. WMATA rocked it's all time high with an exclamation point. This was forcast by many before so it wasn't too much of a surprise, but its still an achievement. On that note, Richard has a post up about capacity and the additional costs of capacity and makes the case for those people paying more that use it at peak due to capacity built explicitly for peak travel instead of average travel.

At the same time, Ryan notes that this super ridership record should make the region think about increasing core capacity with new subway lines and streetcars. I tend to agree. More core capacity can only increase mobility and perhaps let out a bit of a relief valve. Other cities such as Budapest are still building core lines in the central city (like line 4, line 5), we should be doing that as well.

Thinking Inside the Box Left at DOT

Yonah as usual has a great post up on the confirmation hearing of future Secretary Lahood. There were a few parts that bothered me, including the repackaging of old ideas as innovative. When Senator Klobuchar of Minnesota asked what kind of innovative ways to replenish the highway trust fund, he said:

Public/private programs… Tolling of new lanes, tolling of highways, is a different way of thinking about it… We need to think of those kind of opportunities… Differently than just the gasoline tax… We know that people are still using Amtrak even though gas prices went down, we know people in places like Chicago are still using mass transit.

While I like all the nods to transit that were mentioned, and there were a lot of those, the idea of taxing cars alone as the only way to get things done, even if it is tolling is a bit one sided. What about how the Red Line in Portland was financed by trading property in exchange for Bechtel building the line. Or the Seattle Streetcar where property owners taxed themselves for half of the capital cost.

We need to somehow tie transportation investments to land use and that could mean funding based on true costs and things like tolling for suburban roads, but also other ideas that are floating around out there that could change the way we think about these investments and their value (H+T). Let's start to think harder. It's like we don't know how to be super innovative anymore. Or maybe I'm just hoping for too much.