Lost Luggage

Do you ever have to worry about this on rail?

Electric Surge

An article in USA Today discusses one California city's preparation for the surge in power needed for electric cars. When is the surge in electric transit coming?

Automakers envision electric cars as a solution to gas price jumps. Environmentalists see bluer skies. And electric utilities? They could be the biggest winners of all.

Seems to me electric utilities could be even bigger winners if they built electric transit networks. Then we wouldn't be sending our money to companies that provide diesel but rather the local power company, which hopefully has a smart grid linked to alternative energy. But its better than breathing the diesel fumes even now.

Service Levels & Income

How about this cliche fest. The Examiner writes about how San Franciscans are tougher than the rest of the bay area when it comes to walking to transit through high crime areas. But in reading it, some of the writing made me skeptical that this was a real study or whether people didn't just take stereotypes into the paper:

In places like Oakland, Berkeley and Sunnyvale, the high-crime neighborhoods tend to scare people away from using nearby transit services, the study found. Folks had a tendency to walk less in those neighborhoods, choosing to drive instead, according to a new study from the Mineta Transportation Institute.
...
“In [San Francisco] neighborhoods where there was more crime, people were most likely to use transit,” said Dr. Christopher Ferrell, one of the study’s principal authors.
...
He added that The City’s transit services tend to be located in high-density areas, which invariably attract crime.
...
As expected, those who chose to live in suburban areas were more inclined to avoid walking in high-crime areas and using transit hubs within those areas. But even in a dense urban city such as Oakland, folks had a propensity to avoid public-transit hubs in high-crime neighborhoods.

Seems to me that this has nothing to do with crime but rather to do with transit service levels & income levels & self selection. What am I missing?

Is This Proof...

that the subsidization of roads to sprawl are costing us a lot of money?

The Federal Highway Administration reported that motorists drove 108 billion fewer miles last year, a 3.6 percent drop from 2007 levels. While significant, this reduction — which has an impact on gasoline tax revenues — is far less severe than the reduction in travel experienced by toll roads across the country. The continued drop in toll road use on well regarded facilities like Orange County, California’s 91 Express Lanes brings into question the long-term sustainability of tolling as a form of revenue collection compared to the more modern gasoline excise tax.

Incentivizing Clean Energy Consumption

I was reading Jim's post on public utilities providing a push to build more solar.

What a great idea: incentivize ( I hate the 'word,' but it's descriptive) consumers to install wind and solar power equipment by paying them a premium for the power generated.

It got me to thinking, what if the FTA incentivized cleaner transit such as trolley buses making the replacement cost to transit agencies lower if they or the utility build the infrastructure. It seems to me that allowing transit agencies just to replace with diesel buses because they are a bit cheaper is looking only at the short term benefits instead of the long term. Anyways, just thoughts.

Alternative Funding in Detroit

An interesting movement in the Woodward light rail line in Detroit. They have collected what I believe is the first ever foundation money to build a transit line in the United States. The locally based Kresge Foundation has put in $35 million and the total already raised locally is $44 million. I believe there are still dueling plans for Woodward but it would be interesting to see how this all bears out.

Quote of the Day

On a discussion of the issues that bike tourism brings to the town of Sausalito just North of San Francisco.

Noting that the bike tourists bring cash to the city, the Sausalito business
community expressed concern about making the experience unfriendly for tourists.

"We love the cyclists and tourists that come into town," said Cheryl Popp, Chamber of Commerce president. "Bikes are good for the economy and they are green and clean."

Truth to Power

Give this guy an award for kicking the autocentrics of Seattle in the teeth when talking about what to cut because of the recession.

McGinn began by reminding us that voters rejected a roads and transit measure 2007, only to approve a transit-only package a year later; and also that in March 2007, 70% of Seattle voted against replacing the viaduct with a tunnel. He went on to point out that apparently the State has an extra $2 billion lying around to build a tunnel, and then finished by stating, “I’d start there.”

The muffled oohs and groans that erupted from the audience were an indication of what McGinn certainly already knew — that most of the people in the room were supporters of the deep-bore tunnel, or if not, they at least understood that disparaging the tunnel is a risky political position to take.

BART Monthly Pass

I'm torn on this idea for BART. This would allow people who have monthly passes to just hop on BART instead of having to pay each time which could increase ridership and make transit more attractive. At the same time BART is mostly a commuter line, I feel like a monthly pass would subsidize living past Pleasanton (in the central valley) if you work in San Francisco which I believe is the wrong signal to send. What do you all think?

Never the Freeway Median

I think we've discussed this before but we need to really stop building transit lines on freeways. I'm not talking about allowing buses to use the HOV lanes but rather building new light and heavy rail lines along the side or in the center of freeways. If we want to create the most value out of these investments, existing ROW needs to be thoroughly examined for its benefits, which includes existing freight ROW as well.

The South Corridor in Charlotte is a good example of using the existing ROW because it runs a close parallel to the main south arterial street. However lines such as the Baltimore light rail line are really poor applications of existing ROW. The line there completely misses the downtown of Towson which is a major regional destination. BART is a huge example of rail transit designed for the auto age. Why didn't they run the Pittsburgh BayPoint Line under Broadway in Oakland instead of along the freeway median to Rockridge?

I think we need to think about how we can move away from focusing solely on the Interstate system that is built out as well as believing that since the interstates are there, they are the best routes for transit. They are the worst routes for Urbanism as freeways are not urban.