Central Subway Further

Eric talks up the next phases of the Central Subway project. This got me thinking about the process the CS went through to get where it is today and all the dumb federal mandates that require Muni not to talk about anything outside of the scope of the project they are applying federal funding to. It's ridiculous really. I understand why they do it, so that the process is fair and all modes get a fair shake, but I wish they wouldn't pretend like one project is what a region needs. Extended network planning is important and waiting to talk about this expansion until a paper is signed is just silly.

Just Like the S.L.U.T., It's Now the T-Willie

Look, if something sticks it sticks. I hate the SLUT moniker in Seattle but it's never going away. Now that people are starting to call the T-Third the T-Willie, It won't go away just because the MTA says so. Sorry, the T-Brown just isn't catchy.

Now that is all besides the point. They shouldn't rename streets after living people. I personally think that in of itself is gross. It's Third Street.

More Signs of the Apocalypse

GM's Chief thinks it might be a good idea to have $4 gas.

In a surprising turnabout, General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said Tuesday that increasing the federal gasoline tax to guarantee a minimum price of $4 a gallon is an idea "worthy of consideration."

Obviously this would help them sell more Volts. But it would also get people to think about their decisions and the true cost of gasoline.

A GM spokesman acknowledged that the automaker is thinking about the price of gasoline as an incentive to buy hybrids. "Everybody talks about $4 a gallon because, until gas prices hit $4, nobody saw any shift in consumer behavior," said Greg Martin, GM's Washington, D.C., spokesman. "Only then did people put fuel efficiency front and center."

Wasteful Stimulus Project?

The continued construction of the Charlotte Outerbelt is probably one of the most wasteful projects going on in the country right now. If it had to go through a process like new starts it would never ever pass. Yet another example of the double standard for roads versus transit. Build for the future with roads, its providing infrastructure for growth. Build for the future with transit, and its a boondoggle. And this particular investment in sprawl could get stimulus money. Great.

One Dozen Per Million

Chris Leinberger has been hoofing it around the country pushing his idea of walkable urbanism and regionally significant walkable urban places*. Just today he got articles in Sacramento and Raleigh NC on his ideas. In Raleigh, they are thinking that if plans are followed through, it will be the end of sprawl. The skeptic in me says highly unlikely.

But i'm intrigued with how he came to the idea that every million people in population needs at least half a dozen regionally significant walkable urban places*

Leinberger said his study of metropolitan Washington, D.C., and Atlanta suggests that a city should have no more than a half-dozen walkable urban places per million people. Some of these will be downtown, some in inner-ring neighborhoods, and some in the suburbs, But what they have in common is their location at rail-transit stops, not on highways.

By his math, Raleigh should attempt to create two or three such places, in addition to downtown, by 2030, when the comprehensive plan anticipates the city will be home to 600,000 people.

These places should be on the rail or a streetcar corridor, which, he said, are permanent and attract investors, developers and upscale buyers. "I have never seen a dollar of real estate investment generated by a bus stop," Leinberger said.

If this is based off of DC, we need to start building a lot more monocentric rapid transit in our regions. This creates the ability to connect places that have different niches for the needs of the population. Not every walkable district is going to have everything you need, so they need to be connected with accessible transit. In Sacramento, there's more than enough room to build these significant places, but they need more transit.

According to Brookings Institution research, there should be eight to 12 regionally significant, walkable urban, transit-oriented places in the region. Today there are only three: downtown, midtown and Old Sacramento. The opportunity for locating and building five to nine additional walkable urban, transit-oriented places and building far more development in the existing three would be worth billions of dollars and would represent a more sustainable way of living.

*I wish he would define this more precisely.

Jerry Hoagland Gets It

A prominent Dallas area conservative is coming out in favor of greater infrastructure investment beating back on the typical calls to lower taxes and leave it to someone else. I'm amazed at the admission that Collin County's tax rate isn't that bad because he's kept it low and that taxing to invest in movement infrastructure is important to the future of the region. Finally, someone from what is usually the other team who gets it.

However, there are some people today - well intentioned people I might add, but misguided I believe - who would have you believe that the county's combined tax rate is out of control and too high. I respectfully disagree with this "Chicken Little" (the sky is falling) attitude...

...If our taxes were reduced, could we maintain the quality of life we have enjoyed in the past? The answer is, "Yes, we could - for a while." But I believe that there is something worse than paying a few dollars in taxes - and that something is sticking our collective heads in the sand and not properly planning for the future. Growth will gridlock us in the future (and therefore cost us more tomorrow) if we don't deal with it today...

... I wish we lived in a dream world where things were free, but that just isn't facing reality. These folks abhorrence to paying taxes for the convenience of being able to move around freely has tainted their thinking.

I suggest reading the whole statement in its entirety.

Collective Investment

San Francisco is a great place and a city known around the world. If only we could be so forward thinking that we could cut emissions by 40% like Amsterdam.

Mark Scott has a nice piece in BusinessWeek on Amsterdam's plan to become one of the world's premier green cities—and fast. Scarily fast. The city is hitching up with utilities and private companies to plunk down $1 billion over the next three years to do stuff like creating a citywide smart grid that better juggles electricity demand, replacing old garbage trucks with electric vehicles, powering bus stops with solar panels, improving the efficiency of homes, putting meters in homes to let people better monitor their own energy use, and so on… All told, Amsterdam hopes to cut its carbon emissions 40 percent by 2025.

This also got me to thinking, a billion dollars over three years is not a lot if you're going to do something extraordinary. Especially when what you're doing is lowering everyone's costs. I would think this would be the same for expanding the subway network here in San Francisco. Sure it might be a bit of an up front cost, but the more people that we can get to leave their cars, the more they will save. Huge benefits to collective investment.

Amtrak Commercial

Appreciating Bus Drivers

Tomorrow is Bus Driver Appreciation Day in Washington. Is it all over the country? Should be. I'd like one of those cookies at STB. If you don't already, thank your bus driver when you leave the bus. They can have tough days, and you never know when a kind word will make it better.

Breaking: Car Crashes Into Car

You never see the headline above or the phrase "A car collided with another car today in Phoenix" although I'm sure that it happens every day. What makes this so different from this?

BREAKING: Crash between light rail and car in central Phoenix

Beware of the train! It's so dangerous that if you drive in front of it, you'll get hit!! Or if you were paying attention, you wouldn't.

Valley Metro tells 3TV a driver reportedly turned in front of the train and hit the light rail car on Central and Highland, just north of Campbell.