Southwest Airlines CEO Fires First Shot

And so it begins. the Southwest Airlines CEO believes that the federal government shouldn't give it a competitive advantage.

After his speech, I asked Kelly whether his company would likely oppose high-speed passenger rail, given how precious every dollar has become to the airlines. Southwest's opposition years ago was a key reason a previous effort to build a high-speed line linking Dallas, Austin and Houston died. (Trains are seen by many as likely to compete with and in some cases perhaps eliminate short-haul flights.)

He said it's too early to oppose any particular plan, but said federal support for bullet trains shouldn't put airlines like his at a competitive disadvantage.

Perhaps if you can't beat them, you should join them. But airlines aren't looking that far ahead yet. Perhaps they'll start screaming when gas prices go back up again. I don't quite understand why they can't see the future in which higher oil prices make life for airlines hard. If last summer wasn't a wake up call, they'll be getting water splashed in their face soon.

Doubling Down - Town

The New York Times has an article about the railyards in Sacramento changing into a new neighborhood. While the market is somewhat down from mid-decade, it seems as if industrial areas adjacent to downtown are still a hot commodity.

When completed, the old Union Pacific property will become an extension of the downtown, effectively doubling its size...

Although it is playing up the history of the site, Thomas Enterprises plans to make new and old buildings harmonize through the use of similar materials, notably brick and glass.“This will not be ‘suburban urban,’ ” said Mr. Rich, alluding to the faux-historical style of many recent outdoor shopping centers. The Railyards, he said, will be “gritty, like a city.”

This will also be the pass through for the DNA line phase 1.

Future Planning

It looks like Shanghai has long term plans for it's metro system.
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Developers are looking at TOD around HSR stops in California.

“I think not only is it something that is a good thing, it’s certainly going to be a phenomenal planning tool for the next generation of growth,” said Perry Dealy, president of Dealy Development. “The opportunity to take the high-speed stop hubs and convert them to maximize their mixed-use, high-density potential is great. You’d have what I’d call a TOD, transit-oriented design, starting with residential, work-live, retail, entertainment and other kinds of venues that are part of the mixed-use characteristics.”

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Yet another transit line starts out already worrying about costs more than connecting people with places they want to go.

“Dorfman says the projected cost of the line ranges from $1.2 billion to $1.8 billion, depending on the final route. Those numbers put the proposal give the project a Cost Effectiveness Index of $30 per rider for the length of the line, just outside the range required by the Federal Transit Administration for federal funding.

In order to move into the next step which would be to begin preliminary engineering you have to reach that $29 CEI number, so we’re very close to that,” she said.

The CEI is messing up basic planning. I can appreciate getting rid of some of the insane gold plating that is rampant in LRT planning, but I can't understand how a single computer index based on modeling that everyone knows is bs can decide that a route that goes where people want to go is too expensive. So instead, we'll build the cheap route because its cheaper, not because it's better.

We Don't Want Faster Transit

In a recent meeting with Merchants on Geary street, they believe that access would kill their businesses.

The first of their reservations is that construction will scare away customers; and second, that faster transit will encourage bigger buildings which will spell disaster for small businesses. Reservation number one is reasonable; but number two is whaaaaa? Is your argument seriously "we need slower buses because small businesses can only survive if nobody can get to where they're going on time"?

Really? That's the exact reason why I never go to the Richmond. Because it takes to freakin long to get there without a car! Seriously people, how long do we need to go in these circles before we realize that rapid transit in San Francisco would facilitate the movement of not just people, but money into merchants wallets from other neighborhoods. There are many nights when I think I might want to go to the Sunset or Richmond to get a bite to eat but I don't want to waste 2 hours on Muni. Might as well cook at home. Fast transit does not kill business, slow transit does.

Million Per Metro

Pinning good transit to a metro population level seems like a good idea to me. In India, regions of 1M or more population will now be eligible for 50% federal funding for a metro system if the locals paid the other half. Here in the United States, regions are lucky to get 50% funding for one commuter or light rail line. I think we should go even lower. A region of 750,000 or more should start construction so by the time that other 250,000 moved in they would have options as to where to live along the newly constructed lines.

Imagine if we had metro subways in all of our metro areas over 1 million people as a base for greater transit improvements. Considering between 1990 and 2005 about 45% of new transit trips were made on metro subway systems, it stands to reason that the construction of these networks connecting the major employment and population centers in a regions core will dramatically increase transit ridership. Look what has happened in Washington DC over the last 40 years or so. That is something we should emulate and India gives us a view into how to do it. Where's that type of vision for America?

A Shotgun Wedding?

Meteor Blades has a post on teh Orange Satan that goes more towards the middle of the cash for clunkers argument. He believes that even though our goal should be moving more towards better transportation systems and land use, we're still going to have automobiles until we get those systems in place. He then ties the idea of cash for clunkers with transit.

Money for the CARS program should have its own budget, not taken from spending for renewable energy projects. And every dollar spent should be legislatively tied to a matching dollar added to the federal mass transit appropriation in the following year. Funding for both these projects should come from increased taxes on gasoline.

While the cash for clunkers program that actually makes people double their mileage instead of letting them off the hook might move us towards more efficient vehicles, transit and land use is so far behind that I don't believe a 1:1 add to the fund won't really help much. It seems to me like keeping the status quo, because outside of that funding, 80% of federal monies still goes to cars, plus the other side of the 1:1 cash for clunkers, which is still subsidizing people to buy cars. I can appreciate that people are still going to drive cars. But we didn't get to be a single minded car driving society by the free market alone. There are a lot of subsidies that made it so and the pendulum swung too far, and we're still pushing to that side, when we should be aiding a swing back to the center on both transportation and land use.

Assorted Quotes

More HSR in Spain:

By then 90% of the population will be within 30 miles of a station. New lines have already been opened to Segovia, Valladolid and Malaga in the last 18 months. New links will eventually connect France and Portugal.

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Madison has a choice between Airport and Downtown Amtrak Station

Moreover, they argue a First Street location has unlimited potential for sparking "transit-oriented" development of apartments, stores or offices that could generate millions in new property tax revenues while providing a catalyst for the long-awaited overhaul of the blighted East Washington Avenue corridor.

"Compare that to the airport, where you have zero opportunity for anything like that," says Barry Gore, a Madison-based urban planner who has previously worked on transit issues in Chicago and the Twin Cities.

Check out the Obama story at the start of the article.

H/T Planetizen
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The Streetsweeper has this to say about the Lazarus piece:

Lazarus at one point says that we will need to make our cities less comfortable in order to force our population into mass transit. Are these Japanese or European cities so uncomfortable that we will stop visiting in such great numbers? Are they so uncomfortable that their own inhabitants are fleeing in droves? I think not. So, why do we visit there (repeatedly) and long for what they have, yet fail to bring it about in our own country. Even our own "world class" cities cannot pull it off with the same panache as they do. I don' t think that we want their comfort level, because we are Americans and we deserve more.

A coworker mentioned the other day that only 20% of Americans have passports. Another lower number actually use them. I wish more people would go and see other places. Just to get a feel of not America.

High Speed Rail for the Masses

Yesterday was such an HSR frenzy that I thought it should be documented:

First, David Lazarus questions whether transit will work in the United States. He talked to some "experts":

He said investments in transit projects need to be accompanied by policies designed to make driving costlier and thus make public transportation more attractive. These policies include significantly higher charges for parking virtually wherever you go and the increased use of toll roads.

I don't like this frame. You mean we need to charge what they really cost. It's not like we would inflate the cost just for the heck of it to some arbitrary number. I guess we could, but really if people just realized how much that garage spot cost or how much the roads really cost things would be much different. Lazarus concludes:

I hate to be cynical, but I simply can't imagine political leaders at the local, state or federal level telling voters that they support a big increase in gas taxes, sky-high parking fees and high-density neighborhoods.

There's a lack of supply of those types of neighborhoods. I really wish people would realize this. It's not that some people don't want to live in these types of environments. It's that for the most part it's illegal. That we need to change.

But a question I had coming out of it is whether HSR can really be called "transit". We don't call air travel transit do we? It seems to me like a kind of grey area. How do you define what transit is and what it isn't. Lazarus was also on NPR's Marketplace.
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The head of Ryanair is obviously going to jump up and down and hold his breath if the UK government states that all short haul flights should be by train. Obviously not all trips can be by train but England really shouldn't be hop skipping inside the country when there is a faster alternative.
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Rob talks Intercity buses. They are cheap and becoming more plentiful. I don't see them being an alternative to rail as some believe. Rob also talks Bent Flyvbjerg. Many people use his work to say we shouldn't do megaprojects. Rob must be back to posting more. Free time?
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That China place is rocking along with their HSR lines. Many places that were super far apart have halfed their travel time between the two. In such a large country, HSR will bring them closer.
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Glaeser. I've heard he's a good economist. How come everything I read from him that's politically tinged is awful. Ryan explains.

The First Electric Railway?

While Richmond VA is still the first electric transit system proved in 1888 by Frank J Sprague, apparently Montgomery Alabama was the city with the distinction of the first electric streetcar line in 1886. Or was it? The often unsung electrician was Charles Van Depoele and he opened 11 electric railway lines before Sprague opened his network in Richmond. The first being a demonstration line in Chicago in 1883. However these systems were prone to breakdowns and were often in need of fixing.

Another electrician, Leo Daft, had built electric lines on Pico in LA and in New Jersey, only to have issues with trollers coming off the wires and reliability. It wasn't until Frank J Sprague that systems were finally reliable enough and the invention of the spring loaded trolley pole (with the help of Van Depoele's first troller idea) kept the wire and trolley in constant contact. However Mr. Sprague recognized himself that the first regularly operating trolley line was Mr. Daft's in Hamden Line in Baltimore, constructed in 1885.

Mr. Sprague himself opened a line in St. Joseph Missouri in 1887 but proved himself when he electrified and ran 40 cars in Richmond VA in 1888. He also proved to investors that the vehicles would still work when they were backed up end to end, all pulling electricity from the same wire. He shouldn't get all the credit since there were many that came before him, but he's often credited with being the father of electric transit.

So which was the first? Are we going by reliability? By first operating date? By demonstration? I would say they all win since they all contributed to the cause. It's just unfortunate that they haven't gotten the recognition they deserve for their contributions.

H/T Streetsblog Cap Hill & Urban Mass Transit

Jim Bowie & Davy Crockett Would Ride

San Antonio leaders are very optimistic in saying they will have streetcars in three years. And that would put Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio ahead of Austin in the Transit Space Race.

Henry Muñoz, VIA Metropolitan Transit’s board chairman, said he expects the agency to break ground in two or three years and will announce in the next month a citizens advisory committee to help guide the creation of a starter streetcar system.