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"The toll road of denial is a long and dangerous one. The price? Your soul" - J Peterman

Sunday Night Notes

Kevin Flynn (Formerly of the Rocky Mountain News) reports that the first Fastracks LRVs have arrived in Denver.
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Some in Portland are worried about gentrification and displacement in neighborhoods that Portland plans to run streetcars through. I wonder though if lots of close in neighborhoods get streetcars they will all gentrify. It seems to me that gentrification occurs due to exclusivity. If you built a bunch of lines at the same time, will there still be the same effect? The same issue could arise in Denver where there will be five new lines. Interested to see what other think.
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Why don't we electrify our freight lines. Even if the lines are powered by a bit dirtier pollution, it will still come from only one power plant away from the population center until alternative energy is put in place. That is better than say every engine pushing pollutants into the neighborhoods that freight lines run through. West Oakland is notorious for this very issue. I also wonder how much of the particulates in say the Port of Oakland are due to switchers. What if we just electrified the rail yards first with electric switchers?
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Developers are waiting before they start developing around the new Purple Line.
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My lungs don't care about aesthetics. Speaking of Wien, I wish I were going back soon. I love that city. Memories...

CA - 10 Special Election + Smart Growth

I was looking through the candidates for the special election to replace Rep. Ellen Tauscher in California's District 10 and was struck by the amount of attention was given to "smart growth and transportation" on almost all of the democratic candidates websites.

John Garamendi has a fairly in depth transportation page that discusses TOD, HOT Lane BRT, eBart expansion (we can talk about whether this is a good idea at all later), and cycling. Anthony Woods has a page that mixes transportation and smart growth even if smart growth is never mentioned in the description. Finally Mark DeSaulnier, who helped write SB375, has large descriptions in separate sections on transportation and smart growth.

It's amazing how far the movement has come but I'm reminded by a post by Kaid Banfield at the NRDC switchboard that there is still a long way to go. Density itself has to be designed well to work, and now that the issue of smart growth is getting greater attention, we need to push the issue even further. While the talk of the above candidates is great, I'm still wondering if they actually get it.

Heeey!!! Houston Gets a FONSI

Houston gets into the final design phase for two of its five light rail lines and gets development codes changed to promote pedestrian access to the stations. Not bad for the Texas home of oil industry giants.

The council unanimously approved changes in development codes intended to promote dense, urban-style development along the Metropolitan Transit Authority's Main Street rail line and five planned extensions.

Apparently they could have done more. Now if only they can get those parking requirements out of the way and persuade land owners that their property isn't worth as much as they think it is. One of the issues I heard along the line a few years ago is that property owners with vacant land near stations believed their land was worth way more than it really was because of the line, thus stalling development around some midtown stations. An interesting dynamic without "zoning".

On a somewhat related note, the new starts process acronyms that come with the announcement today are numerous and might as well be their own Klingon language. If we were speaking in transit nerd, we would say: "The two Houston corridors passed their NEPA test after they received a FONSI on their FEIS and obtained a ROD from the FTA. This allows them to enter into FD en route to an FFGA." No wonder everyone is so confused over the process. It takes years just to learn all the acronyms.

NEPA: National Environmental Policy Act
FONSI: Finding of No Significant Impact
FEIS: Final Environmental Impact Statement
ROD: Record of Decision
FTA: Federal Transit Administration
FD: Final Design
FFGA: Full Funding Grant Agreement

Small Cities Paying for Flights

I'm not really quite sure what to think about this. It seems as if we had a real national rail program that chambers of commerce and cities wouldn't have to be ponying up money to guarantee a certain financial minimum to the airline industry.

With airlines cutting back service in a weak economy, some cities that are too big to qualify for federal help but too small to keep the planes flying in have stepped up with ways to hang on: paying the airlines, either directly or indirectly.

Places like Duluth should have a faster connection to Minneapolis and the airport there. It doesn't really make sense to keep a slush fund that the airline can raid when the economics don't work out for them. There are many even smaller cities out there that depend on Amtrak for their carless connections out of the area. These smaller cities should be on the forefront of regional rail service to larger metro areas with major airports and service.

Sunday Night Linkfest

A Democratic Gubernatorial candidate from Georgia doesn't get how transit interacts with land use:

“I think that what we have to do is to elevate light rail over the interstate highways where we already have the right-of-ways. And every so many bridges, you retrofit the bridges to be stations above.”

No, you don't build light rail on freeways anymore. Someone needs to give folks a crash course in what works and what doesn't at stimulating land use change. It's not transit in freeways.
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Matt Yglesias thinks about what the next big thing could be to spur the economy such as IT did in the late 90's or the railroad boom did in the 1800s. If we're going to spend a lot of money on an industrial policy, shouldn't we do it with something that we know works. Obviously I agree with his thoughts that building high speed rail and metro subways in the densest parts of cities would be a good start. It's also proven to work, so it seems like a no brainer.
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A plan to raise the rails in Houston through the medical center gets a writeup in the Chronicle. It seems to me that the stray current issue has been lots of fear mongering from the opponents of light rail. Also, isn't there something better to spend around $300 million dollars of fixed guideway modernization dollars than on a viaduct for a line that would only be 7 years old? Seems to me there is a $50B backlog that should be addressed first.
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O'Toole ghostwrites an editorial page at the Denver Post that has so many holes it might as well be swiss cheese. So tired of beating back stupid.

That's right. Unless we change energy sources or greatly increase light-rail ridership, we should just drive our cars to work instead.

Really? Maybe people should just not use electricity at all and read by the moonlight. It will be much cleaner. What will they come up with next?
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An interesting idea to get rail to Marin from San Francisco. Extend the Central Subway to Sausalito. How much would an anchored tube cost from end to end? It would certainly be cheaper than tunneling that whole way. But as Rafael says, you have to contend with the freakishly strong currents.

Building Something of Meaning

Mayor McCrory of Charlotte has been complaining about the stimulus for a while. Most of his argument revolves around the fact that its ridiculously hard to build anything of long term meaning. I tend to agree with him on this point and think that if we're going to spend the money, it might as well be on things that are long lasting.

Under the stimulus, there is limited ability to build transit systems or major power generating facilities, upgrade water systems, or undertake significant environmental cleanups. While President Roosevelt built dams and President Eisenhower built an interstate highway system, President Obama's stimulus fills pot holes.

Extended Chicago

Chicago is looking to extend their Red, Orange, and Yellow El lines at their ends. I'm not going to say that I know Chicago as well as some other cities but I'm wondering if 9 miles of rapid transit on the outside edges for $1.7 billion is a higher and better use than greater capacity in the core? Especially with the Olympics coming up.

Considering the North South deficit of rapid transit on the Western edges of the El network, would North-South LRT/Rapid Streetcar lines and dedicated bus lanes be a better use of money? What do you all think?

Shameless Plug

So at work we're starting a blog. The basic premise is best practices and information on Transit Oriented Development including hopefully posts from experts from around the country and more information about the work we do. I don't mention work here much because well I'd rather this blog stay my own opinion and not drag work into it. But in this instance, I thought folks would be interested in what is going on over there. So check it out if you get a chance.

Think Different

I think Atrios has the right idea:

I'm not saying travel time is not an issue at all, but fundamentally such projects are about reducing car dependency and changing land use patterns. We generally don't talk about them like that, and the Feds mostly don't think about them like that, but that's really what they're about. Simply speeding people from point A to point B isn't the purpose, the purpose is to provide a different way to get around and eventually a different environment in which to get around. If travel time is too important, then basic utility might be sacrificed by, for example, reducing the number of stops.

The feds put way too much emphasis on travel time savings. There is no way that 3A and 3C are going to have the same ridership contrary to what the models say. By skipping one of the densest neighborhoods in Minneapolis, you're reducing the ability of the line to serve more people for more trips as well as change the land use patterns even more. Yonah also makes an important point:

As a result, transit networks are encouraged to extend out into the suburbs, rather than be densified and reinforced downtown. This policy encourages sprawl; though more suburbanites may find themselves taking transit to work, they won’t be using it to go shopping or out on the weekend.

But there's another aspect as well. I believe you have to connect major destinations in a region and this is something the Southwest LRT is doing. Connecting Eden Prarie to Downtown is an important goal, and doing it quickly is important as well. However there is a trade off between the goal of speed and the goal of actually connecting destinations and origins. If there is a corridor that might be a little slower, but ultimately connect many more people, it shouldn't be discounted based on speed, but should increase the value based on access. This is something that is currently lacking in the New Starts process and something that needs to change if we're ever going to build meaningful transit lines that connect people with where they want to go.