» Newfound support for rail investment likely a result of push by DOT Secretary for the state to prop up train travel.
Earlier this fall, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood gave Florida officials a choice: either buck up and support funding for the state’s commuter rail systems, or lose out on potential federal funding for a proposed high-speed rail system between Tampa and Orlando. Mr. LaHood’s challenge seems to have paid off: this week, state legislators began debating a law that would create a new Florida Rail Enterprise that would fund the existing Tri-Rail commuter system in Miami, ensure construction of the Orlando-area SunRail line, and take command of high-speed rail development. If the proposal passes next Wednesday as planned, Florida’s bid to host the nation’s first built-from-scratch high-speed line seems likely to win out.
With California, Florida has presented itself as a top competitor in the race for some of the nation’s $8 billion in stimulus money for fast trains. The state’s initial proposal has a $3.5 billion corridor between Tampa and Orlando along I-4 being constructed for an opening by 2014; it has asked Washington to cover $2.6 billion of those funds. The remaining costs would be covered by affected municipalities and corporations. Though the project lacks direct connections to downtown Orlando or Lakeland and would likely encourage sprawl in areas around Disney’s theme parks, it offers the possibility of up to 168 mph electric rail service and more than three million annual riders by 2025. An extension to Miami along the east coast could be built by 2017, the year before California’s phase one opens for its first riders.
Mr. LaHood’s suggestion earlier this year that Florida must fund its local rail systems before it is considered for high-speed funding encouraged the state assembly to hold a special week-long session on the matter, beginning yesterday. Most prominent in its goals: creating a new Florida Rail Enterprise organization that would operate as a division of the state DOT. FRE would develop a statewide intercity rail system and manage all of the state’s commuter rail lines, including Miami’s troubled Tri-Rail, which has been threatened with a shut-down if it is not adequately funded. Under the law, Tri-Rail would receive $15 million in state money annually for its survival.
Most relevant for Orlando-area residents, FRE would ensure the construction of the 61-mile SunRail corridor, which would connect the city’s northern and southern suburbs at a cost of $1.2 billion. Governor Charlie Christ (R), who has become a supporter of the project as he runs for Senate, sees it as a stepping stone towards high-speed rail. Not approving a bill supporting the project would be a “catastrophic” loss for the state according to the governor; indeed, it would mean Florida would lose its federal New Starts commitment to the project and it would probably be eliminated for consideration for the fast rail system. Politically, he would love to be able to announce a massive grant for the state; so would Mr. LaHood, since President Obama undoubtedly wants to repeat his 2008 victory in Florida in 2012.
Of course, passage of the bill won’t be as easy as it sounds, since similar legislation has failed in the state senate twice over the past two years. Though Senate President Jeff Atwater (R) claims he has the votes, he faces some in-party disgruntlement. Lakeland Senator Paula Dockery (R), who has been one of the major anti-rail advocates, continues to fight party leadership, arguing that the SunRail project is basically a pay-off to track owner CSX in the form of a massive $200 million-a-year liability policy for accidents on the line. Ms. Dockery is currently running for Governor against state Attorney General Bill McCollum (R), who is a supporter of the project. Ms. Dockery hopes to excited anti-tax tea partyers to her cause and win the campaign in 2010.
Meanwhile, the senate’s 14 Democrats (there are a total of 40 members in the body) are being pressured by the AFL-CIO to reject the plan. The union argues that the project does not guarantee stable, well-paying jobs. So it could be a close vote.
The senate’s passage of the proposal would basically ensure the creation of the FRE, since the house has signed through similar legislation repeatedly and will do the same this year. Mr. Christ will sign the bill into law.
If Florida passes the legislation, its application for high-speed rail funds is virtually assured acceptance by the Department of Transportation. If its proposal and California’s, at $4.7 billion, are chosen for full grants, that leaves $700 million for the rest of the country. That is, until the U.S. Congress expands its commitment to high-speed rail by dedicating $1 billion or more for the mode in the annual transportation appropriations process, a decision expected to be made early next year with the support of strong majorities in both houses.
December 4, 2009
» If a similar law existed in the United States, Amtrak would suffer.
Two years after approving the measure, the European Union has a series of new regulations in effect today that will dramatically increase the rights of travelers on the continent’s huge rail system. Immediately affecting all cross-border travel, the rules will be enforced as desired by each separate nation until they become mandatory in fifteen years.
The rules make railway companies liable in many of the same ways that airlines already are in the E.U. Railroads will be forced to compensate deaths caused by accidents at a minimum rate of €310,000 per person and they will now be required to refund personal property losses at up to €1,800 per person. Most importantly, though, the rules require companies to refund 25% of the ticket price — in cash — if a train experiences a 60-119 minutes delay and a full 50% if a train is delayed by more than 120 minutes. If a train is delayed by more than 60 minutes and a passenger does not want to start or continue the trip, he or she has the right to ask for a full reimbursement or a ticket to take the trip another day. Like airlines, railroad companies will have to provide free meals and refreshments “in reasonable relation to the waiting time,” in addition to offering a free hotel room if an overnight stay is necessary.
Though Europe’s rail users benefit from a well-maintained and efficient network, these new regulations will put in place a number of rights that should dramatically improve the usability of lines, especially for customers who are delayed. It should be noted that several European countries already have similar, albeit less stringent, rules in effect.
The decision by E.U. officials to liberalize the continent’s rail systems by opening up local, regional, and international services to competition provided the primary motivation for the move, which is intended to assuage fears that privately run companies will be unresponsive to customer demands. Though most countries in the E.U. adopted the rules for their intercity lines today, the U.K. has pointedly refused not to make a decision on the rules until early next year, claiming that the country’s system is not yet ready for the rules. The opposition Tory party has taken advantage of the Labour government’s delay, arguing that if they are to come to power, they will offer the rights to the country’s citizens as quickly as possible.
And indeed, the Tories have a point, since providing such advantages to rail passengers makes for a better and more usable system for everyone; a traveler has the right to assume that her train will depart and arrive on time and that if it does not, she will be compensated for her loss. Such rights build ridership and confidence in the transportation system.
Of course, the E.U. is only able to enforce this legislation because of the strength of the European rail passenger network. If faced with a situation similar to that of Amtrak, which is plagued by constant delays, legislators may not have been willing to move forward with the law.
Amtrak faces huge performance issues that would make the European rules laughable if enforced in the United States. According to the public company’s August monthly performance report, the most recent available online, Amtrak’s on-time ridership numbers would make compensation so frequent with such legislation that Amtrak would lose a massive portion of its already minimal revenue.
Today, all fifteen of Amtrak’s long-distance trains are designed with “scheduled recovery minutes” ranging from 51 to 307 minutes — essentially padding on the schedule that is supposed to compensate for the fact that passenger trains are frequently delayed by freight trains, broken-down material, or track problems. Eleven of the lines have scheduled recovery times of more than two hours, meaning that a standard trip, from end to end, could take literally two hours less than scheduled if everything went right.
Yet, even with this recovery time, nine of the fifteen trains were usually delayed significantly. On average, the Cardinal and Lake Shore Limited trains were both delayed by 90 minutes or more — meaning that virtually all customers, every day, would be able to receive a 25% refund (at least) if the E.U. rules were in effect. The Empire Builder, Palmetto, Silver Star, and Sunset Limited Trains all had average delays of between 30 to 60 minutes, meaning a large percentage of their passengers would also likely qualify for refunds. Moreover, the number of Amtrak trains running late by two hours or more isn’t so rare, and those customers affected probably deserve a refund, but the U.S. rail system is so broken that doing so might force the shut down of the already money-losing company.
Amtrak’s situation is clearly at the extreme and no segment of the European rail system has problems of its magnitude, but one wonders if companies there will begin to pad their schedules as the American company does to ensure that passengers arrive “on time.” Of course, doing so would increase trip times and consequently push more people to the airlines and the roadways. Yet the benefits of the new passenger rights will outweigh the problems caused by the system’s implementation. One hopes that one day we’ll be able to enforce similar rules in the U.S.
December 3, 2009
» Because state DOTs have a preference for roads spending, it’s likely that transit will continue to be short-shrifted.
As it becomes increasingly clear that the United States is suffering from a jobless recovery, Democrats in Congress continue to push for a second stimulus package with a focus on job creation. This opportunity could mean billions more in spending on transportation — but what modes will benefit?
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials — a lobbying group for states and municipalities looking for more transport dollars — this week sent Congress a list of ready-to-go projects assembled by its members. The document promoted a total of $70 billion in expenditures that could be spent over the next year, with $47 billion for highways and $10 billion for transit, with the rest proposed for intercity rail, port, aviation, and intermodal facilities. If Congress spent as the AASHTO suggests, Washington’s investment in ground transportation would be heavily biased towards roads — far more so than was the last transportation bill, the stimulus, or Congressman James Oberstar’s (D-MN) proposed next transportation bill — as the chart below demonstrates.
| Transit Could Fare Poorly in the Upcoming Jobs Stimulus |
|
Highway Allocations |
Transit Allocations |
Transit % of Ground Transport Allocations* |
SAFETEA-LU Transportation Bill (2005-’09)
|
$193 b |
$53 b |
22% |
Stimulus (’09)
|
$27 b |
$8.4 b |
24% |
Oberstar’s Proposed Transportation Bill (’10-’16)
|
$301 b |
$99 b |
25% |
AASHTO’s Proposed Jobs Stimulus (’10)
|
$47 b |
$10 b |
18% |
AASHTO + APTA Jobs Stimulus (’10)
|
$47 b |
$15 b |
24% |
* Does not include intercity rail.
Of course, the American Public Transportation Association argues that there is at least $15 billion worth of transit construction ready for a start over the next year — implying that it would be quite possible for the government to bring spending levels up to those that have become standard over the past decade. At this point in the game, however, it looks like any transportation stimulus will reinforce the status quo, meaning a relative dearth of spending on public transportation.
There are several reasons why the government is likely to be unable to pull out of its highway-focused expenditures. One, an infrastructure package designed to be spent as rapidly as possible will prioritize projects that are ready for construction. This means that state agencies, which have thousands of roads ready to be built, will choose to invest in them rather than public transportation investments. Because of the difficulty of getting federal aid for transit capital projects, there are relatively few available for immediate construction, making it difficult to envision using them to create jobs now.
Greater investment in the short-term could be made by covering transit operating costs, but that idea too has its difficulties: It would likely result in municipalities — certainly cash-strapped and desperate to find ways to pay for all of their necessary services – cutting down on their own spending for the cause. If the federal government could somehow ensure that any operations spending paid for by Washington would go to new services, this issue could be mediated, but it’s hard to see how that guarantee could be made.
A more structural problem, making the bias towards highways a semi-permanent factor in this debate, is that American transportation policy is defined by something akin to a cease-fire between highway and transit proponents. Those in favor of increased public transportation expenditures are generally from dense urban areas and make up only a minority of Congressional representation; on the other hand, those who want more roads spending — representing about half of the legislature — need help from their transit-friendly peers in order to pass legislation. As a result, industry groups like AASHTO campaign pretty successfully for spending that angles towards roads at a one-to-four ratio. This, in turn, means that investment in transit capital projects is not expanded as a percentage of total expenditures and that envisioning a less roads-dependent society for the long-run is hard to do.
For transit proponents, working to raise that ratio to one-to-three is the immediate task for the jobs bill; the APTA and municipalities should push for as much public transportation spending as possible within the context of few shovel-ready projects. But moving past the lock the roads lobby has on most transportation expenditures will be difficult or even inconceivable for years to come.
December 3, 2009
» Announcement in New Orleans suggests that city will receive funds for its planned French Quarter streetcar line.
Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans hard — harder than any American city has been hit by natural disaster for decades. Yet if the storm put the town on its death bed, to pretend that it wad in pristine condition beforehand would be absurd. The big easy had been losing population since the fifties, and for good reason: it had huge crime problems and worse, a depressed economy that couldn’t keep up with a rapidly changing global marketplace. In some ways, then, the despair and destruction caused by the storm could mean a rethinking of the city’s raison d’être.
For those who believe that an investment in streetcars could play a major role in that transformation, the Obama Administration’s announcement yesterday that it will spend some $280 million on inner-city trolley and bus projects around the country is very good news.
Indeed, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood’s decision to stage the press conference announcing the move in New Orleans bodes very well for the city’s chance of getting a portion of the funds. The money is separate from the TIGER discretionary grants included in the stimulus — instead, it has been sourced from unspent New Start money, which is supposed to go to major transit capital projects. Even so, Mr. LaHood has yet to make any formal commitment about how the funds will be distributed in $25 million pieces; the DOT will make its decision early next year.
New Orleans can expect to see its planned French Quarter streetcar project awarded. The city has been planning the line for about a decade, initially referring to it as the Desire Line in reference to the movie that made the city’s public transportation system so famous. After abandoning it before the storm, the local RTA transit agency decided to bring the idea back for a second consideration last year, when it began studying route alternatives. The stimulus’ TIGER grants provided the ideal opportunity to apply for federal money, and the city did just that, asking for $96 million just months ago.
New Orleans advertised itself as uniquely positioned to receive the grants because it was willing to commit 40% of project funds, which would total $161 million if it can build all three planned corridors. Using local sales tax revenues as well as a convention capital reserve fund, the city would extend a streetcar corridor from Union Passenger Terminal to Press Street along Loyola Avenue, Rampart Street, and St. Claude Avenue; in addition, it would stretch out its existing waterfront line from near its eastern terminus along Elysian Fields Avenue to meet the new service and extend it in the other direction in a one-way loop around the convention center (thus the use of convention funds). All in all, the city would get 3.3 new route miles of streetcar service to augment that already provided on the waterfront line and the more famous St. Charles and Canal Street routes.
The construction of the convention center line, running in a one-way loop and serving areas that are either completely underpopulated or already close enough to streetcar routes, would be a major mistake. It is indicative that RTA did not ask for TIGER money for that project but rather hopes to receive a Small Start grant — a dubious expectation. Before New Orleans throws away $25 million of its own money on that line, one can only hope that DOT will intervene.
On the other hand, the two projects for which New Orleans does hope for TIGER money — and for which it will presumably be awarded some of this new grant money — would be reasonable expansions of the streetcar network currently in place. By better serving the northern French Quarter, Treme, Marigny, and Bywater, the corridor could be an economic development engine in interesting neighborhoods that are in need of more investment. Thanks to the work of Jeffrey Schwartz and his forward-thinking organization Transport for NOLA, the line heads further into the eastern part of the city than originally planned in RTA’s first evaluation of the corridor. A future extension into the ravaged, but salvageable, Lower Ninth Ward is a definite possibility as a result of this decision.
Whether New Orleans’ project is a better investment than many of the streetcar lines proposed elsewhere in the country is a separate question entirely. In fact, the entire project is only expected to attract about 2,500 users a day, half of whom currently take the bus. Interestingly, the RTA freely admits that more people (259 daily in 2031) will switch from walking to this line than will switch from driving (155)! Because of the number of stops planned along the route, there will be no travel time improvements over existing buses. With such limited benefits, it’s hard to believe New Orleans will get any federal money at all — let alone $25 million or more. That said, as I suggested at the beginning of this article, the administration may see this investment as an attempt to help rebuild the devastated city more than anything else. Whether that effort could be pursued more rationally is up for debate.
These new discretionary grants are being touted as the first phase of the administration’s livable communities program, which is designed to promote transit-friendly neighborhoods through coordinated action by DOT and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The relevance of this fact is quite clear in the case of New Orleans, which already has a number of such districts and which could be on the cusp of major expansion with the proposed line. Yet despite Mr. LaHood’s clear support of streetcars — a position in strong opposition to that of his predecessor, Mary Peters, and exemplified by his granting of $75 million to Portland earlier this year for a project there — the new grants actually prioritize bus system improvements. While streetcars will receive $130 million, bus and bus facility projects will get $150 million. Since these investments are about creating livable, walkable neighborhoods, the money won’t necessarily be heading to BRT proposals. It seems likely that the cities that have developed the most innovative bus systems in recent years could benefit from a few extra dollars to supplement their operations. On the other hand, the DOT probably wants to have a few hallmark BRT projects in its pocket, so they’re probably going to get some money as well.
Other cities that might receive some of the funds for streetcars include Dallas, Washington, New Haven, Charlotte, and Oklahoma City, each of which have lines in development but which currently lack adequate funding. Some cities with major BRT plans on the books include New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Boston. This list is purely speculative but it demonstrates the intense competition involved in this process. Whether these grants will be large enough to pay for the entirety of any of these major projects is another question; Mr. LaHood may be planning to combine some of these grants with TIGER funds, which he is also distributing.
Nonetheless, the administration’s announcement is good news for livable community activists who want to see Washington spending more on small-scale transportation improvement projects such as the streetcar corridors proposed for New Orleans. We’ll see who gets the money early in the spring.
Image above: New Orleans Proposed Streetcar Routes, from RTA
December 2, 2009
» The good old money-making American tradition continues, but in whose interest?
Matthew Lewis’ brilliant story published today by the Center for Public Integrity and partially in Politico provides material evidence for the direct involvement of corporate lobbyists in the push for high-speed rail in the United States. The article is sobering in the details it uncovers on the degree to which public and private lobbying groups have attempted to influence decision-making in Congress and at the Department of Transportation. All this despite — or even because — the federal government has yet to announce even the first of the $8 billion in stimulus money it plans to award over the next few years to states and other agencies embarking on fast train system construction.
If Mr. Lewis’ report doesn’t provide specific evidence of government officials altering their planned allocations because of the influence of lobbying groups, it certainly warns that there are plenty of people spending millions of dollars to do just that. Should we be afraid?
In many cases, those lobbying are the allies of the livable communities and smart transportation movements; Mr. Lewis’ map includes, for instance, the City of Portland and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, each of which have acted proactively in favor of positive transportation investments. Everyone lobbying for high-speed rail funds wants more of them, just like you and I. So what’s the problem?
For those excited about the possibility of a U.S. high-speed rail network, coordination and advanced planning are key. Without those elements, the American fast train system could resemble something more like a series of disconnected segments, some fully built-out, others incomplete. The danger of this possibility is lost money: underinvestments in some areas and overspending in others others. If lobbyists are able to successfully push for earmarks to be spent to their preferred projects, rather than those most likely to succeed or those most necessary for the nation’s good as a whole, everyone’s mobility will suffer.
One fundamental problem is the lack of obvious contenders in the high-speed game. Though California citizens, for instance, have demonstrated their own interest in the program by authorizing $10 billion in investments, it is not clear that the federal government believes that the state is best qualified to receive the money. It would be easy enough to argue that Florida’s competing plan — despite the lack of local funding — is closer to construction and therefore a better match for the jobs-creating aspect of the stimulus. For Democrats hoping to keep Florida a Blue State, it could be a better choice for funds; if lobbyists happen to be more powerful from the Sunshine State, too, it could mean more inside deals. This is just a hypothetical comparison, but the point remains true.
This situation results most directly from Washington’s repeatedly demonstrated reluctance to clarify its grant-making process. Instead of establishing a set of objective, reliable guidelines for awarding funds, the DOT has simply given itself full reign over making well-informed decisions — i.e. political and subjective — from inside of the organization. Though President Obama’s Administration is far less biased towards corruption than its predecessor, and though its high-level officials have the least private-sector involvement of any in decades, we cannot discount the possibility that Secretary Ray LaHood’s DOT can be influenced by outside sources.
The DOT could take a major step to combat the problem of corporate lobbyists in the construction of our high-speed system by instituting more specific rules about who gets funding and by demonstrating greater transparency in the allocations process. Without changes in that direction, it will be difficult to examine why projects are being chosen for funding and the internal motivations of administrators at the DOT.
November 30, 2009
» 155 line between Duluth and Minneapolis would cost nearly $1 billion.
The Northern Lights Express is too expensive to justify construction.
For inhabitants of northern Minnesota hoping to be provided a quicker route into the Twin Cities, that fact is heart-breaking. Indeed, the initial promise of this 155-mile line, which would run between Minneapolis and Duluth, via Cambridge, Hinckley, Sandstone, and Superior, was exciting for its proponents: it would provide two-hour service along a corridor whose Amtrak operations were discontinued in 1985 and provide for increased economic competitiveness in parts of the state that have suffered as Minneapolis has grown.
The Minneapolis-Duluth/Superior Passenger Rail Alliance, which has been pushing the train link since 2007, completed a preliminary study of the corridor last year, and claimed that the project could offer eight daily round trips by 2012 at the cost of just over $300 million — or up to $615 million using a more conservative estimate. New trains would run on a mostly double-tracked corridor at speeds up to 110 mph. With an estimated 3,000 daily passengers, the cost hardly met standards of efficiency even then. Yet the group has already managed to convince the federal government and a series of local bodies to hand over several million dollars in planning funds so far; the hope was that a quick start-up of this NLX project would mean a steady flow of funds and rapid completion. The line would, according to backers, generate $2 billion worth of investments in the affected areas.
But the news this week that state rail officials now estimate that the project will cost up to $1 billion to construct strikes a death blow onto the fantasies of its proponents. While there are certainly reasons to support improved passenger rail, Duluth’s relatively small metropolitan population — at less than 300,000 — means that the corridor will never be able to attract the ridership numbers to make this line more worthy of investment than the hundreds of other rail links in the United States that require significant upgrades. The fact that none of the cities between the Twin Cities and Lake Superior have populations of more than 10,000 people solidifies this argument and throws out the oft-mentioned idea that this project could evolve into a commuter line for Minneapolis’ northern suburbs.
With the Twin Cities’ Central and Southwest Corridor light rail lines in planning, and with the latter line still in need of additional funds — especially if it is to follow a more advantageous route — it would be outrageous to invest so much money in the NLX project. Minneapolis already has a test case for commuter rail with the Northstar line, which opened two weeks ago. It should should spend several years analyzing whether that project can be made into a valuable investment before it spends big on another underperforming corridor.
If NLX proponents suggest that their project would produce significant development in Minneapolis once rail operations commence, the stimulating nature of their proposal seems limited, especially compared to light rail. After all, while a passenger rail line covering a 155 mile distance replaces some air and some long-distance car travel, it can’t do much to transform the daily travel habits of most of its users. On the other hand, a local light rail line allows users to abandon their car use entirely, clearing the ground for transit-oriented development in a much more serious way.
Minnesota, like most states, lacks resources during this recessionary period. Handing over funds to the NLX would be squandering.
Image above: Northern Lights Express route map, from Northern Lights Express
November 30, 2009
» The projects funded will be mostly roads-based. How about a series of grants to public service agencies instead to keep up operations?
Even as the nation’s GDP expands, job losses continue to mount; the stimulus earlier this year wasn’t large enough to offset the mammoth effects of the recession. Faced with the possibility of devastating losses in the 2010 mid-term Congressional elections, Democrats have no choice but to focus next year on job creation.
Nancy Pelosi had it right when she argued that “The debate between deficit reduction and job creation is not a real choice, because we’ll never have deficit reduction unless we have job creation.” Indeed, the U.S. government must push for measures that will increase overall employment, both for the health of the Democratic Party and that of the federal budget.
As a result, some members of Congress are looking to a second stimulus in the form of major spending on infrastructure as the right solution, since construction efforts are some of the most employment-heavy investments possible. Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) has proposed a $150 billion “front-loaded” infrastructure stimulus for early next year that would move forward some of the $450 billion proposed by the House for transportation spending over the next six years. In other words, the U.S. government would invest $150 billion in one year, versus $75 billion planned. That is, assuming most of the money will be headed towards transportation.
At the moment, the government lacks the money to finance the bill and would have to rely on further deficit spending to produce the cash. This makes the plan unlikely, since the Obama Administration is currently attempting to cut department allocations across the board, not increase them. If the government wanted to find a new source of revenues, an increase in the gas tax is a possibility, though the idea has been repeatedly dismissed by both Congress and the White House. Another possibly more politically feasible option is a small tax on stock transactions being proposed by Oregon Democratic Representative Peter DeFazio. If implemented, that source could provide up to $150 billion in money annually.
But even if the funds were reserved for transportation, the front-loading of spending is problematic. If $150 billion of the bill is spent next year alone, investments in each of the other five years will diminish to an average of only $60 billion. This means that investments in the transportation bill will automatically privilege projects that are ready for construction now, rather than those that may be buildable two to five years from today.
For transit advocates, this is a huge problem. Agencies do have capital projects in which they’d like to invest, but few major expansions are ready for construction next year. On the other hand, states have a huge surplus of easier-to-plan road work they’re ready to get done. This means that a $150 billion immediate investment in transportation would probably mean a lot of new highways — and not much new transit. A bill with investments pushed toward the end of the six-year spectrum would actually be best for public transportation, especially if the government encouraged municipalities to begin planning big projects now, with construction ready in a few years.
Of course, “back-loading” infrastructure spending isn’t really an option because it wouldn’t result in the job-producing effects desired by Democrats desperately holding on to their congressional majorities.
But there’s an alternative: promoting spending on operations needs of state and local agencies that are currently suffering from huge decreases in tax revenues as a result of the recession. The University of California’s recent layoffs and tuition increases were the most obvious sign that the public sector has been unable to maintain its spending at stable levels. The difficulties many transit agencies have had keeping service at continuous levels is a similar manifestation of the same problem. As a result, one option is for the federal government to spend money on operations rather than capital expenditures. If the U.S. government wants to spend $150 billion to create jobs, the money could go out to hire more bus and train drivers and keep those who are currently employed from being laid off.
On the other hand, if a front-loaded infrastructure stimulus means much more spending on roads and little on transit, it would be good for the jobs market but terrible for transportation.
November 25, 2009
» Streetcar project is also under consideration.
If the September opening of the first phase of Dallas’ Green Line was good news for what is becoming an increasingly impressive city from the standpoint of livability, Texas’ second-largest metropolis still has a while to go before it will be urban. The local transit authority, DART, has been proactive in planning for the city’s inner-city future, with new light rail and streetcar lines proposed downtown. Whether those projects will provide the kind of density of transit provision necessary to significantly alter attitudes about public transportation in D-Town, however, remains to be seen.
Dallas was one of the first cities to offer modern light rail in the country, but its system is expanding quickly in response to the region’s quick growth. The Green Line’s second phase, which will extend almost 30 miles from Carrollton to Buckner by 2010, is the longest such project in the nation. The planned Orange Line will connect downtown directly to Dallas-Fort Worth airport. And an extension of the Blue Line is currently being built.
All of this growth in the city’s rail transit system will require the creation of a new downtown trunk line, since the current system relies on a single corridor running through the central business district; otherwise, it would be overloaded by trains running at 30 second frequencies at rush hour. DART has allocated $500 million to the creation of such a corridor by 2016, called D2, in time to match the expected increases in ridership resulting from the opening of the Green and Orange Lines. In addition, the city is planning to invest in a downtown streetcar project that would supplement the existing M-Line trolley.
D2 would run from the environs of Victory Station northwest of downtown to Deep Ellum east of it, paving a new path through a less-developed part of the core than that currently served along Pacific Avenue and Bryan Street by the existing light rail. This summer, the Dallas City Council debated the issue, eventually stating a preference for an alignment along Lamar and Young Streets, with the primary goal of serving a new convention center hotel. Council members claimed during deliberations that the corridor was necessary because convention center users had to be able to get directly from the airport to the hotel.
This decision, however, comes despite the fact that the existing light rail service already has a convention center stop that could be improved relatively easily to allow for direct connections to the hotel. In addition, the hotel route would cost around $839 million to build because of the fact that it would have to be partially underground, compared to $500 million for a surface level route slightly further away from the hotel but which would attract more walk-up riders according to DART projections. In this case, the cheaper route seems like a better choice, and it may be one the city is forced to make, because Dallas doesn’t have any reserved fund to make up the remaining costs necessary to pay for the hotel route.
As in Oakland, where an airport shuttle train is being built instead of a bus rapid transit line that would serve far more people, Dallas’ politicians seem more interested in serving the city’s elite — people using the airport and convention center — than in building a rail project that would attract the largest number of riders. This emphasis on “choice” riders is the result of putting people who rarely use public transit in charge of deciding how future lines are routed, a problem common to almost every city.
No matter the route chosen, downtown Dallas is likely to become a construction mess over the next few years if the D2 project is built along with a planned streetcar. The city currently has a trolley service along McKinney Avenue north of downtown, and that M-Line is planned to be extended into downtown along Pearl Street, via the Woodall Rogers Park, which is being built on a deck over a freeway. The trolley would connect to the Dallas Arts Center just completed in northeast downtown.
DART has proposed a modern streetcar for other corridors downtown, not necessarily as extensions of the M-Line, as shown in the dotted green lines on the map above. The primary east-west route being suggested would triple the east-west travel corridors through downtown, making its construction seem superfluous; as a result, a north-south extension of the trolley to an area south of downtown seems like a good bet for a first investment.
A group from Oak Cliff, a neighborhood located on the opposite side of the Trinity River from downtown, has proposed the Trinity Lakes Streetcar Loop, which would operate along 4.75 miles of one-way trackage mostly along Beckley Avenue. The project would require the construction or improvement of bridges across the river, but it has the strong support of the Oak Cliff community, which sees it as an opportunity to improve connections into downtown and revive a declining retail district.
Though the one-way nature of the streetcar loop would doom it to low ridership, a two-way version might be useful enough to justify its construction here, as it would expand downtown’s reach across the river and make possible future connections into West Dallas. The city should be sure to coordinate construction between the D2 light rail line and the streetcar, though, because it makes little sense to have two rail services providing the same access to adjacent areas. If you’re paying for both, the investment should be maximized so that they provide complementary transportation, rather than competitive offerings.
Unlike many of the dozens of American cities planning streetcars, Dallas actually appears likely to complete its project. The city has developed a business plan that would rely on the creation of a local government corporation called Dallas Streetcar, Inc. That company would be given initial “advances” to build the project that would be repaid in new tax revenue from development spurred by the project. It’s creative accounting; an easier way to put it would be to say that the government believes that its investment in infrastructure will pay off through more development downtown. A fine assumption.
November 24, 2009
» Rapidly growing Middle Eastern state will invest massively to expand already booming economy.
If Dubai and Abu Dhabi have grabbed most of the headlines recently, neighboring Qatar has been quietly building up from an out-of-the-way desert country to a center of world trade. Despite the country’s overall small 1.5 million-person population, the capital city Doha has been the site of increasing government-sponsored development thanks to huge oil and gas revenues and the country is now arguably the richest on the planet per capita. Next year, its economy is set to expand by 16%, the largest increase in the world, further solidifying its position as a regional powerhouse.
Government officials see infrastructure investment as a crucial element to economic viability, so last week Qatar signed a $25 billion deal with Germany’s Deutsche Bahn to develop local and high-speed rail links over the next fifteen years. The project will incorporate 180 miles of local light and metro rail for Doha city center, rapidly expanding public transportation offerings for what is now a car-centric place. In addition, more than 200 miles of new passenger and freight rail links would be capable of supporting fast trains traveling at up to 200 mph. Current plans suggest that the railway will be mostly complete by 2022, when Qatar hopes to host the World Cup, and fully done by 2026.
Qatar’s plans for high-speed rail would include a high-speed line between downtown Doha and its airport. In addition, the project would link the country directly to Saudi Arabia over a 25 mile-long causeway and connect the country’s most populous cities along its east coast, fronting the Persian Gulf. The network may also cross into Bahrain over the Qatar-Bahrain causeway, currently under construction and to be the world’s longest bridge when completed. Future interconnections between high-speed trains planned for the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are likely. These projects were proposed previously in the Qatar transport master plan.
Deutsche Bahn is laying its reputation — and its money — on the line for this project, which will be its largest-ever foreign investment. The German company will own 49% of the new Qatar Railway Development Company, 51% of which would be controlled by the existing Qatar Railways. The two groups would share investment costs and share profits. DB’s existing relationship with Siemens will likely mean the supply of Velaro trainsets for Qatar’s high-speed lines.
While the recent development exploits of oil-rich Middle Eastern countries never cease to amaze, Qatar’s investments are particularly surprising simply because of the country’s relatively tiny population. If the United States, 200 times as large in population, were to invest at similar levels per capita over the next fifteen years, it would spend $5 trillion in rail infrastructure only; as current government policy stands, it is likely to spend only about $1.5 trillion… on all transportation, including on roads and air travel, despite the fast that the U.S. has huge unmet infrastructure needs. If a country is defined by the spending it commits to its future, the U.S. is falling behind rapidly.
November 23, 2009
» After the completion of Metro’s first 106 miles, it’s time for another big investment.
If Washington’s Metro system is proof of anything, it is that American cities have the capability to build massive, expensive transit systems that work. Since the network opened in 1976, it has expanded to 106 miles of two-way track, five lines, and 86 stations. Despite ever-increasing sprawl, huge increases in car use, and relocation of business and government facilities from downtown to the suburbs, Metro now handles 800,000 daily trips and it has redefined life in the center of the region and around stations. As a result of Metro, Washington and its close suburbs are becoming communities where it is possible to live a normal life without owning a car
Despite the huge investment in Metro’s “first” system plan, which was completed in 2003, the region still has significant capacity needs to be met and hundreds of thousands of potential transit trips that cannot be completed because of a lack of adequate service. As the city and its surrounding region grow, opportunities for dense, transit-friendly development need to be made available. It is time, then, to plan for the next twenty years of investment in the region’s heavy rail network.
Region-Wide Transit Needs
Though none of the existing Washington transit network suffers from the extreme crowding common in cities like New York or Tokyo, the growth of the city core and of areas around stations in inner ring neighborhoods like Bethesda, Silver Spring, and Rosslyn have begun to strain the system’s capacity. The section of the Blue and Orange Lines between Rosslyn, Virginia and Farragut West, in the center of D.C.’s “new” downtown, is by far the system’s most heavily used during the A.M. peak, and it shows, with little free space on trains. A 2002 study by WMATA, the local transit agency, suggests that the Orange Line will reach its carrying limits in 2020, with the other lines following in 2025, even with the implementation of all 8-car trainsets.
The Silver Line, currently under construction, will spur out from the Orange Line just before West Falls Church, heading through Fairfax and Loudoun Counties. With a stop at Dulles Airport and four stations planned for Tysons Corner, a major office and retail center, the line will likely attract a large number of riders — exasperating exacerbating the existing capacity issues with the Orange Line, which cannot support more trains because of the fact that it shares track with the Blue Line between Rosslyn and Stadium-Armory Stations.
Two other major transit projects planned for the Washington region — the light rail Purple Line that will run between Bethesda and New Carrollton and the proposed Washington streetcar system — will do nothing to improve these problems.
The excellent blog Greater Greater Washington has proposed several major Metro expansion projects, including a separated Yellow Line between downtown D.C. and Silver Spring and a Gold Line between Tysons Corner and Alexandria, but neither of these proposals would heal the so-called “Orange Crush” between Arlington and downtown Washington.
That’s why the proposed separated Blue Line, which is being seriously considered by WMATA planners, is so important. Seven miles long, the corridor would delink the interconnection between Orange and Blue Lines at Rosslyn, include a new station in Georgetown, and run under M Street NW and H Street NE. The project would increase Orange (and Silver) Line capacity by 4o%, provide better transit access to underserved areas of inner-city Washington, and relieve the Red Line between Union Station and the new downtown. It’s a vital project for the region’s future. (The alignment of the Blue Line on the map at the top of this post was inspired by that proposed by GGW’s David Alpert.)
But the separated Blue Line, if implemented alone, might suffer from underwhelming use. That’s because the existing Blue Line attracts far fewer users than its Orange Line teammate; the areas it serves south of Rosslyn, including the Pentagon and Alexandria, already have quicker access downtown via the Yellow Line. The Orange Line’s service to the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor will continue making it the hub of new urban growth in Northern Virginia. And even if the Blue Line were to attract huge numbers of users in its D.C. section, train frequencies would be limited by the fact that the Blue Line shares track with the Yellow Line between Pentagon and King Street. The corridor, then, would be unable to reach its full potential — a major problem considering it would be a downtown trunk route.
In addition, though the new Blue Line would expose new areas of the District to redevelopment, there are significant limits to what changes it could produce. Washington has a height cap and much of its northeastern quadrant’s building stock is made up of brownstones protected by historic preservation laws; a new Metro line should produce major new investments around stations, but the new Blue Line in and of itself would not do nearly as much as its predecessors in reshaping the built form of the region.
The Project
To complement the new Silver and Blue Lines, then, the Pink Line proposed here would offer the region a major new transit investment that would have the potential both to maximize the use of those two aforementioned lines and to spur major infill development. Running between Tysons Corner and River Terrace, the line would double capacity on the tracks to be created by both the Silver and Blue Lines by including a newly built, 10 mile-long underground connection between West Falls Church and Arlington National Cemetery. With nine new stations, it would greatly expand access to southern Arlington, eastern Fairfax County, and the city of Falls Church and trigger massive new development opportunities unavailable elsewhere in the region. It would do so while servicing some of Northern Virginia’s densest communities, containing some of its most poverty ridden and car-dependent families.
All at the measly cost of some billions of dollars no one has yet made available.
Specifics
The ten miles of underground construction required for the Pink Line’s implementation would come at a very high cost, but its benefits may well be worthwhile. The line would run south under Route 7 from West Falls Church Metro, through downtown Falls Church and Seven Corners to Bailey’s Crossroads, where it would turn back east along Columbia Pike into Arlington County, linking up to a new station on the west side of the Pentagon to avoid disrupting Yellow Line traffic flow (a new station would have to be constructed there), and joining up with the Blue Line before Arlington Cemetery station.
As the maps below show, stations along the new line would be within a 1/2 mile of very dense neighborhoods, especially those in south Arlington and at Bailey’s Crossroads. In addition, the section along Route 7 between Seven Corners and Bailey’s Crossroads would reach communities with some of the area’s highest concentrations of poverty.
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The buses Metro already runs on the affected corridors, including the 16 line on Columbia Pike (290,000 passengers per week) and the 28 line on Route 7 (143,000/week), are the transit agency’s highest-ridership routes in Virginia, confirming the importance of this corridor. The 28 buses are currently being upgraded to handle more passengers.
As the maps below show, the area’s inhabitants are predisposed to riding transit. Despite the fact that residents are now only provided substandard bus service, they already use transit at levels exceeding those found in most of the surrounding neighborhoods, with the exception of in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor and at Crystal City, where Metro has stations. People along the Pink Line, probably as a result of their high-density lifestyles and higher rates of poverty, are as likely not to have a car in their households as their peers anywhere else in the region, with rates reaching up to 30%. The result? people in the area suffer from longer-than-average daily commuting times, reaching up to an astonishing 50 minutes in some areas adjacent to the proposed Bailey’s Crossroads station.
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This corridor, with densities already approaching those along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor and likely to increase with more development, is simply too populated for the implementation of other modes of transit. The Columbia Pike Streetcar being discussed by transit advocates in Northern Virginia won’t do the trick not only because it won’t significantly speed commutes over existing bus service, but it also won’t link the area to anywhere other than the Pentagon or have the capacity to handle huge numbers of passengers. Metro service is necessary because the Pink Line would connect directly to the region’s four largest employment zones, at Tysons Corner, the Pentagon, Rosslyn, and downtown D.C.; this area’s residents are likely to take advantage of this Metro line in substantial numbers.
The Pink Line is prime ground for a major investment in heavy rail transit. If Metro has been successful elsewhere in the Washington region, it will be a roaring achievement here.
Coordinated Planning
Of course, transit isn’t productive unless the districts surrounding stations have been planned appropriately. The Pink Line’s corridor today is hardly the model of an urban zone, but the successful transformation of the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor in Arlington from a series of auto-oriented strips to a livable, dense office and housing district suggests that similar changes could be experienced elsewhere in the region.
With development along Columbia Pike increasing rapidly, Arlington County is taking serious steps to prepare the strip for revitalization and upzoning. In addition, Fairfax County is in the process of implementing major land use and zoning changes at Bailey’s Crossroads to allow for more development there — this would include two new streetcar lines, including the continuation of the Columbia Pike corridor. These efforts are well intentioned but may actually increase the problems described above; namely, residents of the areas along Columbia Pike and Route 7 suffer and will continue to suffer from inadequate transit that does not meet the needs of a heavily populated neighborhood.
If the Pink Line Metro were built, however, Fairfax and Arlington must take their planning activities to the next level. The maps and plans I’ve created below demonstrate how appropriate development might follow the construction of a new Metro station at “Bailey’s South,” roughly at the center of the Pink Line’s new underground routing.
The map and satellite image below illustrate the area’s existing conditions. It is a peculiar place, with high-rise residential and office towers just blocks from single-family homes and retail strips. It is an unwalkable community with poor street connectivity. The implementation of the transit lines themselves would do nothing to cure that disease.
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As shown below, however, a network of new streets and right-of-way improvements in the area roughly within a quarter-mile from the new Metro entrances could be the stage for a vibrant, livable district. Similar plans could be undertaken for each of the stations planned for the Pink Line.
The one-story retail strips along the corridor, as well as some one-story office buildings, would be demolished to make way for new buildings between 2 and 20 stories, ringing a tight network of blocks and parks. There would be a mix of uses, with housing, office, and hotel offerings within walking distance of the Metro station. The highest buildings would be located adjacent to Metro, with lower buildings along the zone’s periphery, closer to the single-family homes that would remain unchanged in the surroundings. Walkability would be the quarter’s focus, with pedestrian-scaled retail and restaurants at the ground level.
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Such district-level planning would have to be a standard component of the planning process for the Pink Line stations. The sheer degree to which the neighborhood around the Bailey’s South station could change demonstrates the extent to which urban-scale development could become standard in neighborhoods around these stops.
Related Light Rail
Though I am adamant that the transportation demands of the Pink Line corridor are too large for any transit service other than heavy rail, there should be a role for new light rail lines in the Washington region along less dense routes. The maps above show potential alignments for further extensions of the Purple Line, with a corridor running north from Alexandria to Ballston along Mt. Vernon Avenue, Glebe Road, and Lee highway. This line could play an important secondary role in redefining mobility in Northern Virginia towards the increased use of public transportation by reinforcing existing low-scaled neighborhood districts without encouraging the massive development around them that would follow heavy rail.
What We Get
Transit is all about building cities, and indeed, the Pink Line would stretch the Washington region’s dense, walkable core beyond the boundaries currently imposed on it by the limits of the Metro system. By constructing a new heavy rail trunk line, Northern Virginia would not only benefit from new service to people who desperately need better transit, but it would also expand offerings to Tysons Corner and the District of Columbia, whose new lines will have capacity limitations according to current plans.
With no funding to build this massive project, because of the recession, Virginia’s new anti-infrastructure investment Governor Bob McDonnell, and the political fear of raising taxes, Arlington and Fairfax Counties are not likely to push ahead with this project any time soon. But development off-shooting from the line’s completion would more than offset the project’s costs in tax revenue over the long term. If and when the time comes, the Pink Line offers great opportunity.
Data shown in maps based on U.S. Census 2000 information.
November 19, 2009
