Category: Washington DC

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Metro Rail Washington DC

Finding the Funding for Metro to Dulles Airport

Dulles Metro Rail Map

» Though construction of the first phase of the Silver Line is already underway, the second part of the project has yet to be fully financed.

Earlier this year, transportation officials in Northern Virginia obtained a full funding grant agreement from the Federal Transit Administration for the first phase of the Silver Line metro rail extension project. Local and state monetary commitments for that stage of the project are entirely guaranteed. But the second phase of the line, which would bring rail to Dulles Airport for the first time, lacks $330 million in local property tax revenues required for the construction of three stations in Fairfax County.

The 12-mile first phase of the Silver Line extends west from the existing Orange Line at East Falls Church into the depths of suburban Fairfax County, which houses over a million people. At the other end, it will run alongside the Orange Line through Arlington and the District of Columbia to Stadium-Armory, where it will terminate. Five new stations will be constructed, four of which will be closely spaced in the core of Tysons Corner, America’s most emblematic edge city and one of the country’s largest business districts. Fairfax County hopes to take advantage of the addition of metro service to refashion the district in the mode of urban Arlington, though those plans have been recently partially dashed by a reluctant county board. Nonetheless, when it opens in 2013, metro could prove an exciting addition to the landscape of this section of the state and it would undoubtedly induce a large number of the area’s inhabitants to switch to transit.

Even so, the Silver Line’s construction has always been defended as a new way to get travelers to Dulles Airport (thus the “Dulles Metro” nickname), but a station there is only planned for the project’s second phase, which could open for operations in 2016 at the earliest. The 11-mile extension would run past Reston and Herndon, under the airport, and into exurban Loudoun County. The last station at Virginia Route 772 will be the most distant from downtown D.C. of the entire metro rail network.

In order to pay for the second phase, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which runs the project in addition to Dulles Airport, has proposed a special tax district in the areas along the line’s route. Local property owners would agree to pay extra in order to benefit from future metro service — a similar tax regime has been put into place in the neighborhoods surrounding the first phase of the line. The Airports Authority has suggested that without the revenue from the district, it would be unable to build stations between Wiehle Avenue and Dulles Airport, leaving Reston and Herndon effectively out in the cold. But efforts to tax landowners have missed their previously fixed deadline, potentially delaying those stations and even the whole project.

The Silver Line has other problems, as well. The Airports Authority has not been clear in its support for the project. Recently, it has proposed transferring funds from the Dulles Toll Road (which it also operates) to pay for the widening of Route 606 in Loudoun County. That money ought to be going to build the metro line.

On the other hand, apart from the long-planned segment that will connect metro through Tysons Corner, it could be argued that the Silver Line is a bad idea altogether. It is one of the most expensive transit projects in the United States in terms of cost per projected rider or mile-cost per projected rider. Its alignment, entirely in the median of the Dulles Toll Road with the exception of at Dulles Airport or in Tysons Corner, is less than ideal. It will promote sprawl in Loudoun County. It will be a huge strain on the metro tunnel under the Potomac River — and it comes without the future promise of a new and needed trunk line through downtown Washington. All in all, its benefits should be in question.

Nonetheless, if the Silver Line is built, the stops between Wiehle Avenue and Dulles should be included, especially since places like Reston are becoming increasingly urban and deserve better transit connections with the rest of the region. Let the self-imposed taxation begin!

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Baltimore Bus Light Rail Washington DC

Maryland Governor Supports Light Rail for Red and Purple Lines

Both projects were being considered for bus rapid transit service as well.

Yesterday, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (D) announced that he would support the use of light rail for new transit projects planned for suburban Washington and inner-city Baltimore. Though not surprising, the governor’s commitment ensures that both corridors will receive the state’s long term support as they’re reviewed by the federal government during the New Starts grants funding process. The choice of light rail over bus rapid transit was both a politically necessary move to apease voters in the state’s two population centers and one that will best serve the transit users in each.

Mr. O’Malley’s dual announcements — in New Carrollton, where the Purple Line will terminate, and in West Baltimore, where the Red Line will head — were the conclusion of a long effort by Marylanders to convince their government to support light rail over bus service. Former Governor Robert Ehrlich (R) had been adamantly in favor of BRT for the Purple Line and had demonstrated little support for the Red Line at all. The state continues to advocate major road construction, symbolized by the destructive and unnecessary Intercounty Connector and planned I-270 expansion. But Mr. O’Malley’s obligation of state support to light rail and his willingness to sacrifice roads funds in favor of transit construction suggests that Maryland may be slowly turning the corner in favor of alternative transportation.

Yet the routes selected and their use of light rail do not come without controversy. Rather, both projects have been lighting rods for local infighting in recent years. The Purple Line, which will run parallel to a popular walking trail and through a number of affluent communities, has been hit with criticism by NIMBYs who would prefer the construction of a less intrusive and less expensive busway to connect Bethesda, Silver Spring, and a number of other northern Washington suburbs.

Meanwhile, in Baltimore, the Red Line’s route through middle class Canton has raised a number of questions about whether the city’s citizens are more interested in moving about than in keeping certain people out. The neighborhood’s demands for a too-expensive tunnel under their streets have been strident but irrational, stroking fear about the dangers of public transportation in a community whose access to downtown and West Baltimore is quite limited.

To make matters worse, federal cost effectiveness guidelines that determine whether a project will receive support from Washington have required significant cost engineering in Baltimore. Part of the downtown tunnel will be built as only one track, meaning that trains will only be able to run in one direction in that section. This kind of cost reduction strategy is damaging in the long term, and Baltimore should have learned its lesson. When it opened its Central Light Rail line in 1992 and extensions in 1997, it left 9 of the corridor’s 29 miles single-tracked to meet cost guidelines. High ridership required the city to come back and double track the rest of the line more recently — a likely more costly proposition than if the tracks had been added from the beginning.

Even if the state is able to make it past the demands of these community groups and those of federal guidelines, it may not be able to fund both projects. Mr. O’Malley’s commitment suggests that the state will push for light rail along these corridors, but doesn’t indicate that Maryland will do everything necessary to ensure the projects get built. If it wants to demonstrate a commitment to transit, the state has an obligation to find the necessary funds to do so over the next few years.

Categories
Bus Light Rail Washington DC

Maryland Picks BRT for Corridor Cities Transitway

Corridor Cities Transit MapCiting financial limitations, planners reject light rail plans.

There’s been a bit of a blow-up in the Washington-area blogosphere in recent days over the decision by Montgomery County, Maryland planners to move forward with a bus rapid transit plan for the Corridor Cities Transitway, eliminating a light rail option. The line will run north of the Shady Grove Red Line Metro station to Germantown roughly along the I-270 corridor and cost $450 million to build, versus the $778 million a light rail system would have cost. Planners didn’t seem to mind simultaneously endorsing the $3.8 billion expansion of I-270 itself.

The decision to endorse a multi-billion dollar highway expansion even while rejecting a much less expensive light rail option is a huge slight to public transportation in Maryland. The planners who made this decision are indicating that encouraging auto-dependent sprawl is an acceptable use of transportation funds, but that providing high-quality transit alternatives should be left for another day — if ever. Greater Greater Washington and Beyond DC went into detail on these issues.

As Beyond DC points out rather nicely, there are other transit projects in Maryland more worthy of funding than the Corridor Cities route, including the Red Line in Baltimore and the Purple Line, which will ring the northern suburbs of D.C. (and which in fact will receive some state roads money to be built). If this were purely a matter of choosing how to use a limited amount of funds for transit, then Corridor Cities certainly shouldn’t come first and a BRT line there might be a logical choice. There are also other significant unplanned corridors that probably deserve more funding than Corridor Cities, including an expansion of the Purple Line route east to National Harbor and west to Tysons Corner, as well as Baltimore’s Green Line.

But part of Maryland’s problem is its assumption that highway and transit funds are separate things; the federal government does give a lot more money to “highways” than it does to “transit.” As a result, the state appears to have billions to spend on highways but only hundreds of millions for transit. In fact, however, the majority of highway funds are transferable to public transportation project using the flexibility built into the transportation law. If Maryland was willing to do so, it could commit those funds dedicated to highway expansion to transit and pay for the increasing costs necessary for light rail rather than bus rapid transit. If a light rail Corridor Cities couldn’t qualify for New Starts grants, it could still be funded through highway formula funds.

Even so, what is the value of the Corridor Cities line? The project isn’t particularly well-designed, not hitting several of major town centers on its way through the Washington suburbs. More importantly, though, is the fact that constructing the line — whether light rail or BRT — would stimulate much of the same sprawl that an expansion of I-270 will induce. Shady Grove is already a thirty-minute trip from downtown D.C.; should we be encouraging people to live even further from the employment center, even if they use transit to commute? Is a transit-oriented lifestyle ever possible in a place dozens of miles from the regional core? Or does the fact that the cities affected by the Corridor Cities line are already partially built mean that “it’s too late,” and that we need to provide transit to areas that need it?

I don’t have the answers to these questions, but it’s undoubtedly true that Maryland’s choice to spend the majority of its transportation dollars on I-270 expansion (and on the ICC) will only exasperate existing congestion and threaten the environment. Choices like these will never produce the kind of dense, mixed-use, and transit-oriented society we should be envisioning for our future.

Image above: Corridor Cities route, from Maryland DOT

Categories
Light Rail Washington DC

Maryland's Purple Line to be Funded with Roads Money

Two roads projects likely to be canceled in favor of public transportation corridor

Good news in Maryland, where the state, facing a transportation budget deficit, has chosen to transfer money away from road expansion and towards the building of a new transit line in the Washington suburbs, reports the Post. The decision will provide more than $500 million more for the Purple Line, which will connect Washington Metro’s Red, Green, and Orange line in Maryland’s Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties. The long-awaited project has been in planning for a decade.

Governor Martin O’Malley’s (D) decision will eliminate the planned widening of Maryland Routes 3, 28, and 198, which were to enter construction in the next several years. The $1.7 billion Purple Line also has $500 million reserved from the state transportation trust fund, as well as $480 million in additional state and federal money. This most recent news means that $1.5 billion of the 16 mile project costs are already covered for a line whose construction won’t begin in 2014, with completion in 2017. Governor Martin Mr. O’Malley has yet to make a final decision, but the corridor will likely be served by light rail, though former Governor Robert Ehrlich’s (R) preferred BRT option is still on the table.

It’s great to see states choosing to sacrifice roads projects in favor of a new rail line, of course, but I’m a bit confused by why the state needs to reserve this much money for the Purple Line. The project can reasonably expect a Medium-High New Starts rating, with more than 60,000 daily riders taking advantage of one of the Washington area’s major missed connections. So why shouldn’t the state be able to rely on the fact that the federal government will cover more than half of the project’s cost in the New Starts process? Why shouldn’t the $500 million here be transferred to other major planned transit projects in the state, like Baltimore’s Red Line (or even Green Line). Those corridors also will need significant funding in the future.

States like Maryland need to be able to count on more significant federal involvement in transit projects and should be able to distribute their limited state transportation dollars to a wide variety of activities, not simply one proposed line. This is especially important if the next transportation bill equalizes new transit and highway construction funding levels (highways currently get 80% of their costs covered by the federal DOT). Mr. O’Malley is doing well in eliminating roads projects, but he shouldn’t put all his eggs in the Purple Line basket.

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Bay Area Bikes Montréal New York Washington DC

Bixi Close to Launching First Ambitious North American Bike-Share in Montréal

Montreal Bixi Bike Station3,000 bikes, 300 stations will grace the streets of Canada’s second biggest city

Montréal, eager to promote itself as one of the continent’s most important cities, looked to Paris rather than modesty when developing its Bixi bike-sharing plan, which it will launch early in May. The service, which will begin with stations in the core of the city and close during winter months, will offer 3,000 bikes and 300 stations, putting it at a similar scale as Barcelona’s Bicing program, though still far smaller than Paris’ enormous 20,000-bike Vélib’. Like the latter project, though, Montréal has plans to expand into the neighboring areas, eventually much of the city. Check out the service’s stations page to note the number and density of stations in the system’s core area.

No U.S. city has yet to make such an ambitious commitment to bike sharing, a concept that has proven quite successful in the European cities that have undertaken it. Each program includes stations located throughout the central city, usually with at least 10 bikes apiece. Users can rent bikes by the day, month, or year, at quite reasonable prices, and then return the bikes to any other station in the city within 30 minutes free of charge and then at increasing rates over time. These services provide an ideal alternative to automobiles and traditional mass transit and allow people to take short commutes without waiting on buses or riding their cars; they also promote exercise. Quality of service is ensured by remote monitoring, service crews; users are unlikely to steal because the service is connected to one’s credit card.

Programs that have over 1,000 bikes each in service – usually subsidized by urban advertising – include Lyon, Montpellier, Toulouse, Copenhagen, and Stockholm, as well as Paris and Barcelona. Dozens of other, smaller cities have hundreds of bikes in operation, and Germany has several “Call-a-Bike” operation in major cities that differ slightly from the aforementioned model but offer via phone the same easy, immediately accessible, rental model.

The U.S.’s only examples of bike-share progress are in Washington and San Francisco, but it would be difficult to put either program in the same league as what’s about to open in Montréal. D.C.’s program – currently in operation – has 120 bikes distributed among 10 stations; San Francisco’s proposal will include an embarrassingly small number of bikes: 50.

What’s disappointing about both programs is that they’re designed to fail. Bike-share can only work when there are stations located every few blocks all over a dense city; otherwise, bikers aren’t provided ease of use that encourages cycling between multiple and sometimes unplanned locations, just as private automobiles allow. The fact is that systems like D.C.’s and San Francisco’s can serve only a tiny percentage of total commutes within the urban core because of those limits, while Paris’ and Montréal’s programs can be game-changers and completely replace auto commuting over short distances within proscribed service zones.

We would do well to emulate Montréal’s example in the U.S., and perhaps we’re on the way there. On Wednesday, New York City’s Department of City Planning released a proposal for a massive bike-share program in the country’s biggest city (via Streetsblog). The project would – if approved – encompass a 50,000-bike roll-out, phased and beginning with 10,000 bikes in Lower Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn, and thereafter expanding into the other dense areas of the city, including Queens and the Bronx. New York’s got it right in asserting that the only way to make bike-share work is to work ambitiously from the start, rather than assuming that a 50 or 100 bike program will “be successful” when it simply cannot. In major cities, only projects with thousands of bikes placed every few blocks in dense urban cores will be effective in allowing bikes to acquire a significant market share. New York’s proposal would be such a project – it’s just got to be funded first…

nyc-bikes

Images above: Bixi station, from Bixi; proposed New York City bike-share roll-out, from DCP