Out of Control

A recent poll commissioned by the Bay Area Council found that citizens are keenly aware of the critical infrastructure needs facing the Bay Area and that they're very open to the idea of private sector infrastructure financing to help solve the problem. According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

Potholes, traffic jams, eroding levees and overcrowded schools have apparently convinced Bay Area residents it's time for major infrastructure improvements, according to a regional poll released Thursday.

The poll, by the Bay Area Council, found that 87 percent of residents surveyed thought that Bay Area governments had a serious problem maintaining schools, bridges, roads, parks, levees and hospitals and building new infrastructure.

Perhaps even more striking is the finding that a strong majority support the increased use of public-private partnerships (PPPs) to improve infrastructure:

While the poll did not ask voters whether they would be willing to raise taxes to pay for infrastructure improvements, it did ask if they would support public-private partnerships to help pay for specific types of improvements.

The partnerships, used in other states and countries, would allow such things as a private developer building a school and leasing it back to the school district, or building and operating a toll road or bridge in exchange for a portion of the revenues.

A strong majority of those surveyed said they would favor such an arrangement to fund infrastructure projects in the Bay Area, and the support varied only slightly by type of project. Hospitals and recreational facilities won the strongest backing for use of private-public partnerships with 71 percent each, followed by public transit at 70 percent, schools at 68 percent, and roads and highways at 65 percent.

One take-away from this is that Bay Area residents clearly see a problem and are open to new and innovative approaches to addressing it. Another is that even in an area regarded as a bastion of progressive thought, citizens are quite open to proven private-sector infrastructure delivery solutions.

At the political level, we know that PPPs are not a partisan issue, as evidenced by the fact that officials of all stripes are embracing them (including prominent Democrats like Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine). But it's great to see that the message is getting out to the electorate as well, with pragmatism and problem-solving clearly trumping ideology in the minds of Bay Area residents.

If the political leaders in Sacramento would hurry to catch up, then we'd really have something, as my colleague Adam Summers wrote earlier this year in the Orange County Register. And to be fair, the Legislature has started to take some steps in that direction and has a number of different PPP bills in the pipeline this session. And Governor Schwarzenegger has been quite active, criss-crossing the state touting the virtues of PPPs as part of his Performance-Based Infrastructure initiative.

Let's hope that leaders are able to come together and get something done this session, because clearly the electorate is looking for solutions.

For some recent studies exploring the potential for transportation PPPs in California, see here, here, and here. And see Bob Poole's August 2007 OC Register op-ed here. For a more comprehensive overview of the role for tolling and PPPs in transportation, see here. Lastly, Lisa Snell examines the potential for innovative school facility PPPs here.

It's pretty tough to separate drivers from their cars, but China's going to try:

China will initiate its first-ever nationwide "no car day" this weekend in an effort to promote environmental health and alleviate increasingly gridlocked urban roads, state press said Monday.

Residents in 108 cities will be urged to take public transport, ride bikes or walk on the nation's first "no car day" on Saturday, the China Daily reported.

"The move is an attempt to raise residents' awareness on energy saving and environmental protection because the country's cities are plagued by traffic congestion and pollution," the paper said.

It did not say why the Ministry of Construction, the sponsor of the activity, chose a Saturday to hold the event.

Government officials and state-run enterprise employees in some cities would be encouraged not to drive, while other urban centres would ban government-owned cars from taking to the roads altogether, it added.

A week-long campaign to publicise the government's goal of getting 50 percent of the nation's urban residents to use public transport instead of private cars would also be initiated, it said.

Article here.

Mexico City has a long history of yanking keys from drivers. Officials figured that would have to cut pollution and boost transit ridership. They underestimated their constituents.

RELATED: Paris vs. SUV

Hello all! I’m Ben, the newest Reasonoid here. An article in the WSJ (subscription required) caught my attention today. Arlington, Texas is the largest city in the nation without any public transit. Bus service may soon be introduced, yet opposition still exists:

"A mass-transit system should not be a charitable operation," says Warren Norred, the president of Norred Sales and Engineering in Arlington, who helped spearhead the campaign that defeated the most recent bus system at the polls in 2002.

Rather than make bus service a “charity,” there is scope for making bus service more like a business. Arlington could auction the right for bus companies to serve the area, even in sparsely populated suburban areas. Arlington is a good “blank slate” to innovate in public transit rather than imitate the largely failed models of public transit in other U.S. cities.

But at least they aren’t trying light-rail.

I had a piece in Sunday's LA Daily News:

"YOU'VE got to use public transit," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared. "You can't keep on pointing to someone else and saying it's their responsibility."

Imagine the credibility and public-relations points Villaraigosa could have racked up uttering those words while commuting on a bus to City Hall. But instead of being the "eco-friendly transit-riding mayor," Villaraigosa rides an SUV to work.

Yet many Angelenos probably sympathize with the mayor. "Give me a first-rate transit system, and I'll use it," they might say. Until that system arrives, they support new transit proposals, like the $5 billion "subway to the sea," while continuing to drive everywhere.

But what would it say about the practicality of mass transit if the mayor of the city with the nation's best subway system also took an SUV to work?

More here.

Related: Do transit board members ride transit?

Earlier today I was on KCRW's "Which Way, LA?" (SoCal NPR) talking about what LA might do to pull itself out of gridlock.

The show should eventually be achieved here.

And here's to WWLA's ultra-classy host, Warren Olney.

From yesterday's LA Daily News:

WOODLAND HILLS - He can't stand spending one more minute in traffic.

And after commuting all week to work at Warner Center, Divine Hicklin usually stays home on weekends to take a break from battling the bulging bottlenecks on the roads.

"When the weekend comes, I want to stay home, in my pajamas, in front of my computer and away from traffic," said the downtown Los Angeles commuter. "I do it all the time."

Whether behind the wheel or sitting on a bus, Los Angeles commuters spend about 93 hours a year stuck in traffic. And those like Hicklin often end up feeling so wiped out by the gridlock, they're becoming increasingly inclined to stick - whenever they can - to their own little neighborhoods on weekends.

"I think a lot of us have gotten used to not doing things," said Ted Balaker, policy analyst for the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit. "It makes this city less of a grand metropolis and more into isolated hamlets."

As congestion makes it more trying to get around, Balaker said Angelenos are subconsciously paring back their lives in everything from where they choose jobs to visiting friends on another side of town or even eating out in a different area.

Many don't even realize what they're giving up in life because they're trying to avoid traffic, said Balaker, author of a report released last month that assesses the impact of mobility on personal lives.

But as congestion grows, people ultimately are becoming less spontaneous and less adventurous.

Read Sue Doyle's interesting piece here; some interesting reader comments below the fold:

Each day this week The Antiplanner mulls a different aspect of this question.

Check it out; first day's post is here.

Light rail ground breaking ceremonies often have that pep rally vibe: they're filled with live music, bold proclamations, group hugs, fireworks, cheerleaders, and even free bbq sandwiches.

LA just broke ground on the Expo Line, but the reporters' tone is rather bittersweet:

Standing amid mounds of dirt at the edge of USC on Friday, political leaders celebrated a milestone for L.A.'s fledgling rail system: the start of major construction for a rail line from downtown to the Westside.

But like so many mass transit projects in Los Angeles County, the Expo Line was shaped by three decades of political squabbling and compromises that raise questions about whether it can achieve the goal of getting Westsiders out of their cars and onto mass transit.

The first 8.6-mile leg of the line will run from the 7th Street/Metro Center station in the heart of downtown to Culver City. But it will be nowhere near many of the Westside's most congested destinations, including the Miracle Mile, Grove-Beverly Center areas, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Century City and Westwood/UCLA.

Instead, it will move along an old Southern Pacific rail line through relatively quieter southwest L.A., roughly following Exposition Boulevard. The route avoided heavy opposition from community groups and reduced costs, which will be at least $640 million. The line is supposed to start operations in 2010.

As a result of that route, officials expect the Expo Line to Culver City to see 43,000 passenger boardings every weekday by 2025. (A boarding is a one-way trip.)

Kudos to the reporters for pointing that out. Might also be nice to mention that most rail riders aren't new transit riders, but merely folks who used to ride buses. One thing I almost never see reporters do is give some big-picture perspective--after all, LA County takes 40 million trips a day.

The MTA has already been struggling with rail lines that have not quite worked out.

The Green Line does not hit major destinations such as Los Angeles International Airport and the South Bay Galleria mall near its route, but instead goes from Norwalk to a miniature golf course in north Redondo Beach.

The Gold Line from downtown to Pasadena has also been a disappointment, largely because it runs close to residential neighborhoods and hits so many street crossings that taking the train is significantly slower than driving.

For safety reasons, the state Public Utilities Commission restricted the speed of Gold Line trains in parts of South Pasadena and Highland Park. Expo Line trains may suffer some of the same problems as they cross major north-south streets, such as Vermont, Normandie and Western avenues and Crenshaw Boulevard, and may have to slow as they approach intersections, experts said.

And how about that Red Line? It still has still not reached half its projected ridership. (Is that the kind of success that should be extended to the sea?)

Imagine all the great pup public officials, especially adamant transit-backers, could enjoy if they took transit regularly.

And yet transit board members in DC, and Philly typically steer clear of transit. Other than photo ops, Mitt Romney has trouble recalling any time he's used transit. LA Mayor Antonio "Subway to the Sea" Villaraigosa wags his finger at motorists who eschew transit, but prefers traveling in a GMC Yukon.

But the MetroCard Mayor has access to our nation's most extensive transit system. Certainly, he has no use for SUVs:

He is public transportation’s loudest cheerleader, boasting that he takes the subway “virtually every day.” He has told residents who complain about overcrowded trains to “get real” and he constantly encourages New Yorkers to follow his environmentally friendly example.

But Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s commute is not your average straphanger’s ride.

On mornings that he takes the subway from home, Mr. Bloomberg is picked up at his Upper East Side town house by a pair of king-size Chevrolet Suburbans. The mayor is driven 22 blocks to the subway station at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, where he can board an express train to City Hall. His drivers zip past his neighborhood station, a local subway stop a five-minute walk away.

That means Mr. Bloomberg — whose much-discussed subway rides have become an indelible component of his public image — spends a quarter of his ostensibly subterranean commute in an S.U.V.

...

Mr. Bloomberg, who entered politics as a self-made media mogul, struck a populist note early in his mayoral campaign by pledging to use mass transit. Since starting at City Hall he has invited reporters, photographers and television news anchors to ride along with him.

The image of the billionaire straphanger has paid enormous political dividends. One transit group designated him the “MetroCard mayor,” and Newsday lauded him as the city’s “regular Joe Commuter.” Shortly after he took office, The New York Times declared Mr. Bloomberg “the first subway-riding mayor.” And his tales from the underground — for example, getting stranded on a northbound No. 4 train for half an hour — have made for useful anecdotes at his news conferences.

Mr. Bloomberg’s use of the subway to get to work appears to have declined over time. In January 2002, he reported taking the train all but one day of his first three weeks. Nowadays, it appears, the S.U.V. is his primary mode of transportation. Based on [NY Times] reporters’ observations, the mayor took the subway to work about twice a week.

So says Roger Snoble, head honcho of LA transit.

He's referring to the jazzy mixed use development that's broken ground on Hollywood & Vine. Sure the city strapped on the eminent domain boot and kicked out dozens of business owners, but at least the new residents will be liberated from auto-oppression, right?

It's a vision expressed frequently by local government officials, who see building large mixed-use developments next to mass transit lines as a key solution for not just the region's traffic congestion but also its spread-out geography and reputation for being unfriendly to pedestrians.

In Los Angeles alone, billions of public and private dollars have been lavished on transit-oriented projects such as Hollywood & Vine, with more than 20,000 residential units approved within a quarter mile of transit stations between 2001 and 2005.

But there is little research to back up the rosy predictions. Among the few academic studies of the subject, one that looked at buildings in the Los Angeles area showed that transit-based development successfully weaned relatively few residents from their cars. It also found that, over time, no more people in the buildings studied were taking transit 10 years after a project opened than when it was first built.

How nice that the LA Times reporters didn't get light headed from all the bubbly and rosy rhetoric that was a-flowing at the highly publicized pep rally for the W Hotel complex.

The Times decided to examine driving habits at four apartment and condominium complexes that have already been built at or near transit stations in South Pasadena, North Hollywood, Pasadena and Hollywood.

Reporters spent two months interviewing residents, counting cars going out of and into the buildings and counting pedestrians walking from the projects to the nearby train stations.

The reporting showed that only a small fraction of residents shunned their cars during morning rush hour. Most people said that even though they lived close to transit stations, the trains weren't convenient enough, taking too long to arrive at destinations and lacking stops near their workplaces. Many complained that they didn't feel comfortable riding the MTA's crowded, often slow-moving buses from transit terminals to their jobs.

Moreover, the attraction of shops and cafes that are often built into developments at transit stations can actually draw more cars to neighborhoods, putting an additional traffic burden on areas that had been promised relief.

LAT article here.

The reporters might have also cited Travel by Design, by Marlon Boarnet and Randall Crane:

Surprisingly, there is little credible knowledge about how urban form influences travel patterns . . . Given the enormous support for using land use and urban design to address traffic problems, it was somewhat surprising…to find the empirical support for these transportation benefits to be inconclusive and their behavioral foundations obscure. Prior evidence on the link between design and travel is difficult to interpret and tells us relatively little about the behavioral nature of the problem and thus provides a weak foundation for policy advice.

I appeared on "The Box" this weekend, a radio show produced by the Commonwealth Foundation in Harrisburg, PA. We discussed ways to deliver Mass Transit with lower subsidies -- you can hear the entire episode (including segments from Gov. Bill Owens, Dr. Jake Haulk and Ron Hartman) or select individual segments here.

OK, so light rail doesn't do much to reduce traffic congestion. But rail hungry cities often learn that it can actually jam up congested streets even more.

Houston Mayor Bill White in a recent interview:

I support the Main Street rail line but it's wreaked havoc on some of our signal timing.

Here's BlogHouston's Kevin Whited:

The Main Street rail line has indeed wreaked havoc on signal timing, and (as a result) vehicular traffic flow in that corridor. Sensible people understand the folly of laying light rail lines down busy vehicular traffic corridors, but Houston's light-rail-at-any-cost crowd is not always sensible. Unfortunately, the Mayor's "complaint" doesn't have much teeth, as he seems disinclined to discourage METRO from laying even more light rail down busy streets, some of which have much more heavily trafficked intersections than the Main Street corridor (like Richmond/Kirby).

Flashback to Minneapolis 2004:

The past week of testing showed that traffic signals that give priority to Hiawatha light-rail trains have dramatically slowed the flow of traffic on Highway 55, which parallels the line through south Minneapolis.

Meanwhile, in Charlotte, an exasperated Jeff Taylor considers whether he should not just submit to railophilia, but also kick the fantasying up a notch:

Hey, maybe CATS’ problem is that it is just not thinking big enough. For example, why do a boring $250 million commuter train line up I-77 way when there is 70 year-old plan for an amphibious monorail out there just waiting to be made a reality.

More here.

Related: Sam and me on How Traffic Jams are Made in City Hall

Last week I participated in an online debate hosted by the LA Times. I tousled with Bart Reed of The Transit Coalition and we discussed all sorts of things related to transportation, transit, and urban form.

Transportation guru Tom Rubin decided to respond to one of Bart’s responses to me, and Tom has given me the green light to reproduce it here.

Below the fold I've included my post, then what follows is Bart's response, with Tom's comments embedded (indented text).

The final question from the week-long LA Times debate: God just gave L.A. $100 billion to fix traffic. What would you do?

Him:

It's been a pleasure brawling against your esteemed institution and your version of logic. Now, back to reality: Given the the generous contribution, the most ambitious item on the list is indeed the most obvious one: $10 billion to extend the Wilshire Boulevard subway to Santa Monica, with stops at Century City and UCLA. Another $7 billion would be used to create either a subway spur or a separate light rail line to connect the San Fernando Valley with LAX and Westwood. This line would tunnel between UCLA and Sherman Oaks and continue north on Van Nuys Boulevard above ground.

Me:

It's a testament to boosters' Lanleyesque powers of persuasion that rail transit proposals aren't laughed out of Los Angeles.

Here's some of what I might do with the dough:

Reduce transit bus fares to recreate the 40% increase in ridership from the 50-cent fare of the early 1980s—except, this time, I would also increase bus service and make it last.

Fund a ballot initiative to require every member of a transit agency board to take transit at least four times a week—no exceptions.

Install some queue-jumpers so motorists could hurdle over intersections, expand roadway capacity where it makes sense, unclog some of the worst bottlenecks (101/405), and build some tunnels. The first tunnel would fill in the missing link in the 710. Apart from the improving traffic flow, the project would provide a Euro chic vibe, as it would be very similar to the tunnel project on the A86 in Paris.

Whole day's exchange here.

All five exchanges archived here.

More from the LA Times online debate ...

Me:

Angelenos could bank on rail transit and go through the same old Groundhog Day routine of expressing shock when the latest rail line costs more (Blue Line cost escalation: 700%); does less (Red Line hasn't reached half its daily ridership projections); and takes longer to finish than originally advertised (back in 1980, Prop A money was supposed to buy us 11 lines). Or we could snap out of it and realize that strategic road building offers more congestion-relief bang for the buck.

Him:

I love the anti-choice dictate you want to force upon us. Transportation has never been, nor will ever be, a one-size fits all solution. A rural environment in West Texas, for example, will do better with cars and roads, but an urban environment will need rail when and where large freeways cannot be realistically built.

Complete Thursday exchange here.

Day three of my Dust-Up in the LA Times:

Some from him:

In all sincerity, it is foolhardy to believe that any single transportation mode can decrease congestion. Some road and freeway upgrades can relieve bottlenecks. Adding new roadway capacity, however, does not help, since the phenomenon of induced demand -- when vehicles quickly take up new capacity -- compounds the traffic problem.

Rail alone will not reduce congestion, either. However, it has been shown that it can reduce the rate of congestion growth. Cities that offer complementary rail service experience congestion growth at a slower rate than those with auto-only infrastructure.

Some from me:

On Monday I explained that transit usually doesn't take enough cars off the road to quell traffic congestion, and the story's grimmer still for an often-overlooked source of congestion—freight. Almost everything stocked in stores gets there by trucks, so Bart, your little trains won't do much to relieve big-rig traffic.

You say rail reduces the rate of congestion's growth, so let's look at one of these "success" stories. In post-rail St. Louis, the increase in driving dwarfed the increase in transit ridership. Transit captured less than 1 percent of new travel, and light rail grabbed even less. In other words, rail's impact was too tiny to affect congestion. Bart, when you say rail restrains congestion's growth, you remind me of the kid who sends his piggy bank to DC and says he helped restrain the growth of the federal deficit.

Whole day's exchange here.

The LA Times online debate featuring the Transit Coalition's Bart Reed and your truly is in its second day.

Today's questions: How far should the subway system be extended? And should transit systems be subsidized?

Some from me:

Let's keep in mind that Los Angeles rail riders pay only about 3% of the overall cost of their trips. It would be easier to justify these hefty subsidies if the money were focused on helping the poor and handicapped—improved mobility works wonders for improving one's lot in life. But far too often officials spend lavishly on rail to subsidize those who already have good transportation options. And, as Environmental Defense's Robert Garcia explains, railophilia sucks up huge amounts of funds that could be used for moving people who need the only type of transit that really works for them, buses.

Some from him:

Reading your constant inclusion of pointy-head wonk statistics about how transit is bad and costly but private cars are free is really making my head spin. Ideally, any form of public transit, be it rail or buses, should serve where a good percent of the public travels, such as our dispersed areas with high job densities. These systems must transport passengers in a speedy fashion with frequent, punctual service.

Whole exchange here.

Once they link to it, you should be able to sound off here.

From my colleague Bob Poole:

Much of the debate about urban land use and mass transit is driven by misconceptions. All too many elected officials (and a declining fraction of transportation planners) still have the mental model of the mono-centric city—a single huge downtown where the majority of jobs are, able to be served effectively by radial transit lines from the suburbe. Think New York and Chicago—or more accurately Manhattan and the Loop.

One of the first popular challenges to this mono-centric view was Joel Garreau’s 1991 book Edge City, which identified the growing phenomenon of large-scale office and retail developments in the suburbs. More recently, Robert Lang of Virginia Tech provided a more sophisticated look with his 2003 book Edgeless Cities. Lang found that a large and growing fraction of commercial development actually exists in smaller and more scattered forms across the whole urbanized area. And that pattern, of course, makes transit (and especially rail transit) a far more difficult proposition.

Lang and two colleagues recently published (via the National Center for Real Estate Research) a further analysis, which I commend to your attention. “Beyond Edgeless Cities: Office Geography in the New Metropolis” presents the results of analyzing 13 large urban office markets, using a geographical information system (GIS). They describe what they call the new suburban metropolis, which is urban in function but not in form. “Many suburbs now have essentially all the elements that make a place urban,” but arrayed in a form that differs considerably from the mono-centric model. The new metropolis “is mostly low-to-mid density, automobile dependent, and dispersed.”

The new analysis finds that edgeless cities account for almost 40% of the total office space in those areas, while their downtowns averaged 33% and their edge cities just 14%. The balance fell into “urban envelopes” (5.2%), “corridors” (3.8%), and “secondary downtowns” (1.2%).

The most fascinating aspect of the report is not the averages but the differences among these large urban areas. Atlanta and Miami have the smallest fraction of office space downtown, at just 6.7% and 8.7% respectively. The edge-city champions are Houston (33.3% edge-city space), Detroit (27.1%), and Washington, DC (23.3%). And the metro areas with the largest fraction of their office space in edgeless cities are Miami (72.1%), Detroit (54.1%), Philadelphia (54.3%), and Denver (50.8%).

The final sections of the report discuss policy implications. Citing a 1977 study by Pushkarev and Zupan which found that 8,000 people per square mile was the minimum threshold for rail transit, Lang and colleagues parsed their data to determine the amount of edgeless city office space located in neighborhoods with at least that much density. Atlanta had zero, and another seven had only single-digit percentages. The most promising were Los Angeles (36.7%), San Francisco (27.8%), and Miami (13.8%). Those portions of those metro areas were suggested as feasible candidates for rail transit—and all three of them do have various rail projects in being and others under way.

Note: the Boris Pushkarev and Jeffrey Zupan book is Public Transportation and Land Use Policy: Indiana University Press, 1977.

Soft porn films are being shown on giant video screens at a bus station in Bulgaria.

The plasma TVs at the terminus in the capital Sofia show bus times during the day but switch to porn at night.

A station spokesman said: 'We wanted to give the passengers something to take their minds off the cold and to pass the time while waiting for a bus.'

However, some people are outraged by the move and claim station security guards now spend their time watching the screens rather than patrolling for troublemakers.

That's the whole article, but if you want the link, it's here.

Related: How not to attract riders to transit; also this

Many planners and politicos assume that humans are hard-wired to hate buses. But economists like Daniel McFadden and Jonathan Richmond have noted that travelers care about features like reliability and speed more than whether they’re riding on rails or tires.

A while ago I highlighted a case in point: some Denver commuters were mighty peeved when bus routes were replaced by less convenient light rail.

Now this:

Unending complaints from riders who lost their fast and comfortable bus commutes when the T-REX light rail line opened in November paid off: RTD is restoring some of the canceled service.

Many riders of the former routes P, T, W and 6X said RTD's attempt to force them onto light rail along Interstate 25 made them spend an additional hour or more each day riding to work.

The RTD board voted Tuesday night to bring back service as soon as the schedules are worked out. It is expected to cost nearly $600,000 a year.

While some service is being restored, it won't be all that it used to be.

Route P from Franktown and Parker to downtown Denver used to have 13 trips in the morning and 13 in the evening. The renewed service will have five trips each way.

Route T went from Boulder to the Denver Tech Center. When T-REX opened, riders were told to use the Boulder route to Denver Union Station, take light rail to the Tech Center then use local buses to get to their workplaces. The renewed service will have three trips each in the morning and afternoon instead of five.

Article here.

Why don’t more people ride mass transit? One big reason is the “mass” itself. People, especially those in prosperous nations, demand personalized transportation.

And as I mentioned in this post, cost also makes it tough for mass transit to serve the masses. Reader Ryan Kennedy responds with some interesting thoughts:

A good substitute [to light rail] would be personal rapid transit (PRT). It's estimated that PRT can be built and operated at a profit.

I anticipate you saying, "Well then, if this is so, the market will implement it." Yes, in time they will. London Heathrow is currently building a small PRT system, and a company in Sweden is building a test track for its own system.

I know it would be preferable to have all transportation provided for privately, but government is so intertwined with transportation, I figure........ don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Whenever someone talks about/proposes LRT I find it useful to point out PRT can provide superior service without subsidies. They sort of look at me like a Martian at that point.

For more on PRT, go here and here.

A college newspaper oped-er gushes over Minneapolis’s light rail line:

arguably the most striking effect of the new train system has been the way that the city’s inhabitants have begun to view their own city, best stated by the headline of the St. Paul Pioneer Press on the light rail’s opening day that read, “Now it feels like a real city!”

It’s time for Madison to become a “real city.” It’s time for transportation on rails.

But if it’s “real” expensive, the “real” city dream might not last long.

Consider what's happening in Portland, Oregon the city that I think is almost entirely populated by out of town city council members oohing and ahhing over real-live light rail lines. They’re eager to bring “sustainable” transportation to their home towns, but how sustainable is Portland’s approach?

Headline: Transit projects running on empty

Metro estimates that the state's 24 cent gas tax, last increased in 1993, would have to be raised $1.40 a gallon to pay for everything in the current [$10 billion long-range] plan. That's clearly a fantasy, [Metro Councilor Rex] Burkholder says, and he wants to bring a dose of reality to the process.

There’s also a “financially constrained” list of projects that costs $4.2 billion:

But Burkholder says even that 2004 "constrained" figure was based on a 1 cent annual gas tax increase. Not only has that not happened -- voters overwhelmingly rejected a nickel increase in 2000 -- the amount available for new projects is even less because it will be needed to pay the debt for the state $1.3 billion bridge repair program.

Apparently some revamping is in the works:

Burkholder says he expects the revamped project list to be smaller. Projects that survive will meet these criteria: clean air, safe and pleasant neighborhoods, reliable -- if not necessarily speedy -- commutes, and freight reliability.

BTW, something else is waning in Portland. John Charles of the Cascade Policy Institute points to a Portland Business Alliance survey (see last page of pdf) that shows that the percentage of downtown employees who use light rail to get to work has tumbled from 20 percent in 2001 to 14 percent in 2005. This is especially significant since downtown commuters are typically the easiest people for rail lines to serve.

Related: Other Cities Celebrate the Transcendent Power of Rail

Nonstop bus routes that used to take commuters to downtown Denver have been nixed in favor of shuttles to light-rail stations. The result: longer commutes.

The local transit agency has taken note, but who knows if the proposed “tweaking” will help:

RTD also plans to tweak bus and train schedules to try to fix the long commutes some riders have faced since their bus service was replaced by light rail.

"If we're going to cause our loyal riders to spend another 20 to 40 minutes a day commuting, that's a policy decision that's just not right," said RTD board member O'Neill Quinlan.

Article here.

Environmental Defense summarizes how LA politicos favored rail at the expense of bus service:

MTA discriminated against low-income people of color through vast overspending on its rail projects, which disproportionately benefited white communities, and through its funding for suburban buses and for MTA's own buses which served a primarily white ridership.

For example, while 94 percent of its ridership are bus riders, MTA customarily spends 70 percent of its budget on the six percent of its ridership that are rail passengers. Despite increasing demand, MTA reduced its peak hour bus fleet from 2200 to 1750 buses in the last decade. 1992 data reveal a $1.17 subsidy per boarding for an MTA bus rider. The subsidy for a Metrolink commuter rail rider was 18 times higher ($21.02); for a suburban Blue Line light rail passenger, more than nine times higher ($11.34); and for a Red Line subway passenger, two-and-a-half times higher ($2.92).

MTA customarily tolerated overcrowding levels of 140 percent of capacity on its buses. In contrast, there is no overcrowding of riders on Metrolink and MTA-operated rail lines.

MTA documents show huge disparities in spending for the personal security of its riders. While only three cents was spent for the security of each bus passenger in fiscal year 1993, 43 times as much ($1.29) was spent for the security of each passenger of Metrolink and the MTA Blue Line and 19 times as much (57 cents) for each passenger on the MTA Red Line subway.

More here.

Related: Similar stuff from the Bay Area

In many cases, what the experts have to say has a big effect on public opinion. Think about global warming. Most people think it’s real because climate scientists say it’s real.

But, as Bryan Caplan has pointed out, the public is less willing to defer to the experts in economic matters. He discovers four big econ error biases: anti-foreign bias, anti-market bias, make-work bias, and pessimistic bias.

In each case, what economists think is much different than what everyone else thinks. Take the last of the four biases. Economists generally think that things are getting better, while the man-on-the-street is far more likely to think things are getting worse.

Robin Hanson expands on the theme:

Consider how differently the public treats physics and economics. Physicists can say that this week they think the universe has eleven dimensions, three of which are purple, and two of which are twisted clockwise, and reporters will quote them unskeptically, saying "Isn't that cool!" But if economists say, as they have for centuries, that a minimum wage raises unemployment, reporters treat them skeptically and feel they need to find a contrary quote to "balance" their story.

Part of this has to do with the inherent differences between the physical and social sciences. Part has to do with the fact that most people will freely admit that they don’t know a damn thing about physics. Yet everyone lives in the midst of economic activity, so folks are more likely to think they know a thing or two about economics.

Related: Economists don’t like rail transit, but city council members do

That’s LA Mayor Antonio “Subway to the Sea” Villaraigosa on why he rarely uses transit. Yet he still says this:

"You've got to use public transit," Villaraigosa said just last week while unveiling an automated signal system to help unclog busy intersections. "You can't keep on pointing to someone else and saying it's their responsibility."

The mayor prefers to take a GMC Yukon to work even though ...

Unlike many others in Los Angeles, Villaraigosa has easy access to public transportation.

He lives just one block from Wilshire Boulevard, one of the city's most accessible and heavily traveled public transit corridors …

Councilman Herb Wesson is a Transportation Committee member and could score major PR points if he took transit, but:

"Given the type of work I do, it just doesn't work for me to take public transportation," said Wesson, who noted that he does ride the subway when he visits New York because it is so convenient. "I've taken the Red Line once that I can remember, maybe twice."

Article here

We hear these refrains all the time.

Flashback:

From a transit board member in DC:

“My travel, my destinations and my time frame make it very difficult for me to use the system,” she said. “I would have to take two trains and two buses.... It just makes it very inconvenient for me to depend on the system on a regular basis.”

Turns out, when asked by the Washington Post, only five out of 10 board members said they rode the system regularly (two others refused to talk, so it’s probably safe to file them under "infrequent transit user"). Not one is a daily user, and most have either never ridden a Metro bus or can't remember the last time they did.

The Philadelphia Inquirer found similar results after questions SEPTA board members: Only four of 14 members interviewed use the system at least twice a week.

Related: Marion Barry and Mitt Romney probably won’t be on your bus

In the 1980s, LA’s local policy makers began diverting funds from a successful bus ridership program, which serves the transit dependent poor, toward rail construction, designed for more affluent “choice” riders. That prompted a decade-long legal tug-o-war between the Bus Riders Union and the MTA.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been required to spend more than $1 billion to buy buses, add service and maintain low fares since 1996, when the agency entered into a consent decree to settle a civil rights lawsuit with bus riders.

That consent decree expires Sunday and won’t be extended:

While transit officials pledged Wednesday to maintain the improved service, advocates for bus riders said they would monitor the agency for any cuts in countywide operations. They had sought to extend the decree until the agency was in full compliance.

"If MTA significantly guts its bus system, we will be back before Judge Hatter asking for an extension," said E. Richard Larson, an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which represented bus riders. "We are not going away."

Not surprisingly local officials were eager to yammer about their commitment to customers:

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky predicted the agency would stay "faithful to the principles that the customer comes first."

But which customers come first? Those with two or three cars in the garage or those with no car at all?

Larson and others fear that, without the court's watchful eye, transit officials will return to neglecting the county's heavily used bus system to build and operate expensive subway and light-rail lines through more affluent neighborhoods.

Article here.

Related: Transit’s Most Important Duty

Related: Transit for the Rich—Oakland edition

Related: LA Story (pdf)

Live bands, cheerleaders, mascots, free soup—what else could it be but another light rail celebration?

This time Denver area railers let loose for the grand opening of the Southeast line.

Flashback:

At a 2003 groundbreaking ceremony in Seattle, amid the fireworks display, free bbq sandwiches, and live bands belting out classics like “Brick House,” local dignitaries proclaimed that rail would help make their city “world class,” and even lift the region’s psyche.

And at a 2005 Phoenix area shindig:

Dignitaries flipped a gigantic "on" switch that illuminated a 30-foot replica of the light-rail bridge that will stretch across Tempe Town Lake, just east of the existing railroad bridge. When the real-life $21 million span is complete, it will glow with special lights.

During a dramatic demonstration, taped orchestral music thundered and fake smoke swirled as the replica's lights shifted colors. Officials also filled a time capsule that will be sealed and put inside a future Metro station.

Then there was Charlotte later in 2005, which included (shutter) a group hug among politicos:

After hammering a golden spike into a section of track, a giddy Mayor Pat McCrory simultaneously hugged [FTA head Jennifer] Dorn and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C.

And these aren’t always carefully-planned, publicly-funded events. Light rail has also been known to provoke spontaneous celebration. Andrew Brantingham and his roommate were so geeked up about Minneapolis’ first light rail line that threw their own rager for the Hiawatha line.

Related: Party-Pooping Economists

There are probably quite a few enviros and transit-backers who wish we’d stop asking people to drive less, stop talking about tinkering with the gas tax, and just yank keys away from drivers.

Mexico City tried that, sort of. In 1989 officials introduced a program that bans all vehicles from driving one workday per week based on the last digit of the vehicle's license plate.

Certainly that kind of “get tough” policy would cut emissions and boost transit ridership … Or maybe not.

Matthew Kahn points to a study by University of Michigan’s Lucas W. Davis: The Effect of Driving Restrictions on Air Quality in Mexico City.

From the abstract:

Across pollutants and specifications there is no evidence that the program has improved air quality. The policy has caused a relative increase in air pollution during weekends and hours of the day when the restrictions are not in place, but there is no evidence of an absolute improvement in air quality during any hour of the day or any day of the week. Furthermore, while it was hoped that the program would cause drivers to substitute to low-emissions forms of transportation, there is no evidence of increased ridership of the Mexico City subway or public bus system. Instead, evidence from the market for used taxis suggests that the program induced substitution to taxis.

More here.

Related: More unintended consequences here

Does a public transit agency exist to provide a service or to provide jobs?

If DC’s Metro exists to provide a transportation service, then it might consider outsourcing instead of hiring $40,000/yr window washers and $100,000/yr mechanics and bus riders.

Then it might have enough dough to cater to customers by, say, fixing escalators:

Riders who are sick of dealing with Metro's broken escalators may have a new option: walking up a flight of stairs.

The transit agency's latest idea on how to reduce costs and cut down on wear and tear of its chronically broken escalators is to rip out the shortest ones and replace them with a set of low-tech, low-maintenance steps.

More here.

1. Charlotte’s light rail line shot up in price yet again:

City officials recently found out the light rail project will cost an estimated $462 million, $35.9 million more than the last estimate, due to design and other problems. Eight years ago, when the project began, the estimated cost was $227 million.

2. The local paper continues to support light rail.

Case in point: This piece by UNC-Charlotte Chancellor Phillip Dubois.

He wants the debate to be “more mature”:

We cannot afford to view light rail simply as a cost; we must see it for the long-term investment it represents in the future of this community.

But wait, there’s more: “[N]othing could be more important to [UNC-Charotte’s] long-term future than light rail …”

Wow—really? It’s more important than attracting top-notch students and professors?

3. Local officials in other cities continue to pine for rail.

A vision of the light rail system that could link Downtown and Midtown to the Memphis International Airport rolled onto the Main St. Trolley tracks Tuesday at Central Station.

Memphis Area Transit Authority officials arranged for the Siemens S70 light rail vehicle, which is being shipped from Sacramento, Calif., to Charlotte, N.C., to stop in Memphis for a public viewing Wednesday.

4. Coverage from rail-free cities continues to look at rail through rose-colored glasses.

In the Memphis article there’s no mention of the troubles Charlotte has encountered. Apparently, the fact that rail has broken ground proves it’s successful. After all, if it wasn’t good policy, politicians wouldn’t keep building it, right?

Another misleading point:

The Siemens car is capable of reaching speeds of up to 65 miles per hour…

I bet that sounds awfully good to gridlock-wearing motorists. It's certainly much speedier than rush-hour traffic. Too bad light rail’s average operating speed is only 16 mph.

For the latest developments in Charlotte, check out The Meck Deck.

Position: Window Washer

Job Description: This is specialized window washing work. Employees are responsible for performing window washing tasks that require the use of special height reaching equipment and attention to special safety precautions and guidelines.

Salary: $40,424

Interested jobseekers can apply via the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Flashback: WaPo’s June 2005 “Off the Rails” series

From the article “Metro Spending Often Veers From Core Transit Mission”:

Even as Metro officials complain that tight finances are crippling their ability to run the Washington area's subways and buses, they continue to pour millions into programs that have little to do with transporting passengers.

The agency spent close to $40 million for a massive training and maintenance facility that five years after the purchase is overbudget and underused. Millions more are needed to finish renovations.

When senior agency attorneys wanted two new window offices and a 1,440-square-foot law library, Metro spent $270,000 to accommodate them.

Metro paid more than $400,000 for a "culture change" project to teach managers to operate less like bureaucrats and more like business executives, an experiment officials now say was a bust. And the agency's inability to control overtime has led to $100,000-plus salaries for numerous mechanics, bus drivers and train operators.

Twice in the past two years, Metro Chief Executive Richard A. White has asked riders to pay higher fares, saying he had trimmed his budget to the core and his only choice was to charge more or cut service. In February, he told Congress that lack of funds had forced him to defer maintenance, spend less on customer service and cut back on cleaning the stations.

Thanks to Patrick from ADC for the job listing tip.

Cecilia Kim and I explore this question in the latest issue of Econ Journal Watch.

Here’s the abstract:

In the United States, the public debate over urban rail projects is complicated by the lack of agreement on goals. Supporters offer a wide variety of justifications to build and expand rail transit. If one focuses on the judgments of economists, the list of justifications shrinks considerably, but we are still left with a bundle of goals. Compared to other justifications, economists appear to be somewhat optimistic about rail transit’s impact on local economic development, but less optimistic about rail’s ability to achieve environmental improvement and serve the transit-dependent poor. Economists seem quite pessimistic about rail’s ability to achieve key transportation goals like reducing congestion. Economists often attribute rail’s political success to rent-seeking and romantic political factors. Of those economists who offer a big-picture view, there appears to be wide, though not unanimous, agreement that rail’s costs exceed its benefits. And it seems that almost all economists who write about rail agree that various demographic features, such as suburbanization, the declining influence of central business districts, and increasing wealth will make it increasingly difficult to design successful rail systems.

Article here.

Whole issue here.

Complete table of contents below the fold.

The Bellevue City Council on Monday night became the fourth Eastside government to say it favors light rail over buses for a high-capacity transit line planned from Seattle to Redmond.

…

The vote was 5-2, with councilmen Don Davidson and Conrad Lee voting no. Davidson said the question posed by Sound Transit — either light rail or bus rapid transit that would later be converted to light rail — was unfair and slanted.

"Sound Transit asks, 'Do you want light rail or do you want light rail?' " Davidson said. "We don't have any choice."