The Site / The Fight by Yonah Freemark
yfreemark (at) thetransportpolitic (dot) com
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February 8th, 2010
» A rail system cannot solve city’s huge problems.
Detroit’s half-dead nature has captured the nation’s attention over the past year. Though the whole country continues to suffer from the recession, the emptying of Michigan’s largest city is notable to the degree that its fate seems practically irredeemable: Given its economic, social, and political position, how can the city survive?
Municipal leaders and pundits from around the country are convinced that a concerted planning effort and major investments could to free it from its doldrums. The plan that has commanded the most attention recently is a regional transportation project that would begin with a light rail line down Woodward Boulevard and then extend into a triangular network of bus rapid transit corridors. These would converge on a new high-speed service with direct trains to Chicago.
In a series running tonight, PBS is promoting the decidedly optimistic view that Detroit would be able to capitalize massively on new transit and proceed to rebuild the city around regenerated corridors. Higher-density residential and commercial development would allow the city to reduce per capita spending on essential services like road maintenance and sewers, which require huge expenditures because of the sprawled and vacant condition of much of the city. Detroit would reconstruct itself based on a major piece of infrastructure.
But that vision, as promising as it may be to transit promoters, is no panacea; Detroit will continue to suffer from job and residential loss even with a rail line. The project will only fulfill its promise if the city receives far more investment from exterior sources and if it develops a strong vision for its future.
Transit and development
Much of the discussion about the potential for public transportation to spur Detroit’s renaissance is premised on the idea that well-designed transit can be an effective tool for encouraging development. This is one of the primary reasons why many cities push for light rail or streetcars instead of often-cheaper variants of bus rapid transit. It is assumed that the permanent investment made manifest in the construction of a rail line — the tracks aren’t going anywhere, while bus service could theoretically change routing at any moment — will persuade the private sector to invest in dense new residential and commercial developments around station zones.
And indeed, there is plenty of evidence that new rail lines in the United States have been fantastic mediums for growth, in inner cities and in suburban transit zones.
But that kind of new construction usually only comes when there is sufficient demand for transit-oriented lifestyles. And there will only be such a market when three provisions are met: land in the urban core and in transit corridors must be already relatively well-developed and with low vacancy rates; there must sufficient neighborhood amenities to which residents can walk (or at least the promise of them arriving); and transit must provide a reasonable commute to and from workplaces and destinations of metropolitan reach.
These conditions can be met by some sections of a transit line and not others.
Detroit, even after years of decline, has been able to maintain about 200,000 jobs in the downtown area, thanks to the presence of several large institutions like General Motors, Compuware, and Wayne State University and Medical Center. People living along the Woodward Avenue light rail line would have good access to a large jobs market within easy reach of transit. They would also have direct service to several of downtown’s entertainment districts.
But would there be a strong enough incentive for the construction of new multi-family residences and office buildings along the transit line for the project to have been worth the initial investment in terms of spin-off development? Developers typically have little profit motive in constructing medium-to-high density apartment complexes for people who are not members of the upper-middle or upper classes unless government or non-profit entities provide subsidies to house people of lesser means. That means there must be adequate wealth in the market to make dense urban neighborhoods possible.
But Detroit’s population, which is one of the poorest of any municipality in the country (50% of the city’s children live in poverty), hardly fits the mold developers hope to attract. Nor does the city have much money to spend on subsidizing affordable housing.
Evidence from many American cities that have built light rail suggest that while the transit mode can focus activity around stations in areas where there is a market, it is less productive in generating development in poor neighborhoods as a direct consequence of the lack of developer interest. In cities where demand for more urban living is less strong in general relative to the overall market, there will inevitably be less construction produced, and whole sections of disinterested neighborhoods will remain in their decrepit state, with or without rail transit.
Similarly, there is so much vacant land in Detroit (note the photograph above, just three blocks from the downtown core and one block from a proposed Woodward Avenue light rail station) that even people who do want to live in the urban center won’t have much of a motivation to inhabit high-density buildings. An estimated 40 of the city’s 139 square miles are empty — that’s more land than the entire city of Miami. This means land prices are incredibly cheap and it is often less expensive to build transit-unfriendly single family homes from scratch than to buy an apartment in a multi-story building, which is usually more expensive to build per unit than a suburban house because of the former’s more sturdy construction. Even if there is a market for dense living, most investment will occur in the city’s downtown, which has dozens of vacant high-rises waiting for renovations, not further out along Woodward Avenue.
High-density construction only makes sense to developers when land prices are high: there’s a reason one rarely sees an office tower in the middle of a corn field.
Detroit also suffers from a tremendous dearth of even the most basic neighborhood amenities. In 2003, the city of 900,000 inhabitants had only five grocery stores (none of which was owned by a major chain) with more than 20,000 square feet — the standard size of a modern supermarket. Based on its population, it could support 40, but no one’s building. How can people be expected to live a walking lifestyle when they have a difficult time buying food?
Who, exactly, will choose or be able to afford to live in the thousands of new apartments adjacent to light rail stations? Detroit fits only two of the three conditions absolutely necessary for developers to be attracted to constructing new buildings on a large scale.
Prerequisites for spending on rapid transit
The construction of dense urban developments and the creation of successful transit lines go hand-in-hand: one doesn’t work without the other. But some Detroit planners argue that the primary motivation in creating improved public transportation is to improve the mobility of the city’s car-less citizens, who make up one-third of the population. Quite ironic for the so-called Motor City.
This logic, in fact, is just as meaningful as a development-oriented one, because it serves the purpose of improving social equity. If people can’t get around very easily, their poverty will only be entrenched.
Yet if the primary goal of a transportation system is to serve the needs of the poor in a city like Detroit, light rail isn’t necessarily the right answer. There are some major advantages to trains, namely that they can operate in their own rights-of-way and that they can provide large transport capacity. Cities that are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in new transit should focus on their most dense, congested corridors.
It is undoubtedly true that Woodward Avenue is the region’s premier street, so it should be first in line in receiving light rail. It is also true that the 3.4-mile corridor from Hart Plaza to New Center proposed for the initial investment by private group M1-Rail is reasonably dense, though as shown in the image above, many lots just off the corridor are completely deserted. The proposed city-funded extension from New Center to Eight Mile, however, is entirely suburban in nature, with single-family homes and auto-oriented retail making up most of the landscape. It’s hard to see how this line would attract significant enough patronage to warrant a rail investment.
Meanwhile, if good transit is also reasonably fast compared to cars, the relative lack of traffic on Woodward and parallel highways even at rush hour suggests that buses operating in much cheaper segregated lanes could be just as quick as light rail. Congestion is the best way to encourage people of all income groups to jump onto transit, but Detroit has so many freeways in its urban core that the day when traffic becomes a problem may never come.
If the city’s goal if to relieve the commuting pain of car-less citizens, it could save a lot of money by spending on a larger number of bus corridors instead of one rail line — if capital funds could be transferred to operations, since most bus spending is in the latter category. If it did so, Detroit would have better access for a larger percentage of the city’s spread-out citizenry. This would be the most direct approach to achieving more equitable transportation for the city’s most impoverished.
Growth is necessary, not optional — but it’s only possible with a game plan
Nevertheless, the city’s leaders seem intent on investing in the light rail line, and you can’t blame them, since it will provide a signature symbol of the city’s efforts to resurrect itself. The project, however, will not be successful in attracting large number of patrons nor in spurring significant amounts of spin-off development unless the city stems the mass exodus that has been a fact of life for Motown since the 1950s.
The rail line, it should be emphasized, will not be the magic bullet that makes that possible.
Indeed, there are only two realistic ways to ensure satisfactory use of the transit line and spark affiliated surrounding development: Either there must be population and job growth city-wide, including in the transit zones, or there must be population and job growth in the transit zones, to the detriment of other areas of the city. Because of Detroit’s history, the lackluster state of the automobile industry, and little evidence of a significant nationwide interest in moving to Michigan, the former seems unlikely to pan out.
So the city must endeavor to encourage movement of citizens and businesses into the transit zone. If the city goes about following the status quo, it will build a little-used light rail line surrounded by a lot of vacant land, and foster only minor development. Artist collectives and urban farming will spring up, but these will be but minor counterpoints to a continued narrative of citywide decline. It’s hard to see how a transit system in this situation will provide the stimulus to reverse the city’s course.
On the other hand, Detroit could pursue a radical change of direction in which it closes off sections of the city to housing and compels to move into newly built housing along transit corridors and in the downtown core — basically, artificially altering the city limits to the exclusion of most of the city’s residents. This approach, which would require making it illegal to build or even live in many areas of the metropolis, would increase land prices substantially near transit stations. It would only be possible, however, with enormous subsidies from the state and federal governments to pay for the construction of tens of thousands of affordable housing units. People would have to be implored to stay in the city despite being kicked from their homes.
Because of the cost of such a strategy and the political infeasibility of shuttering whole neighborhoods, such focused growth seems unlikely to occur. But without a well-planned reconfiguration of the city’s built form, Detroit may have difficulty surviving.
Hope persists
Though Detroit is unlikely to advance a complete rethinking of the city’s workings, the cancer that plagues it is not yet irreversible. The municipality’s best hope is in employment growth: if it is able to attract thousands of new jobs downtown and along the light rail line, it could create a dense urban center strong enough to justify the investment in light rail and big enough to attract a growing residential population. These new jobs, of course, will only be made possible with huge government aid; the private sector is not exactly banging down the door of city hall, with companies continuing to eliminate jobs nationwide.
However unlikely any help from Lansing or Washington may be, Detroit’s future may well rest on it. A light rail line would then be little more than icing on the cake, a complement to government-sponsored job growth if things go well, or a last gasp if the city’s fate expires.
Image above: Intersection of John R and Alfred Streets, one block from Woodward Avenue, three blocks from downtown core, from Google Maps Streetview
February 4th, 2010
» The advantages made possible with the opening of a downtown tunnel in the 1980s will be passed over if SEPTA officials get their way.
When it opened the Center City Commuter Connection in 1984, Philadelphia had produced an interconnected regional rail system few other American cities could boast of. By digging a tunnel 1.7 miles between the former Pennsylvania Railroad’s Suburban Station and the tracks of the former Reading Railroad, regional transit authority SEPTA created a unified rail system spanning the entire Philadelphia region.
Unlike most U.S. commuter systems, Philadelphia could offer its riders through-service from one part of the metropolitan area to the next and stops at multiple stations downtown. Trains wouldn’t have to turn around at the center-city terminus, clearing up space for redevelopment and speeding up travel times. New uniformly numbered lines operated from one suburban destination to another, via downtown, just like the Paris RER and many German S-Bahn systems.
Unfortunately, SEPTA has spent the last 25 years making a mockery of the 1980s investment in its regional rail network. Now, the transit agency’s planners are pushing to remove uniform nomenclature from services and eliminate even the suggestion of through-running from operations. It’s a waste of transit capacity on a grand scale, and a disappointment for the agency’s 130,000 daily riders.
When the regional rail route designations were introduced in 1984, each route, labeled R1 through R8, had two suburban termini, with stops through downtown. Operations, like those on any rapid transit service, were relatively straightforward: trains on the R3 line, for instance, would begin their route in West Trenton and end in Elwyn, every time.
Today, however, services are muddled as if the line designations had no meaning. R2 trains, for example, become R6 trains when they pass through downtown when coming from the south; they become R1 trains at when coming from the north. R6 trains coming from Cynwyd simply terminate at Suburban Station, despite the fact that the R6 line supposedly continues to Norristown. On the weekends, R7 trains from Chestnut Hill East evolve into R3s headed towards Elwyn. On every line, certain trains simply cease operations once they reach downtown.
None of this, of course, is displayed on the agency’s map. How can the average rider not be confused?
These operational oddities are the result of ups and downs in transit ridership over time: line segments on each side of downtown were originally matched based on similar service needs, but corridor use has changed. But there is no explanation for why SEPTA is unable, for instance, to simply change the name of R2 trains coming from Newark to R6 and rename the dead-end Cynwyd R6 something else. The agency has clearly not made an effort to take advantage of the full potential of its built network, a failure that has been repeatedly been decried by one of the system’s designers, University of Pennsylvania transportation professor Vukan Vuchic.
The system’s staffers suggest that few people take advantage of the through-running nature of the system’s routes, and therefore that the idea of suburb-to-suburb lines should be abandoned.
But that through-running has not been made clear enough for anyone to understand! There are clear inconsistencies between line naming and actual services. Meanwhile, the system’s route map shows all regional rail lines in a uniform blue as if part of one line. The product is difficult to read, especially since the former Reading and Pennsylvania Railroad networks cross over one another with no interconnection north of downtown.
A lack of clear detail about which line goes where is to be expected for systems designed for commuters coming almost entirely from the suburbs to the center city — most riders know their line, they don’t transfer, and they go to a single downtown destination. But the beauty of an interconnected line such as Philadelphia’s is that it provides rapid transit ease of use for commuter rail passengers: it has the capacity of providing frequent services in the central city, multiple urban stations, and efficient transfers. Unfortunately, looking at SEPTA’s map, most people unfamiliar with the system can likely decipher none of those features.
One way to solve the problem is to diagram the regional rail system as a rapid transit agency would, as demonstrated on the right in the drawing above. Lines are differentiated by color, their paths are easily traceable, and it’s clear where trains begin, make stops, and terminate. Other cities with such systems show just that on their maps.
There is, in other words, a clear explanation for why SEPTA suffers from a lack of through-riding passengers: a lack of clarity about where trains go. For transit agencies just about anywhere, that’s a big problem.
SEPTA’s recently proposed solution to this situation is to rename lines based on their termini: R7 routes, for example, would simply become “Trenton” or “Chestnut Hill East” lines, depending on the direction. Colors and numbers currently associated with each service would be banished, because it has been decided that they are too complicated to understand. Whether or not trains themselves finish their routes downtown, lines would be portrayed as if they simply radiate from the center city in one direction; customers taking the train from a non-downtown station would be provided no information about the ultimate destination of their train past center city.
This change would basically reinstate the naming practices in place before the construction of the tunnel connection. It would basically compel all passengers to descend from trains downtown and transfer. The negative effect on ridership is unquestionable.
According to SEPTA planners, this would make getting around more simple. Unfortunately, that will only be true for people heading to the named terminus. Numbers and colors are far easier to remember than endpoints, especially when several of Philadelphia’s termini have very similar names (such as Trenton versus West Trenton).
Indeed, the existing system could work perfectly well for Philadelphia, as long as it were operated and labeled appropriately. The decision to move to a route-naming method that obviates possibilities for through-routing ignores the great transportation connections made possible with the downtown tunnel.
It’s true: The current line labels are nonsensical considering the operational environment. At the extreme, the R6 Cynwyd has a daily ridership of roughly 500 while its pair, the R6 Norristown, carries about 8,000 passengers every day. Services, as a result, cannot follow the route numbers as they’re currently set. The transit agency must rearrange lines so that ridership on each side of downtown is roughly equivalent, so that it make sense to provide similar amounts of service on each; otherwise, Philadelphia will continue suffering from its current bizarre operations conditions or have inappropriate service provision along many of the corridors.
Perhaps SEPTA simply needs to re-envision the manner in which it describes its existing system. Instead of each line being an individual branch of the overall network — i.e., R1 Airport — it could become an individual branch of a more encompassing line. There are currently thirteen line termini on Philadelphia’s regional rail network; by dividing services leading to those stations based on geography and ridership, SEPTA could produce a simpler to understand system.
One demonstration of how this could work is illustrated above: SEPTA could divide service into three main corridors — the “Red,” “Yellow,” and “Green” lines, each with roughly equivalent ridership on each side of downtown. This would reduce the number of major routes from seven to three and make a network map easier to understand than the slithering cacophony of hues that would be required were each route designated with its own color. Customer comprehension of the system would improve, simply because of the smaller number of variables encountered by the average passenger.
Philadelphia may not be the best test case for such a simplification of the route network because of the general lack of shared main lines outside of the urban core. Yet the concept, which would take full advantage of through-running and encourage passengers to take the train from one part of the region to the next, is still valid.
For Philadelphia’s future development, getting regional rail right is vitally important: the system has the potential to carry a much larger percentage of the region’s population if it were upgraded to rapid transit-type operations, a series of improvements that would be far cheaper to implement than a major light or heavy rail construction campaign. But the only way to do so would be in taking advantage of the system’s through-routing, which increases overall speeds, improves network capacity, and expands the number of available destinations for passengers.
Today, roughly one-third 5% of passengers take advantage of SEPTA’s through-routing, departing and arriving at destinations outside of downtown, despite the agency’s terrible lack of information about routes and dramatic inconsistencies in operations. These peoples’ commutes cannot be thrown out the window, or the system’s popularity will suffer; meanwhile, improvements in the design of line routings would probably increase ridership by encouraging more non-downtown use of the network. A rethinking of the way regional rail works is well worth the effort for Philadelphia, but a move back to the radial model of suburb-to-downtown transit lines would be a step in the wrong direction.
Above map hypothesizes completion of the unfunded but relatively cheap “Swampoodle Connector” that would allow formerly Reading Railroad trains to continue along the Chestnut Hill West line. Ridership in the above proposal based on 2006 estimates, from SV Metro.
February 3rd, 2010
» 2011 Report On Funding Recommendations highlights grants for projects across the country, brings bad news for some cities.
In the federal grants appropriations process, there are clear winners and losers, and the New Starts transit capital program is no exception. The President’s proposed fiscal year 2011 budget included major commitments to funding new rail projects in Denver, Honolulu, Minneapolis, and San Francisco, as well as a new busway in Hartford. But it didn’t provide detailed information about how those projects were chosen, nor which cities lost out in the process.
Fortunately, the Federal Transit Administration released its Annual Report on Funding Recommendations yesterday, replete with evaluations of all of the country’s big public transportation schemes. The FTA’s scores for projects being submitted for federal funding illustrate a change in the way the agency will move forward in choosing which programs will be funded: Instead of focusing on an index of the hours saved by projected passengers to whittle down the number of performing projects, the Department of Transportation has shifted its sights towards rewarding local transit authorities that are well-funded and that commit to sponsoring a larger percentage of a project’s cost.
The overall effect is that the FTA will now be able to fund rail and bus lines that would have been automatically eliminated last year under the cost-effectiveness index, based on travel-time savings, and it will be able to fund a larger number of projects overall because of increasing local contributions.
Yet some cities are in trouble: Sacramento’s second phase of its South Line light rail may not be funded because of a lack of adequate local commitment to public transportation, even though it scores adequately on the cost-effectiveness front.
The report’s introduction in February came unexpectedly early considering the FTA submitted the 2009 version for consideration in May of last year.
Cities that have received a full-funding grant agreement (FFGA), which ensures a stable federal financing source throughout a project’s construction period, scored well on most evaluation points, including local financial commitment and project justification ratings. For the first time since 2005, however, projects that received less than a “medium” score on the cost-effectiveness index moved forward as well. This is a consequence of a policy change announced last month by Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood that encourages the implementation of transit programs that do more than reduce travel time — as the cost-effectiveness index emphasizes — but also encourage livability through associated development and general lifestyle choices.
Funding for high-expense projects, including Honolulu’s $5.3 billion rail line and the $2.2 billion BART Silicon Valley line, was made possible because of an FTA policy that rewards agencies that agree to finance a high percentage of project costs; the New Starts program will only be asked to pay 29% and 35.9% of costs, respectively, for the lines. It is unclear whether the projects would be moved forward in the process if they were to increase their demand for federal aid. The FTA has the legislative authority to fund up to 80% of costs, but it is limited by a roughly $2 billion annual pot for capital projects.
Orlando’s SunRail system, which first approved approval from the FTA last year, will move forward under the New Starts process with an FFGA despite its medium-low cost-effectiveness rating; the agency changed policy just in time to allow this project to begin construction this year. The extension of BART into Silicon Valley and the Draper light rail line in Salt Lake City similarly received such medium-low cost-effectiveness scores, but each is moving forward into preliminary engineering with FTA support because of higher scores in other categories.
Projects with an expected federal contribution of more than $25 million must receive an overall rating of medium — based on an average of all scores — to move forward with guaranteed money from Washington. Programs with a lower aid demand, such as the Tucson Streetcar and the Stamford Urban Transitway, are exempt from such ratings.
Based on their current scores and their place in the FTA New Starts process timeline, five projects are likely to be awarded FFGAs in next year’s report: Charlotte’s Northeast Corridor light rail, Houston’s University Corridor light rail, the BART Silicon Valley extension, and Portland’s Milwaukie and Columbia River Crossing light rail projects.
Last year, Boston and Miami received major warnings from the FTA because neither city had provided sufficient support for their public transportation networks to guarantee that they would be able to operate new transit capacity effectively. Each received similar warnings this year, and the Miami Orange Line Phase II North Corridor and the Boston Silver Line Phase III will be eliminated from consideration in September unless the agencies produce evidence that they will be able to support the capital costs and operating costs of existing and future transit. Both Miami’s MDT and Boston’s MBTA have been affected by major funding problems in recent years.
But Sacramento’s ambitions for the extension of its South Corridor light rail line have been most severely hit, since the project was moved forward to FFGA status in last year’s report. However, the financial status of the Sacramento Regional Transit District has been degraded significantly in the eyes of the FTA, making the new light rail project unjustifiable. The agency has yet to commit 55% of local capital funds (mostly because of a reduction in aid from the State of California), and the capital plans for the project are optimistic, according to the federal government. The FTA is also concerned about the city’s ability to operate the new line once it is put into operation: with a 6:5 ratio between assets and liabilities, the agency is on shaky grounds, especially since only 68% of operating funds are committed or budgeted for the line and the agency has made optimistic assumptions about projected revenues and operating costs. The fact that it has reduced bus service for three consecutive years certainly doesn’t help matters.
For transit agencies hoping to get a share of federal transit funds, the message is clear: only with a stable, committed financial plan for both capital and operating budgets will the FTA move forward with a New Starts application. Justifiably, the federal government doesn’t want to get into a situation where it is paying to build a project that cannot be operated to its maximum potential.
The growing expectation that localities increase their share of project budgets is unfair, at least compared to the highway program, in which up to 80% of project costs are sponsored by the federal government and no advantage is given to cities that agree to fund less or more locally. But the situation betrays a fundamental fact about transit funding in the United States: there simply is not enough of it. The FTA has a limited amount of money to work with and it can do more by spreading its aid more widely.
There will be no remedy for this scarcity of funds until there is a commitment to increasing the amount of money dedicated to major transit projects in the next transportation bill. That may not be approved until 2011, two years late, because of a Congressional reluctance to move forward with a new revenue source for the program.
| Evaluations of and Funding for Projects by U.S. Federal Transit Administration |
| City | Project | Status | Cost (m$ YOE) | New Starts Share % | Overall Rating | CEI |
| Tucson | Modern Streetcar | Final Design | 182.5 | 14 | Exempt | Exempt |
| Oakland | Oakland Airport Connector | Final Design | 484.1 | 5 | Exempt | Exempt |
| San Francisco | Central Subway | Final Design | 1578.3 | 60 | Medium-High | Medium |
| Hartford | Hartford-New Britain Busway | Final Design | 560.7 | 48 | Medium | Medium |
| Stamford | Urban Transitway Phase II | Final Design | 48.3 | 51 | Exempt | Exempt |
| Wilmington | Wilmington-Newark CR Improvements | Final Design | 78.4 | 32 | Exempt | Exempt |
| Orlando | SunRail | Final Design | 356.3 | 50 | Medium | Medium-Low |
| New York City | Access to the Region's Core | Final Design | 8700 | 34 | Medium-High | Medium |
| Providence | South County CR | Final Design | 49.2 | 51 | Exempt | Exempt |
| Houston | North Corridor LRT | Final Design | 710.2 | 60 | Medium | Medium-High |
| Houston | Southeast Corridor LRT | Final Design | 822.9 | 55 | Medium | Medium |
| Sacramento | South Corridor Phase 2 | Preliminary Engineering | 270 | 50 | Medium-Low | Medium |
| San Jose | Silicon Valley BART | Preliminary Engineering | 2203.4 | 36 | Medium | Medium-Low |
| Denver | East Corridor | Preliminary Engineering | 1719 | 48 | Medium | Medium |
| Denver | Gold Line | Preliminary Engineering | 627.6 | 25 | Medium | Medium |
| Miami | Orange Line Phase 2 | Preliminary Engineering | 1340.9 | 47 | Medium-Low | Medium |
| Honolulu | Rail Project | Preliminary Engineering | 5057.4 | 29 | Medium | Medium |
| Boston | Assembly Sq Station | Preliminary Engineering | 47.7 | 52 | Exempt | Exempt |
| Boston | Silver Line Phase III | Preliminary Engineering | 1696.1 | 60 | Medium-Low | Medium |
| Minneapolis | Central Corridor LRT | Preliminary Engineering | 923.4 | 50 | Medium-High | Medium |
| Charlotte | Northeast Corridor LRT | Preliminary Engineering | 1139.2 | 50 | Medium | Medium |
| Portland | Milwaukie LRT | Preliminary Engineering | 1214.6 | 50 | Medium-High | Medium |
| Houston | University Corridor LRT | Preliminary Engineering | 1326.7 | 50 | Medium | Medium |
| Salt Lake City | Draper LRT | Preliminary Engineering | 192.9 | 80 | Medium | Medium-Low |
| Portland | Columbia River Crossing LRT | Preliminary Engineering | 829.8 | 79 | Medium | Medium |
| Oakland | East Bay BRT | Project Development | 234.6 | 32 | High | High |
| Riverside | Perris Valley CR | Project Development | 232.7 | 32 | Medium-High | Medium |
| San Bernardino | E St sbX BRT | Project Development | 186.7 | 39 | Medium-High | High |
| San Francisco | Van Ness Ave BRT | Project Development | 118.6 | 63 | Medium-High | High |
| Fort Collins | Mason Corridor BRT | Project Development | 82 | 80 | Medium | Medium |
| Roaring Fork | Valley BRT | Project Development | 44 | 57 | Medium-High | Medium |
| Grand Rapids | Division Ave BRT | Project Development | 35.7 | 80 | Medium | Medium |
| New York City | Nostrand Ave BRT | Project Development | 39.2 | 71 | Medium-High | High |
| Austin | MetroRapid BRT | Project Development | 47 | 80 | Medium | Medium |
| Seattle | West Seattle BRT | Project Development | 28.4 | 75 | Medium | Medium |
| Denver | West Corridor LRT | FFGA | 709.8 | 43 | | |
| New York City | LIRR East Side Access | FFGA | 7386 | 36 | | |
| New York City | 2nd Ave Subway | FFGA | 4866.6 | 27 | | |
| Dallas | Green Line LRT | FFGA | 1406.2 | 50 | | |
| Salt Lake City | Mid-Jordan LRT | FFGA | 535.4 | 80 | | |
| Salt Lake City | FrontRunner South | FFGA | 611.7 | 80 | | |
| Washington | Silver Line | FFGA | 3142.5 | 29 | | |
| Seattle | University Link LRT | FFGA | 1947.7 | 42 | | |
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Image above: Sacramento South Line Phase II as part of overall network, from Sacramento Regional Transit District
February 2nd, 2010
» Denver, Honolulu, Minneapolis, and San Francisco to see major investments in new light rail. Ten bus rapid transit lines moving forward.
In its proposed fiscal year 2011 budget released yesterday, the U.S. Department of Transportation revealed which projects it would recommend for New Starts and Small Starts capital construction grants. There are a total of $1.822 billion in grants heading to cities across the country, with huge projects in Honolulu, San Francisco, and Denver getting the biggest boost.
The Federal Transit Administration is predictable in its choices of which projects will be awarded the multi-million dollar merit-based grants, which are announced annually with the President’s proposed budget. We’ve known for several years that Minneapolis’ $1 billion light rail connection to St. Paul and San Francisco’s $1.3 billion Central Subway were likely to move forward, simply because they’ve repeatedly scored well in FTA evaluations. The same could be said for Denver’s East and Gold line rail corridors, which are backed by the huge FasTracks expansion program, and which also received good news from the federal government yesterday.
But the decision to fund a new busway connecting Hartford and New Britain in Connecticut comes as a bit of a surprise. The project has been in consideration for a decade, and it has seen both positive and negative reviews from the FTA over the years. Recent legislative actions in favor of transit projects in the state, as well as a shoring up of local funds for the project, likely pushed the U.S. government into supporting it. It will be New England’s second major busway project after Boston’s mediocre Silver Line.
The FTA’s willingness to move ahead with the $5.3 billion Honolulu rail project indicates that it is willing to buck concerns about financing stability that have been recently expressed by Hawaii’s governor. The scheme, which will begin construction later this year and which could eventually attract almost 100,000 daily riders if implemented successfully, is a major commitment: the FTA will be funding more than one billion dollars worth of the corridor’s cost, with the rest covered by local sales tax revenues.
Using the Small Starts capital grants program, the FTA also funded eight small bus rapid transit projects and one commuter rail project in the Los Angeles region. New York City’s Nostrand Avenue BRT, San Francisco’s Van Ness BRT, and the West Seattle BRT will serve very dense corridors and have received very good marks from the DOT in the past; the real question for each is whether the respective cities will be able to assemble adequate community support to begin work. The FTA’s continued funding for the East Bay BRT, which would connect Berkeley and Oakland, suggests that the agency still considers it a priority. That may be news to Bay Area politicians, who have pulled funding for the line recently in favor of the poorly considered Oakland Airport Connector, which itself is under threat by the DOT.
The other funded BRT corridors are in mostly suburban environments with center city connections.
Several projects, including Orlando’s SunRail, New York’s Access to the Region’s Core, and Houston’s North and Southeast Corridors, were approved for New Starts Funding last year. They will each move forward in the coming months.
The FTA’s evaluations of each of these projects will be released later in the spring in the annual New Starts report.
Recommended for New Starts Funding in FY 2011
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Recommended for Small Starts Funding in FY 2011
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Already Under New Starts Funding Commitment
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Image above: San Francisco Central Subway Chinatown Station, from SFMTA
February 1st, 2010
» President reaffirms trust in potential of national infrastructure bank, continues interest in high-speed rail.
As expected, the Administration released its budget for fiscal year 2011 today. The Department of Transportation has been awarded with a total of $78.8 billion in expenditures, compared to $77.0 billion enacted by the Congress in fiscal year 2010.
Transportation spending did not suffer much from the spending freeze Mr. Obama proposed for the overall non-defense discretionary budget in his State of the Union address last week. Nor, however, did it see much of an increase. Transportation spending has been relatively flat relative to inflation since the passage of the last transportation bill in 2006, because that legislation defined expenditures on transit and highways over a five-year period. Because of a continued decline in revenue from the gas tax, which has not been increased since 1993, the Department of Transportation will continue to be funded through deficit spending, rather than some new source of revenues.
Congress is supposed to debate the implementation of a new transportation bill later this year, though it has been reluctant to determine any major new source of funds for such projects. Deficit spending will continue.
Though the proposed budget does not include specific decisions about allocations for the Federal Transit Administration or Amtrak, it does indicate that the President wants to continue an annual investment in high-speed rail: Mr. Obama proposes $1 billion for FY 2011, the same as he suggested in FY 2010. The Congress increased total spending on fast trains to $2.5 billion during negotiations last year; it seems poised to do the same again considering the bipartisan support for what’s becoming a national project.
The budget will also increase spending on livable community-related transportation to $530 million, which, if enacted, could bode great things for streetcar and bus rapid transit in cities across the nation. This is basically an extension of the $280 million in inner city circulator grants announced last December by Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood.
Decisions about specific allocations for the FTA and the FHWA (highways) will be announced later in the month. There is little reason to expect significant increases.
Though the Congress decided last year not to fund Mr. Obama’s infrastructure bank, which would provide states a new method to finance merit-based projects, he has included it in his proposed budget once again this year, with a suggested $4 billion allocation. The Administration would also extend the current ability of state governments to release low-interest Build America Bonds to pay for important projects.
The budget did include a provision for a jobs bill, which would finance infrastructure construction as a sort of second stimulus as long as the Congress agrees to the proposal in the coming months. Preliminary indications from the Senate show that transit may receive $7.5 billion, highways $14 billion, and high-speed rail $2.5 billion under that program.
Comparing Legislation in 2009 and 2010 ($ in billions)
(table is sortable) |
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The President’s budget proposal does not represent the definitive outlays of the federal government in fiscal year 2011. Rather, Congress will spend the next few months debating and settling on final numbers. Last year, Congress increased spending on Amtrak, transit, and high-speed rail substantially over what Mr. Obama had suggested, as indicated above. We’ll see whether members of the House and Senate are in the mood to do the same this year as well.
February 1st, 2010
» After years of averted service cuts, there is little public outrage now over actual reductions in operations.
Virtually every major U.S. transit operation is facing major budget problems this year, and riders are feeling the pain in the form of cutbacks in bus and rail service from sea to shining sea. For many Americans, these reductions in transportation operations are the clearest examples of the negative effects on public services resulting from the recession.
Transit agencies have warned of mounting deficits for years; those difficulties have frequently been avoided as lawmakers swoop in at the last minute to fully fund operations. In New York City, a huge deficit at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that would have resulted in the elimination of countless routes was prevented by the state assembly after a major mobilization by the public last year. In Chicago, years of warnings about a coming “doomsday,” when the transit system would be paralyzed by a lack of funds, were ultimately simply warnings as the government was repeatedly able to cobble together the funds to keep vehicles moving.
But this year is different. With state governments themselves facing hobbling deficits due to a large reduction in tax returns, there is no source of additional financing from which support for transit can be culled. And with all sorts of essential public services — from education to health — experiencing broad budget cuts, support for transit is no longer a political priority. The public outcry this time is muted because most people know that there will have to be reductions in services somewhere.
To make matters worse, there’s probably also a large misconception about whether service cuts did or didn’t occur in the past, considering the rhetoric of transit agencies. The cries of agony emanating from agency offices have become an annual event.
The end result: Most major transit cuts being announced by stressed agencies are more than a warning. Doomsday has come.
Many transit agencies have thought seriously about how to make service reductions as innocuous as possible; New York City’s proposed replacement of the M subway train with an extension of the V could actually produce increasing ridership by opening up direct connections to Midtown from parts of Brooklyn and Queens.
But for the most part, the news is bad. Transit riders can expect to wait longer and pay more for less convenient service. A vicious circle will encourage people to stop taking the bus and instead to drive their cars. Those who have no automobiles will experience a reduction in mobility. The economy in general will suffer, extending the negative effects of the recession.
Even when the economy recovers, there is no guarantee that transportation offerings will improve accordingly. Who says a service cut now won’t become the status quo later?
If there is no obvious way to avoid these reductions now, governments at all levels of the federal system should learn from this recession in order to prepare for the next one. In most other countries, despite economic downturns similar to the one being experienced by the United States, transit services have not been cut back at all. One explanation, of course, is a more stable source of revenues than the sales tax relied upon by most American transit systems to fund system operations and capital programs. Similarly, other countries have stronger social support networks, ensuring that when they experience recessions, they’re less likely to see tax revenues drop to a degree seen in the U.S. Finally, most other developed countries don’t immediately turn to inefficient, ineffective tax cuts to solve economic problems.
In other words, the declining state of American transit operations today is more a reflection of a general lack of political will to maintain public service stability. If it is disappointing to watch agencies reduce services dramatically now, it is downright depressing to note that nothing is being done to ensure that a similar situation won’t occur again.
January 31st, 2010
 » The creation of a single line would produce an underused system for decades to come; extensions of the existing network may be a better option.
Few places in the world are as reliant on their commuter rail systems as Sydney; the Australian metropolis’ CityRail attracts more than one million daily passengers. The almost 1,300 miles of track the system includes provide for the transportation needs of most of the rail transit users in the city, though a light rail line that opened in 1997 and which now has 4.5 miles of service provides some connections to the Inner West parts of the city. A monorail loop links the light rail to Market Street, midway up the CBD peninsula.
A traditional metro system has long been considered for the city, not only to relieve congestion on the CityRail network downtown but also to expand access to neighborhoods that currently lack reliable transit access. In 2008, the New South Wales government moved ahead with what became a A$5.3 billion CBD metro project that would extend from Rozelle, west of downtown, under the bay, through the business district, and finally to Central Station, where it would meet CityRail and light rail services.
The project was supposed to begin construction this year, with a completion date of 2015. But strong opposition to the project from neighborhood groups and political forces have delayed the program significantly. Now the government has stopped property acquisitions and will make a final decision about whether to move ahead with the project by the end of February.
If the CBD Metro goes down, it will be a significant political loss for the Labor Party government of New South Wales and the defeat of one of the biggest transit programs in Sydney’s history. But there are other transit investment strategies that may yield better results.
Part of the problem with the CBD Metro plan was that it simply wasn’t ambitious enough: its short initial line would attract far too few people in itself to justify a massive investment in a fully-grade separated (and underground) rapid transit system. If it were incorporated in a funded city-wide plan with links south, north, and west, the investment might be justified, since it would undoubtedly attract hundreds of thousands of commuters.
Yet, the argument made by the provincial government, that the CBD Metro is a starting line and that other corridors, beginning with a West Metro, will follow, isn’t good enough, because there is no assurance of future funding or specific decisions about what routes lines would follow. Experience with the development of recent American subways proved that rapid transit systems work best when they’re conceived as part of a broader network. One only has to compare the highly frequented Washington Metro with Los Angeles’s significantly less-used Wilshire and North Hollywood subways, which terminate in a single line downtown. As rapid transit systems add lines, ridership increases even on existing corridors, since the number of potential destinations for people along each line expands exponentially.
To make matters worse, as initially conceived, the CBD Metro would require a large number of bus transfers at Rozelle and could cause serious congestion at Central Station where it would meet CityRail trains. It would also duplicate some light rail services, which would damage that system’s ability to operate effectively.
The Metro’s proponents say that CityRail’s operations downtown are overloaded and that the Metro would provide a convenient alternative, but the commuter rail authority suggests that additional capacity is not necessary. CityRail already offers Metro-like capacity and frequencies in the inner city; building another underground trunk line through the half-mile wide CBD may simply be too extravagant for Sydney’s needs.
Even when CityRail capacity does reach its limit, it seems clear that the best option would be to build another tunnel for CityRail, not for a brand new Metro service. This would reduce congestion on the commuter rail and open up more CBD destinations for suburban riders using existing lines, something that would not be possible with the Metro service, which would use different, non-compatible technology. There’s something to be said for working as much as possible with the system one already has rather than investing in an alternative that has no network connections and no ability to reinforce the existing offerings.
Some opponents of the CBD Metro have argued for the construction of the 11-station West Metro instead, arguing that a line between Central Station and Westmead, some 15 miles west, would do more to satisfy the transportation needs of areas far from existing rail lines. But this would make the situation at Central worse still, since commuters hoping to get to downtown workplaces would have to switch to CityRail to reach stations along its City Circle.
Abandoning the Metro and its extensions entirely might be a reasonable option. An extension of the light rail network directly into the CBD and to Rozelle along surface routes would allow many of Inner West neighborhoods a transfer-free connection to most of the office core — now the government is planning to study such an extension. Much cheaper light rail extensions to the south and west could be built to fill in the gaps between CityRail lines. A few choice extensions of the commuter rail could encourage suburban commuters to use transit.
Indeed, finding ways to reinforce the existing networks of light rail and CityRail commuter lines could produce more benefits for Sydney’s inhabitants than the Metro project, whose high cost and limited scope will result in few riders for decades. With increased service in the CBD and new connections to underserved neighborhoods, on the other hand, existing offerings will become more attractive.
Image above: Sydney CBD Metro Alignment, from Sydney Metro
January 28th, 2010
» Wisconsin, North Carolina, Washington, Ohio, and Michigan also getting big investments. But no corridor is fully funded for true high-speed service.
After months of speculation about which states will get funding from the Federal Railroad Administration to begin construction on new high-speed corridors, the news is in. As has been expected, California, Florida, and Illinois are the big winners, with more than one billion in spending proposed for each. But other states with less visible projects, including Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Washington will also get huge grants and begin offering relatively fast trains on their respective corridors within five years. The distribution of dollars is well thought-out and reasonable: it provides money to regions across the nation and prioritizes states that have made a commitment of their own to a fast train program.
President Obama and Vice President Biden will make the announcement today at an event in Tampa.
Despite the excitement, though, there is plenty of work that still needs to be done — and huge amounts of money that still needs to be spent — to get most of these projects up and running. Eight billion dollars of spending won’t be enough for even one true high-speed line.
California voters committed $10 billion in taxes to a high-speed line between San Francisco and Anaheim in November 2008, and their unrivaled effort has been justly rewarded, with a commitment of $2.25 billion to the project, about half of what the state applied for in August. These funds will go to environmental work and initial construction along corridors between San Francisco and San Jose; Los Angeles and Anaheim; Fresno and Bakersfield; and Merced and Fresno. The state rail authority has pledged an equal match, though it has not yet established exactly how much each corridor will receive.
Roughly one hundred million more would go to improvements on existing Amtrak corridors throughout the state, including a large expansion of San Jose’s Diridon Station and 110 mph trains on the Pacific Surfliner between San Diego and Los Angeles.
With the largest project planned in the United States — the full corridor, with trains running at 220 mph speeds by 2020, will cost $42 billion — California has a lot of work yet to be done. With $2.5 billion more in high-speed funds allocated in the government’s fiscal year 2010 budget, it could reap further rewards, but it will be competing with the rest of the nation in its efforts to receive those expenditures as well. Washington will have to find significantly more money for high-speed rail to make the full San Francisco-Anaheim line a reality.
Florida, as has been hinted repeatedly by Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, will get a large infusion of money as well: $1.25 billion. This is half of what the state requested, but it is clear that the federal government is convinced of this project’s merits. As a result, the state is likely to receive an additional $1.5 billion over the next few years to ensure that an 84-mile Tampa-Orlando line is up and running by 2014, connecting the cities in less than an hour at maximum speeds of 168 mph. The state government’s decision to invest several hundred million dollars in a commuter rail system for the Orlando area allowed Washington to argue that the state is making a full-fledged commitment to rail.
So is Illinois, with Governor Pat Quinn and the state legislature agreeing to spend $400 million on the proposed corridor between Chicago and St. Louis. With $1.133 billion, the state will be able to afford significant upgrades to the line on the way to 110 mph service, decreasing travel times from 5h30 to 4h00. Missouri will get some of those funds for upgraded and more reliable operations between St. Louis and Kansas City.
$823 million will go to new train service from Chicago to Madison, Wisconsin and $244 million to an upgraded corridor to Detroit. Both will meet the St. Louis line in Chicago, which is poised to renew its claim to be America’s premier rail hub. After spending $47.5 million on new Talgo trainsets and working for the opening of a new manufacturing facility in Milwaukee, Governor Jim Doyle will get the new service he desires on the 80 miles of track between Milwaukee and the state capital at Madison.
The government has picked the Ohio 3C line, which will implement new service between Cincinnati and Cleveland, via Columbus, for $400 million, enough to get 79 mph trains operating there in two or three years, the first trains on the corridor since 1971. This new line has been supported by state government and will reinforce the state’s existing Amtrak network. Though the state wanted $1.53 billion for 110 mph service, it will have to wait.
On the other hand, a line through Fort Wayne in northern Indiana, proposed for a major upgrade on the way to Cleveland, will not be funded in this first phase. That’s an acceptable decision, since Ohio has pledged money to its service while Indiana has not.
North Carolina and Virginia will receive a $620 million grant to increase top speeds to 90 mph between Charlotte and Raleigh, via Durham and Greensboro. Between Richmond and Washington, the state of Virginia will build eleven miles of new track that will form the first segment of the region’s plans for 110 mph service. Both states have been active for more than a decade in funding their own services.
Washington and Oregon have grand plans for a 150 mph, fully separated corridor between their two largest cities, but the federal government’s $598 million grant will on provide enough money for a slight reduction in travel times, two new round trip trains, and better reliability. Service south to Eugene from Portland may see some improvement as well.
Notable for the lack of major proposed investment is the Northeast Region, which will only get $485 million in total from the stimulus’ high-speed rail funds. The Amtrak-operated Northeast Corridor has already been pegged for $706 million in upgrades, funded by a separate source of money.
As part of the stimulus funds, Vermont will get $50 million to reduce trip times to Burlington by 30 minutes within two years. Massachusetts will receive financing to reroute the Vermonter service north of Springfield. Maine will be able to reactivate the 30-mile train line between Portland and Brunswick. Connecticut will get money to build 11 miles of new track along its proposed New Haven-Hartford-Springfield line. New York, contrary to expectations, has not received a full-throated endorsement of its project to upgrade operations between Albany and Buffalo; it will only get limited funds ($151 million) for track upgrades. Several crossing improvements will further speed up trains between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, which are already the second-fastest in the country.
Iowa and Texas will get small grants to fund minor improvements for their systems. Texas’ huge T-Bone project has not received any funds, for two clear reasons: there is no political advantage in funding a project in a state unlikely to vote Democratic at the national level for the next decade at the least, and the state government has done nothing to fund the project independently — or even approve its exact route.
As a whole, these investments are genuinely exciting; they confirm the administration’s commitment to high-speed rail and they have rewarded states that have invested their own funds in the program. The DOT has chosen projects that are responsible first investments and which will improve rail-based mobility in the affected states. The Administration, despite President Obama’s pledge of a spending freeze, suggests that it’s still ready to provide $5 billion for high-speed rail over the next five years.
But that’s not enough. Senator John Kerry (D-MA) would extend 2010’s commitment of $2.5 billion annually until 2014, which would do more. But for projects like California’s to truly get off the ground without defunding everything else, there will have to be even more money available. The government is going to have to step up: today’s announcement is just a start.
U.S. Invests in High-Speed Rail
(table is sortable) |
| State | Awards (millions $) | Projects |
| California | 2344 | » $2.25 b - ROW, construction on CAHSR
» $51 m - Surfliner service improvements
» $23 m - Capitol service improvements
» $20 m - Train improvements |
| Florida | 1250 | » $1.25 b - 84 miles of new track between Tampa and Orlando |
| Illinois | 1236.3 | » $1.102 b - Improvements to Chicago-St. Louis line for 110 mph
» $133 m - Station and line enhancements along Chicago-Detroit line
» $1.3 m - Planning study |
| Wisconsin | 822 | » $810 m - New stations, implementation of PTC on 80 miles between Milwaukee and Madison
» $12 m - Minor enhancements between Milwaukee and Chicago |
| Washington | 590 | » $590 m - Bypass tracks, upgrades for Seattle-Portland line |
| North Carolina | 545 | » $520 m - Improvements to increase travel speeds to 90 mph on Raleigh-Charlotte line
» $25 m - Congestion mitigation between Raleigh and Richmond |
| Ohio | 400 | » $400 m - Upgrades for rail implementation along 3C corridor between Cleveland and Cincinnati |
| New York | 152 | » $148 m - Improved tracks between Albany and Buffalo
» $3 m - Three miles of new track on Albany-Montréal line
» $1 m - Planning study |
| Northeast Corridor | 112 | » $112 m - Engineering work on Balto dwtn tunnel; other work in RI, NJ, MD, and DC |
| Virginia | 75 | » $75 m - Third track along Richmond-DC line between Arkendale and Powell's Creek |
| Indiana | 71 | » $71 m - Minor rail improvements on Chicago-Detroit line |
| Massachusetts | 70 | » $70 m - Relocation of Vermonter service to more direct route |
| Vermont | 50.5 | » $50 m - Vermonter route improvements
» $500,000 - Planning study |
| Michigan | 40 | » $40 m - Renovations to stations at Troy and Battle Ck; New station in Dearborn |
| Connecticut | 40 | » $40 m - 11 miles of 2nd track between New Haven and Hartford |
| Maine | 35 | » $35 m - 35 miles of track restoration between Portland and Brunswick |
| Missouri | 31 | » $31 m - Improved grade crossings, bridges on line between St. Louis and Kansas City |
| Pennsylvania | 27 | » $26.2 m - Eliminates all grade crossings between Philadelphia and Harriburg
» $800,000 Planning study on extension of 110 mph service to Pittsburgh |
| Iowa | 18 | » $17 m - Four remotely controlled powered crossovers on BNSF Ottumwa subdivision
» $1 m - Planning study |
| Oregon | 8 | » $8 m - Improvements to Portland Union St, engineering on Portland-Eugene line |
| Texas | 4 | » $4 m - Signal timing improvements on Austin-Fort Worth line |
| Colorado | 1.4 | » $1.4 m - Planning study |
| West Virginia | 1 | » $1 m - Planning study |
| Georgia | 0.8 | » $800,000 - Planning study |
| Minnesota | 0.6 | » $600,000 - Planning study for rail improvements to Twin Cities |
| Delaware | 0.5 | » $500,000 - Planning study |
| Kansas | 0.3 | » $300,000 - Planning study |
| Alabama | 0.2 | » $200,000 - Planning study |
| New Mexico | 0.1 | » $100,000 - Planning study |
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| Information from U.S. DOT here and here |
January 27th, 2010
» With several urban cores and a major research park at the center, how would fixed-guideway transit work?
North Carolina’s Triangle is known as one of the most economically vibrant areas of the country. Its cities are growing rapidly and their inhabitants, attracted by several prominent universities, are some of the smartest in the country. Decades of population expansion, however, haven’t been followed by serious efforts to concentrate growth around better transit. Indeed, the region is sprawling more than almost any other, with the vast majority of new housing growth in new low-density subdivisions on the margins of the area’s four biggest cities: Raleigh, Durham, Cary, and Chapel Hill. Though downtowns have experienced significant regeneration over the past several years, the lack of efficient transit alternatives has handicapped hopes for further densification.
With more than one million inhabitants and increasing congestion on the area’s most-trafficked arteries, leaders have renewed their hopes of building a rail system that would connect neighborhoods designated for multi-story development. Recent decisions by the state that allow for local sales taxes and a willingness among municipal authorities to push for citizen referendums over the next few years may make such a network possible.
Yet, with several urban cores and the job-filled Research Triangle Park at the center of the region, politicians from a variety of interest groups will have a fight on their hands as they determine how to distribute a limited set of tax revenues. There is no overarching regional authority that runs the panoply of local bus systems today, nor a regional decision-making body. There are serious disagreements about where job growth should be centered. These obstacles will ensure that the implementation of a high-quality rapid transit system in the Triangle doesn’t come easily.
North Carolina leaders came close to moving forward with the construction of a diesel multiple unit line between downtown Durham and North Raleigh in 2004; at that time, the Triangle Transit Authority (now Triangle Transit) was leading the process, had developed an $860 million plan, and had acquired the majority of the right-of-way along the corridor. But in 2005, the Federal Transit Administration significantly altered its rule process for receiving New Starts grants, basically eliminating the plan from consideration and shutting it down. The lack of a strong local tax source was part of the problem, though so were lower-than-necessary ridership estimates.
Leaders came together two years later to form a committee to resuscitate the plan and in 2008 produced a 25-year, $8.2 billion investment project that would include a light rail line between Durham and Chapel Hill, a diesel multiple unit link between Durham and North Raleigh, express buses on the most congested roadways, and streetcar or bus circulators in the urban cores. At the same time, the North Carolina Railroad, which controls most of the right-of-way between Durham and Raleigh, began planning a one billion dollar commuter rail plan of its own that would extend from Greensboro to Goldsboro, duplicating most of the Triangle route with service at rush hours.
Meanwhile, in 2009, the state legislature approved a law that allows Durham, Orange, and Wake Counties — the core of the Triangle region — to increase sales taxes by 0.5% for transportation purposes, after a citizen referendum. This month’s announcement that the FTA would alter its New Start guidelines to incorporate livability and reduce their focus on cost-effectiveness, making the Triangle’s project again appropriate for federal funding, have added to the momentum.
With a renewed sense that a rail project is possible in the Triangle and an unprecedented opportunity to raise funds, local politicians are talking seriously about how to move forward. Despite the fact that the mayors of Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh are all pro-transit, they have divergent views about which corridors should be first put in service. The county commissioners of the three counties have their own priorities, as do the leaders of the region’s other cities.
If Triangle counties agree to hold a referendum on a sales tax for public transportation in November 2011, as now seems likely, they would be able to get the first lines in operation in about a decade — as long as the public agrees to the deal. Sales tax receipts would be distributed respectively by county, meaning that Wake County (with 870,000 inhabitants), which includes Raleigh and Cary, would get the majority of expenditures. Smaller Durham and Orange Counties (270,000 and 130,000 people, respectively) would be able to spend far less. The rejected earlier transit plan would have had no provisions of spending equity based on county population.
Wake County politicians have interpreted these rules to argue for investing first in a line between Northwest Cary and North Raleigh, through downtown Raleigh and the state capitol complex. They hope to build that 17-mile corridor, which would include nine stations, by 2019. Raleigh leaders have rejected the cheaper diesel multiple unit standard previously promoted and replaced it with light rail, which they consider a better technology.
Meanwhile, Durham and Orange Counties, which share a federally-designated metropolitan planning organization (Raleigh and Cary share another one), are holding discussions about a light rail line between downtown Durham and the University of North Carolina, via southwest Durham; this 15.8-mile project would open by 2023. Chapel Hill, closer to Durham both literally and politically (both are far further to the left than relatively conservative Raleigh), wants better commutes to Duke University and Durham’s 9th Street shopping area, as well as the rapidly improving downtown. South Durham, which has been the focus of rapid, spread-out growth and huge retail complexes, is left out of the picture, reasonably.
In other words, the Research Triangle Park may be excluded from initial investments, even though it is the region’s economic core and the source of its prosperity. Politicians in Raleigh and Chapel Hill argue that its suburban form would make transit there inefficient and poorly used, and they’re probably right. Durham leaders aren’t so sure, since they want a quick connection to Raleigh and most of the Park lies within Durham County borders. But it is true that there are probably more opportunities for redevelopment along the Durham-Chapel Hill line than along the Durham-Cary corridor.
The 16-mile connection between downtown Durham and Northwest Cary would come later — perhaps by 2025. This project would include an improved connection to RDU airport, though there would be no direct service. Ten years later, regional officials want to have lines spewing 9 miles southwest from Cary to Apex and 8 miles north from Raleigh to Wake Forest. Whether any of these lines could be implemented realistically considering the financial limitations of a 1/2-cent sales tax is unclear, especially since a major portion of revenues would go to expanded bus operations.
After all, Charlotte’s Mecklenberg County (population 900,000), which put a similar financing system in place in 1998, has only been able to build one 9.6-mile light rail line and won’t even begin construction on its second corridor until 2011 at the earliest.
Apart from questions of whether Triangle politicians are being realistic in their ambitions — or whether the lines they’re proposing make much economic sense, considering the region’s sprawling nature, limited current bus use, and the weak attraction of the existing urban cores — is why politicians have made a concerted choice to ignore the multipolar identity of the Triangle and instead pretend that it is split into two separate regions. At their most basic, the current proposals would provide Raleigh a light rail line heading in from its western and northern suburbs, and Durham would get a light rail line to the southwest. The goal espoused by planners in the early 2000s of connecting the region’s two largest cities has been laid by the wayside, reserved for a second phase.
In some ways, this downtown-centric policy makes a lot of sense: transit works best when it is oriented towards a job-heavy center city, since it can compete with congested routes and save commuters the cost of downtown parking. But the Triangle is unique, lacking a clear core, with few of the dense in-town neighborhoods most likely to attract transit users and with a large number of jobs in the sprawling auto-oriented research park. As a result, the two lines proposed for initial service probably won’t get many riders, at least compared to peer systems around the country.
An approach aimed directed at combating the area’s multipolar form may have been more appropriate, starting with the Raleigh-Durham inter-city line as originally designed. The most heavily used roadway in the region is I-40 between Raleigh and South Durham; the county-centric proposals wouldn’t address this corridor at all.
Or — hard as it is to admit for this native of Durham — perhaps the Triangle is simply not ready for rail rapid transit. How will trains in any of the corridors mentioned here ever attract adequate use when the biggest core, Raleigh’s downtown, only has 40,000 jobs and just a few thousand residents? When will the trains ever get the kind of traffic that necessitates their higher capacity compared to buses? By comparison, Charlotte’s center city has more than 10,000 inhabitants and 80,000 jobs — and it’s relatively small from the perspective of transit-encouraging cores.
If implemented with rapid lanes on the freeways and dedicated rights-of-way in the downtowns, the region could probably get a whole lot more for its money with an upscale bus rapid transit service. Lines could run directly between Raleigh and Chapel Hill or between Durham and North Raleigh without the inconvenient and time-consuming detours that will limit potential traffic.
But I could be wrong. The region is clearly interested in spending its own funds on these transit projects. The cities do need some kind of structural device to organize and encourage dense development; bus rapid transit wouldn’t do that nearly as well as would light rail. These cities have been sprawling so much that only a radical investment may help them reverse course. Perhaps it’s time to take a chance.
January 26th, 2010
» System marks airport’s advance into the 21st century, but the terminals aren’t necessarily ready.
When it opened in the early 1960s, Washington Dulles Airport was ahead of its time. Its soaring suspended concrete ceiling designed by Eero Saarinen marked a distinctive entry point for visitors arriving to the nation’s capital. Everything about the airport was constructed with the most modern ideas about air travel, including in terms of transportation to and from airplanes. Instead of having travelers descend steps from airplane doors and then walk into the building, the airport’s “mobile lounges” — buses designed to “mate” with airplanes — transported people directly from a dock on the side of the primary terminal to the airplane’s front stoop, where one could simply stroll into a jet.
Over time, the concept grew outmoded. As security measures increased and the number of commuters expanded, waiting around in the main terminal for the appropriate mobile lounge no longer worked as well, as crowding ensued. Eventually, there were too many jets, and Dulles built midfield concourses designed to handle dozens of jets at a time and allow direct walking transfers between flights. They also included jet bridges, whose direct connection to the terminal offered easier access and operations. The direct convenience initially offered by the lounges became a handicap as congestion on the tarmac between the shuttles and aircraft.
The response of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), which runs the facility as well as Reagan National Airport, was to build an airport people mover. It opens for service today after seven years of construction. The 3.8-mile AeroTrain cost $1.5 billion and has four underground stations. Many of the airport’s users can now expect faster commutes between check-in desks and planes.
Dulles’ project has become the standard practice for large airports around the world. In opening its people mover along with a new terminal complex in 1971, Tampa became the first city to pioneer the approach. In recent years, cities as diverse as Dallas, New York, San Francisco, and Minneapolis have opened similar mini-trains, which take advantage of the captive audience at airports to move people about efficiently. They have significantly relieved congestion caused by shuttles between terminals at the airports where they’ve been implemented.
Yet Dulles’ method will leave many of the airport’s users in a state of utter disorientation — and do little to reduce travel times for whole segments of the terminals. The fact that the AeroTrain was clearly designed for a more flight-obsessed era doesn’t help matters much, either, since its provisions for future stations will delay current passengers. It demonstrates some of the limits of an expensive fixed-guideway system even in a controlled airport environment.
Part of Dulles’ problem cannot be solved easily with any transit system. With two midfield concourses, both around 4,000 feet long end-to-end, the airport has a difficult arrangement. By comparison, the midfield concourse of Terminal 1 at Chicago’s O’Hare International is only 1,600 feet long. Dulles could have outfitted itself with people movers running the length of its terminal, something that has been implemented in Detroit, but that would be difficult to accomplish with antiquated terminal buildings. As a result, the AeroTrain simply travels between set points, one on each end of the the first concourse (A and B gates) and one on one end of the second concourse (C gates). Because of limitations in available funds, there will be no AeroTrain access to the other end of the second concourse (D gates), which will continue to welcome mobile lounges, as will international arrivals.
As a result, the AeroTrain, which will offer 29 Mitsubishi Crystal Mover rubber-tired vehicles running every two minutes at peak times, won’t help customers attempting to get from one end of a terminal to another. A huge percentage of customers will continue to have long walks to their gates; the linear nature of an airport terminal contrasts severely with the point-centric orientation of a transit system such as AeroTrain. Other airports hoping to implement similar should aim to limit the length of terminals — an airport station can only be convenient for people who feel comfortable walking to gates with heavy bags.
Even more difficult is the fact that the station designed for C gates is located five hundred feet away from the building itself, accessible only via an underground moving walkway. That’s because AeroTrain was built with Dulles’ future expansion in mind, which would theoretically involve the tearing down of C and D gates (which were supposed to be temporary when first built) and the construction of three new midfield concourses and a new south terminal. If that complex were ever built, it the AeroTrain would be expanded into a 10-mile loop with 10 stations.
The problem for Dulles’ planners is that there is no money for those new facilities, and growth in air traffic has slowed tremendously since the project was first conceived. If high-speed rail proponents get their way, it will slow even more — a trend that should force the airport authority to reevaluate whether it needs to plan for any expansion at all. In that case, the station for the C Gates probably should have been built directly adjacent, rather than several hundred feet away. In this case, there is clearly a downside to thinking too far ahead.
Nonetheless, in some ways Dulles will become a better airport as a result of this large investment. The main terminal AeroTrain station has four underground levels (pictured above) and is as long as the whole building. It is built in a way that prevents conflict between arriving and departing passengers by having them exit vehicles on opposite sides. Meanwhile, security facilities, which have cluttered the historic Saarinen structure, will be moved into newly expanded space underground, not only improving passenger experience, but facilitating movement to the transit system and eventually to gates.
The opening of the AeroTrain coincides with the construction of the Dulles Metro project, which will extend Metrorail service from East Falls Church to the airport and then Loudoun County by 2016. MWAA is also in charge of that program, and it has probably learned some valuable experience about building a major transit system from the construction of AeroTrain.
Image above: Dulles Airport AeroTrain Station, from Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority
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Upcoming March
- ▶ Opening of Austin's Capital MetroRail System
April
- ▶ Opening of Edmonton's South LRT Extension
Fall
- ▶ Opening of Montréal's Train de L'Est CR
December
- ▶ Opening of Dallas' Green Line Phase II
- ▶ Opening of Denton County's A-Train
- ▶ Opening of Los Angeles' Expo Line Phase I
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Yonah Freemark | 
February 8th, 2010 | 
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