Portland Studies Streetcar Expansion Citywide
First phase of new routes would concentrate on improving downtown mobility; second phase would extend across the city.
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This week, Portland released its draft Streetcar System Concept Plan, which will be under public debate until mid-August; it attempts to define the city’s streetcar investments over the next fifty years (h/t Portland Transport). In all, the proposal argues for eleven new lines operating in downtown and near Gateway Transit Center for the project’s first phase, with a total 73 miles of streetcar investments in the long-term. Though the majority of these segments have yet to be funded, Portland’s proactive and unambiguously ambitious planning process suggests that it will be prepared to adapt to a less auto-dependent future.
The document was released a day after Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood came to the city to praise its transportation investments and the construction of the first American-made streetcar in 60 years by Oregon Iron Works. Mr. LaHood’s arrival coincided with the commencement of construction on the city’s Eastside Extension Project, which will connect the existing streetcar line with a 3.5-mile new corridor on the east side of the Willamette River.
As outlined by this document, the first “Concept” phase of Portland’s program for streetcar expansion will focus on downtown, from which 10 new routes will radiate; an eleventh route would loop around Gateway Transit Center, where Red, Blue, and Green line MAX light rail trains will intersect once the latter corridor opens in September. These specific routes were chosen after a rigorous effectiveness comparison among dozens of potential routes throughout the city. The city hopes to raise funds for each line and pursue land use planning objectives that will encourage increased density alongside streetcar stops.
Today’s streetcar loop runs 4.1 miles roughly north-south through downtown. Currently programed routes — established prior to the publication of the city’s Concept Plan — include the 3.5-mile Eastside Extension, a 6-mile corridor from downtown south to Lake Oswego, and a 1.3-mile connection between the South Waterfront and the eastside. The eight corridors newly introduced here would provide three new east-west corridors between downtown and the eastside, an extension of the Eastside route north on MLK Jr, and several new lines in the downtown core, in addition to the Gateway loop previously mentioned.
The second “Comprehensive” phase of the plan — shown in yellow on the map above — would extend streetcars across the city, and connect the Gateway loop to downtown.
Unlike MAX light rail, streetcar service is specifically designed to encourage dense infill growth in whole sections of the city, rather than just around stations. Similarly, while light rail is successful in moving long(er)-distance automobile commuters to transit, streetcars are meant to encourage auto-free living in walkable, livable neighborhoods. They’ve been especially successful thus far in encouraging density in areas served in downtown Portland today, so there’s no reason to suggest they wouldn’t be successful in doing the same elsewhere as the system expands.
Portland’s main objectives for MAX expansion have focused on extending radially from downtown to serve “suburban” commuters coming in to work downtown. Conversely, the first phase streetcar proposal, rightfully, focuses on attracting growth to inner city areas. The expansion of the streetcar system, in other words, is the first step towards expanding the city’s dense core, making more and more of the city livable. Using streetcars to fulfill commuting needs at the city-wide range — something that’s suggested by the planned corridors in the second phase — seems inappropriate for this mode choice. Rather, the dense network of lines suggested for the first phase, which will simplify movement to virtually anywhere in the dense downtown core via transit, should be the model for expansion. Extending transit routes out across the landscape makes more since for faster light rail.
Image above: Existing and potential streetcar routes, from City of Portland
9 comments 3 July 2009
U.S. DOT to Designate Las Vegas-Southern California as HSR Corridor
Announcement clears way for DesertXpress to receive stimulus funds.
The Las Vegas Sun reports that Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood will announce the official federal designation of a high-speed rail corridor between Las Vegas and Southern California today (via Streetsblog SF). The announcement, which will be made in Las Vegas, will feature California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and is the latest good news for the DesertXpress high-speed rail project, which would run between Victorville, California and the capital of gambling. As one of the country’s now eleven officially designated high-speed rail corridors, Las Vegas-bound trains will have a leg up in applying for federal stimulus and future dedicated high-speed rail funds.
This news comes roughly a month after Mr. Reid abandoned his support for the California-Nevada Interstate Maglev project, which would have connected Anaheim and Las Vegas in 80 minutes at speeds of up to 300 mph. Maglev technology is significantly more expensive to construct and far less proven than traditional electric, track-running high-speed rail. The project has been under study for decades and lacks adequate financing.
Mr. Reid, on the other, has reaffirmed his support for the DesertXpress program, which will be a privately-run operation using existing European high-speed technology to trace a path along I-15 between Victorville and Las Vegas. It will run up to 150 mph using electric catenaries and make the trip in 85 minutes. A 50-mile extension to Palmdale or Los Angeles — absolutely necessary if this project is to compete effectively with airline travel — is on the drawing boards. Though DesertXpress’ proponents have repeatedly argued that they’d be able to build their project with no taxpayer support, that prospect looks increasingly unlikely, and Mr. LaHood’s designation today is important if the federal government is going to chip in.
The major advantage of DesertXpress over the maglev project is the fact that it will be able to interface directly with California’s own high-speed project once they’re connected. That means that travelers will be able to move directly between San Francisco and Las Vegas, for instance, without changing trains. A maglev train, using proprietary technologies, would not offer that possibility.
Though this designation was expected, considering Mr. Reid’s adamant support of improved train service to his state, it in no way means that the project will get any funding, it simply means that it will now be judged on an even bar with other proposed systems.
10 comments 2 July 2009
Maryland Picks BRT for Corridor Cities Transitway
Citing financial limitations, planners reject light rail plans.
There’s been a bit of a blow-up in the Washington-area blogosphere in recent days over the decision by Montgomery County, Maryland planners to move forward with a bus rapid transit plan for the Corridor Cities Transitway, eliminating a light rail option. The line will run north of the Shady Grove Red Line Metro station to Germantown roughly along the I-270 corridor and cost $450 million to build, versus the $778 million a light rail system would have cost. Planners didn’t seem to mind simultaneously endorsing the $3.8 billion expansion of I-270 itself.
The decision to endorse a multi-billion dollar highway expansion even while rejecting a much less expensive light rail option is a huge slight to public transportation in Maryland. The planners who made this decision are indicating that encouraging auto-dependent sprawl is an acceptable use of transportation funds, but that providing high-quality transit alternatives should be left for another day — if ever. Greater Greater Washington and Beyond DC went into detail on these issues.
As Beyond DC points out rather nicely, there are other transit projects in Maryland more worthy of funding than the Corridor Cities route, including the Red Line in Baltimore and the Purple Line, which will ring the northern suburbs of D.C. (and which in fact will receive some state roads money to be built). If this were purely a matter of choosing how to use a limited amount of funds for transit, then Corridor Cities certainly shouldn’t come first and a BRT line there might be a logical choice. There are also other significant unplanned corridors that probably deserve more funding than Corridor Cities, including an expansion of the Purple Line route east to National Harbor and west to Tysons Corner, as well as Baltimore’s Green Line.
But part of Maryland’s problem is its assumption that highway and transit funds are separate things; the federal government does give a lot more money to “highways” than it does to “transit.” As a result, the state appears to have billions to spend on highways but only hundreds of millions for transit. In fact, however, the majority of highway funds are transferable to public transportation project using the flexibility built into the transportation law. If Maryland was willing to do so, it could commit those funds dedicated to highway expansion to transit and pay for the increasing costs necessary for light rail rather than bus rapid transit. If a light rail Corridor Cities couldn’t qualify for New Starts grants, it could still be funded through highway formula funds.
Even so, what is the value of the Corridor Cities line? The project isn’t particularly well-designed, not hitting several of major town centers on its way through the Washington suburbs. More importantly, though, is the fact that constructing the line — whether light rail or BRT — would stimulate much of the same sprawl that an expansion of I-270 will induce. Shady Grove is already a thirty-minute trip from downtown D.C.; should we be encouraging people to live even further from the employment center, even if they use transit to commute? Is a transit-oriented lifestyle ever possible in a place dozens of miles from the regional core? Or does the fact that the cities affected by the Corridor Cities line are already partially built mean that “it’s too late,” and that we need to provide transit to areas that need it?
I don’t have the answers to these questions, but it’s undoubtedly true that Maryland’s choice to spend the majority of its transportation dollars on I-270 expansion (and on the ICC) will only exasperate existing congestion and threaten the environment. Choices like these will never produce the kind of dense, mixed-use, and transit-oriented society we should be envisioning for our future.
Image above: Corridor Cities route, from Maryland DOT
4 comments 2 July 2009
Canada’s Waterloo Region Plans for Light Rail by 2014
Region would be smallest in North America to build a modern electric light rail system.
After a commitment by the Regional Council, Canada’s Waterloo Region will begin the planning and construction of a new light rail line connecting two of the area’s major cities, Waterloo and Kitchener. The project will be staged in association with a new bus rapid transit line heading south to Cambridge. The region, with a population of less than 500,000, will become North America’s smallest metropolitan area to benefit from a modern electric light rail system and leads the way for smaller municipalities around the continent to consider investments in dramatically improved public transportation.
The Waterloo Region is inland, southwest of Toronto. It has become one of Canada’s fastest-growing metro areas, and is expected to expand to 725,000 citizens over the next 25 years. Kitchener, the region’s largest city, has a population of 200,000. In order to handle the additional people, the region has developed a land use plan that will concentrate development along the area’s central corridor, which mostly follows King Street through downtown Waterloo and Kitchener. The region plans to use land protection measures to prevent much of the sprawl that affects most growing regions.
The light rail system, which was approved for regional funding last week, will roughly follow King Street in its central segment, though it will diverge from that route in the north, where it will terminate at Conestoga Mall, and in the south, where it will end at Fairview Park Mall. The construction of this initial corridor, to begin in 2012 and open by 2014, will cost a total of C$790 million. Funds are likely to come from regional, provincial, and federal governments; Ottawa pledged C$160 million for project last week, and it is expected to offer more as the project advances.
Cambridge, which sits at the southeastern corner of the region and has a population of 120,000, will not get light rail as part of this project. Instead, a bus rapid transit line will connect the Fairview Park Mall light rail station to the Ainslie Street Terminal in downtown. The BRT offering will be operating by 2011.
Cambridge’s mayor is frustrated that a light rail connection to his city won’t be included in the first phase, as he rightfully sees it as a more permanent and substantial investment than a good bus line. But the rail extension, which is planned for eventual completion, would add another C$583 million to the project, a sum that the region claims it simply won’t be able to find. The success of the first link would inspire the completion of this extension; a less promising start for rail service in the region would not bode well for Cambridge’s transit hopes.
Most intriguing about Waterloo Region’s project is the fact that it’s occurring at all. Edmonton is currently the smallest Canadian metro area with modern, electric light rail, and it has more than one million inhabitants; in the U.S., that honor goes to Salt Lake, which has 1.1 million citizens. North American cities, distinguished from their generally smaller European counterparts by their sprawling nature, must be sufficiently sized to support a modern transit system, and Waterloo is certainly taking a risk in investing so much in the project. That said, the region’s affiliated land use plan — if implemented correctly — could ensure that the light rail system plays a prominent role for the area’s newest citizens, and that future development is dense enough to support the transit links. Strong ridership on this line may imply that small regions in the U.S. and Canada are able to support better transit than currently assumed.
Image above: Waterloo light rail plans, from Region of Waterloo
9 comments 2 July 2009
France Approves Route for Marseille-Nice TGV
Connection, to be built by 2025, will reduce Paris-Nice travel times from 5h25 to 3h50.
After years of controversy, the French government announced yesterday that it would fund a new TGV route from Marseille to Nice along the country’s Côte d’Azur. The project, which will cost upwards of €15 billion to build, will provide significant travel time savings along the Mediterranean coast and dramatically improve connections between Paris and Nice. The statement by Jean-Louis Borloo, Minister of Ecology, sets the stage for a decade-long engineering and construction program.
This new line will be the most costly high-speed rail line yet built by the French government, a result of its planned numerous tunnels and bridges. The single most expensive element of the program will be a train tunnel under Marseille, where TGV trains from Paris currently terminate at the stub-end St. Charles station. The country’s mountainous coastline similarly poses a number of challenges to the project’s completion.
The brand-new route is necessary because the existing line, which connects France’s third, sixth, and tenth largest metro regions — Marseille, Nice, and Toulon, respectively — is saturated and sees traffic equivalent to that in the Ile-de-France capital region. As a result, the government considered a number of alternative routings for the line, including several routes that would have bypassed both Marseille and Toulon. Those inland corridors would have been far cheaper to build, but would have disrupted the landscape made famous by Cézanne’s late 19th-century paintings and were subject to strong local opposition.
The choice of a coastal route has a number of advantages, though it will lengthen Paris-Nice trips from a 3h40 travel time for the inland route to a modestly slower 3h50. On the other hand, the route improves accessibility for Marseille and Toulon, both of which would have been sidelined had the other route been picked. Nice and Marseille will now be within one hour of one another, versus 2h25 today. This route choice also will provide better connections between Marseille and Italy when improvements are eventually made on the line between Nice and Genoa.
One likely result of the line’s completion will be a diminution of traffic at the Nice Airport, which is currently the country’s third largest after a pair in Paris. Lyon and Marseille, both connected to the high-speed network, see a third less traffic at their respective airports even though their metropolitan areas are each almost twice as large as that of Nice. Nice’s airport will probably see about half its routes eliminated.
This news comes just after the French government approved plans for a new high-speed route between Paris and Le Havre along the coast in northwestern France. That new corridor, to cost €4 billion, will connect the capital to the coast in 1h15 — compared to two hours today — and be completed by 2020. Interestingly, a section of this line will also serve as a reliever for Paris-London Eurostar trains, which will branch off the route and head towards the Eurotunnel at Calais. Eurostar trains are currently confined to the at-capacity Paris-Lille TGV line. In time, that connection will be reserved for TGV and Thalys trains routed towards Belguim.
Image above: Route of new train connection, from France Info.
4 comments 1 July 2009
Major Study Advocates 220 Mph Operation on Chicago-St. Louis Run
Midwest High Speed Rail Association envisions a less than two-hour express trip between the cities.
Today, the Midwest High Speed Rail Association released a major report studying 220 mph train service between Chicago and St. Louis. Though the project has yet to be endorsed by any government officials, the Association’s study will stimulate further discussion about the level of investment necessary for the link between the two cities. More importantly, the study’s conclusions indicate that Illinois’ existing plans for 110 mph, four-hour service between the metro regions are out of date and under-scaled to meet travel needs in the Midwest.
The study, completed by consultant Tran Systems, was commissioned by the Association to determine costs and other elements of a potential very-fast service across the state of Illinois. The main challenge of the report was to compare the existing Amtrak corridor, which runs almost directly from Chicago to St. Louis, via Springfield, with another corridor, partially unused, which runs via Champaign and Decatur before continuing on. The latter route was found to be acceptable for a 220 mph operating speed, largely because it is quite straight throughout. The Amtrak route is constrained by numerous curves which would slow down trains considerably.
Excitingly, the study argues that trains could run express between the major cities, with stops in Champaign and Springfield, in 1h52; with more stops in Kankakee, Decatur, and Metro East, trains could complete the journey in 2h04. The study advocates hourly trips. These journey times compare favorably with operations on the very similar Paris-Lyon TGV corridor in France. According to the report, the line could be rebuilt with electric catenary for $11.5 billion in 2012 dollars, an estimate that does not include rolling stock or maintenance facilities. The study argues that the state could prevent a sudden loss of treasury by building the line in seven phases.
The short report is worth a glance-through; though it isn’t particularly detailed, it is the first step towards transforming ideas for this Illinois route from mediocrity to world-class status.
The cost of implementation for this project would be relatively minimal considering how effectively it would likely contest air and road travel along the corridor. This route is currently served by at least 41 daily round trips on a number of airlines, making it one of the U.S.’s major air links and one that would be prime territory for rail market share takeover considering the less than two hour trip made possible by high-speed trains. The route could also serve as the central corridor of a line eventually stretching west to Kansas City and south to Dallas; the connection at Chicago would similarly provide new routes to Minneapolis, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis.
It’s two bad that this report was commissioned, then, by the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, not the Illinois Department of Transportation. We need to push this route as one of America’s major transportation corridors, but few at the state or national levels are willing to take the major political step necessary to begin pushing for a financial commitment similar to California’s $10 billion high-speed rail bond approved last November. Illinois needs a push now to make this study more than simply a series of hypotheticals.
Image above: Potential routes for Express HSR service, from Midwest HSR Association
26 comments 30 June 2009
Paris Shows How to Automate a Subway
Conversion of Line 1 to automatic operation will occur without shutting down service.
Paris’ Métro Line 1 carries 725,000 passengers a day and has been the city’s most heavily trafficked line since it opened in 1900. Yet continual ridership increases have made congestion a mounting problem, so the city is working on automating the line to augment capacity. Some trains will run without drivers beginning next year, and full conversion will be complete in 2012. The city’s process to convert the line provides an example to other cities with old systems needing to substantially improve operations.
The conversion process began in 2007 with the commencement of work to redo platforms to assure that trains line up correctly. Last March, Bérault station was equipped with automatic platform doors six feet tall that open and close with the arrival and departure of trainsets. These doors, which align with train doors, are standard on new automatic subways around the world, and ensure that passengers make it into the trains; trains cannot depart unless both vehicle and platform doors are entirely closed. The lack of conductor means that the system must be designed to be safe and almost fail-proof.
By summer of next year, all stations on the line will be equipped with the doors; the transit authority installs two doors a night on each platform without disrupting service whatsoever. The use of these platform walls has a number of benefits: reduced delays, far less trash on the tracks, and suicide prevention.
New trains similar to those used on the decade-old automated Line 14 will be brought into operation beginning at the end of next year and slowly replace the existing trainsets, which will be moved to other lines in the system. This means that Line 1 will have both automatic and driver-operated trains operating simultaneously for a year and a half. The primary advantage of the decision to install trains gradually is that it means the system never has to be shut down and it provides a testing period during which problems with the automated system can be compensated by replacing automatic train service with vehicles operated by drivers.
Paris’ investment in a faster, more reliable Line 1 is part of its overall renewal operation, which has been underway for the past ten years. The city has renovated virtually all of its stations since 1999 and is in the process of replacing the majority of its train fleet. The city’s confidence in an automated train system has been confirmed by the success of Line 14, which has been highly popular and suffered few technical difficulties since it opened in 1998. The city’s planned radial circumferential rapid transit line will be completely automated when it opens in 2020.
The French city’s experience demonstrates that a conversion process doesn’t have to be intrusive. New York’s attempt at automating its L Train, a process that began in 1997, has been plagued by repeated delays, and the system still doesn’t function properly.
The key to success on Line 1 in Paris is its staging. The computer-operated control system necessary for trains to move without drivers was installed earlier in the decade. Stations are being renewed one-by-one, and will include necessary devices to improve automation, including the platform doors which New York won’t have. Finally, driverless trains are being incorporated into the system one by one over a relatively long period, meaning that problems can be squeezed out over time. Managers of other older systems should attempt to emulate Paris.
12 comments 29 June 2009
Toronto Secures Streetcar Contract — After Exaggerated Fight With Ottawa
New Bombardier trains will be delivered beginning in 2012.
At an emergency meeting last week, Toronto’s city council approved a major new financial commitment to an April contract designed to replace the city’s fleet of aging streetcars. The deal, which comes after the federal government announced that it wouldn’t help pay for the vehicles, requires Toronto to delay several planned capital improvements.
Unlike the United States, which has standard formulas established by the FTA to ensure transit systems nationwide adequate funds for capital maintenance and replacement, Canada’s municipalities must negotiate with Ottawa whenever they need major aid to improve public transportation. Toronto has recently benefited from a major infusion of national and province-level funds for new light rail and subway lines. These projects will make the city one of the most transit-oriented in North America.
But when Toronto Mayor David Miller agreed in April to a C$1.2 billion deal with Bombardier to buy 200 new streetcars, he had no such assurance from the federal government, even though he assured the city that Ottawa would be willing to commit to a third of the cost. Ontario Province is providing one third of the cost.
When applying for Canada’s national stimulus funds, Mr. Miller asked for C$416 million for the vehicles — and nothing else. The problem is that the stimulus was designed for projects that will be largely completed by 2011; the streetcars are scheduled for staged delivery between 2012 and 2018. Mr. Miller hoped that intense dislike of the ruling conservatives in Toronto, the nation’s largest city, would force Premier Stephen Harper to make a concession. Mr. Harper didn’t bite, to the dismay of New Democrat (left) MPs in the Canadian parliament. On the other hand, the national government did say C$300 million of aid to projects such as sidewalk construction would likely be forthcoming.
Mr. Miller’s attempt to use the stimulus for streetcar funds clearly wasn’t reasonable, and he probably should have waited for Mr. Harper to simply agree to fund the vehicles from a general source, something that would have likely occurred considering the government’s recent attempts to placate Toronto by throwing transit money at the city at high speeds. Now the city council has reluctantly approved doubling the city’s previous commitment to the vehicle replacement by a vote of 36 to 6. Some other major transit projects in the city will now be delayed, including the replacement of several hundred buses.
The failure to get federal government stimulus funds for the streetcars could be framed as a loss for Mr. Miller, but it further isolates Ottawa’s ruling conservatives from Toronto, whose greater metro area represents 25% of the nation’s population. Mr. Harper’s recent efforts in support of new transit lines in the city now seem less prominent, as the conservatives have once again been framed as the enemy in the fight for a better commute.
The New Democrats, who Mr. Miller supports, can claim that they did what they had to do to get the new trains, even though the municipal opposition claims that Mr. Miller’s April decision to order the streetcars was an attempt to buy something without the money to back it up. To many, the mayor will look like a savior, and when the trains start arriving in 2012, the left will be thanked, not the conservatives. In the long-run, the transit-supportive left will do better among the Toronto electorate and conservatives will have to attempt to buy their votes once again with more funds for public transportation.
From the U.S. perspective, the conflict between Toronto and Ottawa seems hard to believe because American mayors rarely demand funds directly from the federal government as a sort of political punishment; conflicts generally arise in the Congress, where senators and representatives fight over earmarks and formula provisions. In Canada, though, full-bore conflict between competing political ideologies at several levels of the federal system has become an acceptable way to promote and fund better mass transit. Perhaps American mayors should attempt to emulate this game — carefully.
5 comments 29 June 2009
Senator Boxer is Right: There is No Consensus in Congress on Funding
An 18-month extension on the transportation bill looks like the only solution for now.
Today at a hearing on the reauthorization of the transportation bill, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) made it quite clear that Congressman James Oberstar’s (D-MN) proposed legislation won’t make it through the Senate over the next few months. Ms. Boxer’s testimony indicated that she’d push for a no-changes “clean” extension of SAFETEA-LU over the next 18 months, as proposed by Secretary of Transportation of Ray LaHood. More serious reforms will have to wait. This means fewer than hoped for funds for transit and high-speed rail, as well as no substantive improvements in the manner in which federal dollars are distributed.
Congress’ problems are two fold: it has too many other projects on the near horizon and it has no consensus, even along partisan lines, on how to fund a major expansion in transportation funding. Today’s fuel tax, which provides the primary source of revenue for the Trust Fund, is out of cash and cannot fund the nation’s transportation needs alone. A relatively simple extension of SAFETEA-LU, bolstered by an infusion of general fund dollars into the Highway Trust Fund, is the easiest answer.
Though Democrats control large majorities in both the House and Senate, there is enough disagreement among their members to make the easy passage of either a health or climate change bill impossible. Those two pieces of legislation will be on the front lines for the next few months and will require serious negotiations between senators on both sides of the aisle and the White House. Ms. Boxer claimed that her advocacy of an 18-month extension has nothing to do with her party’s major policy objectives, but that statement seems disingenuous. Any major changes to transportation funding at the federal level will require weeks of debate, but there’s no time for that this summer.
More importantly, no one in Congress is being frank about raising revenues to support transportation. Mr. Oberstar’s bill left the funding sections blank, and Mr. LaHood has been openly lobbying against any increase in the gas tax. Ms. Boxer’s comments today reaffirmed her opposition to the same and expressed her unwillingness to support a VMT system, which she called “too intrusive.” No one on the invited panel at the hearing provided serious alternatives to those two funding sources, nor did any senator, though everyone seems convinced that a major program expansion is necessary. Funds from the climate change bill, which might incorporate a carbon cap-and-trade system, may come into play, but those dollars are far off and uncommitted for now.
Mr. Oberstar has been adamant in his desire to push forward the next transportation bill now, but this hearing made clear that the Senate is not going to play along. Ms. Boxer is chair of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, and her position will effectively block Mr. Oberstar’s bill even if that legislation passes in the House. Without the support of the White House, Mr. Oberstar is loosing ground. His inability to pinpoint a stable funding source is similarly problematic.
What hasn’t been suggested, but that which I will continue to bring up, is a simple abandonment of the idea that transportation must be sponsored by its “users.” We are all beneficiaries of a strong transportation network, and filling the Trust Fund mostly with general fund sources is a viable and long-term solution that would require none of the shenanigans that currently deteriorate efforts to raise the gas tax or impose a VMT. Whether now or in 18 months, we’re going to need something better than today’s non-proposals from Ms. Boxer.
13 comments 25 June 2009
L.A. Breaks Ground on Orange Line Extension
Busway will head up Canoga Ave from current western terminus.
Los Angeles’ Orange Line busway will be extended north to Chatsworth by 2012, providing commuters further enhancements to an already popular transit alternative in the San Fernando Valley. The $215 million project will extend the bus rapid transit service from Canoga, near Warner Center, to a Metrolink commuter rail station four miles north in Chatsworth. At the other end of the existing line is the North Hollywood Metro station, where people can ride quickly downtown.
Ground breaking on the extension was held yesterday. The project will also include adjacent bike and pedestrian paths that will improve circulation for people not driving in this distinctively automobile-oriented section of the city.
The line will be built to standards that will allow future conversion to light rail operation if necessary. That’s good news because the Orange Line is already at capacity, having vastly overperformed initial ridership estimates; the road that carries the buses is worn out from overuse and buses are filled to a breaking point at rush hour. But the original 14-mile section of the line cost $324 million to build, significantly less than an equivalent rail line would have required.
The Canoga Extension is the first of many projects to be funded by the Measure R, which is a half-cent sales tax imposed on Los Angeles County citizens after the passage of a referendum last November. In addition to this corridor, additional bus-only lanes may be constructed along Reseda, Sepulveda, and Oxnard Avenues in San Fernando Valley, creating a veritable bus rapid transit network not found in any other American city. Those corridors have yet to be funded, however.
Image above: map of Orange Line with extension, from Metro
13 comments 25 June 2009
