How Does Atlanta Compare on Public Transportation Use

Thought of a good idea for something to look up and write about today: how does Atlanta compare to other urban areas in terms of usage of public transportation and various other methods of commuting to work.

I am using urban areas (from the 2000 Census) because urban areas were defined by the Census Bureau in a fairly technical way.

Their reason for defining these urban areas were to avoid the imprecisions of using legally defined places in determining how many people live in an urban area. Using city limits obviously does not work (this makes, for instance, El Paso, Omaha, Fresno and Tucson seem larger than Miami).

The idea of metropolitan areas, which were created at least 60 years to try to address this problem, are better, but the use of legally defined places (counties) means that some rural areas in counties that qualify for being part of the metro area get counted.

The exact criteria used by the Census Bureau can be found in the Federal Register from March 15, 2002 and is quite technical and detailed (they tweaked things when empirical tests did not "look right"), but is probably about as good as it could be.

I am using data from the American Community Survey 2006-2008 3 year estimates (these are the most recent data available, and the 3 year combined estimates greatly reduce the error caused by low sample sizes).

Anyway, here is how Atlanta ranks among the 25 largest urban areas in the United States in terms of the transportation they use to get to work (using that form of transportation that takes them the longest distance):

Note that other means is anything not listed elsewhere on the table, but includes bicycles, motorcycles, taxicabs and everything that isn't in another category

Of the 25 urban areas, Atlanta ranks 10th in terms of percentage of workers who get to work by driving their car by themselves (76.1%). This, of course, is the least efficient and overall most expensive way to get to work, but it is unfortunately often most convenient. Those urban areas even worse in this category (i.e. a larger percentage get to work by driving their car by themselves) are, in order, Detroit (84.4%), St. Louis (81.8%), Cleveland (81.7%), Tampa (80.4%), Dallas-Fort Worth (79.6%), Miami (78.6%), San Jose (78.0%), Houston (77.5%) and Minneapolis-St. Paul (77.5%).

Atlanta's urban area ranked 15th in percentage using public transit (4.28%), ahead of Miami, San Jose, San Diego, St. Louis, Houston, Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth, Riverside-San Bernardino, Detroit and Tampa.

Atlanta's worst categories are percentage of people walking to work (1.52%), which places it 24th, ahead of only Dallas-Fort Worth (1.36%), and percentage of people who bicycle to work (this is my category, incidentally), where it places dead last (.14%), just behind Dallas-Fort Worth (.15%), meaning it also places 24th in percentage of people getting to work on their own personal power (1.66%), one of just 5 of the top 25 urban areas where less than 2% of people get to work on their own power, along with Dallas (1.52%), Detroit (1.79%), Houston (1.87%) and St. Louis (1.84%).

In only 8 of the top 25 urban areas do more than 4% get to work on their own power; Boston (5.85%), New York (6.75%), Philadelphia (4.43%), Pittsburgh (4.46%), Portland (5.18%), San Francisco-Oakland (6.88%), Seattle (4.49%) and Washington (4.04%).

With the exception of Pittsburgh, these are also the top 8 urban areas in terms of least percentage of people driving to work alone. Chicago (probably due to the freezing winters) has only 3.64% of people getting to work on their own power, but their high use of transit ranks them 6th in this category; Pittsburgh's relatively lower rankings in carpooling (15th), public transit (9th), and working at home (24th) push it to 12th in least driving alone, behind the aforementioned 8, Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Phoenix (with Phoenix's rate due to a rather high rate of carpooling)

Sound Transit Expansion Plan Polling Well

The Sound Transit District, serving the Seattle metropolitan area, has a proposition on the ballot to increase taxes to fund expansions of mass transit.

SurveyUSA has polled the measure, and things look promising:

65% lean toward yes while only 20% lean toward no.

It receives nearly unanimous support from young people who will be around to experience the benefits: 77 lean yes, 9 lean no, and Democrats, who believe in investing in our country for the future (81 lean yes, 9 lean no): however, even among Republicans, 45% lean yes, 42% lean no, and conservatives just barely oppose it, with 42% leaning yes and 44% leaning no.

Us young people realize that we may never get a full solution for liquid fuels, and we believe in livability.

Should it pass, it will help Seattle (which has always had a very good bus system back from when my dad lived there as a grad student at the University of Washington in the 1970's) catch up with fellow Western cities like Salt Lake City, Denver and the gold standard of light rail, Portland.

Los Angeles County has a ballot measure to expand its own transit system, still waitin on Schwarzenegger's signature (because for some reason the whole state has to approve the county measure (the state, of course, also has its high-speed rail bonding measure on the ballot).

And of course, Honolulu has a smart measure to put grade-separated commuter rail along the unbelievably congested Highway 1; perfect place for a rail line if there ever was one.

Back on Track in Los Angeles

Good news. The Los Angeles County Supervisors have had a change of heart. And it's conservative Republican Don Knabe, not short-sighted & petty Democratic Supervisor of Eastern LA County Gloria Molina, who blocked the measure the first time.

Don Knabe's office:

Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe has announced that at the next meeting of the Board of Supervisors, he will enter a motion to reconsider the Board’s previous vote on the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s (MTA) sales tax measure. Supervisor Knabe has also decided that at the time of the reconsideration he will change his vote from ‘no’ to ‘yes.’

Why, you might ask, did Supervisor Knabe have this change of heart. Was it because he realized that a far more solid rail transit system is critical for the Los Angeles area's future? Of course not. Here's the real reason:

This morning, the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk informed the Board of Supervisors that the costs of a concurrent election, with the MTA sales tax appearing as a totally separate ballot in the November election, would cost taxpayers an additional $10.3 million.

The MTA had already justifiably planned to sue to get the measure on the ballot. And being a 'fiscal conservative,' Don Knabe just couldn't bear that.

Although I am against the sales tax plan, I cannot in good conscience burden County residents with over $10 million in higher election costs. The taxpayers will have to pay for these costs, and that is something I will not allow to happen. Additionally, the separate ballots, voter guides, and other resources needed to conduct a separate election on the same day as the Presidential Election could cause unnecessary confusion and challenges for voters. This upcoming election is the most important in many years, and voters deserve better than a potential disaster at their polling place.

Still, Supervisor Knabe deserves plaudits for allowing LA County to avoid the nonsensical additional expenses.

Of course, the supervisors approving putting it on the ballot is not enough, not by California's silly, silly standards. See, even though the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority covers LA County, and only LA County, and the proposed sales tax would affect only LA County, the entire state legislature in addition to the Board of Supervisors must approve the sales tax increase before it can even go on the ballot. And Assemblyman Mike Feuer(D-LA)'s not only still has to pass the Senate, it faces Governor Schwarzenegger's threat of blanket vetoes till the budget passes.

And after all that, the voters still have to approve it. Still, it's at least back on track.

Note to Skip Cramer, Rail Spurs Density

From Jacksonville, FL; a terribly, terribly sprawled city that probably makes Atlanta look good in comparison.

Executive Director Skip Cramer says one thing is clear; more roads will not be a major part of the solution.

"The key is we have got to provide people with easy access to choices other than their automobiles," Cramer said.

He says land management, meaning getting people to live more closely together, will makes trains, busses, trolleys and street cars more feasible.

"That we look for higher density development in Jacksonville so that we can support things like light rail, and support these extended rapid bus transit lanes," Cramer added.

Once there's a rail line in place (or better yet, several), density will start happening because it's livable and attractive.

Senate Recommendations For Rail Transit Spending in FY 2009 Appropriations Bill

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and other Related Agencies released its marked-up fiscal year 2009 appropriations bill yesterday, and it is now available online.

While housing is definitely important in these times of foreclosures (granted, many of those being foreclosed on have to take some blame for buying houses beyond their means; at the same time, the real estate industry wasn't offering anything else other than the insane sprawling large subdivisions, and local governments have been completely failing to stop and even encouraging such housing), and urban development is very, very crucial, I'm going to focus mainly on the public transportation parts of the bill.

Keep in mind that the subcommittee has Senators from the following 21 states: Alabama (Shelby), Alaska (Stevens), California (Feinstein), Colorado (Allard), Illinois (Durbin), Iowa (Harkin), Kansas (Brownback), Maryland (Mikulski), Missouri (Bond), New Jersey (Lautenberg), New Mexico (Domenici), North Dakota (Dorgan), Pensylvania (Specter), South Dakota (Johnson), Tennessee (Alexander), Texas (Hutchison), Utah (Hatch), Vermont (Leahy), Washington (Murray), West Virginia (Byrd), and Wisconsin (Kohl).

While they are unfortunately still spending what I think is too much money on so-called "bus rapid transit", and far, far too little on metro-area rail transit (and, of course, even more so when it comes to intercity rail) there are still significant spending recommendations for rail. Of the nearly 1.75 billion dollars recommended, over 1.6 billion is for some sort of rail improvement

Here's a look by Metropolitan area:

Minneapolis-St. Paul

• $20,000,000 for the Central Corridor Light Rail Transit Project, which will be running between downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis past the University of Minnesota


• $71,166,060 for the Northstar Corridor Rail Project, a commuter rail line from St. Cloud to Minneapolis

Denver

• $1,031,210 for futher improvements to the Southeast Light Rail Corridor (I believe to Lone Tree, Colorado)


• $70,000,000 for the West Corridor Light Rail to Jefferson County, Colorado in the Denver suburbs

Phoenix

• $91,800,000 for the finishing touches for the starter line for the Valley Metro; Phoenix is, along with the auto-based (and somewhat responsible for our situation) Detroit and sprawled out the wazoo Orlando, the only metro areas of over 2,000,000 people in the U.S. without a currently active rail system of some kind [though the TECO line Streetcar in Tampa barely, barely counts]

Washington, DC

• $34,700,000 for the Largo Metrorail Extension (I'm not exactly sure what this is for, but I'm guessing capacity extensions; they are desperately needed, as the system is hitting capacity in places; July 11, 2008 beat out the record set by Ronald Reagan's laying in the rotunda [so ironic given how anti-sustainability the man was])


• $30,000,000 for the Dulles Corridor Rail Project, VA (Silver Line); one of a very few major airports in the Northeast lacking a high-speed transit extension [Logan in Boston has the Silver Line, which is Bus Rapid Transit, and LaGuardia oddly has no rail link; I believe every other airport servicing the Northeast corridor does, except maybe one in Providence or Southern Connecticut]


• $5,000,000 for VRE Rolling Stock (New Trains)


• $2,000,000 for improvements to the highly congested Rosslyn Metro Station (where the orange and blue lines branch out on the East side; it's the next stop Virginia-wards from GWU's Foggy Bottom stop


• $15,000,000 for MARC Commuter Rail Improvements and Rolling Stock (New Trains and really desperately needed capacity increases; demand is now exceeding capacity for rush hour)

Charlotte:
$18,000,000 for engineering the Northeast Extension to Charlotte's successful recently opened Blue Line in its significant planned rail system
Dallas
$87,974,716 for Dallas Area Rapid Transit Northwest/Southeast Light Rail MOS, building the Orange and Green line extensions to the Dallas light rail system, doubling its length and eventually servicing both Love Field and DFW International
Houston
$10,000,000 for further planning on its hopefully-to-happen 5 line light rail system
Honolulu
$20,000,000 for work on its "High-Capacity Transit Corridor Project". There is a huge fight over this going on in Hawai'i. A Paultard scumbag from Texas (ha, I was right, she literally is a Paultard; gave him $1,000) by the name of Jamie Story is heading an astroturf operation with a few misguided locals like Eric Ryan, who founded "Stop Rail Now", to stop what is an unbelievably sensible plan.

Honolulu

A) Has the 4th highest trips/person/year taken on transit of any urbanized area in the country, coming in behind only the extremely heavily rail infrastucture, developed Washington, DC; San Francisco/Oakland, and of course the New York City metro area; it beats out places like Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston,
B) Part of the reason is that Honolulu Has to ship in diesel/gasoline/any liquid fuels at significant expense to power itself and its cars and as such, has generally had the highest gasoline prices in the nation.
C) Due to the islands being very sunny and tropical, and of course, being volcanic, and having a lot of windy areas off the islands, the Hawaiian islands can probably power themselves solely with geothermal and solar and wind. But that does no good without an electrified transportation system.

New York

• $197,370,000 to build the East Side Access to allow the Long Island Railroad to come into Grand Central Station, making commutes far easier for many Long Islanders


• $1,103,860 for the highly successful (both in ridership and especially in redevelopment; anyone who'd been to the West Side of Hoboken 10 years ago but came back today will agree


• $249,927,000 for the Second Avenue subway-studies began when my late grandfather was living there as a 2-year old in 1919. Construction began 36 years ago and was halted; it will reduce congestion and I believe put all of Manhattan Island within half a mile of a subway stop


• $5,000,000 for studying a Stamford Urban Transitway, a proposed light rail system for Stamford


• $75,000,000 for moving towards construction of a Midtown tunnel under the Hudson to relieve capacity strains on the Northeast Corridor and the PATH and also increase access

Hampton Roads
$57,055,734 to continue building the first link in its light rail system
Portland

• $50,000,000 for the second streetcar loop for Portland


• $81,600,000 for building the South Corridor Light Rail line (heading down from the Portland Mall)

Boston/Providence

• $27,000,000 to increase speed and capacity on the Fitchburg Commuter Rail Line


• $1,345,500 for planning for the South County Commuter Rail, Wickford Junction Station, RI from Boston to Providence

Chicago

• $29,474,404 for rebuilding infrastructure and increasing capacity on the 100-year old Brown Line


• $8,000,000 for continued studying to build a much-needed Circle Line to allow travel between lines without having to go through the Loop


• $6,607,000 for continued studies to move forward on significant planned expansions of the METRA commuter rail service

Seattle

• $28,846,735 to finish the initial Central Link for Seattle's planned light rail system (it ran into some problems after voters rejected financing the new plans last November, but most of the system will likely still be built, if more slowly)


• $100,000,000 to start building the light rail link to the University of Washington [my dad got around Seattle as a grad student generally without a car, either by bike or by bus, but this'll make a car even less necessary, and students always use rail].

Sacramento
$7,000,000 to continue studying a new corridor (hopefully for rail) south of Sacramento
Miami
$20,000,000 for expansions of the Orange Line of the Miami-Dade metrorail
San Diego
$21,650,000 for building the mid-city rapid extension to the San Diego Trolley
San Francisco
$8,000,000 for continuing to move forward on the Third Street Light Rail/Subway Project
Los Angeles

• $50,000,000 for building the Perris Valley Extension to Metrolink


• $74,600,000 for building the East Extension to the Gold Line

Salt Lake City

• $10,000,000 for engineering/studying the Mid Jordan light rail extension


• $81,600,000 for final finishes to the first part of the Commuter Rail System

Likely Staten Island Congressman Has Rail as Top Priority

Mike McMahon(D-Staten Island), is, thanks to Vito Fossella's drunken revelations and a terrible climate for Republicans, likely to be the new Congressman from New York's 13th district, which takes in all of Staten Island, and Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights and Gravesend Bay in Brooklyn. Cook Political Report shifted it to "Lean Democrat" on July 3rd, which it is extremely hesitant to do for seats currently held by Republicans.

McMahon, fortunately, is highly invested in getting the rail lines on the North and West Shores built.

For his part, City Councilman Michael McMahon, (D-North Shore), a congressional candidate, has pledged to make solving Staten Island's transportation woes his first priority if elected. "It's not only a question of transportation, it's an incredible economic shot in the arm for both the North Shore and West Shore," McMahon said. The borough's Republican party has yet to nominate a candidate.

The North Shore rail line "would run along the North Shore from St. George to Mariners Harbor/Arlington"

While the West Shore line hasn't been figured out yet, one idea is that it would run "partially along the West Shore Expressway median, reaching the Pleasant Plains park-and-ride (near the Pleasant Plains Staten Island Railway station) on the southern end, and the Bayonne Bridge on the northern end." It would then cross the Bayonne Bridge to theoretically connect up with the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail line (which, by the way, is superb, and is spurring fast redevelopment in Hudson County). The Bayonne Bridge, by the way, was built from 1928-1931 with extra space in which to install rail lines, but it never ever got them.

Among other things, these two lines would greatly shorten the time necessary for Staten Islanders to get to work. The Census Bureau estimates the median commute for a Staten Islander is 43.9 minutes, possibly the longest for any area they calculate (though Brooklyn and Queens aren't much better, at least their commutes are on the subway where they don't have to sit on the road in traffic).

Senator Obama, Transit Is Not Just Good for Congestion and the Environment

While I'm thrilled that Senator Obama gets that we need a massive investment in infrastructure ($60 billion is what he's stated), with the caveat that we in particular need to focus on expansions in electrified rail systems.

Washington DC and Portland are both planning significant expansions of their already pretty good rail transit systems

Houston, Dallas, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Portland, Salt Lake City, Baltimore, Miami, Atlanta, Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, Little Rock, Tampa, Charlotte, Pittsburgh and Sacramento are planning significant extensions of their currently meager rail transit systems.

Phoenix, Austin and Hampton Roads are planning extensions for their under-construction rail transit systems.

Kansas City, Orlando, Birmingham, Jacksonville, Milwaukee, Honolulu, Indianapolis, Madison, Tucson, Lancaster(Pennsylvania), Columbus, Cincinnati, Grand Rapids, Santa Ana are planning to try to get something started.

So, at any rate, it's great that Obama is saying:

The federal government has to partner with the local community to rebuild the transportation infrastructure.

and

The Metro is one the best transit systems in the country and people would use more stops if they were available. I want a $60 billion reinvestment in our basic infrastructure. I want to rework the electric grid. I want to expand the reach of broad band so that more people have access to high speed internet.

However, this statement is a very tone-deaf reason to be for public transit in this day and age:

I am a strong believer in public transit. It cuts down on pollution and congestion.

Senator, the following semi- significant-sized urbanized areas had double-digit ridership increases for the 1st Quarter of 2008 compared to the 1st Quarter of 2007:

Flagstaff, AZ (bus): 24.79%
Phoenix, AZ (bus): 12.84%
Tucson, AZ (bus): 10.07%
Elk Grove, CA (bus): 20.74%
Norwalk, CA (bus): 22.60%
San Fracisco/Oakland, CA (commuter rail): 15.81%
Redondo Beach, CA (bus): 15.13%
San Francisco, CA (light rail): 12.20%
Santa Clarita, CA (bus): 13.49%
Stockton, CA (commuter rail): 13.86%
Stockton, CA (bus): 18.85%%
Ventura, CA (bus): 11.19%
Denver, CO (bus): 8.72%/10.36%
Fort Collins, CO (bus): 14.48%
Pompano Beach, FL (bus): 47.54%
Gainesville, GA (bus): 47.73%
Des Moines, IA (bus): 18.25%
Harrisburg, IL (bus): 29.70%
Rockford, IL (bus): 11.55%
Springfield, IL (bus): 11.86%
Bloomington, IN (bus): 12.37%
Fort Wayne, IN (bus): 10.44%
Indianapolis, IN (bus): 12.28%
Olathe (Johnson County), KS (bus): 32.15%
Baton Rouge, LA (bus): 21.76%
(not counting New Orleans since it's due to repairs from Katrina)
Baltimore, MD (light rail): 16.83%
PG County, MD (bus): 23.72%
Flint, MI (bus): 17.53%
Grand Rapids, MI (bus): 11.76%
Muskegon, MI (bus): 17.13%
POrt Huron, MI (bus): 27.25%
Saginaw, MI (bus): 20.70%
Anoka, MN (bus): 10.96%
Duluth, MN (bus): 12.49%
Minneapolis, MN (light rail): 16.35%
St. Louis, MN (light rail): 15.57%
Chapel Hill, NC (bus): 16.74%
NJ Transit (light rail): 12.75%
Santa Fe, NM (bus): 18.81%
Albany, NY (bus): 12.31%
Lyons, NY (bus): 10.13%)
Staten Island, NY (heavy rail): 12.29%
Delaware, OH (bus): 17.53%
Zanesville, OH (bus): 13.29%
Lawton, OK (bus): 20.66%
Eugene, OR (bus): 14.19%
Butler, PA (bus): 13.13%
Philadelphia, PA (Light rail): 54.20%
Philadelphia, PA (commuter rail): 10.42%
Beaver County, PA (bus): 13.21$
Charleston, SC (bus): 20.38%
Clarksville, TN (bus): 13.23%
KNoxville, TN (bus): 12.56%
Nashville, TN (bus): 10.67%
Corpus Christi, TX (bus): 11.53%
San Antonio, TX (bus): 10.58%
Waco, TX (bus): 12.65%
Park City, UT (bus): 11.36%
Arlington, VA (bus): 20.84%
Loudoun County, VA (bus): 20.16%
Lynchburg, VA (bus): 33.54%
Snohomish, WA (bus): 11.24%
Olympia, WA (bus): 11.01%
Seattle, WA (commuter rail): 27.92%
Seattle sounder, WA (bus): (13.20%)
Spokane, WA (bus): 11.48%
La Crosse, WI (bus): 13.97%
Parkersburg, WV (bus): 15.22%

Hint: This was not due to increased traffic (traffic has been down this year) or to concern for the environment (Americans just aren't yet THAT concerned yet).

It's due to gas prices. Yes, gas prices.

Ridership numbers are still not as high as one might hope, though. This is largely because Washington Republicans did every they could to avoid planning ahead in the 1980's and 1990's, squelching every transit improvement they could.

In particular, Senator John McCain.

McCain has been so bad on rail transportation that it (and his other less-than-bonafides to conservatives) led Paul Weyrich, one of the Great Satans of social conservatism (but a huge rail supporter), to refuse to support him against Hillary Clinton (no word yet on his support versus Senator Obama):

Weyrich's comment came during his discussion of the latest developments in the behind-closed-doors give-and-take negotiations at the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission (NSTPRSC) regarding his effort to see that electric railway (streetcar) transit is given its due in the final commission report. (See last week's column America's Crumbling Transportation System.)

Weyrich knows that Senator McCain, throughout his career, has been very anti-rail, and in that respect "would be [even] worse than the present [Bush] administration," whose Transportation Secretary Mary Peters (a big highway booster) has fought tooth and nail (as commission chairman) to block the pro-rail efforts of Weyrich and others allied with his 9-to-3 commission majority.

McCain "would fight us on everything," Weyrich opined, and not just on rail issues, but also regarding several conservative concerns such as the Arizona senator's open-borders stance on immigration — and "He hates talk radio. He [McCain] has indicated he would favor shutting it down. He hates the religious right."

So, Senator Obama. That may just be something to point out.

Rough Ranking of Urbanized Area Transit Systems By Grade

A: New York City (generally as good as or better than any city in the world)
Heavy Rail (i.e. subway/el, etc)

• NYC Subway-26 lines, with a 27th under construction


• Staten Island Railway-1 line


• PATH train-4 lines

Light Rail/Streetcar

• Newark Light Rail-2 lines


• Hudson/Bergen Light Rail-2 lines

Commuter Rail

• NJ Transit-9 lines/10 branches


• Long Island Railroad-4 lines/branches


• Metro North Railroad-3 lines/5 brances


• Shore line East-1 line, connects to Metro North

Bus Service

• MTA New York City Bus-243 lines


• NJ Transit-247 lines (some operate in Philly area)


• Suffolk County Transit-53 lines


• Westchester County Bee-line-63 lines


• Many other smaller or private bus companies

There are also several ferryboat systems to aid in getting across the Hudson and other waterways in the NYC area

Total trips in 2006: 3,556,942,008
Trips/2000 urbanized area resident: 199.83


A-: San Francisco/Oakland (very, very good within the relatively small by today's standards city of San Francisco, but less so in Oakland, and commuter service has some issues)
Light Rail/streetcar
* Muni Railway-7 lines and 1 streetcar lines
Cable Cars
* Muni Railway-3 lines
Trolleybuses
* Muni Railway-17
Heavy Rail
* Bay Area Rapid Transit-5 lines (functions somewhat as commuter rail as well)
Commuter Rail

Buses

• Muni Railway-54 lines


• SamTrans-55 lines


• AC Transit-105 lines


• Golden Gate Transit-52 lines


• Western Contra Costa Transit-16 lines


• Union City Transit-5 lines


• Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board lines

Total Trips in 2006: 420,202,662
Trips/Urbanized area resident in 2000: 140.27

Councilman Jim Graham Holds Up DC Streetcars

After all, they've already got the second most heavily-ridden city fixed-route system (heavy rail, light rail, cable car, trolleybus combined) in the country despite only existing for a bit over 30 years.

DC has by a significant margin the 2nd-most heavily ridden city rail system (although it's a far, far far, far second to the NYC subway; not even close). It does, of course, take on some commuter rail on the heavy rail lines.

Granted, it's only that high because it also acts to a significant extent as commuter rail


13 stations entirely outside of the beltway (8 on the red line, 2 each on the blue and orange, and one on the yellow line; 11 of the 12 stations on the silver line to Dulles now in the final design stage will be outside of the beltway

An additional 20 inside the beltway but outside the original 100 sq mile city limits (the original city included Arlington County and most of Alexandria City, which contain 14 total stations)

• 4 on the red line


• 8 on the green line


• 4 on the orange line


• 4 on the blue line


• 1 station on the future silver line


• Every station on any future purple line

Only 39 stations are in the city itself, and only 53 in the old original city.

Actual commuter rail in DC isn't close to as strong:

there are 5 lines, 2 in Virginia (Manassas branch and Fredericksburg branch) with no real expansion plans [a study was done from 2002-2004, but no actions; the Republican-controlled legislature is significantly to blame) and 2/3 in Maryland (Brunswick, Camden, Penn line, an extension to Newark, DE to link up with SEPTA planned for 2015, but no new lines, say to Southern Maryland; the Camden and Penn run close to each other and are both basically the same corridor/direction, the lines have insufficient capacity as well)

By contrast, ...

Boston has 12 commuter rail lines on the MBTA (and is constructing several extensions and planning a few more), in addition to a commuter line run by Amtrak to Portland, ME [the Downeaster]. New Hampshire is moving towards a rail line/extension to Boston as well.

Chicago has 11 commuter rail lines (Metra) as well as the Chicago/Milwaukee link used by some commuters, and is planning/actively moving forward on at least 2 lines.

San Francisco is harder to say, as BART is not really city rail, but a hybrid of city and commuter rail which is all electrified. Probably has 5 commuter lines, and there's also the CalTrain, which alone gets more riders than the 3 MARC lines combined. SF could also do better on the commuter rail

Philadelphia technically has 13 regional rail lines (since they go through center city on the same line).

Even Los Angeles, which I'd give a C grade to, is better, with 7 commuter rail lines and somewhat more ridership.

However, this does make dense city transit/reurbanization more favorable.

They're trying several things.

Pike Transit, a modified streetcar proposal, is moving into preliminary design for Arlington.

For the city proper, they are pushing streetcars/BRT (if they're smart, streetcars, since Bus Rapid Transit never gets the right-of-ways it needs, and if it does, is about as expensive) to fill areas lacking Metro access (Georgetown, northwest between Georgetown and the red line, Northwest between the red line and the yellow/green line, and much of southeast/southern northeast).

But Jim Graham's trying to hold this up.

I wish I were in DC so I could go to the hearing.

Unfortunately, it's too late to get someone against him in the primary, but I would try to get something done as best I could if he kills this.

“My concerns run pretty much the gamut from A to Z,” Graham said. “As best I can determine, we have never really had a focused oversight hearing on this rather large expenditure of funds.”

Graham has issued a resolution to disapprove a budget request that would shift $11 million from the long-planned 11th Street Bridge project to the streetcar project to fund initial construction of the line this fall.

The action delays the funds transfer and gives Graham time to hold a public hearing, set for July 14.

Vancouver City Council Votes for Light Rail Extension

Of course, this doesn't mean it's necessarily going to happen, although I would at least like to think that in these days of no cheap way to power automobiles, rail transit projects will have less trouble moving forward.

But it's a good start towards extend transit in the Portland, which I'd currently put in the B range of metro area transit systems, along with San Francisco/Oakland, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and probably Seattle, Honolulu and a bunch of college towns [State College, Ames, Champaign, Iowa City, Ithaca and perhaps Gainesville], because their solid bus systems makes up for their non-existent [or meager in Seattle's case] current rail systems (New York alone rates an A [specifically, an A+, though even it could be quite a bit better], although San Francisco/Oakland is close).

Portland is, however, moving quickly towards an A rating, given the area's relatively small size and the way it's moving forward on projects:

A 4th light rail line (Green), South to I-205/Portland Mall is under construction, opening next year.
A commuter line from Beaverton to Washington County opens this fall
A 5th light rail (Orange) running directly East of the river to Milwaukie is being planned
A 2nd streetcar line just received a thumbs-up on its no-significant impact environmental assessment; a request for funds is pending


I'll probably do a post rating metro transit systems later.

VANCOUVER -- The MAX Yellow Line should extend from the Portland Expo Center, cross the Columbia River and through downtown Vancouver to a terminus at Clark College next to Interstate 5, the City Council decreed Monday night

...

The Vancouver council voted unanimously to support a new bridge, but 5-2 for light rail. The two council members who voted no said light rail is too expensive.

The notion of light rail entering Clark County has been an emotional flashpoint before and after a 1995 vote rejected raising property taxes to pay for a line extending from Portland.

But Monday night a council majority said it is time for light rail in Vancouver.

"Light rail to me is a regional asset," said Councilor Larry Smith. "I'd rather be part of Portland than be a separate entity ourselves."

I wish the District of Columbia metro area, where I go to school and the people who fund this stuff do their funding, was doing half as much to get to an A ranking.

Hey America, look at Europe

Germany's gas prices are $9.40 per gallon, leading to this sort of thing:

A German man doused his BMW with gasoline and torched it on Friday in protest at skyrocketing fuel costs, police said.

The unemployed 30-year-old man drove the black 1995 BMW 3-series sedan onto the lawn outside Frankfurt's convention center grounds at about 7:30 a.m., police spokesman Karlheinz Wagner said.

So we should be considering ourselves fortunate.

Now, sure, we're going to end up having to drill offshore, but again, even John McCain admits that the only benefits we'll see in the near future from that will be psychological rather than financial.

Transit is the only thing that can save Americans money on gas bills in the short term. Hopefully Scott Walker won't veto the referendum for a sales tax increase to fund transit in Milwaukee County (income tax would be the best way, but counties probably are loathe to do that and states are not willing enough to fund transit).

Even the federal government's overwhelmingly passed emergency transit funding bill was met with opposition from some idiot Republicans.

Although the transit measure passed overwhelmingly, on a 322-98 vote, some Republican lawmakers ridiculed it as a poor substitute for expanded domestic oil drilling.

Rep. Frank D. Lucas (R-Okla.) complained that his constituents not only must pay higher gas prices, "but now they have to subsidize people in big cities with the luxury of access to public transportation."

25% of Lucas' district residents, by the way, live in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. While they don't have access to transit, they could, as OKC has probably the worst transit of any million person plus metropolitan area; perhaps if Rep. Lucas pushed for a decent transit system, they could.

Is this really the best use for subway cars?

In artificial reefs? Does no other system or planned system possibly have a use for them (with refurbishing)?

They carried commuters across New York City for 40 years, but in less than two hours Thursday, 44 subway cars from the Big Apple were sunk off the Virginia coast, becoming part of a large artificial fishing reef.

About six miles off Chincoteague on the Eastern Shore, a specially rigged crane dropped the 16-ton cars, one by one, off a barge and into about 65 feet of water. The impact each time created a loud smack and sent thick spray into the air.

The steel shells, stripped of their doors, windows, seats, plastics and asbestos, joined surplus Army tanks and 50 other rail cars from New York City that had been similarly deployed here several years ago as part of Virginia's man-made reefing program.

Five more loads of subway cars will be sent to the ocean bottom in the coming years, under a contract between the state and the New York City Transit Authority. Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, South Carolina and Georgia also utilize New York's old subway cars in this manner.

Bill providing $1.7 billion in funds for transit agencies on the House Floor

This bill, designed to allow transit agencies to keep from raising fares and to increase services, is very important, and likely to pass.


Of course, $1.7 billion is far from enough, and they need to provide more money to build & expand rail systems. In areas with fairly extensive rail and bus systems, like the DC metro area, they are now having capacity problems.

Trains are full at peak commute hours, and they simply can't get more trains for a while, even if they ordered them immediately.

While companies can, at least to some extent (and Metro is encouraging them), spread out work hours to create several peak travel times, and move Metro ridership from 500,000 on weekdays to 640,000 on weekdays, freeing up more money to, for instance, provide welcome extensions to the Metro system.

Here's to hoping that, at the very least, the federal government will help out Metro. I'm working 10:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. days. Although such a late day is unlikely to work well for most people, I expect that there's a decent range that wouldn't be all that bad for people, and of course, most transit systems already run more frequently at peak ranges.

For instance, consider the bus I take to work, the NJ Transit 606 from Princeton Shopping Center through Trenton to Mercerville's 5 Points (usually with extensions to the Princeton Care Center and Hamilton marketplace).

In the Princeton direction (full route and every stop not done by every bus)
It first runs at 5:25 a.m.. Then from 5:50 to 7:20 [to accomodate the poorer people who live in Trenton but work [presumably relatively low-wage jobs] at the University or in town or other places; we actually do reverse commuting here] it runs every fifteen minutes. It then runs every half hour until 9:20, at which point it begins running in 40 minute intervals until 1:15, at which point it runs in half hour intervals till 2:50, when it runs 20 minute intervals until 4:20. Then it runs half hour intervals until 6:15, one 40 minute interval, then hour intervals until 11:40.

In the Trenton direction (again not every stop)
It runs first at 5:15, again at 6:45 and 7:27. At that point, it runs at twenty minute intervals until 9:10, at which point it runs at 9:40, then every 40 minutes until 2:20. Then it runs at 2:50 at 3:10, then runs in half hour intervals until 4:40, where it runs 20 minute intervals for the evening commute till 5:20, then at 5:50, then 40 minute intervals till 7:40, then hourly intervals until 1:00 a.m.

Of course, the ridership isn't close to as heavy as in more urban areas, and New Jersey is great because (although admittedly, it works better in NJ than it would in states with less core metro areas) the system is statewide, and in much of the state it runs not only in (and usually through) the central city (Trenton, Atlantic City, Asbury Park, New Brunswick, Edison, Paterson, Passaic, etc.) but it also runs a lot of intercity buses.

Granted, the system is far from perfect. When I worked for the Educational Testing Service in Ewing in 2006, I had to take the 602 to Ewing and then transfer to the 606 to get home, which was an hour and a half trip. Since I had to be there by 8:00 a.m., I just couldn't do it in the morning (my dad drove me as it's at least in the same direction as his work, if farther out)

Anyway ...

If riders spread out their rush-hour trips, instead of crowding into the "peak of the peak," Metro could accommodate an additional 140,000 trips on the subway, Metro's Bottigheimer said.

And again, this could help pay for Metro extensions and projects:

For instance, they are considering tunnels to link nearby stations on different lines; seems like solid ideas.

I've taken the orange/blue line to Metro Center and transferred to the red line quite a few times.

Of course, it's annoying to go through Metro Center, and I've wished that there was a station connecting Farragut West and Farragut North. They are studying a tunnel to connect them, as well as one to connect Metro Center to allow people to avoid having to either transfer twice or have to ride down to L'Enfant Plaza to get from the Yellow/Green line (the primary purpose of the yellow line was to allow a direct route across the Potomac from downtown to Alexandria instead of having to through Arlington); the line has only 2 of its own stations, one in Alexandria and one just outside the beltway in Fairfax; similar to how the blue & orange run together from the Potomac to the Anacostia and then branch to provide, in the east, access to two parts of PG County (and more importantly, the Marc Penn line; by the way, that ought to be extended to Newark, Delaware; then I'd be able to get home from school in DC by taking only local trains), and in the West to go to both west out through Arlington and Falls Church in the Loudoun direction, and to go south down to Arlington to the VRE station at Franconia Springfield.

And there are quite a few rail system expansions planned:

* Rail extension to Dulles, which apart from La Guardia [yes, surprisingly, La Guardia] is I believe the only airport in a metro area with rail on the Northeast Corridor without a rapid transit extension (though the Silver Line to Logan Airport in Boston is Bus Rapid Transit). I've never flown out of Dulles and would prefer they actual start construction on high-speed rail so I can get from DC to, say Chicago or Atlanta or Detroit or Nashville in 10 hours or less (and since it's warranted on that already highly traveled corridor, build that maglev from Boston to at least Richmond (if not Charlotte or Atlanta) so flights between cities on that corridor can be eliminated (certainly on the Boston/Richmond)
* Streetcars on Columbia Pike through Arlington to Fairfax
* Build the purple line as light rail fully from New Carrollton to Bethesda to provide quick dense inner suburb to inner-suburb transit.
* Build the 5 transit corridors as streetcars to fill in nearly all the gaps in rapid transit currently existing in DC

If that was all done (along with VRE and MARC extensions) it would make the DC metro area unequivocally the #2 transit metro area [of course, that would only be true if the others don't improve a lot as well) in the country (a step down, of course, from the NYC metro area); it's now sharing the #2 spot with Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston and Portland.

Of course, they've got real problems there as well due to sprawl and the unwillingness of (white, anyway; a far larger percentage of Latinos and blacks have been used to carpooling for years due to the expense of car ownership) Americans to become community types.

Sprawl prevents Americans from walking and (although this would take time, it's more feasible; I've been bicycling to the bus stop to get to work, although frankly I could walk to the closer one, it's only .8 miles from our house; I have to walk about that far from the road in front of the Bristol-Myers Squibb complex to the actual office, due to the silly way they built it ) bicycling to the rail station. Unwillingness to become community types means that there's insufficient parking to accommodate everyone who wants to "park & ride" to work.



We should, of course, complain heavily about the criminal insanity of our land development, car (i.e. CAFE standards; we needed an increase 10 years ago)and transit use policies.

Then again, the American people quite willingly threw out Jimmy Carter in 1980, and the Democratic Congress in 1994 (after it passed an act that hasn't been funded on rail transit). Moreover, they've elected people across the country who've allowed very, very stupid entirely unplanned sprawl to get built up on farmland over the last 40 years, because people, naturally, wanted big houses with nice lawns (and, admittedly in many cases, they also wanted to get away from the "scary black people" who'd moved into the cities). The free market, while quite good in most ways, has no way to accomplish long-range planning, and the American people have elected governments that totally failed us in that respect.

But again, nothing can be done about that.

Very few Democrats (ifThere are enough Republicans representing

The Insanity of the Gas Tax "Holiday"

That's the only word to describe the Clinton-McCain proposal to "temporarily" suspend the gas tax.

First of all, it's almost guaranteed to do absolutely nothing to lower gas prices

Cuts in gas taxes would not lower gas prices because the supply of gasoline is close to fixed -- the oil industry is already operating its refineries at near maximum capacity (or so they claim). As we teach our econ students, if the supply is fixed, then the price is determined on the demand side. This means that, if the industry produces about 400 million gallons of gas per day, the price will continually adjust to the point where all consumers put together purchase about 400 million gallons of gas per day. Therefore, if the gas tax is reduced or eliminated, as McCain has proposed, the price consumers pay will stay the same, but more money will go to the oil industry.

And even if that wasn't true, and it would save people $30 a year, the rationales Senator Clinton and Senator McCain are using for this proposal are still insane.

Campaigning in Cleveland, Mr. McCain suggested that low-income families were hit hardest by the cost of fuel because they typically drove longer distances to work in older-model automobiles.

“Why not give them a little break?” he said. “Instead, with all due respect to those who travel around in chauffeured limousines, you’d think that we are destroying the economy of America.” Mr. McCain acknowledged that the proposed gas-tax holiday did not take on bigger problems.

Of course, the poor in Cleveland tend to use the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority to get around.

The heavy rail and light rail uses no foreign oil at all, as it's electric (it's likely powered by a coal-fired power plant, which has it's own problems but at least we're a net exporter of that particular resource)

The bus uses foreign oil, but significantly less per passenger mile than an automobile.

The sane goal is to get more people to ride mass transit, so that the federal government doesn't have to subsidize operational expenses like it did in Cleveland as of 2006 (while all transit systems have to be subsidized because you want public transit to be available at all times, not just peak times, and you want to keep it affordable even for the very poor, Cleveland's transit system is underutilized, and so fares only cover 18% of operating expenses [most of operating expenses are salaries, wages and benefits, fuel-related costs are a pretty small percentage]; in Chicago, fares cover 43% of operating expenses) and can instead spend more on subsidizing capital expenses (keeping the system safe and expanding it and other systems).

By the way, the funds for subsidizing mass transit?

They come from that gas tax McCain and Clinton want to repeal.

Federal purse strings. Part of the squeeze stems from the failure of federal funding to keep pace with the relative explosion in the number of transit systems under construction. Even as more cities build or expand their systems and ridership hits a 50-year high, the amount of federal funding has remained constant. And now, the federal transportation trust fund, paid for largely through an 18.4-cent-per-gallon gas tax, is scheduled to run out of money next year. The federal fund will have a $3 billion surplus this year, which will become a $3.9 billion deficit by 2009. When Congress proposed raising the gas tax to close the expected gap, the White House called for cuts in spending. The tax has not been raised since 1993.

The Congressional proposal for raising the gas tax was not a bunch of "crazy far-left Democrats," by the way.

This was a bi-partisan commission's recommendation

And that commission was not "bipartisan" in the sense of having Democrats, Joe Lieberman [who's decent on transit issues] and Bernie Sanders.

It included:

1. Bush Transportation Secretary Mary Peters (Republican)
2. Jim Doyle's Secretary of Transportation and former Teamster Frank Frank Busalacchi (Democrat)
3. Bush appointee and former RNC Deputy Chairwoman Maria Cino (Republican)
4. Rick Geddes, Hoover Institution Fellow (Republican)
5. Steve Heminger, Pelosi choice for commission (Democrat)
6. Frank McArdle, Hillary Clinton choice (Democrat)
7. Steve Odland, Office Depot CEO & business mogul (Republican)
8. Patrick Quinn, Bill Frist choice (Republican)
9. Matthew K. Rose, Railroad Baron (Republican)
10. Jack Schenendorf, Bush transition team member (Republican)
11. Tom Skancke, chosen by Harry Reid (Democrat [kind of])
12. The very far-right Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation (Republican)

So that's 8 Republicans and 4 Democrats.

“I’m a conservative Republican,” said Weyrich, a panel member. “The orthodoxy in the conservative movement is don’t raise any tax. But in this particular instance, I don’t see any alternative.”

Granted, Paul Weyrich is actually pretty good on transportation issues (plus he already said he wouldn't vote for McCain vs. Hillary, although he may have changed his mind, especially after this, his pet issue).

And there are other right-leaning pressure groups opposed to this, including the National Association of Manufacturers (probably) and construction companies (definitely).

And there is bipartisan opposition to such a holiday, even in rural states (John Thune and Tom Harkin and both said to oppose it in the NYTimes article).

At any rate, it is utterly insane.

Good News on the Transit Front

I am a huge advocate of mass transit, to the extent that I don't yet have a driver's license (I've had a permit for well over a year, but I haven't yet had the time or need for a license, nor can I afford to buy a car or pay for the insurance).

Anyway, I love mass transit, especially rail transit. In the past year, I've ridden MARTA (Atlanta), NJ Transit on the Northeast Corridor (New Jersey), Newark City Rail(Newark, NJ), PATH (NY/NJ Port Authority), MTA (New York), Subte (Buenos Aires), Hudson-Bergen Light Rail (right now only Hudson County, NJ), Metro (Washington, DC), the El (Chicago) and of course Amtrak.

The Subte in Buenos Aires stood out from all of them. First of all, it cost 70 centavos (about 20 cents American at the time) to ride anywhere. Second of all, it was jam-packed as tightly as possible with people during times even close to rush hour. I mean jam-packed tightly! Granted, Buenos Aires is far, far more densely populated than most American cities (this was clear when comparing the overhead nighttime view of Buenos Aires [tightly packed going quickly to rural in terms of lighting] to that of Houston [godforsaken sprawl from hell].

Anyway, there's some good news in the transit world:

The #7 line on the MTA is being extended to 10th Avenue by Hudson Yards (granted, the subway already goes within about a half mile of just about everywhere on Manhattan Island, still, it could be a quarter).

Phoenix's light rail system is beginning to be tested in traffic and will hopefully soon be in operation [hopefully with expansion].