More Transit

I'm spending a lot of time reading about transit leverage/ transit land use multiplier right now. Just got done reading "How to Create Exponential Decline in Car Use in Australian Cities". Point made is that relying on increasing oil prices to drive transit ridership is only provides the 'push'. We need the 'pull' as well. And that means building a lot more transit.

I agree. I won't argue that we should build things like subways--they were built in a time where there was no alternative (excepting walking), so everyone was transit dependent (including the middle-class). Those times are not coming back--nor should we want them to.  But it does mean the levels of demand that made heavy rail development profitable are not coming back. Sure, there are places that have been heavy-rail in the automobile era: DC, Atlanta, San Francisco, even a bit in Cleveland (1953). Even LA is doing it  bit*.

To be effective, every transit station has to 'earn its keep' in terms of boardings and alightings (people getting on and off the train). That means there have to be enough people accessing the station. How people get to the station (walk, bike, bus, PnR) doesn't matter for this metric. Adding vehicles into the mix increases the 'range' a station can draw from.

What 'earn its keep' means is difficult. Does it need to cover operating costs? Maintenance? Initial investment/startup costs? If it's a market-lead initiative, then all three. However, valuing transportation infrastructure is difficult, because it's effectively permanent. Sure, there are construction costs, and upkeep costs, but obtaining a permanent 'easement' permitting a corridor is a one-time expense with a permanent benefit. Boston's subway tunnels have been operating since the 1880s's. 140 years and counting, with no end in sight. How to you value something like that?

UTA TRAX Green Line Reconfigureation

As I'm browsing the WFRC 2019 LRTP, a pleasant surprise:

The plan is to move the Green line off Main and onto 400 West. I recall UTA buying the ROW a ways back. (Although calling the track 'existing' is a bit kind, given its present condition).  This corridor would take a lot of the 'bends' out of the current Green line route (which wends through downtown, stopping at intersections, at considerable time-cost. As is, the Green line makes FIVE (5) turns, getting through downtown SLC. If you ride Trax to the airport from points south, it's an enraging detour. Remember: Good (high ridership) transit route are direct, and the green line currently has a weird 'jog' in it's general 'L' shape.

Turns are also unsafe: For some reason, too many drivers don't realize that: a) you can't share a train; b) Trax takes a long time to stop; and c) the train (not your SUV) is the biggest thing on the road. I live near an intersection where drivers are prone to illegal left hand turns, and I've seen the aftermath of those crashes: TRAX hitting an SUV is like a bowling ball meeting a soda can. The SUV crumples and flies, and the train...gets its paint scratched.

Itt will be nice for Pioneer park to get direct TRAX access. Maybe this is part of the justification for the 'Bridesmaid' corridor? A plan to move the essential transfer point AWAY from the non-central 'Salt Lake Central Station'/Intermodal Center? That would make sense--as I've noted previously, Central Stations are silly.

A real central station for SLC

UTA's "Salt Lake Central Station" isn't very central. (You can see it in the central-lower left o the diagram below, with the plethora of bus numbers). All the buses end there, because it provides terminal facilities: parking for buses, and bathrooms/break rooms for drivers.

But if we were to look at it seriously, where would be put a 'central station' in center city SLC,  at the maximum density of bus route, where would that be? You can clearly see another location on the map with a lot of bus route access: Both on North Temple and on State Street. But to properly compare, we need to think about frequency as well: green is 15 minute, blue 30 minutes, red peak hour only, and yellow are other miscellaneous crap. So me, this suggests a clear lead for 200 S.

Which in turn suggests using Gallivan as a 'Bus Plaza': access to TRAX from the west, access to State Street bus routes to the east, and the 'Rainbow Road' of all the buses on 200 South.

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride

This has been a perpetual project on the LRTP for as long as I've been watching the LRTP--Trax along 400 South to Frontrunner. If I was a better man (or a real estate investor), I'd have gone broke waiting for it. At this point, I'm frankly uncertain of the need for it. If the point is to connect FrontRunner to the University/hospital (without requiring a transfer between Trax lines, there seem to be better ways to do it: Either a bus direct from FrontRunner along 200 S, or a 'Black Line' direct from the Airport to the U, connecting to FrontRunner along North Temple. 

If we're going to spend $75 million on transit, this is NOT how we should spend it.

Perhaps it's just dumb planning? A holdover from a decade past? Or perhaps Crayonista hubris, wanting all the Trax lines to connect to a central station? The latter seems unsupportable: rail road 'Union Stations' were a questionable American hubris when they were built: European cities seem to do fine with a variety of stations at railroad stations at the edge of their periphiques (where the old city stops). And the modern metropolis is multi-polar: bringing everything together at a single point is foolish, and any regional agency should oppose it.  In the past couple of years, UTA seems to be getting the idea of a 'transfer network' composed of high frequency bus routes (rather than the historically-based idiocy of trying to bring everyone downtown for a transfer). And I don't see how this project fits into it.

$75 million buys a lot of bus service hours. Buys even more bus service ($150m) 10 years out.  Investing in 'Crayonista' Trax doesn't seem like a very good idea....

Reflections on Regional governance, via Enrique Penelosa

Great interview with Enrique Penelosa here

A quote:

Many people say that cities should be given more control by their national governments – but I think what’s even worse than having governments controlling cities is having a myriad of municipalities, each one doing whatever they want. It’s completely mad. In Colombia, we have a constitution which gives a lot of independence to municipalities. If they are located exactly where a city needs to grow, they can simply decide “no”. And so that city is instead forced to grow very far away, in a low-density suburban development.

Nice to know that metropolitan fragmentation is a non-American problem. But I suppose it's a problem for federal governments in general--their component units of of governance can't be dissolved and re-arranged the way they can be for more centralized governments (France, China, Canada, present-day UK). When polities have only administrative existence, they can be split and aggregated sort of at will. But when polities are units of governance, it's much much messier. Not that agglomeration is the solution: Witness Rob Ford in Toronto, or the long term consequence of lumping all the NYC boroughs into one city. (Ditto Chicago). But, perhaps, faced with metropolitan fragmentation, perhaps a federation is the only way to go about regional governance. Which implies a federal structure of governance as well, with a bicameral legislator. 'Councils' are questionable in terms of responsibility, and 'borough presidents', rather that supplying (in the words of Michael Dell) 'one neck to choke', seem to result in 'one vote to buy' (or rather, one veto to buy off).

Enrique Penelosa on Transportation and Justice

While I can't agree with everything he says (the necessity for government land use planning creeps me out), most of the things this article talks about make my heart soar.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/17/enrique-penalosa-mayor-bogota-colombia-bus-traffic-un-habitat

A few quotes:

"way we build cities is much more important for the future happiness of people than economic development. For example, if we are able to save a couple of hectares of land for a public park, it can make people happier for thousands of years to come."

What is the value of dedicated ROW for a BRT? It's hard to calculate something that will be providing benefits a hundred years into the future. 

"Cities that move by bicycle and public transport are more democratic, more egalitarian. In a “developing country”, a protected bikeway is not just a way of keeping the cyclist safe; it is a symbol that shows that a citizen riding a $50 bicycle is equally important to one driving a $50,000 car"

If only NYC could get the message.

"Mobility is a very peculiar challenge for a city – different from health or education – because it’s one problem that tends to get worse as societies get richer.

It's always nice when someone recognizes that maximizing mobility is a flawed paradigm for cities.

"We must understand that an advanced city is not one where poor residents use cars, but one where rich residents use public transport. "

I think this idea drove the 'Streetcar Renaissance' a decade back. Transit planners recognizing that if transit is continue to exist as the poor suburbanize and the less-poor buy cars, transit has to be able to attract choice riders--relying on the transit dependent living/working in central cities is no longer a viable strategy. Streetcars were supposed to be the clean, quiet, comfortable transit that affluent people would accept. Sadly, too many streetcars forgot that 'frequent' and 'reliable' are virtues of effective transit EVERYONE appreciates, and too many streetcars wound lacking dedicated ROW, an stuck in traffic.

"If all citizens are equal, then somebody who is walking or on a bike has a right to the same amount of road space as somebody in a Rolls-Royce or luxury car. And a bus with 150 passengers has a right to 150 times more road space than a car with one passenger. Which means we should give exclusive lanes to buses and create Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems; it’s the only solution" 

 He has my vote. Admittedly, most buses in America don't carry 150 people. But in Latin America, the 'Overground' of triple articulated BRT's carry loads to rival subway systems. Elsewhere, I've blogged about what it takes for a BRT to do better than autos, in terms of lane usage: 90 persons per bus, 12 minute frequency.

"The whole challenge of urban mobility is not an engineering challenge but a political one. Today, it’s almost as unjust and absurd to see a bus in a traffic jam as it was, a century or so ago, not to allow women to vote"

Does make you think. What justification does this disproportionate burden occur on? That car owners are wealthier and more likely to vote?

"when shopping malls replace public space as a meeting place for people, it’s a symptom that the city is ill"

An interesting contention. Agreed that privatized space can never replace public space, because it can never provide a truly public realm. As a private realm, members of the public can be excluded. And when part of the public is barred from the 'forum', it becomes a question how well the population of the forum actually represents the 'public'. Always important to think about the alternative--and the alternative to democracy is riots and assassinations.

Fuel tax vs. Carbon Tax

They are often argued as if identical. A fuel tax is a tax on inputs. A carbon tax is a tax on outputs. If engine efficiency doubles, carbon output halves. (Which would theoretically lead to fuel consumption halving, and hence the same effect).

But it's an essential political division: voters hate paying for necessary life inputs: food, housing, gasoline. Raise the price of any of those in a big way, and you've got a riot on your hands. (See: Paris). But when you tax outputs, its simply a 'cost of doing business'. The tax is hidden. And what is hidden is often forgotten. (Viz: Mortgage interest subsidies). A carbon emission tax also syncs with the 'polluter pays' principle.

Rather than taxing coal (and all those hardworking coal miners), or electricity, tax power plants at the smoke-stack. The cost of the tax is hidden from consumers--they can't tell if the powerplant is passing on an increase in cost, or just trying to ring some more money out of consumers. 

Tax cars at the smoke-stack as well, at the tail-pipe: Come in for safety and emissions, and get a bill for your vehicle emissions. Gas tax goes away (an equity plus) while the worst (most-polluting) cars are pulled from operation. 

Free Fares for SLC

Reading the SL Trib today, the news article was on free fares, suggested as a way to bolster transit ridership. UTA has tried a couple of 'free fare days' as a pilot program, which boosted ridership by about 16%. Article said fares make up 11% of UTAs budget. The usual rhetorical questions about the cost of collecting fares were offered (with no quantification of how much fare actually actually costs--my bet being minimal). Fundamentally, UTA can't do away with the fare collection infrastructure in SLC without doing away with it system wide. And that's not happening.

More and more, my mind turns to SLC needing it's own transit agency (on top of UTA).  No one in UTA is happy when that gets brought up--if SLC breaks off, I imagine their budget goes to bits. UTA allocates service to cities in proportion to how much sales tax revenue the city contributes to UTA. If SLC ceased contributing, UTA would lose...perhaps a quarter of it's sales tax funding? And all the transit-service feasible destinations are in SLC, so without those destinations, none of the existing UTA routes would be feasible. Leave SLC out, UTA's ridership collapses, and so does the agency.

But there is a conflict: SLC wants a kind of service that UTA is not providing: Urban shuttle. Short trips on fast, frequent and reliable transit. Can't blame UTA--that's a very expensive type of service to provide. But if you are traveling within SLC, it's the only kind of service you care about: hop-on, hop-off trips, for (otherwise) walkable distances: 20 minute walks. SLC effectively wants another 400 S. Trax corridor....rather it wants several of them.

SLC's future is in being composed of 'Transit Oriented Corridors' (TOC). TOD is for suburbia: dense, mixed use, walkable nodes set amidst the suburban sprawl. TOC is for urban locations where station areas overlap: where both walking and riding between station are feasible. Portland gets it--at this point, Portland's CBD is so saturated with fixed guideway transit stations (LRT and streetcar) that like 90% of the whole thing is within walking distance of transit. (Paris does even better--98% within the Periphique, IIRC).

Not that I suggest the urbanization of all of SLC--I like the bungalow neighborhoods, and I'd like them to stay. But I recognize that SLC is growing, and growth means a need for more space, and more spacing needs building. But I'd like to see that building take the form of high-density (elevators required) next to transit stations, rather than scattered about in 'missing middle' penny-packets.

To circle back: SLC wants transit capable of supporting car-free living. (Any central city that tries out out-suburb suburbia is playing a mugs game.) UTA doesn't want to provide it. There is an essential conflict there, and one that is not going away. One way for SLC to achieve its desires (at great expense) is to build a geographically limited streetcar network, and make those streetcars free. The other way is to build a free-fare bus network.

Why fare-free? Because most of the bus trips made within SLC are short. Walkable distances. Distances where it's not worth paying the $2.50 for a ticket, but too far to walk. Electronic passes solve a lot of the issues of fare-free transit. I recall the weird rigamarole of 'pay when board' vs 'pay when exit', depending on where you boarded, and the complications of entry/exit from bus doors. With electronic passes, you tap on, and you go.  SLC is already partially fare-free, through various pass systems: U students, high school students, city employees, things like the Hive pass. It might be possible to just go one step further, and make it free to all residents. Then transit becomes a utility, a fee for service: Each parcel gets assessed on the basis of use (# of units), and then every address is mailed a transit pass.

Given that half of SLC's density is employment (actual pop is only 165k or so, IIRC), might also extend the pass program to employees, through an employer-parking cashout program. 

UTA Overhaul

As I read it, the Utah Legislature reorganized UTA, got rid of the 'corporation' model (strong, highly paid executive, appointed, largely passive board), and replaced it with a 'commission' model.  

The bill replaces UTA’s current part-time, 16-member board with a full-time, three-member commission, effective Nov. 1, to better oversee the agency hurt by its track record of high executive salaries, extensive travel and sweetheart deals with developers.

Elsewhere, it was suggested the the 3-member model was based off the Utah County commission model, where each commissioner took authority and responsibility for one segment of UTA. Not sure how that will play out with UTA's internal organization. IIRC, operations, service planning, capital development, and rail were different functional divisions? (Can't find a current org chart, and the UTA weblink to 'governance' is a 404). 

More details here (SLC Trib, paywall).

SLC Streetcar (May 2019)

Not hearing much about it these days. Perhaps simply not a hot topic any longer. The swell of enthusiasm (and consequent Federal funding) seems to have passed, leaving a number of streetcar systems across the US, with varying levels of functionality. (The Atlanta streetcar is a vicious joke, btw). The Transit Politic has them all mapped out, for the curious. But a quick google doesn't show SLC pushing the proposed streetcar very hard. It's on the long range transportation plan (aka 'Regional Transportation Plan', but none of it in the next ten years. (Looks like an extension of the S-line (Sugarhouse) streetcar is planned, up to 2100 S. & 1100 E, which will make it more central. Although I can't imagine what a mess that will make of an already gnarly traffic pattern. It's 1100 East in SLC, but it's where Highland (a former highway) connects to the urban street grid. Highland looks to have been an old trail, and extends all the way south to the Hidden Valley Country Club at 123rd south, so it's one of the few continuous north-south routes, and hence attracts plenty of auto traffic.  Still, it will be nice to bring the streetcar to the center of the business district, instead of stopping an irritating amount shy (and across a busy road) from all the amenities an destinations. It will change the neighborhood, and likely to the detriment of northbound traffic.

SLC may not care. IIRC, 1100 E. is not a UDOT road. (Given that SLC seized 1300 E back from UDOT, I can't imagine they don't also own/control 1100 E). So they get to control the road geometry (lanes, lane widths), and priortizing access THROUGH Sugarhouse is probably not a priority. (TO Sugarhouse, sure).

Sorry to see that the S-line isn't reaching Westminster, which would be the real prize. All those transit-riding students, and Westminster already committed to a 'distributed campus' with their dorm across 2100 south. If the connection was made, Westminster could be further develop the entire area along the S-line as a 'Transit Oriented Corridor', use the S-line instead of campus shuttles. Bet UTA would love the ridership. The BiFG lady is an activist in opposing the extension to Westminster--fear of losing parking? SLC ought to just take the street parking, independently, and end that issue.

Downtown, RTP has two bits, a 1.8 mile segment along 200/100 s. to 600 east. (woo). and a phase 3 extension to 1300 East, and the University. Meh. Can't help but think that the University would be better served by a BRT on 200 East. That far east, potential for TOD (the only real justification for streetcar) is limited. Envision Utah map clearly shows a bunch of high-value single family homes that aren't going to redevelop. Without redevelopment, the density is too low to generate any serious ridership. Why spent millions to put a streetcar in front of million dollar houses? It's not like the owners are going to use it enough to matter.