mass / transport

a vision for new england high-speed rail

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:10:47 -0400

The states of New England have banded together for pursuit of the high-speed rail stimulus money. EOT had a press release today and a map. Looks good to me. I like the ambition in the plan.

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in the news + commentary / july 9

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 12:31:40 -0400

Wow Look We Can Do! / The Senate President and Transportation Committee Chairman have an op-ed in the Globe. It is them cheerleading for themselves. Too bad they didn’t fix the MBTA’s financial long-term woes. If they had I’d be right along with them clapping for themselves. This is just a political ploy to take attention off the Governor. I like him better.

Indicted! / The driver of the trolley that crashed while he was texting is facing a charge of negligence and up to three years in prison. They are using a 100 year statute to charge the driver. I wish the District Attorney good luck in prosecuting this selfish individual who had to text his girlfriend, rather than ensure the safety of his passengers.

Parking Ticket Woes / MBTA commuter rail customers are being ticketed for erroneous parking violations. Based on the video available through the link, I’d say the MBTA needs to invest in some new parking payment method. It looks like the folks are paying via a 1930s method!

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to toll or not to toll - that is the question

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:53:43 -0400

Over at the Transport Politic Yonah Freemark wrote a blog piece saying that tolls are the wrong way to go. I wholeheartedly disagree. Actually, I should correct myself, I prefer a Vehicle Miles Traveled tax more, but we are a ways off from that to be considered. He essentially thinks that tolling is unfair to working class and middle class folks who depend on their cars. I don’t agree. I think we have had bad land-use decision and people need to be pushed to demand more from the marketplace insofar as they can live closer to work, transit, and stores. In order for that to happen the externalities of auto mode monopoly need to be accounted for and paid for. He wants it the other way, where we build transit infrastructure and have correspondingly dense land use, all while hoping there is a demand for it. Then once I guess there is enough housing stock built in surplus in these new transit oriented developments we can then start to toll people out of the exurbs? I think there needs to be a period of painful transition - so that people can see what is wrong with the auto monopoly. We need transportation mode choice and we can achieve that through more tolling, gas taxes and VMT if necessary. I am so urgent about this because we will be facing the end of oil at some time or another. We can wait for that and face total dire circumstances or we can transition now albeit still painful.

Read my extended comments to Yonah’s post below:

I essentially chalk up this blog post to be saying something like: don’t increase cigarette taxes – most of smokers are poor and middle class and they can’t afford more taxes. No shit, and that is the entire point. Driving has been coined the new smoking (probably a generation away from maturity) http://bikeportland.org/2008/10/22/cars-smoking-and-americas-deadly-habit/ and in order to get people to stop driving absolutely everywhere and demand changes in their communities like better planning and transit they need to see how much it hurts their wallet to really drive absolutely everywhere.

I think – in a crude understanding of economics – that our roadways are one of the biggest market failures of our capitalist system. They have engendered a near monopoly on mode choice through the effects autos have on land use and pro-auto policy (monopolies tend to try and protect themselves). This of course has externalized all sorts of costs in terms of congestion, pollution etc that barely anyone pays for. The congestion part is paid for, but in time and people have a difficult time individually quantifying time lost (it seems to me you take what you make per hour and multiply it by how much you sit and traffic and watch your money vanish – or your time with kids – or enter whatever precious time sentimentality argument: here). Lastly, it is socially unjust because there is a large enough segment of the population left out of the auto mode monopoly – the poor and disabled who can’t drive. And because it is a monopoly the other mode choices leave them nearly as stranded, or with a bad quality of life. Don’t forget of course that this segment of the population is going to balloon soon as the boomers lose their ability to drive.

So next in my rant (gotta kick the habit of getting too Palinesque in my comments – rambling…), as I understand in economics the government steps in to fix market failures. By forcing externalities to be captured in the price of driving (tolling, lets say) this will raise the cost and allow other mode choices to fairly compete. But we all know in order for transit to work we need density. That is where we need to see some planning and land use changes. That will only come when the government puts pressure on the market to change behavior. Expensive commutes and errands to mega malls/big boxes via toll payments will effect change in the land-use arena.
So I had been on the fence about Mr. Freemark’s long running suggestion that we simply pay for transport improvement out of the general fund and now I know I can safely say I disagree. I think by paying for a transportation infrastructure out of the general fund without user fees will keep the status quo. Sure the transit funding formula situation might be fixed but what about the market pressure on the land use side of it? Without an large in your face economic cost commuters and or developers will keep going on as they are. And worse yet in the progressive income taxation method suggested, regular folks really won’t feel a pinch because it’ll only be the rich that foot the bill (I want the rich to pay for other things like health care and education).

So to make transit a viable alternative in this new scenario where the transport is paid from the general fund, we would need a mechanism to effect land use decisions. That would mean more Portland like growth boundaries and very strict land use regulations. That of course would be amazing, but how many newer growth urban areas have been as successful as Portland? Um, none. Maybe Minneapolis if we are super generous and only because they are trying to be bike-tastic too. I consider the older and denser communities in the Northeast in another category – but they could stop sprawling too of course. There is no political appetite for such regulations or a simply policy wonky wherewithal to administer such regulations.

So the irony here is that I as uber-liberal I find myself advocating for the market to correct the imbalance with the help of the government in its role to fix market failures. We all understand transport infrastructure leads the way for land-use decisions. Street cars spread from the downtown and we saw our first suburbs, highways spread from downtowns and we saw our first exurbs, etc. But now we have lots and lots of highways – 48,000 miles of them in fact, not counting state-highways that act like interstates that will continue to allow for land development that is not conducive to transit at all. We need to take action on constricting the demand for those highways (if not start to take them away) so that land use changes will come via the marketplace. The control of cost of use of transportation infrastructure is key – if it costs a lot good land use will follow. From there transit will be a viable mode choice as we can see in our old growth cities.

If we don’t do this by more gas taxes or tolls then the inevitable oil supply constriction will do it to us way down the road. We can start getting prepared or we can wait for chaos. What I think I know to be the wrong approach is to simply write a check out of the general fund for the infrastructure cost and just hope someone else picks up the slack on the land use side of things so that transit won’t fail. We don’t have the political appetite to directly control land use (especially from the federal level), but we do have an opportunity in our mini-crisis of the highway trust fund perpetual deficit, in that we can gain political traction to increase user fees to get a change in behavior in the marketplace.

I further comment to clear up some possible confusion:

I missed something in the post – but I still agree with me and disgree with Yonah. I think the cost and pain comes first and the land use and transit come second. This would seem to be incongruent with my whole bit on transport infrastructure leads land use, which is what Yonah’s last paragraph seems to be saying. However, I think that by Yonah’s method we would see transit as the Apple computer to the Microsoft/PC (which is the roads and autos). Without some pain in terms of cost to use roadways we would see transit development occur as sort of a niche in the transportation marketplace, hence Apple to PC. Sure Minneapolis is clamoring for a second street car line, but that doesn’t mean many other communities are struggling to get streetcars on the drawing board because. Building streetcars and transit like we did in the last 19th century will not produce results like they did back then.

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mbta fare hike numbers are in... uggh!

Wed, 8 Jul 2009 23:24:14 -0400

It could be a lot worse. Here is just some of the fare types and the expected increases:

OLD NEW
Charlie Card Subway Fare $1.70 $2.00
Charlie Ticket Subway Fare $2.00 $2.50
Bus Monthly Pass $40.00 $47.00
LinkPass $59.00 $69.00
The fare increases are expected to generate $69 million in revenues in addition to the $160 million dedicated from the new sales tax increases. The T is going to have a series of public meetings in regards to the cuts. The T also laid out possible service cuts should the fare increases some how not go through. In my humble opinion, I’d rather pay more, than see service cut at all. Public transit is absolutely crucial link to too many households to put their mobility in jeopardy, especially in such a bad economy where they are already hurting.

Now when I say it could be a lot worse, I point your attention to the monthly subway fares in the following cities around North America below. Just based on monthly fares alone Boston is the 6th most expensive system of the ten reviewed. There is more to analyze than just a simple side by side on the fare alone. How far can a system bring you and how long does service last? Below is a very crude analysis, with results that are very hard to compare.

A factor that might play into the cost of fare is the size of a system. One might think NYC is simply more expensive because it covers a much larger service area. The images below are the size of the subway networks to scale (check out Neil Freeman’s amazing work and more systems here: http://www.fakeisthenewreal.org/subway/). This gives a comparison between each system and gives an idea of the distance that a commuter can travel for what your money buys. Just on visuals alone there does not seem to be a good correlation between size of system and price paid for a monthly pass. Washington DC and San Francisco charge for distance anyway, so their size and resulting fare is more difficult to compare to Boston’s smaller system (San Francisco doesn’t have a monthly pass so it is not pictured here).

Lastly, what are the hours of service and does this affect fare price? Boston is open from 5:30am to about 1:00am, with no night bus alternative like in Philadelphia. NYC runs 24/7 and therefore higher fares might account for this convenience. Toronto is open the least of any of the systems, yet the 2nd most expensive - service does not begin until 9:00am on Sundays! But just like size of system varying among the fare rates, so does the service hours and the fare price.

It is hard to decipher among the systems and the fare price paid per month and the value received based on size of system and service hours. Therefore, I am tempted to just compare the monthly fares against each other, ignoring the size of system and hours of service. With that, each of the systems are ranked against each other on fare price alone. I have provided hours of service for your own comparison (though that information is crude too, sorry).

1) Washington DC: $156 (system wide - 4 weekly passes @ $39)
or $105.60 (for short trips only - 4 weekly passes @ $26.40)
Open: 5:00am M-F / 7:00am S-Su
Close: 12:00am Su-Th / 3:00am F-S

Toronto: $109
Open: 6:00am M-S / 9:00am Su
Close: 1:30am

3) New York City: $89
Open 24/7

4) Chicago: $86
Open: varies / some 24/7 service
Close: varies / some 24/7 service

Philadelphia: $78
Open: 5:00am
Close: 12:00am (night bus service available)
Some trolleys run 24/7

Boston: $69 (soon)
Open: 5:30am
Close: 1:00am

Montreal: $68.50 (soon)
Open: 5:30am
Close: 12:30am Su-F / 1:00am S (varies between lines)

Los Angeles: $64
Open: 4:00am (varies between lines)
Close: 1:30am (varies between lines)

9) Atlanta: $60 (soon)
Open: 4:00am (varies by line)
Close: 2:00am (varies by line)

Additional thoughts:

San Francisco is not listed above, but would presumably be one of the most expensive (in some cases), as it is based entirely on distance, and weekly or monthly passes are not available at all. DC is also based on distance, but offers two types of weekly passes only. One for the entire system and one for shorter trips that only cost up to $2.65 in rush hour periods. If we had a system like that we would pay premiums for rush hour service and people living far out on any of the lines would pay more on top of that. DC’s commuters furthest away from downtown DC pay up to $4.50 each way during rush hour!

So even though the fare increase hurts a lot, we could be like some of the other cities, with limited hours and still a small system (notably Toronto). Montreal is similar to us and endures annual fare increases (probably smarter, as they never seem to be in crisis), but Atlanta is a good deal. I say that because their system supposedly receives no state subsidy at all and has better hours. If our fares just went up $10 dollars per month, imagine what it would be without the help from the sales tax! I wonder how they do it down in Atlanta? I’ll have to investigate that further another time.

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in the news + commentary / july 6

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 07:47:38 -0400

Mass-Transit Op-Ed / Edward Glaeser penned an op-ed in the Globe clamoring for a better transportation policy that focuses on already congested areas, and using our existing infrastructure better, all before we focus on a new high-speed rail system. While I agree that we need to use the infrastructure we have better, I also think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Fixing our current system should not preclude us from evolving our transportation into a modern system that will leave us better prepared for the issues in the 21st century. Where Mr. Glaeser could have placed his ire, is in the Obama administrations vacuum of a transportation policy. Rather than prepare a focused and visioned transportation system, the stimulus money went to more of the same and the high-speed rail money is most likely going to go down the hole. That is because there is no comprehensive high-speed rail plan in place with clear goals for speed, service, what to do with Amtrak etc. What does exist – is mostly just a map with a timeline for a rail plan to come later (see page 20). And any move forward towards such a plan is being squashed by the Obama administration with their request for an 18 month extension on the Bush era SAFTEA-LU transportation policy.

MBTA Commuter Trains Doing Better / The commuter trains have hit a three-year high for on-time performance measures.

Springfield to New Haven / Video update on the rail plans for the corridor. I’m excited about Connecticut’s ambition on this. Hopefully, Amtrak will not kill their optimism. New York has certainly been through the Amtrak ideas death mill.

Getting Tougher! / Good! But it will help if bus drivers do not let an entire bus ride for free. That happened to me on ride on the Washington Street Silver Line in February. The bus was fully packed, so it was over a $200 worth of fares not collected, which was well over the salary of the that driver for the day.

FastLane Freebies Ending? / Governor Patrick says to restore faith in government the folks getting a free ride on the Turnpike will need to end. Sounds good to me.

Difficulties in Getting Details on the Pike Budget / As the Turnpike faces its certain mortality, one would think they would finally have gotten a clue they might need to change their ways. Nope. Just read the report on how difficult it was to get a copy of the recently approved budget.

Zipcar Just Got Better / Zipcar installed E-ZPass transponders on all of its cars in the Boston area. No more cash needed and time wasted on the Pike! That is great news.

RMV Efficiency / The RMV is streamlining its branch operations, taking up space in Turnpike offices (for free rent, which is S-M-A-R-T), and pointing more of its customers to their website for time saving self-service options. About $1.7M is expected to be saved.

Cape Cod Transit / A task force on transit on the Cape is re-assembling. It was called into being 2000 and produced a five-year plan in 2002. They are re-assembling to continue to guide public transit on the Cape.

City of Boston iPhone App Coming Soon / The city has developed an iPhone application for citizens to voice their concern about issues in and around the city. See a problem, note it and send it on to the city via your iPhone. That is pretty cool. I’m looking forward to downloading it when it becomes available!

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in the news + commentary / july 1

Wed, 1 Jul 2009 18:04:40 -0400

Transportation Overhaul / Its old news that Governor has sign the massive transportation reform bill, but I’ve been busy. I’ll get to the details in longer post.

Tolls Stay the Same / With the sales tax increase signed into law the Turnpike Authority has rescinded the toll hike that would have gone into place had the Legislature and Governor not collected new revenues. That is what was expected all along.

Toll Trial Update / The toll whiners are applauding the new transportation legislation and raising new concerns all in one fell swoop. They are happy that the new legislation says that the toll collected have to be spent on specifically on that road but are worried that rule will not be followed anyway. Get on a train and stop driving. Problem solved whiners.

Tolls Diversion Hurting MassPort? / The Tobin Bridge and all its toll revenue generation has been transfered from MassPort to the new MassDOT. This contributed to Standard & Poor’s Rating Service to downgrade MassPort’s financial strength position to negative from stable, though their bond rating stayed the same at AA-. S&P is fearful for the revenue squeeze on already tightening revenues for MassPort without the income from the Tobin Bridge.

Gas Tax Still Possible? / The Governor did not rule out a gas tax increase despite the increase in sales taxes. He thinks the transportation funding sources are still not stable. I agree. But he later said that there are no plans to pursue an increase anyway.

Gas Tax Isn’t Possible / The Senate President said that they already took that issue up this year and it was voted down. Period.

A Somervillian on Transportation in Somerville / A good piece on the good and the bad in Somerville and what the future holds.

Anti-Efficiency Drivers / For all the complaining folks do about government inefficiency they certainly take no great pains in their own lives to make the MassPike more efficient. The Boston Globe reports that 34 percent of tolls are still paid in cash and at a higher rate in Metro Boston. The next step is for the Commonwealth to install express lanes like they have on the Garden State Parkway, so that people don’t even have to see a the toll booths if they have a FastLane tag. It would fix the problem of cash-payers jumping their queues and then blocking the FastLane lanes too.

Good Job on Stimulus Funding / Wicked Local Wellesley is reporting that MassPIRG has found that the Commonwealth is doing a relatively good job compared to other states in their stimulus spending. The Commonwealth is spending 19 percent on public transport (a figure common with average spending on non-stimulus spending federally), and 75 percent going to existing infrastructure repairs.

High-Speed Rail Collaboration in New England Please! / Former Secretary of the Executive Office of Transportation and Public Works (soon to be MassDOT) Bernard Cohen wrote in the Hartford Courant that the New England states should be working harder to secure federal high-speed rail funds and follow the Brookings Institute suggestion for corridor planning. Something has already been made of this point, but Mr. Cohen is no doubt right. Hopefully, we’ll see some more action - otherwise the $8 billion dollars will go west.

Sidewalks to Nowhere, Ugh / Last summer I worked on a project with New York State DOT to rate all the sidewalks that parallel NYS owned highways for Americans with Disabilities Act compliance. The group of us started to commiserate about the sidewalks to nowhere, noticing a plethora of examples like the one noted through the link. It is a source of frustration for me because, communities should be walkable and accessible. The responsibility for sidewalks to actually link to other sidewalks can be murky and therefore you find such examples.

Transit History Moment / The Riverside Green Line turns 50. It is a great piece and I would recommend checking it out. I only wish Boston had had the foresight not to rip out the trolley tracks elsewhere in the region so soon after they put in the Riverside line. The future is going back to the past with streetcars getting a lot of attention in other metropolitan regions. I hope to someday see some of the other trolley lines put back in service.

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update

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:13:39 -0400

I’ve been pretty busy lately, which is unusual so I have not been able to post unfortunately. I hope to get back to the news very soon and address the big changes heading towards us in the Commonwealth and federally with the work Rep. James Oberstar is spear heading as the chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

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