Wake Up, Washtenaw!

A Reply to Sam

2012-01-22T20:37:00.000-08:00

Mr. Sam Leckrone was given a guest column in today's AnnArbor.com, titled "Spending money on high-speed rail system an ill-conceived idea". As readers of this blog can well imagine, for me to see a title like that is like waving the proverbial red flag in front of the bull.

None the less, Sam has at least one valid point in his column: he spotted some very strange time-comparisons in a document published by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) in the 2009 publication he cited in the article, "Chicago – Detroit/Pontiac Corridor Service Development Plan" (all links are at the end of this post). Thank you for doing the math, Sam! MDOT should be ashamed and update (or at least clarify) the figures. Here is the table Sam was objecting to, with times used in suspected calculation in blue, and suspect calculation results in red:

Exhibit 2. Travel Time Comparisons between Travel Modes (Chicago-Detroit/Pontiac)

Mode	Estimated Travel Time Downtown to Downtown One-way	Estimated Total Travel Time	Passenger Rail Estimated Travel Time Comparison
Passenger Rail _W_a_lk/Auto Segment¹ Station Segment _{Train Segment}² Auto Segment	15 minutes Downtown Chicago to Union Station 10 minutes 4 hours-46 minutes 15 minutes from New Center station to Downtown Detroit	5 hours-26 minutes	--
Auto and Parking	4 hours-30 min. to 5 hours	4 hours-30 min. to 5 hours	4 minutes to 34 minutes slower than train
Bus³ Auto/Walk Segment Station Segment Bus Segment Auto/Walk	15 minutes to downtown bus station 10 minutes 7 hours-10 minutes 15 minutes bus station to downtown	7 hours-50 minutes	3 hours-24 minutes slower than train.
Air Auto/Transit Segment Airport Segment Air Segment⁴ Airport segment Auto Segment	1 hour Downtown Chicago to O'Hare Airport 1.5 hours 1 hour-15 minutes Detroit/Wayne Airport-O'Hare Airport 15 minutes 40 minutes to Detroit Wayne Airport to Downtown Detroit	4 hours-40 minutes	14 minutes slower than train

¹Travel time estimates for walk, auto and station segments obtained from Milwaukee-Madison Passenger Rail Corridor Project
Environmental Assessment, WisDOT ID 0410-40-40/0499-10-39, http://www.dot.state.wi.us/projects/d1/hsrail/environ.htm
²Travel time estimates for train segment are based on Midwest Regional Rail System, Executive Report, September 2004.
³Average bus travel time
⁴Based on, Northwest Airlines, http://res.nwa.com/App/FlightSearchResults, Accessed September 2007

However, Sam has also given voice to a number of misconceptions about high-speed rail and the utility of passenger rail in general.

He states that the top speed of the proposed Detroit to Chicago route is 79 MPH, based on the 2009 MDOT publication. The current goal is stated in a memo from the House Fiscal Agency to the House Committee on Appropriations in September 2011:
"Since 1992, the state, federal government, and AMTRAK have dedicated funds to development of high speed rail service on the Detroit-Chicago rail corridor. The stated goal has been to reduced route time from 6 hours to 4 hours through increased train speeds (up to 110 mph) and reduction in bottlenecks." (p.1)
"The department [MDOT] indicates that planned improvements 135.7 [mile] Kalamazoo-Dearborn track segment have the potential of increasing train speeds on that corridor to 110 mph. Combined with the 97 mile segment from Kalamazoo to Porter, Indiana, over 232 miles – 76% of the Wolverine route – would be at the 110 mph standard." (p.3)
(Admittedly, that's not high-speed by European or Asian standards.)
Sam writes, "Nobody will give up driving their cars on I-94 to ride a train that is slower than the freeway..." In fact, ridership on that route has increased substantially over the last years, even as train speeds have gone down due to poor maintenance by host railroad Norfolk-Southern. In November of 2010 the Chicago-Pontiac "Wolverine" gained 21.9% over November 2009. (November 2011 lost some of that gain due to extreme speed restrictions.)
He further states, "Mass transit is NOT greener than the private automobile." To compare the efficiency of modes of transportation, the best measure is energy used for each mile a passenger is moved. The Federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics, using BTUs per passenger-mile, rated domestic air carriers at 4,123; passenger cars at 3,672; and Amtrak at 2,138. That puts the train at 58% of the energy used compared to passenger cars, and 51% of the energy used compared to air travel.

Sam then brings up an old and oft-debunked myth about the cost and value of public vs. private transportation: that public transportation is subsidized, so money should be spent into roads instead. The fallacy here is the unspoken assumption that roads pay for themselves through fuel and registration fees. In fact, Congress had to subsidize the Highway Trust Fund to the tune of $14.7 billion in FY 2010, which was 29% of Federal highway spending for that year. Projections indicate that this subsidy will grow as cars become more fuel efficient.

Like many critics of public transportation, Sam has not stepped back to consider the larger cost of private automobiles to our country. The cost of parking (which can approach $50 for 24 hours in downtown Chicago) extends to the hidden cost of "free" parking – the many square miles of land devoted to parking that could be used for housing, business, agriculture, or recreation. Highways are dangerous: 32,788 were killed on highways in the U.S. in 2010, and that's considered a "good" record. Automobile congestion is costly, too: in 2010, the average commuter in the Detroit area wasted $687 in traffic – and in Chicago, each commuter wasted $1,568.

The reason trains have experienced steady growth in ridership is that they provide a much more pleasant and productive travel environment. Business people can use their travel time productively on their laptops using Amtrak's recently-installed WiFi, or just resting after a tense meeting. Families with small children appreciate being able to get up and walk around, get snacks any time, and use one of the two restrooms in each coach. I've traveled from Ann Arbor to Chicago by train many times, and appreciate being able to relax, in contrast to the white-knuckle driving experiences I had before I found how convenient the train is.

The train is definitely not for everyone, but it's a valuable transportation alternative that we'll need more and more as congestion and the cost of driving increase.

To learn more:

"Spending money on high-speed rail system an ill-conceived idea" (2012-01-22, p. A-6), online
"Chicago – Detroit/Pontiac Corridor Service Development Plan", PDF online
Memo from William E. Hamilton, [Michigan] House Fiscal Agency, to House Committee on Appropriations, September 27, 2011, PDF online
"Energy Intensity of Passenger Modes (Btu per passenger-mile)", online
"The Contribution of the Federal Transportation Investment Programs to Fiscal Responsibility and Deficit Reduction", originally on this site, but now cached by Google.
"Traffic Fatalities in 2010 Drop to Lowest Level in Recorded History", National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
"What Congestion Means to You, 2010", Texas Transportation Institute PDF
"November 2010 Monthly Performance Report" and "November 2011 Monthly Performance Report", Amtrak, linked toward the bottowm of this page.

SMART or NOT?

2011-12-20T05:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening (December 19), I attended a gathering of transportation, research, and government people at the Michigan League of the University of Michigan. The U of M and its sponsors are conducting a tremendous amount of research to transform transportation and accessibility around the world, and is putting it into place with excellent results in places like South Africa, Pakistan, India, and the Philippines.

But not in Michigan.

Although the state of Michigan supports research and assistance for others, it doesn't make use of it for its own benefit. Instead, politicians make decisions that ignore research findings supported by Ford Motor Company, ALCOA Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, not to mention the citizens and tuition-payers of Michigan. In addition, Michigan politicians overrule Federally-mandated procedures designed to insure that community members and stakeholders have a voice in their own transportation decisions.

I'm speaking of SMART, the University of Michigan, and the United States Department of Transportation's own procedures for establishing transit systems. And I'm referring, of course, to last week's decision by three men to implement a transit system for the Detroit metropolitan area that bypasses all the resources provided for sound decision-making, and all the community stakeholders. (All links below)

The three men are Dave Bing, Mayor of Detroit; Rick Snyder, Governor of Michigan; and Ray LaHood, United States Secretary of Transportation. Their decision to replace a light rail system with rapid buses ignores the experience and research findings of those who truly know about public transportation options. The decision also overturns the multi-year information gathering process that citizens paid for, as the process went through several iterations of the painstaking Federal Transit Administration's requirements, designed to link the best engineering knowledge with the most cogent local interests.

Citizens, stake-holders, investors, and engineers all agreed: the best option for Detroit is to begin with light rail on Woodward in combination with better connecting bus service. In a post to this blog in July 12 of this year, I debunked criticisms of the process with detailed references to how the light rail decision was arrived at. Light rail is the Locally Preferred Alternative.

Yesterday's gathering at the University of Michigan was notable for who was there. It was even more notable for who was not there. Present: sponsors from Ford, Rockefeller, and ALCOA; interested citizens and advocates from Washtenaw County, Detroit, and Lansing; researchers from U of M and Michigan State; the CEO of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority; the Chair of the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners.

Absent: anyone from the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration, the office of Governor Rick Snyder, the Michigan Department of Transportation, the office of Mayor Dave Bing, or the counties of Oakland or Macomb. In other words, nobody who needs information to make sound transportation decisions was there.

I'm really glad people in Cape Town, Chennai, and Manila are benefiting from research conducted by the University of Michigan. What a shame it doesn't benefit Michigan itself.

To learn more:

SMART, Sustainable Mobility & Accessibility Research & Transformation
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing's Op Ed in the Detroit Free Press, 2011-12-18
"Smearing Woodward Avenue Rail" in this blog post.

Detroit's Dilemma: Light Rail, Bus Rapid Transit, or Rapid Bus?

2011-12-14T21:03:00.000-08:00

You may have heard that yesterday (Dec. 13, 2011) a decision was made to cancel Detroit's Woodward Avenue Light Rail project, and to substitute instead a "rapid bus" system that would serve four Detroit corridors.
In an interview with Fox 2 News (linked below), Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is quoted as saying, "I don't think we should concentrate all of our efforts on the Woodward light rail. I think we've got to look at this region and do what's best for the region." A Detroit News article, "Light rail backers push Woodward line as bus system proposed", outlines the details and includes interviews with people who back the light rail system.
Does this mean the light rail plan is history? Another ambitious plan for Detroit that falls into oblivion? Possibly. Moneyed backers of the light rail system are reluctant to give it up, so some semblance of the proposed system may yet be built.Either way, now is a good time to look more closely at rapid bus in comparison with light rail. When transportation nerds hear "rapid bus", we think "Bus Rapid Transit" (BRT). But I'm not at all convinced that the Detroit plan will actually involve BRT - at least, not at first.
You see, some statements made by Gov. Snyder and his spokespeople a couple of months ago about the low cost of rapid bus, when Snyder announced his plan for Detroit transit, lead me to believe either of two possibilities: they may not understand what is really involved in"Bus Rapid Transit", or they may have used the term "rapid bus"because they envision something simpler and less expensive.
Here's a little table outlining the similarities and differences between Light Rail, true Bus Rapid Transit, and rapid buses:

	Light Rail	Bus Rapid Transit	Rapid Buses
Runs on	Rails in separate lanes	Asphalt or concrete in separate lanes	Asphalt or concrete in normal traffic lanes, possibly on a freeway at times
In traffic	Usually has the right of way	Usually has the right of way	Runs with traffic, but may have special signals at some intersections
Stop spacing	1-2 per mile	1-2 per mile	2-3 per mile
Getting on	Station or special platform	Station or special platforms	Bus shelter
Paying	Buy ticket before boarding	Buy ticket before boarding	Pay on the bus
Initial average cost per mile	$34.8 million	$13.5 million	Much less, but not documented
Operating cost	Low	Moderate	Moderate
Potential for development	High	Moderate	Low

Light rail is a well-established transit mode that runs on rails, usually on its ownright-of-way. The Detroit plan called for mixing with traffic in the downtown area to give better access to local businesses. Over most of the line, stations were located about a half-mile apart, though the downtown area had closer spacing. Compared with buses, light rail is relatively inexpensive to operate. Each 120-foot train holds about three times as many passengers as the 60-foot buses normally used for BRT; each train and bus is operated by one driver, and since personnel is typically the largest cost, running BRT buses costs roughly three times as much as running a light rail train. Also less expensive is the energy for moving them: electricity for the trains,versus diesel or natural gas for the buses. However, to those low costs we must add the cost of maintaining the track and electric wires, while normally only the pavement would be a factor for the buses.

Bus Rapid Transit in its pure form is designed to work like a light rail train on rubber tires. It has its own right of way, similar station spacing, and people board at stations after paying their fare. The station platform is level with the floor of the bus, so people, strollers,and wheel chairs can roll on and off without having to lower the bus,deploy a ramp, or slow the boarding process in any way. When crossing streets, the approach of a bus changes the signal so the bus can proceed without stopping. Everything is designed to move people as efficiently as possible. But as you can imagine, dedicating a lane to nothing but buses, building stations, and purchasing large,specialized buses makes BRT pretty expensive compared with other kinds of bus service.

Rapid (or Express) bus is primarily a way of using ordinary buses on existing streets or freeways to speed up service at a minimum of cost. The buses stop less frequently than local buses, and in some cases have devices that give them some amount of precedence at intersections. Rapid bus routes are inexpensive to set up, since they don't necessarily need special stations, equipment, or lanes. But they sacrifice many of the advantages of either light rail or BRT systems: they are slower and less comfortable, because they stop and start much more frequently. Boarding is slower if fares are collected by the driver as passengers get on.

Los Angeles provides good examples of all three of these transit modes (see links below). The Blue, Green, and Gold line are light rail; the Orange Line is BRT,and there are 26 rapid bus routes in addition to multiple local bus lines. (The Red and Purple lines are what's known as "heavy-rail"subways.) I've ridden the Blue, Green, Gold, Red, and Orange lines,but not the rapid buses. The Orange Line runs from North Hollywood to Canoga, part of the way in the wide median of Chandler Boulevard, the rest of the way on the old right of way of Southern Pacific Railroad's Burbank Branch; it is being extended to Chatsworth. I rode it in October of 2007 in mid and late afternoon, and found the bus a little bumpy and jerky, but well patronized. (The buses are equipped with TVs, but what do you expect in Hollywood?) During rush hours,the BRT system now operates at capacity due to high ridership, and the LA transit authority is experimenting with ways to increase capacity, such as using longer buses or running buses in "fleets"of two or three.

The LA Transit "Metro Rapid" and similar area services use articulated buses, for the most part,similar to those on the Orange Line (but painted different colors). They stop at bus shelters (not stations) and are built with low floors to make boarding more rapid. Some of the bus shelters are equipped with "next bus arrival" signs. In the City of Los Angeles, traffic signals along their route recognize the buses' presence and change to let them through, but outside the city many of the signals aren't equipped to recognize them, and don't give them precedence. Their speed and passenger-carrying capacity is less than that of light rail or the Orange Line BRT, but greater than that of the local buses.

Development incentive is probably the the most important difference for a metropolitan region choosing between light rail, BRT, and rapid bus systems. Light rail systems built recently in several U.S. cities have spurred tremendous investment in developments around the stations. Four to eight dollars of private investment is widely reported for every dollar spent building light rail. Most observers agree that rails in the ground give developers confidence that the service will be around for the long term, and that lots of people will be riding.
BRT figures aren't so easy to come by in this country. The systems I've looked at personally (Los Angeles and Cleveland) don't appear to have attracted much development that wouldn't have happened anyway. However, Enrique Peñalosa,who spearheaded the BRT system in Bogotá, Colombia, points to tremendous development near the BRT corridors of his city. Bogotáhas no other rapid transit in competition with BRT, whereas both LA and Cleveland have rail transportation options, which experience shows to attract development quite reliably.
There is no evidence that I know of to indicate that rapid or express buses stimulate development. Because they have so little fixed infrastructure, there is no assurance for developers that their investment would be safe.
Perhaps in Detroit, with few rapid transit options other than BRT, it would attract some of the development we've been looking for from a light rail system. We can hope - and push for - a true BRT system. But let's not give up on light rail: experience around the country shows light rail is really what attracts private investment to cities.

To learn more:

myFOXDetroit.com,updated December 14, 2011 at 6:49 PM EST. "WoodwardLight Rail Project Derailed"
Detroit News December 14, 2011 at 7:47 pm, "Light rail backers push Woodward line as bus system proposed"
About Enrique Peñalosa in "Sustainable Cities"
Bus Rapid Transit (Wikipedia)
Los Angeles transit information:

Exalted, Unreasonable Hope

2011-11-20T11:04:00.000-08:00

Do you know the exalted, unreasonable hope that wells up out of utter despair? That's what I tried to get at with this piece.
- Darol Anger, from the liner notes to "The Unbearable Gift", on his CD album Woodshop.

I've been following with great interest Vivienne Armentrout's blog, "Local in Ann Arbor" (all links below). Vivienne has a great eye for detail and a gift for putting the details all together in a lucid, enlightening essay.

But much as I admire her abilities, I almost always end up in disagreement with her. (So much for the idea that we can solve all our disagreements if we all agree on the facts.)

Vivienne has been doing a carefully-researched series titled, "AATA: Moving Us Where?", analyzing the emerging county-wide transit plan, "Moving You Forward". Her well-documented conclusion: we can't do it. We don't have the money, and there are far too many uncertainties in the political arena, not to mention the uncertainties of life in general.

That's why Darol Anger's thoughts (quoted above) struck me when I noticed them in a copy of Sing Out magazine this morning. I continue to hope, unreasonable though it may seem, that we'll be able to develop and support a county-wide transit system. Here are two ways to look at it: historically, and in terms of alternatives.

Historically

When have we ever achieved anything worth doing, without risk? Consider...

Would we be living in America if our ancestors hadn't taken the risk of coming here, not knowing whether they would make it in the "new world"? (Many, many of them died in the attempt.)
Would the United States be an independent nation if the Founding Fathers had waited until the budget permitted them to raise an army? (And the outcome was in grave doubt for many years.)
Would the Interstate Highway System have been built if it was known back in 1956 that the system would cost more than 1.2 trillion dollars...and practically none of that was identified in the budget?

Many factors led to people's decisions to go ahead with these efforts. One factor was an optimistic vision of the future, an "unreasonable hope", as Darol Anger put it, that they could make their lives better by working through the uncertainties.

Another factor was "utter despair" at the current situation, whether it was poverty and opression in the "old world", anger at being exploited by England, or frustrating snarls of congestion on two-lane roads. My feeling is that, if we're not in "utter despair" yet (and many Michiganders are), we will be soon.

One Alternative

What happens if we elect the "status quo" alternative, continuing as we have been? Certainly, one alternative is to do nothing. We could try to continue with AATA as it is, supported mainly by the millage paid by Ann Arbor residents, together with state and federal funding and relatively small "Provision of Service Agreement" funds from outlying areas.

As Vivienne has counted the cost of improvement, so too, we need to count the cost of doing nothing. I hope Vivienne will update and elaborate on the estimate I did two years ago in my blog entry, "Can we afford a county-wide transit system?" Using data from the Census Bureau, WATS, AAA, and APTA, I came up with these conclusions:

112,980 households in Washtenaw County had 2 or more automobiles;
the annual cost of owning an auto at that time was $9,190 (it's closer to $10,000 now);
if only 20% of the multi-auto houseolds were able to reduce their vehicles by one because of improved transit, the total savings in the county would be $207,657,240 each year;
if residents kept 75% of that money and paid only 25% for transit, the county-wide savings for residents who sold one car would amount to $155,742,930 county-wide, and the transit agency would receive $51,914,310 in local funds;
each household would pay $386.88 in transit tax, and those that sold a second vehicle would gain $1,160.64, a 300% return on investment.

These figures are now two years old, and they don't take into account Michigan's local tax structure. It would be a great service for someone with a better understanding of the legal details to update and refine these numbers.

We also need to consider the "collateral damage" of leaving most of the county very auto-dependent: the loss of people who can no longer afford to live in such an expensive transportation environment, and the loss of creative young people who far prefer to live free from the many burdens placed on us by our automobiles.

So the ultimate question to answer is, Can we afford not to have a county-wide transit system?

To learn more:

Local in Ann Arbor, blog by Vivienne Armentrout
Moving You Forward, a countywide transit vision
Sing Out magazine
Can we afford a county-wide transit system? Wake Up Washtenaw blog entry
WATS - the Washtenaw Area Transportation Study
AAA's Daily Fuel Guage Report
APTA - the American Public Transit Association November 2011 Transit Savings Report

Rick Snyder's New Way to Go

2011-10-28T19:49:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder introduced a new transportation funding proposal. Little by little, details are coming out.
First, here are the main parts of the proposal as they were delivered Wednesday:

Changing the way motor fuel is taxed from per-gallon paid at the pump by motorists, to a percentage of the price paid by wholesalers; the shift is to be "revenue neutral" when it kicks in, but will change as the price of oil fluctuates;
Adding an additional registration fee for license plates;
Allowing regions to add a further fee to license plates for regional transportation projects;
Creating a regional transportation authority for Southeast Michigan that includes the City of Detroit, and the counties of Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, and Washtenaw.

Today (Friday, Oct. 28) Dennis Schornack, Special Advisor to Gov. Snyder, added a number of details at a meeting of the special financial advisory group of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority. (This is the blue-ribbon pannel assembled to propose funding methods for the Transit Master Plan.)
Remember that these are still proposals, and must be approved by the House and Senate, which will certainly have a lot to say about it...but here are some of the highlights:

The state-wide registration fee is to be based on the value of the vehicle, as the current fee is; it is advertized as "$10 per month", but that obviously adds up to $120 per year; that's said to be a maximum, so presumably people whose cars are worth less money would pay less than $120 for their registration;
Any county or contiguous group of counties can propose a license fee of up to $40 per year; (that's $13.3333 per month); the amount would need to be approved by the majority of voters in the proposed region, with no "opt-out" provision for sub-regions that don't think they want to participate; in our case, that means the votes of everybody in Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties, including the City of Detroit, would be tallied together - not as individual counties, and if the majority of voters in one county voted against it while the majority of the region voted in favor, they would still be subject to the tax;
All the funds raised by either new fuel or new license fees would be subject to the Michigan constitutional requirement that 90% of all funds raised through vehicle and fuel taxes be allocated to roads and bridges, with a maximum of 10% going to transit;
Funds raised by a regional registration fee would be limited in where they can go: 95% would be directed to the county in which they are raised; in other words, for every $1,000,000 Washtenaw County raises, it would be guaranteed at least $950,000 for its internal use, but the other $50,000 could be spent in another part of the region at the discrition of the regional authority;
The Governor will recommend that the full 10% constitutionally allowable be used for transit, which is more than the amount currently allocated; using the example above, Washtenaw County would be able to use $100,000 for transit out of every $1,000,000 it raises through license fees;
The regional transit authority for Southeast Michigan would be responsible for four proposed transit routes: Gatiot Avenue, Woodward Avenue, M-59, and Michigan Avenue to Detroit Metro Airport and Ann Arbor;
Other public transit services in the area would be "contracted" to provide service, and would receive federal and state funds through the regional transit authority
The committee setting up the regional authority for Southeast Michigan is composed of Governor Snyder, Mayor Dave Bing, andx Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff; these would continue to serve as titular heads of the authority once it is set up, though of course others would carry out the day-to-day administration.

So that's a lot of information, but it's all tentative. Remember the second Detroit River Bridge? The Governor proposes, the Legislature disposes. (But the Governor hasn't given up on the bridge yet...)
The information we have raises a lot of questions as well. Mr. Schornack, when questioned about some of them, smiled and said the Governor preferred to start with the "10,000-ft. view" and work out the details later. What questions do you have? We may be able to get at least a few answers from the Governor at Monday's Michigan Rail Summit.
Meanwhile, I'm off the the Midwest Highspeed Rail Association's Fall meeting in Cleveland. I started this blog on the AATA bus coming home from the meeting, and I'm now on the Megabus en route from Toledo to Cleveland. (I had to try the Megabus service to see how public transportation that claim to make a profit actually feels to the consumer. More later...)

If you don't offer walkable urbanism, you can write off your future development

2011-10-06T18:20:00.000-07:00

"If you don't offer walkable urbanism, you can write off your future development." - Christopher Leinberger

That was his answer when I asked about need for healthy development in the face Southeast Michigan's declining population and environment.

Leinberger, a Professor at the University of Michigan's Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning, and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, was speaking at Concentrate's Speaker Series at The Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase. (No joke.)

After his talk, I pressed him further about Ypsilanti Township's situation - after all, that's where I live and where I'm a Planning Commissioner. He answered with a smile, "Ah, Ypsilanti! What a great town!" "But what about the Township," I insisted. "Focus, focus, focus on the downtown!"

Unable to monopolize the Great Man's attention further, I couldn't tell him that Ypsi Township doesn't have a downtown. But I can imagine his reply if I had. "Work with the City!" Can we actually work together, the City and the Township...?

I just read in today's Ypsilanti Courier that Paul Schreiber, the City of Ypsilanti's Mayor, addressed his City Council with a gloom-and-doom message last night. So bad is the financial outlook that not only could 65% of the City's general-fund employees be laid off, but those that remained would have their health insurance capped or cropped. The Township isn't much better off, with the work-week reduced to 30 hours and mandatory furlough days.
The City's Water Street project was to be a great example of what Leinberger praised tonight as a "near-downtown" center of walkable urbanism. Instead, it's a $1.3 million annual debt load on the City and it's citizens. We've got to find a way to turn it from a burden into a profitable, tax-paying development. The City and the Township need to work together for that, because without a financially healthy urban center, neither of the Ypsilantis will pull through this financial crisis. But we can't seem to work together, can we?

It was Ben Franklin who said, "If we don't all hang together, then surely, we shall all hang separately."

Looks like we're about to prove him right. The noose is tightening around Ypsilanti, both City and Township. Let's get together and at least plan our development strategy jointly, beginning with walkable urbanism, a focus on downtown, and and end to greenfield development in the Township.

More on this later...

Q: Sustainable I understand, but why transit-oriented?

2011-09-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

I've been re-thinking some of the basic issues Wake Up Washtenaw is here to address. Based on some of the questions I get when out talking with people, I'm going to "go back to the basics" with a series of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). Here's the first:

Q: Sustainable I understand, but why transit-oriented?

A: Transportation has determined how humans build communities since the rise of cities. Whether on rivers, harbors, or caravan routes, people living in fixed towns and villages want to be where they can take advantage of transportation routes. In the United States, it's especially important for us to be able to move freely, because the essence of freedom is being able to go where we want to go.When someone is arrested, the first freedom they lose is the ability go where they want.

During the second half of the 20th century, we Americans invested about 1.2 trillion dollars to build the Interstate Highway System, which enabled many of us - for a while - to live a long way from where we work, play, and get our food. But now, we're paying the price: the result was sprawl, congestion, dependence on foreign oil, and forcing people either to invest heavily in personal transportation (cars), or be relegated to an under-class whose freedom to move around is very limited. Car-less people have relatively few choices of where to live in order to preserve their freedom of movement. That's why young people who prefer not to have a car migrate away from Michigan to live in cities like Chicago, Boston, Washington, Seattle, and San Francisco. And that's why being unable to own a car in Michigan is effectively a prison sentence.

Good, reliable transit provides everyone with a relatively inexpensive alternative way to get where they want to go...within limits. It doesn't go everywhere, and it never will. Transit will never replace personal vehicles for everyone, so it's important to have cars and trucks that don't burn petroleum products.

But strong, fixed transit does more than provide an alternative: it encourages communities to grow in compact clusters close to transit stations. Such communities enable people to obtain their daily needs within walking distance of where they live. It enables them to use transit to get to work on time. It makes it necessary to for them to walk a bit more, which improves their health. It eliminates the need to burn petroleum in order to get to a store for food. That, in turn, reduces our dependence on imported oil. (Americans send more money abroad to buy oil than we pay in taxes to maintain our roads.) And greenhouse gas emissions are reduced as well. Transportation is responsible for about 30% of America's greenhouse gas emissions.

So having communities that are oriented around good, fixed transit is an essential key to sustainability. There's a lot more we need to do, but without reshaping our communities away from sprawl, all other measures will fall very short of sustainability.

What ever happened to profitable public transportation?

2011-09-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

Back in the 19th century, lots of entrepreneurial companies set up public transportation services...mainly rail-based, both on streets and on their own right-of-way. And they made handsome profits.
We still have a few private transportation companies making a profit in the early 21st century, but very few: some airlines (not all!), and just possibly some inter-city bus companies. Megabus? Greyhound? I'm not sure. (Usually I like to check my facts, but today I want to spark comment and discussion, so bear with me...and put in your two-dollars worth! [Inflation.])
I think it's critical to get private business to invest in - and make a profit from - public transportation. Why? Because we need to ramp up our public transportation options pretty quickly to avoid peak-oil problems, and if the private sector could be offered a profit in making that happen, it could get done much sooner.
Today, I want to look at how public passenger transportation used to make money, how it still does in some places, and why it no longer does here in the US.

How did they do it?

In the 19th century, railroads were money-making operations for a number of reasons...

At first, roads were terrible and there was no other practical way to get around. (Contrary to what some people may think, Conestoga wagons were never transportation of choice - only of necessity.)
In competition with canals, they were faster and less labor-intensive.
When other railroads arose in competition, they either provided needed capacity, or were bought out; we see this happening in the airline industry now.
In the west, the government granted lands to the railroads - more than they needed for themselves, but enough to sell as real estate to pay for the cost of their construction. Of course, this land had been stolen from the Native Americans...
Monopoly was standard procedure whenever possible; when a railroad was the only one serving a territory, it charged crushing rates, and employed any means possible, including violence, to maintain its monopoly; ask any California historian about the "soulless Southern Pacific".

Why can't we do it anymore?

Several reasons, some connected to abuses of the past...

No more stolen Native American lands to give away to the railways.
Heavily subsidized options: highways are almost 100% subsidized by taxpayers, and airways are to a large extent also, yet the fact that we have to subsidize public bus and rail service comes as an unwelcome surprise to many Americans.
In order to use automobiles on "free" (publicly subsidized) highways, we pay more to foreign countries in gasoline and diesel costs than we do to our own government for the highways.
Transportation companies are not allowed to diversify much, because of their history of monopolizing and bullying.

Where does public transit make a profit?

True, there aren't many places where it does...but there are some. Each merits a closer look than I can give it, but here's a quick outline.

Latin America, for sure Curitiba, Brazil; and Bogota, Colombia; maybe others too. The government of these two cities built the infrastructure for bus rapid transit (BRT) and loaned money to private operators to purchase appropriate BRT equipment. The operators repay their loans, pay taxes, fuel, drivers, etc., and make a profit beyond that. Labor and fuel costs are relatively low in Latin America, which clearly helps.
France with high-speed rail. The French TGVs run on track paid for with government money, but they make enough profit from high-speed service to subsidize normal-speed service operation throughout France.
Japan has many private companies that run passenger railways and make a profit. Whether the railways themselves make a profit is not always clear, because the companies are all diversified into retail, real-estate, entertainment, banking, hospitality, and so forth. In many cases, a company's railway and its other holdings operate synergistically. For example, Hankyu owns department stores built over some of its stations, and hotels nearby, each part of the business helping the other.

Now what?

What can we do here in the United States? Are our legal and financial structures too rigid to allow public ground transportation to make a profit ever again? If not, what do we need to change? What legal and financial structures can be modified to permit us to provide lots more public transportation, and fast? Share your ideas here!

Yes Folks, Some Government Spending Really Is "Investment"

2011-08-16T20:13:00.000-07:00

These days, we hear politicians earning "points" by always using the word "wasteful" along with "government spending". Yes, some of it is wasteful. But I'd like to point out one example of government spending that's really an investment.

But first - what exactly is an "investment"?

According to Dictionary.com, to invest is:

to put (money) to use, by purchase or expenditure, in something offering potential profitable returns, as interest, income, or appreciation in value.

Wikipedia puts it this way:

In Finance investment is putting money into something with the expectation of gain, that upon thorough analysis, has a high degree of security of principle, as well as security of return, within an expected period of time.

Can we say that government spending on subsidized transportation is really an investment? Can we all expect to gain from it? Has thorough analysis been done? Is the principle secure? Will we see a secure return within an expected period of time? Or does it fail on any of these counts, making it truly wasteful?

Turns out the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Economic Development Research Group of Boston (EDR) recently did an analysis of spending on highways and transit. They were apparently concerned about the fact that Congress has failed to pass a Surface Transportation bill for three years. Too many things seemed more important to Congress, so we've been limping along with extensions of the previous bill. Since that was crafted eight years ago, a lot of things have changed. One very important change: the Highway Trust Fund, which help build and maintain our road system, has run out of money. It's been supplemented by money from the General Fund...some of it from our income taxes, much of it borrowed and contributing to the trillions of dollars of debt our country now owes.

Here's ASCE summary:

The nation’s deteriorating surface transportation infrastructure will cost the American economy more than 876,000 jobs, and suppress the growth of the country’s Gross Domestic Product by $897 Billion by 2020, according to a new report released today by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The report, conducted by the Economic Development Research Group of Boston, showed that in 2010, deficiencies in America’s roads, bridges, and transit systems cost American households and businesses roughly $130 billion, including approximately $97 billion in vehicle operating costs, $32 billion in delays in travel time, $1.2 billion in safety costs, and $590 million in environmental costs.
If investments in surface transportation infrastructure are not made soon, those costs are expected to grow exponentially. Within 10 years, U.S. businesses would pay an added $430 billion in transportation costs, household incomes would fall by more than $7,000, and U.S. exports will fall by $28 billion per year.

What does this mean to ME?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that in July of this year, 13,900,000 people were officially unemployed. If 876,000 were added to that, it would increase the number of unemployed by nearly 10%. That would further reduce investment in our transportation infrastructure by reducing tax revenue...but the infrastructure would still be deteriorating, needing more investment with less revenue. The infrastructure is our "principle" (because we already invested in it) and if it deteriorates, it would reduce the "security of principle" mentioned in the definition of investment above.
How much would it cost for each US household if we invest nothing more than we do now? According to the study, changing nothing incurs a loss of $7,000 per household. (Not a good investment.)
The Census Bureau tells us there were 112,611,029 households between 2005 and 2009. If, instead of losing $7000 each household were to invest half that amount ($3500 over the next ten years, or an average of $350 per year) there would be $394,138,601,500 ($394 billion) more spent on transportation infrastructure and services over the ten-year period..
According to the Department of Energy the 2009 revenue into the Highway Trust Fund was $36.9 billion. But an additional $350 per year investment from each household produces roughly $39 billion each year, more than doubling the Highway Trust Fund.
This $350 per year would result in a net gain of $6650 per year, or $66,500 on the the $350 annual investment.

Is this "wasteful government spending"? You decide.

To learn more:

Calling All Champions

2011-08-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

In the last post, I talked about the some of the arguments for and against dropping the WALLY line. In this post, I want to talk discuss what to do about it.

We need a Champion!

By now, I've been to quite a few conferences about transit and transit-oriented development. I've learned that one thing in common with all successful transit initiatives is that they have a "champion" - a person or group who takes an interest, talks to the right people, monitors progress, and when progress lags, kicks butt.

WALLY has no champion.

But isn't AATA the champion for WALLY? No. It can't be.

Let me explain. AATA is a tax-supported transit authority. Like all tax-supported entities, it cannot, by statute, advocate taxing the people to support itself. Conflict of interest.

I'm sure Mike Benham would love to be the champion for WALLY and any number of other the transit initiatives that are part of the "smart growth" master plan. And he would make a great champion. So would Michael Ford. But neither of them can do it without putting AATA in an illegal position...and losing their jobs.

So...where can WALLY find a champion?

I've been inspired by the Texas Eagle Monitoring and Performance Organization (TEMPO). It's a "champion" group for Amtrak's Texas Eagle, the train the runs from Chicago to San Antonio. It's composed of mayors, chambers of commerce, and citizens from the cities and towns along the Texas Eagle's route. They did an incredible job of making sure the Texas Eagle kept running when it was threatened with extinction by Congress. They've monitored its performance and let Amtrak know when they are not happy with it. They've managed to get the frequency increased from three time weekly to every day, by lobbying their congressmen and badgering Amtrak. They've produced travel guides for passengers that whoop up the attractions of each town along the way.

Why did they bother? Because they realized the economic value of well-run, reliable, frequent rail service to each and every town along the way. That's why it was the mayors and chambers that started the organization. And notice that elected officials and business leaders carry a lot of weight with Congress.

That's what we need for WALLY: elected officials and business leaders. They need to champion the economic benefits of a commuter line the runs north and south, as well as east and west. They're the ones who can talk to legislators and have their voices heard.

And not just for WALLY. The Ann Arbor to Detroit line needs similar champions. So does the Wolverine line - Amtrak's service from Pontiac to Chicago. SEMCOG can't advocate for the AA-Detroit line any more than AATA can advocate for WALLY. And by 2013 or 2014, Michigan will have to pay for the entire cost of Wolverine service, according to PRIIA, a Federal statute that modifies the way Amtrak is funded. Who will go to the State legislature and tell our congressmen and senators we really need Wolverine service? Not Amtrak - they are forbidden by statute.

It's up to us, the citizens, to alert the elected and business leaders of the economic value of each of these services to their communities, and point out what they stand to lose without them.

So let's do it. Let's kick butt.

Is WALLY Dead?

2011-08-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

At Tuesday's meeting of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority's Planning and Development Committee there was a short but intense discussion of WALLY, the WAshtenaw-LIvingston commuter rail proposal.

You see, about $190K has been budgeted for station architecture, but not spent this year. Should it remain in the budget for next year? The money has come from several sources, including Washtenaw County, the City of Howell, and AATA itself. The question came up when Board Member David Nacht questioned whether it was responsible to pay architects to design stations if the chances of trains running was practically nil.

Mr. Nacht is doing his job in a responsible way. His point is that spending taxpayer money for something that's already doomed is irresponsible, and AATA should either return the money or use it for something more likely to succeed.

AATA staff members pointed out that money has already been spent for WALLY line track upgrades, signal systems, grade crossing adjustments, refurbishing rail cars, and environmental studies. Why kill the project now?

The answer - which is well taken - was that operating funds haven't been identified, so even if all the preparations are made, how can we run trains without enough money? Without Livingston County's support for WALLY, the trains just won't run anyway.

Good points, but not insuperable. If it had been easy, we would have done it already. Although I respect Mr. Nacht for trying to be a good steward of taxpayer money, cutting off funding for WALLY is not responsible for two reasons...

1. Money already invested

A lot of money has been invested in WALLY already. If the $190K is given back, it will effectively kill WALLY. The point is not that the architecture of stations is essential to get WALLY going. The service can start, if necessary, using concrete slabs and bus shelters. But AATA has been the leading agency for WALLY, and refusing to spend money on it would send a powerful message that it's a dead duck.

Mr. Nacht's question is, "Aren't we just throwing good money after bad?" If the death of WALLY was a sure thing, I suppose he'd be right. But it's not a sure thing unless AATA kills it. More on that later...

Another reasonable question of Mr. Nacht's: "Can't the track be used for freight and the rail cars for other purposes?" Yes, but the freight business run by Great Lakes Central Railroad was doing fine before the tracks were upgraded. MDOT, which provided the money for the upgrades, did it specifically for passenger service. Its purpose was to reduce congestion on parallel US 23 during peak travel times. It directed the money to rail rather than highway because adding lanes to US 23 would be far, far more expensive. And yes, the rail cars could be used on the Ann Arbor to Detroit commuter line when/if it starts, but there is another set of cars refurbished for that purpose. If WALLY doesn't use the cars intended for it, the money will have been spent for resources that won't be used.

In short, by saving $190K, several million will have been spent needlessly. I call this penny-wise but pound-foolish.

2. Future money lost

By refusing to continue with AATA's funding for WALLY, we-the-taxpayers will lose out on a great deal of money we could be getting. Some of this is Federal and State transportation money, but even more is private investment that will go elsewhere

Yes, WALLY is public transportation and is eligible for Federal and State funds. Both Federal and State treasuries are tight, and likely to get even tighter. But what money is available will go elsewhere if give up hope now.

Moreover, the primary reason for WALLY (in my view, at least) is not to relieve congestion on US 23, helpful as that would be. It's to provide an economic incentive for investment in compact, transit-oriented development in Southeast Michigan. That's a goal worth a lot of effort, because without it we'll lose not only money, but one chance for a future with hope of sustainability. Our children and grandchildren will find themselves in a region whose developement is choked by high transportation costs and low potential for growth. Those who can, will leave the area to those who can't. It's what I'm working to prevent.

The wall, the chicken, and the egg

Mr. Nacht is afraid continuing efforts on WALLY is like driving full-speed into a concrete wall. I know from my study of rail transit growth that it's a wall of mist. Forgive me for saying it again: it's normal for rail initiatives to face opposition and for people to think it will never work. But the opposition is more a wall of mist than of concrete. When nay-sayers see the benefits and decide to invest time and money in the project, it works. Or at least, if they stand back with a wait-and-see attitude, once it gets going the rail line proves itself worthy of continued funding.

The wall is not simply nay-sayers, but a lack of obvious funds to run the trains with. Nobody "knows" where the money will come from. That doesn't mean there isn't money to do it with. Remember that 76% of people polled for AATA's Transit Master Plan said they wanted the Smart Growth plan - the plan requiring the highest level of citizen funding. WALLY is part of that plan, and though it won't serve everyone, it is part of the package people say they want. Out of the entire Smart Growth plan, it's only a small part, requiring a modest proportion of any funds raised through millages. For the last several months we've heard Tea Party legislators talking about "the will of the American people" being to cut back on everything. I honestly don't believe it. Some Americans, sure. Not all of us. Paying for something that will benefit our local economy is far different from sending money off to Washington with no say in how it's spent.

Michael Benham compared finding the funding to a chicken-and-egg process. Without operating funds, why should we build it? But without building it, how can we operate it? Clearly we have to start by building it. I'd rather see us being the egg, not the chicken - in the sense of "chickening out".

If we don't invest in Southeast Michigan, nobody else will. Let's do it.

To learn more:

Public-Private Stations

2011-08-03T13:14:00.000-07:00

As news of the impact of Federal budget cuts trickles down, I'm reminded once more of Wake Up Washtenaw's emphasis on private-sector investment. Since its inception four years ago, Wake Up Washtenaw has held that private investment, not government dollars, is the key to successful, sustainable community development.

Sure, this isn't a time when the private sector has a lot of money to throw around, either. But the principle remains: the key to success lies in private investment.

Why? Because the underlying philosophy of our country is private enterprise.

Is government "bad"? No. Is business "good"? No. But each has its strengths and weaknesses.

The private sector can usually come up with more innovative ideas, and can usually get from plans to accomplishments faster. But business requires a rapid return on investment, and may be unwilling to shoulder risks. The government, on the other hand, is here for the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens (or should be) and so can take risks if necessary. It can wait much longer for return on its investments...and is often OK with no direct returns at all. The government also has what are known as "police powers", which in the legal sense include regulating land use and, sometimes, using "eminent domain" to acquire land for the public good.

All of that adds up to "public-private partnership" (PPP) being a good way to go.

Stations for transit, whether for rail or bus, are a good example of PPP opportunities that often go begging. But we've recently seen a couple examples where PPP has been used here in Michigan: one is Woodward Avenue light rail in Detroit, where station "naming rights" are sold for $3 million each.

The other example is Ann Arbor's Fuller Road station...sort-of. It's being built with funds from the City of Ann Arbor, a Federal High Speed Rail grant, and the University of Michigan Medical Center (UMMC). It's the latter that can be considered private...sort-of. Certainly, it's not the usual kind of "private" partner, but UMMC functions in many ways like a private business, so let's just call it that. After all, it's the largest employer in Washtenaw County.

Looking farther afield, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in the D.C. area has capitalized on PPP with many of its stations, leasing land to developers of high-rise buildings.

Even farther away, Japan has many examples of railways (all are at least nominally private) that make money from a host of travel- and land-related sources. The typical medium-to-large Japanese rail station is lined with shops, much as airports are in the U.S. Many also have high-rise or underground buildings with shopping centers, hotels, banks, and offices, directly over the tracks, under tracks and street, or immediately adjacent to them. Washington's and Chicago's Union Stations offer shops or, at least, food courts.

Why don't more of our stations do that? At meetings, I've gotten a sense that transit planners think primarily about government funds for their projects. There are well-established channels for government money, but not private funds, to flow to transit agencies. Likewise, developers and businesses don't analyze potential new locations in terms of possible partnerships with transit. Most banks and other lenders don't think of PPP with transit as a safe lending risk.

That doesn't mean forward-looking transit officials haven't tried. AATA's CEO Michael Ford has gone practically door-to-door along Washtenaw Avenue looking for businesses willing to help support improved bus service along the corridor. And the new AATA downtown transit center will apparently be built without any private investment. When urged at a Board meeting a couple of years ago, the response was a brief, "We've tried". But apparently failed.

And yet, since the 1960s Federal transit funding laws have encouraged PPP. Why hasn't it taken off? Are the Federal rules too complex? Are lenders too hesitant? Are the communication channels too rusty? Most of all, what can we do about it...?

Transportation Characteristics of Livable Communities

2011-07-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

Last week, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) released “Public Perceptions on Transportation Characteristics of Livable Communities,” a report that outlines the findings of a 2009 survey.

I've rummaged through most of the data and pulled out some results you might find interesting. What do people think are the most important transportation needs for a community?

Here's a ranking by perceived importance:

Major roads or highways that access and serve your community
Side walks, paths or other safe walking routes to shopping, work or schools
Adequate parking in the downtown or central business district
Pedestrian-friendly streets or boulevards in the downtown or central business district
Easy access to an airport
Reliable local bus, rail or ferry transportation that can be reached without driving
Reliable long-distance bus or train transportation to and from major metropolitan areas
Bike lanes or paths to shopping, work or schools

Here's how the ranking was arrived at:

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics conducted a survey in October of 2009. Among other questions, they asked people, How important is it to have X in your community, where X was one of the eight items listed above. People were asked whether each as "Very important ", "Somewhat important ", "Somewhat unimportant", or , "Not important". (Pretty standard survey stuff.) They tabulated the percentage of each response, weighted by population and similar factors. To simplify the results, I combined the two "important" and the two "unimportant" categories to see what percentage of people favored or did not favor each transportation option.

Of course, the details reveal a lot than a simple ranking. For one thing, each mode of transportation was considered important...just not quite as important as the others. So here's a set of pie charts showing percentages of important vs. unimportant for each mode:

Roads

Side walks and paths

Downtown parking

Pedestrian-friendly downtowns

Airport access

Local transit

Long distance bus and train

Bike lanes

My bottom line conclusion:

People are aware of the need for multiple modes of transportation, but are still focused primarily on automobiles. It's noteworthy that they want to be able to walk comfortably and safely, both in neighborhoods and downtown. But transit, bikes, and long-distance public surface transportation are not as high in people's priorities. *Sigh*

There's lots more interesting information in the survey results, including how people get to work, and a lot of questions related to airport screening procedures. I'll talk about those later, and - for my fellow data-geeks -I'll put up the spreadsheet I derived from downloaded and enhanced from BTS's on-line data. (Their on-line spreadsheets are basically database dumps, and don't allow information to be easily extracted.)

To learn more:

Smearing Woodward Avenue Rail

2011-07-12T19:30:00.000-07:00

Detroit's new light rail system is progressing well, in spite of media reports to the contrary.

Why is this important?

Well, nobody needs to be told about Detroit's economic woes. Looking at other cities like Charlotte, Denver, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, Dallas, and many others, we see economic investment ballooning as soon as light rail is put in. In many cases, the investment starts well before the trains start running, and light rail usually brings between six and eight dollars of private investment for every dollar spent on building and running the system. Light rail, in other words, acts as a big magnet for investment. Detroit sure could use a magnet for investment...

But looking at cities that recently built light rail, we see the same scenario re-enacted every time. When the first light rail line is proposed, many people don't believe the "magnet" will work in their city, or doubt the figures cited for other cities. Quite a few believe that unlike other cities, residents of their city will never give up their cars, and the trains will run nearly empty, so the whole effort is a boondoggle. Then finally the first line is built. Almost always, the number of riders using it exceeds predictions made by the planners (because Federal planning formulas are extremely conservative). Construction cranes sprout up along the route. Skeptics eyeing the line gradually find their mouths hanging open in astonishment as the predictions come true. Between one and two years after the first line is built, every suburban mayor in the region is making angry speeches about how unfair it is that their jurisdiction has been denied the benefits of light rail. The race is on to see who can get light rail built in their community first. Believe it or not, this really happens time after time, in city after city.

So at this stage, it's not surprising to see the opposition online in comments. What does surprise me is to see articles like the one that came out yesterday morning in Crain's Detroit Business. That's a very reputable, well-respected publication. The article, titled "Woodward Rail: The Great Train Jobbery", focused on supposed attitudes and interactions between officials and engineers, rather than on the light rail plans themselves. The author, Bill Shea, seems a lot better at stirring up controversy and (presumably) grabbing readership for his articles.

I was at the TRU meeting yesterday evening (Monday, July 11) where Megan Owens and representatives of DDOT and the engineering firm URS presented a progress report. I'd like to pass along a few facts to counterbalance some of the claims made in Mr. Shea's article...

Claim:

The proposed Woodward Avenue light rail project is in jeopardy.
The private consortium of investors that has pledged $100 million toward the project's $528 million cost doesn't have faith in the Detroit Department of Transportation's plan and won't provide funding until it does, sources familiar with the situation told Crain's.

Fact: "Rip" Rapson, CEO of the Kresge Foundation, which pledged $35 million, was the most vocal critic of having the light rail tracks run in the center of Woodward Avenue, rather than at curbside. But he made a statement broadcast on Michigan Radio Monday saying he and the Kresge Foundation have never threatened to withdraw their funding.

We are completely committed to making this work. We’re all now negotiating through the details of how to get it done. Not whether it should be done, not whether it can be done, but how it will get done.

Claim:

The engineers for the project insist their design is superior to all other options for Woodward. It's natural that those in the pay of DDOT are going to argue that their plan is the One True Religion, and that anything else is so fatally stupid as to be beneath both contempt and worthiness of discussion.

Fact: The federal grants process requires multiple plans to be considered and carefully evaluated.

DTOGS identified a wide range of potential transit improvements in a study area encompassing the City of Detroit and the Cities of Dearborn, Hamtramck, and Highland Park. Fourteen transit corridors identified in the SEMCOG Regional Transportation Plan (Figure 2-1), including adjacent primary roadways within a two-mile buffer area, and 13 transit technologies were initially identified for evaluation.
DTOGS used a systematic process to narrow the number of alternatives, ultimately resulting in selection of the Project: LRT [Light Rail Transit] on Woodward Avenue between Downtown Detroit and the Michigan State Fairgrounds near 8 Mile Road. (FEIS, sec. ES.5)

After analyzing the fourteen corridors, three were arrived at as most likely: Gatiot, Michigan, and Woodward. Three transit technologies were winnowed out: conventional bus, bus rapid transit (BRT), and light rail. You can see a detailed discussion of each alternative in Section 2 of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), linked at the end of this post. (For federally-funded projects like this, the FEIS is like a contract. Once it is approved by both local and federal parties, it's "the law" on how the project will be done. It's not a detailed engineering plan, so issues that couldn't be resolved without careful engineering are left open.)

DDOT representatives and the engineers from URS held several public meetings to get input beginning in July, 2010, and several designs were offered to everybody for consideration; a total of 497 people attended. (Section ES.10 of the FEIS lists the meetings and their attendance.) In the ~500 public comments they received, 91% favored center-running; only 9% thought running along the curbside was better.

There are 517 questions and comments received from the public and from other agencies. Every one of them is listed with a response in Appendix H (linked at the end).

Claim:

The argument amounts to, "We're engineers, we know best. You're not an engineer, so just shut up and hand over the money."

Fact: Matthew Cullen, President CEO of M1 Rail (the business group offering $100 million) wrote the following comment in an email dated March 14:

I am writing to express my support for the Woodward Light Rail project in Detroit, Michigan and specifically the B3 alignment option described in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. (FEIS Appendix H, question B.10)

The B3 alignment is not the one chosen, and a long, courteous reply is given explaining why not. Option B runs along the curb all the way from downtown to the State Fairgrounds. But the alignment chosen is in fact a compromise, incorporating curbside running downtown and center-running north of Adams Street / Grand Circus Park - five blocks, plus Campus Martius. (It was also noted during the TRU meeting that the Federal Government is paying 60-80% of the cost of building the project, so if "money talks," it's feds who have the deciding vote, not the M1 group.)

Note: One of the major reasons for choosing the center-running option for most of the route was safety. MDOT, which owns the road, and FTA/USDOT which makes the rules, are very concerned about the safety of the light rail. The trains are 200 feet long, much bigger than a trolley car. Running along the curb next to parked cars and blocking traffic trying to make right turns was just too much of a recipe for trouble. In addition, the Fire Department was concerned that if the tracks ran along the curb, the high-voltage wires (usually 600 volts) would make it dangerous to fight fires in adjacent buildings. There is a lot of public concern about safety, too - some people at the TRU meeting wanted the trains to be equipped with radar or sonar to stop them if someone strayed in front of them, and if they were to run along the curb, it would be more likely for a child or someone in a wheel chair or on a bike to accidentally fall from the sidewalk into the path of a train.

The problem with Mr. Shea's journalistic approach - in addition to peddling falsehoods - is that it fans the flames of a fire that threatens one of Detroit's biggest chances to attract investment. Granted, Mr. Shea obviously doesn't believe light rail will bring investment, or that the City of Detroit can build and run it effectively. He makes comparisons to the People Mover, which certainly seems to have done little to improve Detroit's economy or carry very many people. But there's a big difference between a line using experimental technology that goes around in a small circle, in one direction only; and a line using proven technology that can actually take people from the outskirts of town downtown and back.

Predictably, there were public comments on Mr. Shea's article (not Mr. Shea's words) that it's "a rail line to nowhere". That's saying that neither downtown Detroit, nor midtown, nor Highland Park are anywhere worth going to. I've run across this attitude about Detroit before, and it's totally defeatist. It's equivalent to saying, "Last one out of Detroit, turn off the lights." We don't need people who are ready to give up on Detroit, or southeast Michigan, or Michigan as a whole. We would do ourselves a favor to buy such people a one-way ticket to anywhere.

So, Mr. Shea, why not at least ignore the light rail issue - you can hope it will go away if you do. But please, don't try to kill it with falsehoods and smear tactics. In the end, it will only hurt Crain's Detroit Business. Ask Rupert Murdoch...he'll tell you cheating doesn't pay in journalism. He just found out the hard way.

To learn more:

Woodward rail: The Great Train Jobbery in Crain's Detroit Business, July 11, 2011.
An unhappy M1 Rail puts project funds on the line: Group sees DDOT's plan as unsustainable in Crain's Detroit Business, July 11, 2011.
Woodward Light Rail (Web site)
- Final Environmental Statement (PDF, 347 pages)

Appendix H "Responses to Public Comments Received on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement" (PDF, 359 pages)

"Detroit Light Rail In Question" Michigan Radio, July 11, 2011
TRU (Transportation Riders United)

Winning Transit Elections, part 3

2011-07-07T17:30:00.000-07:00

What's an effective Message?

Previous blogs on this topic:

We heard from lots of people - both winners and losers of elections - about messages that work for voters. Here's a brief distillation:

Campaign "SMART":

Specific plans ,rather than "improve transit"
Measurable goals
Achievable
Realistic
Time-bound

Get on message and stay on message!

Answer the question: What's in it for me?
Present a long term vision: What's the plan?
Assure voters of accountability: Can I trust you to use my taxes wisely?

A couple of observations from studies of election results:

New rail projects appeared to have some correlation with lost elections in some regions, but maintaining or expanding existing rail does not; this makes sense, as there is a widespread phenomenon of support for rail transit in areas that have experienced the benefits.
A very positive factor is the perception of a congestion "crisis" (or other need for transportation alternatives) in a region; but this doesn't always work: Atlanta is the prime counter-example, since they built a heavy-rail transit line ("MARTA") in the 1970s, but refused to expand it because of an apparent perception that only "undesirable people" used it.

Nine Focus-Points

Focus on return on investment, rather than taxes
Forget TV, print, and radio. Use Facebook, blogging & tweeting. There was a strong counter-argument to this assertion as well: while e-media are ideal for young, engaged professionals, senior citizens by-and-large don't use e-media, yet they are the demographic most likely to vote in "off" elections.
Get young professionals on the team (maybe "lost") but passionate and wanting to contribute.
Hit the chamber of commerce - through the chambers, you can work better with business.
Set specific goals and stick with them.
Own the "emotional vibe" - don't respond to the angry vibe. Be optimistic, returns-oriented, positive.
Don't try to convince the hard-core opposition; work hardest to get support from independents; they respond best to solid numeric support and evidence on the Web.
Get a progressive coalition together, but consensus is illusory; rather than seek con census, look for common ground among progressives.
Leave ideology at home: talk about issues on which you share common ground. For example, climate change and global warming are perceived as ideological issues (many Americans don't "believe in" man-made climate change), but most people can support job-creation and economic growth.

OK, there we are. I learned a lot at this conference...hope you find it helpful, too!

To learn more:

Winning Transit Elections, part 2

2011-06-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

In this post, I'll share about educating, persuading, and arguing transit issues. Plus, we heard at the Transit Initiatives conference from a great - but very unusual - transit advocate, whom I'd like to tell you about.

One very important difference between electing an official and passing a transit proposal is this: Individuals campaigning for office are expected to "go on the stump" and ask people to vote for them. In transit initiatives, the "candidate" is the transit agency, but they are not allowed to "stump" for their issue because they're public agencies. A citizens' group must be formed to advocate for the transit proposal, tell people "Vote Yes", and get them out to vote.

For this reason, transit campaigns are divided into two parts: education and advocacy.

If a transit issue is on the ballot, there must be a transit plan. The plan is normally prepared by the transit agency, often with the help of specialized consultants, and paid for with public money. It will usually involve expansion of service, or at least propose maintaining existing levels. Since the plan is paid for by the public, it's the public's right to know what it is, and the transit agency's obligation to educate the public about it. So the education campaign is generally the transit agency's primary activity in an election campaign.

The Vote Yes part and the Get Out The Vote (GOTV) part are handled by the citizen organization. In St. Louis, this was done primarily by Citizens for Modern Transit (CMT), an organization founded in the mid-1990s. It corresponds in many ways to Detroit's Transportation Riders United (TRU). Their job was to pull together groups that support transit and raise funds for campaign expenses - primarily advertising - but they also hired a consulting firm specializing in transit initiatives.

In conjuction with their consultant, CMT came up with a really effective campaign message: "Transit: some of us use it, all of us need it." They reinforced the message with interviews on the Metro rail trains of service providers who need transit to get to work - nurses, restaurant servers, and others. The point of the ads was that even if you don't use transit yourself, you depend on people who depend on transit...so, Vote Yes!

Another very effective move on their part was recruiting two co-leaders for the campaign: one, a leader of the African American community, the other...the mayor of a conservative St. Louis suburb.

John Nations, Mayor of Chesterfield, Missouri, was elected by a staunchly Republican electorate to be in charge of an upper-middle-class, white suburb. He was certainly not the obvious type of person to head up a pro-transit campaign. He was a lawyer (not currently practicing) who had prospered as head of a suurban development company. But he understood the business value of transit. In fact, when the St. Louis transit agency was defeated in a 2008 renewal measure and had to cut service drastically, Mr. Nations lead his City Council in budgeting extra funds to maintain bus service to Chesterfield. Naturally, that's what suggested him as co-leader of the campaign.

One of his first decisions as campaign co-leader was to engage an election consultant specializing in conservative, Republican campaigns. These people knew what the hot-button issues for conservative voters were, and were able to craft a campaign to address them.

That did not mean arguing against conservative issues. One very important point in transit campaigns - which all the experienced people agreed on - was, don't argue with your opponents. You won't convince them, and you'll get into negative statements that are more likely to damage than to help your cause. Rather, stick to your main message - in this case, "Some of us use transit, all of us need it". That can be said in many different ways using many people's stories.

In fact, stories are very important, and far more helpful than "arguments" or "doctrines". One consultant went so far as to say, "Don't talk ideology - talk only business". "Ideology" includes environmentalism, social justice, global warming, CO2 emissions, and a host of other good reasons for funding transit. "Business" is the positive impact transit has on the economy of a region. Especially in these "down" times, "it's the economy, stupid!" that makes or breaks elections.

Now, the message can - and should - be varied depending on the audience. Younger voters, especially college students, are very aware of environmental issues and are concerned about the earth. For them, the environmental message is very important, and needs to be included. Social justice is critical in minority and faith-based communities. But the central message for the general electorate is the economic benefit transit brings.

An important aspect of this is, "What's in it for me". All voters want to know that their taxes will be used for something that will help them as individuals and families. The more direct that is, the better. Hence the value of stories.

I'll close with a story that was very effective in the St. Louis campaign. Mayor Nations received a phone call from a constituent who thanked him for insuring good bus service to Chesterfield. Why the call? The woman said she had never ridden a public bus in her life, but wanted to thank the Mayor on behalf of her mother. Oh, she takes the bus or uses Call-A-Ride? No, she's in a nursing home. Huh...? Well the woman had heard conversations among the nursing aides and staff about how they wouldn't have been able to get to work without the bus. If the bus had been discontinued, there would have been a critical staff shortage at the nursing home, and the quality of care would have seriously deteriorated. Either that, or they would have had to raise the wages of the aides so they could afford their own cars, which would have driven the cost of the nursing home beyond this family's means. So, Thank You, Mister Mayor!

St. Louis Metro won the 2010 transit tax initiative. And Mr. Nations is now CEO of St. Louis Metro Transit!

To learn more:

Winning Transit Elections, part 1

2011-06-23T12:37:00.000-07:00

This week I've been attending the Center for Transportation Excellence conference on "Transit Initiatives and Communities". It's about best ways to fund transit, with emphasis on winning funding elections. There's a lot of good info, so I'm going to break it up into more than one post.

Confession time: I'm totally new to politics. Worse yet, I hate politics. But you've got to "do politics" to fund transit in a democracy, and I wouldn't want to be part of any other kind of government, so...here goes!

You might be familiar with how elections are won or lost, but apparently there are important differences between electing candidates and passing funding proposals. We were fortunate to have at the conference not only consultants who specialize and have a lot of experience in transit funding campaigns, but also advocates and politicians who had worked on them. They shared their experiences of losing and winning, and were able to give us tips on what to do and what not to do.

I'll start with something that's probably well known to political activists, but was relatively new to me - and was presented in a very clear fashion. It's how you categorize voters by when they vote and how they vote.

	How People Vote
		For Proposal	Undecided	Against
When they vote	Always	Educate + Enlist	Educate + Persuade	Educate
	Sometimes	Educate + GOTV	Educate + Persuade + GOTV	Educate
	Never	Educate	Educate	Educate

The critical point is who to talk to, and how. That's shown in the shading of the squares. The short version is this:

Educate everybody about what the transit plan is;
Persuade people who are undecided and get them to vote; (GOTV = Get Out The Vote)
Get all who support transit out to vote, especially if they only vote sometimes;
Don't try to persuade people who oppose transit or taxes - it doesn't work, and of course, don't try to get them to vote.

Presenting transit issues usually works much better in "off" elections - that is, elections that are not presidential or congressional contests. If you want to advertize (you probably do!), it's much less expensive in "off" election seasons. Fewer people come out and vote during "off" elections, and the ones who do are more likely to be in favor of transit. But if university students are a big part of your constituency, the election shouldn't be in August, when they're not in town! They usually vote enthusiastically for transit.

OK - enough for now. More later!

To learn more:

Tübingen's Development Story: part 3

2011-06-17T19:28:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already read part 1 or part 2 of Tübingen's Development Story, better read them first...

You and your group have just decided on a general design for you building: like most in Tübingen, it will be narrow, fairly deep, and fairly high - five stories, in your case. It will have buildings right next to it on either side, so the windows will all be either in the front or the back. The dentist's office will be on the ground floor and his family apartment will occupy one of the floors above; the retired couple and the professor's family will each have a floor too. You get to share the top floor with the two students.Französisches Viertel (French Quarter Project, completed 1993)

But you really don't have the money for putting up a five-story building! The retired couple have some savings squirreled away, but the two working families have none to spare. The students? You? Don't even ask!

So the group will have to try to get a bank loan. Sounds pretty unlikely for a motley crew like yours to get a loan, doesn't it? Well, at first it was. When the city of Tübingen first started this system, cooperative groups had a hard time. But now, it's really no problem. According to Herr Soehlke, the banks discovered an interesting fact: cooperative groups were more reliable than developers. Here's why: if a development doesn't work out and the development company goes out of business, the borrower legally ceases to exists, so the loan becomes a write-off for the bank. But the cooperative group is treated as a collection of individuals. Each one receives a loan for a portion of the building costs. If an individual defaults on their part of the loan, they normally have heirs or next-of-kin who inherit the liability and the legal responsibility to repay the loan. So the banks have found it's actually preferable to lend to these cooperative groups than to development companies!

The City has invited representatives of the banks to come to City Hall on the fifth of July to conduct loan interviews with co-op groups interested in putting up buildings in the Alte Weberei project. That way, the co-ops can get terms from several banks and make their own decision on which they want, rather than leaving it up to a bank to decide on them. You've talked it over among ourselves, and decided that the two families and the retired couple will be permanent members of the cooperative and secure the loan. You and the two students will rent your apartments from the cooperative, since the three of you aren't in a position to make a long-term commitment to a bank.

The three families who form the core of the coop will decide on an architect, but all of you will have input on the floor plans for your floor. You and the two students sit down together one evening in a coffee shop in Tübingen to talk about design ideas. After a lot of ideas are batted around and you're all laughing together, several rough sketches grace the napkins at your table. During the next couple of weeks, each of the families goes through a similar exciting exercise, and before long you're all ready to meet with the architect.Französisches Viertel (French Quarter Project)

Of course no plans can be finalized until the actual building site has been assigned. That process takes place Monday, July 11 (for real!). A committee from the City Planning Department sits down at a big table and sorts all the applications by size and by preferred location. Then the hard part begins: discussing the relative community benefits of each application. At the moment, we don't know how many applicants there will be compared to the number of lots available. In the past, there have been more applicants than space, meaning that some have to be turned down, or at least put on a wait list.

Assuming your coop actually gets into the project, it will be 18-24 months before your building is ready for occupancy. Meanwhile, you'll have to rent a room somewhere in town, or perhaps in an outlying town where you can take the train in to Tübingen every day. Either way, it won't be inexpensive...but I guess you knew that Germany isn't cheap before you came, right?

Well, good luck! I sure hope your co-op gets in - if so, I'll be jealous of you!

To learn more (and in case your German is rusty, here's Google Translate)

City of Tübingen (English)
Tübingen Civic Projects (German)
Tübingen rail service (English)
Alte Weberei (Old Mill) Project (German)

Tübingen's Development Story: part 2

2011-06-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already read part 1 of Tübingen's Development Story, better read it now...

You've just arrived in Tübingen needing a place to live, and discovered the high cost of housing. Although served by excellent public transportation, including eight local and express rail lines, it's much more convenient to live in town, where shopping and the university are within walking distance.

So you go to the city Web site (all links are grouped at the end of this post). There you find the Office of Urban Development's page, complete with a list of projects they're working on. You learn that you can take part in a group that will design, build, and own a building in one of several project areas. These are known as "building cooperatives". Some of the projects are complete and nearly full, like the French Quarter, but the Alte Weberei Lustnau (Lustnau Old Mill) project is still in the development phase.

Sounds like a possibility. Your first step is to fill out an application stating that you're interested in joining a group and approximately how many square meters of space you'd like. That done, you need to find a compatible group of people who are looking for more partners, and who have ideas about housing you agree with. You can look at a list of open groups on line, and you can come to the "Stock Market" (or "flea market", as Cord Soehlke calls). At the "market", each open group has representatives at a table, and you can go talk with them. Some may have concept drawings illustrating their idea of what the group's house might look like.

After looking at the on-line list of each groups, you go to the "market", where you talk with the groups you thought looked promising. (I believe the market is held one evening a month, either at City Hall or at the project itself.)

You end up going with a group of seven others: one retired couple, two women university students, and a university professor and her husband and child. The professor is the daughter of the retired couple, but the two students are not related. After you join, they still need another family or partnership to join the group and provide more financial clout.

The group is interested in a low-energy building with a traditional look, but lots of light to dispel the gloom of winter - which is about the same in Tübingen and Ann Arbor. The ground floor will be either a shop or office space, depending on who else joins the group. This is a requirement of the City, so that the neighborhood will have employment and shopping opportunities in it. There will be four or five stories of apartments above the ground floor, depending on whether the commercial partners want to live in the building or not. In any case, the building will have an elevator, since the retired couple aren't good on stairs anymore.

The professor and the retired man seem to be the most active members of the group. They explain that the group first needs to put in a bid for some plots of land in the project. The bid is not in terms of money, because the City owns the land and sells it at the same price per square meter to everyone. Rather, the bid explains what our building will be like and what it will offer the community. Bids are scored according to their intrinsic value and also their contribution to the community. Your group can't submit the form until you have a partner who will use the ground floor because that determines, to a large extent, its contribution to the community...and the deadline for submission is July 1. So they're quite anxious to find a commercial partner.

One possible commercial partner comes along: a young man and his girlfriend who are interested in finding space for a bar. The retired couple aren't sure they want to live over a bar, and bar entrepreneurs aren't sure this group will have enough space for them, but the group signs them up tentatively in case nothing else works out. Before long, however, a dentist and his wife and two kids come along, looking for a dental office space and an apartment. You and the group agree to go with them rather than the bar people.

You now have a complete group, and can file the application. An important part of that is your space requirements: about how large a footprint do you need? You need to give a minimum amount of space for what you have in mind, and the maximum your group can afford to buy. You will be using 60-80% of the land area for building, and at least 20% will be for outdoor public space. You might have a private garden if you get enough land, but it will be pretty small. There will be plenty of shared open space in park areas throughout the project. You also need to indicate your preferences on which building areas you'd like your building to be in, too, based on the overall layout of the project, which was prepared by the city planning department.

The group then decides the ground floor of your building will become a dental office, and there will be a floor each for the dentist's family, the retired couple, and the professor's family. You and the two students will have apartments on the top floor (the fifth) but you have yet to decide on a floorplan.

Next step: financing! You'll also need an architect and - possibly - a project manager. We'll tackle those challenges in the next post...

To learn more (and in case your German is rusty, here's Google Translate)

City of Tübingen (English)
Tübingen Civic Projects (German)
Tübingen rail service (English)
Alte Weberei (Old Mill) Project (German)

Tübingen's Development Story: part 1

2011-06-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

We have a delegation in Ann Arbor from our sister city, Tübingen, Germany. It's a city about the size of Ann Arbor with a major university (where my daughter Katy studied for a year! :-). We're sister cities because of our similar academic and demographic character.

Tubingen's Mayor for Building and Development, Cord Soehlke, gave a fascinating talk at the Ann Arbor Library this evening as part of the visit. Let me fill you in by quoting the Library's description:

During the last fifteen years, Tübingen has converted many former industrial or military used areas into lively and attractive neighborhoods. The French quarter, the Loretto and the Mühlenviertel are now characterized by a mixed use, a colorful architecture and a high impact of private building groups. For this success the City of Tubingen received numerous awards and distinctions - the German Urban Planning Award 2001 - the European Urban Planning Award 2002 and the National Award for Integrated Urban Development and Building Culture 2009.

I'm tremendously excited about this! It has great applicability to what we can do in Washtenaw County. I'm going to tell you about it in story form: the story of someone who wants to live in Tübingen. To give you the full details would take more words that I want to put in one blog post, so I'm going to break it up into several shorter posts. How many...? We'll see!

But first, who is this person who wants to live in Tübingen? It could actually be anyone. Academic or high-school educated; young or old; single, couple, or family; student, worker, or retired; native German or immigrant; highly paid or not. That's a large part of the beauty of the plan.

When you arrive in Tübingen, you find that - like Ann Arbor - living in the city is very expensive. But unlike Ann Arbor, there are stringent growth limits to the perimeter of the city. Land outside the city may not be developed, though during the 1960s there were tract houses (or their German equivalent) developed in the suburbs. Because of the intense, long-term use of the land in Germany for millennia, sprawl didn't work for long.

So what to do? The key lies in two two foundational concepts: remediation of old industrial and military brownfield areas in the city, and small, ad hoc housing cooperative associations.

Brownfields we know all about. But the Tübingen concept of housing cooperatives is quite different from what you may be familiar with in the Ann Arbor area. They are not like Colonial Square Cooperative or University Townhouses. Next post, I'll tell you more...

Continue with part 2...

To learn more:

What is Michigan Paying for Amtrak Service?

2011-06-10T08:50:00.001-07:00

Ever heard someone say something like this? "I'm not going to pay to subsidize passenger rail, because I never use it. Always loses money, anyway!"

This is an important question for Wake Up Washtenaw, because we strongly support the idea of making public transportation profitable for the transportation providers without degrading service to the public.

So how much subsidy does rail get in Michigan? Here's a tidbit based on 2010 figures in the Michigan Department of Transportation Rail Draft Plan:

In 2010...

775,997 passengers boarded or alighted from trains in Michigan
Amtrak collected $24,600,000 in fares from those passengers
The State of Michigan paid $7,585,976 to Amtrak to operate the Blue Water and Pere Marquette trains
Amtrak paid about $35 million for the Wolverine trains
Average fare on all Michigan services was $31.70
Average state contribution per trip $9.78
State contribution plus passenger contribution was $41.48 per trip
Passengers contributed 3.243 times more for Amtrak service than the state did, 76% of the state+passenger contribution

By contrast, the Federal Highway Trust Fund (paid for mainly by fuel taxes and other user fees) covered only 70% of its expenditures for new highways and existing highway maintenance.

John Langdon, Governmental / Public Affairs Coordinator of the Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers, writes in an email dated June 8,

Going back over 5 years ago a Amtrak spokesmen stated that it takes 35 million to cover the operation of the 3 Wolverines trains with 10 million being generated from fare box leaving 25 to come from state support per PRIIA section 209. The rolling 12 months [revenue] ending May 11 is

Jun-10
$1,510,957

Jul-10
$1,856,179

Aug-10
$1,951,460

Sep-10
$1,284,960

Oct 10 - May 11
$12,437,081

$19,040,637

The question is how much has the cost of operation gone up?

As we face the looming deadline of 2013 when we'll have to pay for our own Wolverine service, an important question is, how can revenue be increased without increasing fares or expenses? There are several possible ways.

Adding cars without adding locomotives or staff. Amtrak has been doing this, as a matter of fact. Many of the Wolverine trains are powered by two 4,250-HP locomotives, one at either end to avoid a lengthy and expensive turn-around procedure in Pontiac. I believe 8,500 HP is enough to propel ten or twelve cars to 110 MPH. The problem as I understand it has been a shortage of coaches, but as ARRA funds allowed, refurbished coaches have been added to trains. (Amtrak purchased a lot of locomotives in the 1990s when they planned a big expansion of rail-express service, but they had to get out of that business, leaving them with more locomotives than they really needed. Some were leased to other passenger lines, but most remain available.)
Marketing efforts. A surprising number of people aren't aware of Amtrak service availability, and might ride the train if they knew the schedules and fares. The universities along the lines (MSU, WMU, WSU, and UM) already provide a great many riders, but might provide more.
Volunteers at stations. Station agents often have long lines waiting for either tickets or information. If the information could be reliably given by volunteers, it would make the experience much more pleasant and attract more repeat business. With proper training and authorization, volunteers might be able to open one or two more doors of the train and help passengers on and off to speed boarding.
Booster groups. Amtrak's Texas Eagle (Chicago to San Antonio) went through a hard time ten or fifteen years ago, when it was threatened with discontinuation. A number of cities and businesses along the route got together and worked for its continuation, forming the "Texas Eagle Marketing and Performance Organization". Each of our lines could have similar organizations.

There really is a lot we can do to preserve and improve our train service, and we should get busy and do it.

To learn more:

Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers
Michigan State Rail Plan (May 2011 draft)
Michigan House Fiscal Agency memorandum re: AMTRAK Service in Michigan including State Contract Operations
Texas Eagle Marketing and Performance Organization

Public-Private Partnership and Michigan's Rail Packages

2011-06-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

We learned today that the Illinois state legislature just passed the "Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) for Transportation Act" (HB 1091). It lays out the details of how private companies can invest and participate in public transportation projects. Among other things, this will provide a very important source of revenue for the ambitious plans Illinois has for high speed rail.

We also learned today that Illinois's governor, Pat Quinn, has set up a partnership between the Illinois Department of Transportation and the University of Illinois to design and evaluate a 220-mph bullet train line. Our friend Rick Harnish, leader of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, was appointed to the nine-person advisory board for the partnership.

What does this have to do with us? Well obviously, it sets an example of what a state can do to improve its sustainable transportation infrastructure. We've been watching Illinois rather enviously as they've funded and nurtured their "emerging speed" rail program, linking Chicago with all parts of the state by trains running 60 to 110 MPH.

Interestingly, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) recently published a draft rail plan. (This plan is in response to the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 "PRIIA" Sec. 302) It offers four "packages" dependent on available funding: Baseline, Good, Better, and Best.

Under the Baseline Package, $3.6B would maintain the current level of rail funding, but would eliminate the Wolverine (Pontiac to Chicago) passenger service. This is because, under PRIIA Section. 206, all states will have to pony up funds for their passenger corridor service (defined as lines under 750 miles long). This primarily affects New York and Michigan, since all other states with passenger rail corridors - notably, California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, and North Carolina - already pay for their own corridor service. Michigan now pays for the Pere Marquette (Chicago to Grand Rapids) and the Blue Water (Chicago to Port Huron), and Amtrak funds the Wolverine.

The Good Package looks for $7.2B, of which $3.1B is currently unfunded. It adds 90 projects to the Baseline, including the Wolverine, WALLY, an intermodal freight facility in Detroit, and a new rail tunnel under the Detroit River to Windsor.

The Better Package, for $7.9B (a $3.7B increase) adds track upgrades to the Chicago-Detroit-Pontiac corridor to allow more high-speed passenger service, and feeders to the Grand Rapids and Port Huron services, plus other projects associated with the Detroit intermodal terminal and studies of further passenger services.

And finally, the Best Package costs $9.2B, requiring a $5B additional shot in the arm. More projects would be completed, the most exciting of which would be buying new passenger rail equipment and providing passenger service to Traverse City. It will be a cold day in hell before the legislature approves anything like this, but what if the climate in Michigan were right for public-private investment?

To learn more:

Geothermal for Michigan

2011-06-02T08:48:00.000-07:00

This may not be news to you, though it was to me: last June, the City Council of Wyandotte (downriver from Detroit, due east of Metro Airport) approved a city utility to provide residents with geothermal energy. Geothermal systems use the constant temperatures underground to heat and cool buildings. In addition to not emitting greenhouse gasses, such systems cut way down on the need for electricity in the summer, and eliminate the need for gas in the winter. Lawrence Technological University installed a geothermal system for its Taubman Student Services Building when it was first built in 2006. In 2009, they revised their system, having discovered that the wells were spaced too close together for efficient cooling during the summer.

The main drawback is the high up-front cost: the system requires a pair of wells about 400 feet deep, which is where the City comes in to help residents out. Here's what the Great Lakes Energy News for June, 2011, has to say about it:

Wyandotte homeowners are lined up to become customers of a geothermal public utility, thought to be one of the first of its kind in the country. Customers can save about $500 to $1,000 a year because they will need less electricity in the summer and no natural gas for heat. Wyandotte expects most customers will have the city install the well and own and maintain the equipment outside the home, while the ground source heat pump will be owned by the homeowner. So far, Wyandotte has installed geothermal systems on homes owned by the city and has built or renovated 44 homes with a $7.7 million grant through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Officials in Dearborn Heights are also working on plans to make geothermal energy available to their residents.

Good going, Wyandotte! Go for it, Dearborn Heights! What can we do in our own communities?

PS - I hear brevity is a key to blog success. I'm giving it a try!

To learn more:

What's Wrong with Michigan?

2011-05-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

Back in July last year a really revealing letter started appearing in the blogosphere. Sorry I didn't spot it earlier and bring it to your attention! It's about what's wrong with Michigan, and it's interesting because (a) it's from a business man - a lawyer, actually; and (b) he's not just griping, he's aching to find a solution. He sent this letter (essay, really) to Michigan Future, Lou Glazer's outfit that I've mentioned more than once before.

I'm going to give you a few excerpts to whet your appetite, and send you off to read the whole thing. So here are the quotes:

We’d like to stay in Michigan, but we have a problem. It’s not taxes or regulations. There’s lots of talk about these issues but they have no impact on our business. We spend more on copiers and toner than we do on state taxes. Our problem is access to talent. We have high-paying positions open for patent attorneys in the software and semiconductor space. Even though it is one of the best hiring environments for IP firms in 40 years, we cannot fill these positions. Most qualified candidates live out of state and simply will not move here, even though they are willing to relocate to other cities. Our recruiters are very blunt. They say it is almost impossible to recruit to Michigan without paying big premiums above competitive salaries on the coasts. ...

The fundamental problem it seems to me is that our region [h]as gone berserk on suburbia to the expense of having any type of nearby open space or viable urban communities, which are the two primary spatial assets that attract and retain the best human capital.

...But despite our talents and resources, the region's problem of place may be intractable for one simple, sorry reason: our political and business leadership does not view poor quality of place as a problem and certainly lacks motivation to address the issue.

...The attitude of many in our region is that our problems are confined to Detroit city while the suburbs are thought to be lovely. We don’t have a perception problem, we have a reality problem. Most young, highly talented knowledge workers from places like Seattle or San Francisco or Chicago find the even the upper end suburbs of Metro Detroit to be unappealing. ...

Things are spread too far apart. You have to drive everywhere. There’s no mass transit.

Oh - and be sure to look at the two maps he's got in the letter.

Why our growing firm may have to leave Michigan.

To read more:

Quick Summary: Federal Funding Awards for High Speed Rail Projects in Michigan

2011-05-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

How much money has Michigan received lately for high speed rail? John Langdon, Governmental / Public Affairs Coordinator for the Michigan Association of Rail Passengers (MARP) put together this handy chart from Federal and State sources, which I'm passing along to you (thanks, John!):

Selection Date	Project Name	Project Summary	Federal "Track"	Grant Amount	State/Local Contribution
2009-09-24	Battle Creek Station		ARRA Round 1	$3,620,552	$0
	Renovation of the station building and passenger services facilities at the Battle Creek, MI Amtrak Station.
2009-09-24	Troy Station		ARRA Round 1	$8,485,212	$0
	Construction of a new platform and passenger services facilities at the Troy, MI Amtrak Station.
2009-09-24	Dearborn Station		ARRA Round 1	$28,204,450	$0
	Construction of a new station building, platform, and passenger services facilities at a relocated new Amtrak Station in Dearborn, MI.
2010-10-28 Chicago –	Detroit HSR Corridor Plan	FRA (HSIPR) Program FY10 & Remaining FY 09 (80/20)		$3,200,000	$800,000 (split between MI, IL, IN, NS)
	Corridor Investment Plan includes completion of a Service Development Plan and corridor environmental study for the Chicago Hub (Chicago to Detroit/Pontiac) High-Speed Rail Corridor
2010-10-28	West Detroit Rail Improvements	FRA (HSIPR) Program FY10 & Remaining FY 09		$7,912,773 FRA, $1,475,893 FTA	$8,937,572
	Installation of centralized traffic control signals, construction of 1.34 miles of new connection track on existing and previously abandoned railroad property, replacement of the bridge over Junction Avenue, relocation of approximately 0.86 track miles of existing CSAO tracks, and construction of 5 new cross overs and a service drive.
2011-05-09	Ann Arbor Station		FL Redirect	$2,806,400	$701,600 (City of Ann Arbor Funds)
	This project is for the completion of preliminary engineering and environmental documentation required for future design and construction a new high-speed rail station in Ann Arbor, MI to serve the Chicago -Detroit/Pontiac high speed rail corridor. The old Ann Arbor station is currently the busiest Amtrak station in Michigan, but it is located on single-track territory without passing sidings, which forces intercity trains to stop and block the mainline while serving the station. Plans include construction of passing track that will allow passenger trains to meet and for more than one train to serve the station at a time, thereby increasing on-time performance and service reliability on the corridor. The station will also incorporate automobile, pedestrian, transit, and intercity bus connectivity.
2011-05-09	Kalamazoo – Dearborn Service Development (110 mph)		FL Redirect	$196,503,208	$0
	This project will rehabilitate track and signal systems that will allow trains to travel at 110 mph for 135 miles resulting in a 30 minute reduction in trip time. The work funded in this project will replace ties, track, ballast, and highway crossings to a state of good repair on the line segment between Kalamazoo and Dearborn. It will also replace the current obsolete signal system with a positive train control (PTC) system. Together, these investments will result in improvements in trip time, average speed and top speed, and reduction in delay minutes.
		Total		$402,208,488	$47,939,172

AATA Updates: Rail and East County

2011-05-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest on commuter rail for Washtenaw County, from the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority's Planning and Development Committee (PDC):

Nov 11, 2013, is the new tentative starting date for excursion trains on the Ann Arbor-Detroit route. Of course, this is contingent on other things. Nobody specified what "other things" this might be contingent on, but my guess is probably the same as yours... Nobody had to mention the connection, but no funding has been committed for operating the trains.
Wally has no starting date in the works, but they to have a station specifications ready; and put out requests for design proposals (RFPs) 3 weeks ago.

Activity in the eastern part of the county got Board Member David Nacht quite enthusiastic at the PDC meeting. He reacted very positively to news about expanded Night Ride service.

Night Ride is actually taxi service subsidized and dispatched by AATA during evening hours that aren't served by fixed-route buses. Since it is largely funded by the city of Ann Arbor, it has (in the past) been run only in the city limits. But the Board of Directors recently approved a test expansion of service about a mile east, to Golfside Road, beginning April 1 (no fooling!). The result? Fully 22% of Night Ride calls either began or ended in the newly served area. Mr. Nacht said he had never known any new service to increase so rapidly in its first month. What can we do, he asked, to improve service in that hgh-demand area?

Well, there are a number of possibilities, some which may fall into the category of "cockamamie ideas", as Michael Benham jokingly put it. What do you think of these suggestions?

Right now, AATA's CEO Michael Ford is in discussions with McKinley Properties, owner of Glencoe Crossing shopping center, about using their parking lot as an "official" AATA park-and-ride site. McKinley is reasonably receptive to the idea, but hopes soon to expand businesses in the area adjacent to the Ichiban restaurant, which may require moving the park-and-ride to another location within the shopping center.
Put a station on the Ann Arbor-Detroit commuter rail (whenever it starts) at Dixboro Road, either instead of or in addition to the stop at Ypsilanti. This could be connected by a direct bus to Washtenaw Community College, St. Joseph Hospital, the many apartments of Golfside Rd., and buses on Washtenaw Ave.
Currently routes 4, 7, and 22 pass Glencoe Crossing (route 22 by back-tracking about a quarter mile from Carpenter Road). What about making Glencoe Crossing a more important transfer point by bringing other bus routes there?
Can we see if St. Joe and WCC would be willing to pay for shuttle service between their campuses and transit, on either Washtenaw or the railway?
How about encouraging public-private partnership to develop station-area businesses in conjunction with an enhanced transit?

Do these sound like "cockamamie ideas" to you? Well, they may not all be equally practical, but it's great to hear Board members so enthusiastic and full of ideas. Mr. Nacht commented after the meeting that in his nine or ten years on the Board, he had never encountered so many esxciting things in the transit world happening at once.

One other east-side service that's coming up soon: Ann Arbor to Detroit Metro Airport, a project spearheaded by AATA's Dawn Gabay. As you probably know, there is already service roughly every two hours provided by Indian Trails and the Michigan Department of Transportation. It runs under the name of "The Michigan Flyer" in luxury motor coaches (with WiFi that sometimes works!) from Lansing through Jackson and Ann Arbor, stopping near Briarwood at the Four Points Sheraton. That location is convenient for rapid service, because it's so close to I-94, but there is no AATA bus service to it. AATA's proposed service would run from downtown and/or campus locations in Ann Arbor on an hourly basis. The goal is to take no more than 40 or 45 minutes from there to the airport. That's quite feasible as long as you don't have many stops in Ann Arbor. The problem is, everybody wants the bus to stop where they are: the Medical Center, Central Campus, the downtown Ann Arbor transit center, somewhere on the south side of Ann Arbor, and somewhere in Ypsilanti. And of course there's always the problem of how to pay for the service, how much it would cost users and how much would be subsidized. AATA is working on a presentation to the University of Michigan, hoping they will guarantee a block of seats on each run - perhaps as many as 50% of the seats - for students and staff. Naturally, that would imply an emphasis on service to U of M locations. The good news: tentative start date for the service is October of this year...or at least before Christmas!

To read more:

Ann Arbor to Detroit rail commuter service: http://www.semcog.org/AADD.aspx
Washtenaw-Livingston "Wally" commuter service: http://www.theride.org/wally.asp
Michigan Flyer airport service: http://www.michiganflyer.com/

Thank You, Tea Party!

2011-05-09T14:16:00.000-07:00

Today, thirteen states are benefiting from the decisions of Tea Party-supported governors in three other states.

As you probably know, Governors Kasich or Ohio, Scott of Florida, and Walker of Wisconsin each turned down millions of dollars in federal high-speed rail money, claiming their states would be burdened with cost over-runs and operations support for years to come. They claimed to be balancing their states' budgets and saving millions in taxpayer money, in the face of evidence that high-speed rail pays for its own operation, repays capital costs, and brings billions of dollars in new investments to the regions they serve.

The case of Governor Scott of Florida is particularly striking. The Mayors of Orlando, Tampa, and Miami issued a joint statement about the benefit of high-speed rail to their cities. The Florida Chamber of Commerce urged the Governor to implement high speed rail. Several coalitions of businesses made proposals to the state for investing matching money and assuming cost-overrun and operating expenses for high-speed rail. Governor Scott even instructed the Florida Department of Transportation not to accept the proposals. He refused even to listen. A classic case of, "don't bother me with the facts -my mind is made up".

The Florida project was the set to be the first 220-MPH rail line in the US, running largely in the median of Interstate 4 between Tampa and Orlando, a distance of about 85 miles. Last year, when I was living most of the time in Florida, I had occasion to travel on I-4 several times. The traffic in the urban areas is frightful, and in the rural areas is merely heavy. Decades ago, I recall it as a pleasant drive, but population growth has made I-4 more of a nightmare than a nice experience. Governor Scott's refusal of funds to alleviate the problem are, I suppose, a great gesture of ideological purity for his Tea Party supporters. (Who knows what other, less public reasons he had for sending the money back.)

OK, so Governor Scott freed up about two billion dollars in money that can only be spent for high-speed rail. Governors Walker and Kasich turned away a few millions more. Today, we find out what's happening to that money. Part of the answer is, Michigan wins pretty big. Thank you, Tea Party!

Today, Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, is making announcements at Penn Station in New York and Detroit Station in Michigan, about where the money is going to end up, and what for. For the $2.2B that were so kindly freed up by Tea Party governors, 33 states submitted proposals amounting to about $10B. Obviously, not every state is getting what they asked for, but many got a big boost. Let's look at the other states first, then in more detail at our region.

The Northeast Corridor (Boston to Washington) was the biggest winner, with $795M (39% of the redistributed funds) for general upgrades and several site-specific improvements.
Five northeastern states are sharing another 7%, $150.2M for track and station improvements.
The South gets only 1% of the redistribution, Texas with $15M to study express rail service possibilities between Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, while North Carolina is getting $4M for studies of the Southeast HSR Corridor (but North Carolina, which has invested a lot of its state funds into rail, also received a lot of Federal money from earlier ARRA distributions).
The West Coast states each received some money (19%), but the lion's share (15% of the total) goes to California, with $300M to extend and accelerate its 220-MPH high-speed project.

What about us? The Midwest gets 34% of this distribution, $609.3M. The Obama Administration has put a high premium on regions that work together cooperatively, and the Midwest has done that remarkably well (despite the recent defection of governors of Ohio and Wisconsin). For much of this, we owe a big vote of thanks to two organizations that have worked hard to bring the entire region together for high speed rail:

The Midwest Regional Rail Initiative: The MWRRI is the combined effort of nine Midwestern state departments of transportation, which have worked since 1996 to plan and implement a 3,000 mile high speed rail system to connect the region.
The Midwest High Speed Rail Association is a member-supported, non-profit organization advocating for fast, frequent and dependable trains linking the entire Midwest. For the last ten years, the tireless efforts of Rick Harnish, its Executive Director, have been promoting an integrated network of new, 220-mph high-speed lines combined with modernized Amtrak trains linked to strong local transit networks.

Michigan received $199.3M this time around, 10% of the total redistribution (pretty good, considering there were 13 states receiving funds). The majority of that, $196.5M, is "to rehabilitate track and signal systems, bringing trains up to speeds of 110 mph on a 235-mile section of the Chicago to Detroit corridor, reducing trip times by 30 minutes". The section referred to is between Kalamazoo and Dearborn. Currently, the section between Kalamazoo and Battle Creek is owned by Canadian National (CN), while the eastern portion belongs to Norfolk Southern (NS). NS would like to sell their line, since it's used more by Amtrak than by their freight trains - which means it would cost them more to maintain than it's worth to them. (It would, that is, if they were maintaining it...but apparently, since they're not planning to keep it, they aren't making a great effort. The section between Ypsilanti and Chelsea has been downgraded to 40 MPH because of poor track condition, and that may soon be extended all the way to Jackson.) The State of Michigan would like to purchase the NS line, but not at the price NS wants for it. (Negotiations aren't public, but it's pretty well agreed that price is the sticking point.) Is any of the $196M to be spent on purchasing the line? We'll wait and see.

Michigan will also share the benefits of the $286.2M for Midwest "Next Generation Passenger Rail Equipment Purchase – This state-of-the-art rail equipment will provide safe and reliable American-built vehicles for passenger travel, while boosting the U.S. manufacturing industry," according to the US DOT press release (linked below). Will any of them be built in Michigan? Probably not - other states seem to have been more active in attracting rail manufacturers.

Another $2.8M is designated for Ann Arbor's planned Fuller Road station, which is to be built on city-owned land near the foot of the University Medical Center. That, it turn, will allow the hoped-for commuter rail service between Ann Arbor and Detroit to have a station adjacent to the largest employer in the county. It will also include a park-and-ride facility, so commuters will be able to come from the entire county and park their cars there; no adequate parking is available at the current Amtrak station, which is over capacity now. Ann Arbor's (as I've mentioned before) is the busiest station in Michigan; the 85 people who boarded the morning train to Chicago on Saturday weren't able to fit in the waiting room; many had to wait outside.

These amounts are just about the finishing touches on what the Wolverine line needs to provide service that's competitive with auto travel to Chicago. Earlier grants and work have targeted bottlenecks on the route:

The Englewood Flyover was funded earlier this year to alleviate a frequent source of delay a few miles south of Chicago Union Station.
The Porter (Indiana) junction was funded last year; this will address the problem-spot where all three of Michigan's passenger lines join the busy main New York to Chicago line, formerly New York Central and now NS.
Amtrak owns the line from Porter to Kalamazoo, the longest stretch of track owned by Amtrak outside the Northeast Corridor. Their crews, based in Niles, have upgraded the line and signals to allow running at 110 MPH already, though currently 95 is the top speed allowed.
Detroit Junction received a grant two years ago for a more direct connection between the CN line running north to Pontiac and the Conrail Joint Assets track running west toward Ann Arbor. This one junction is responsible for a consistent 10-minute delay, which can easily stretch to much more when there are opposing freight movements on either line.
Dearborn is moving its station to a new location, where it will be more centrally located and will encourage transit-oriented development.

Of course there's lots more that could be done to make the rail connection from Michigan to Chicago better. But don't look for more Federal money. As of April 15, the FY 2010 budget for high speed rail was reduced from $2.5B to $2.1B. The FY 2011 budget was reduced from $1.0B to $o.oo. That means it's time for Michigan to step up and do its part to continue improving transportation alternatives. It doesn't necessarily involve general tax increases, either: public-private partnerships can ease the pain for the state and provide an income stream for businesses; user fees for all types of transportation, including air, rail, and road, should be raised to cover more of their actual costs. But it would take a change in mind-set for Michigan transportation planners to engage business partners, and courage for legislators to enact higher fees for anything. So let's engage our state planners and legislators to see what we can do to provide alternatives to $4+/gallon gas. Consider joining the Michigan Association of Rail Passenger and the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, both of which do excellent work to support rational transportation alternatives.

Oh, yes - and even though we owe some thanks to the Tea Party in three other states, let's not encourage them in Michigan, OK?

To read more:

US DOT Press Release
Midwest High Speed Rail Association - Home - Join - About Florida's HSR funds
Michigan Association of Rail Passengers - Home - Join

The basics of Highways and Rails

2011-05-02T14:18:00.001-07:00

Yesterday (May 1), The Flint Journal published an editorial in favor of state support for passenger rail, "Our Voice: Michigan must climb aboard movement to ride the rails". They cited the past six months' 26.2% increase in ridership on the Blue Water, Amtrak's line from Chicago through Lansing and Flint to Port Huron. (Only one trip per day each way.) Interestingly, Flint's station saw a 34.7% increase in the last six months.

There were quite a number of favorable comments by this afternoon, but as usual, there were the folks who believe we should subsidize highways but not railways. "Bullseye" expressed these sentiments colorfully: "What a laugh. What are you smoking! Rail roads have never paid for themselves. We are unable to keep our roads maintained. Where would we find money for this? No police, no fireman! This is dream from la la land you need to come back to Michigan!"

So it's time to go over some of the basics about the cost of rail travel. I put up a comment; here's a version for you, dear blog readers:

It's true that railroads cost taxpayer money, but so do roads and so do cars. Here are a few facts:

Even toll roads don't pay for themselves; the Illinois Tollway Authority is requesting money from the Illinois State Legislature.
Americans sent $254 billion to other countries for oil in 2009, much if it to unfriendly governments. If American "patriots" woke up and realized how much they're subsidizing our enemies by hanging on to their SUVs, they might think investing a little of their tax dollars in rail passenger service was a really good deal.
Family travelers: Kids love being able to run around in trains. My 3-year-old grandson learned how to kick the door-open panel on a trip to Chicago. (Drove the Conductor crazy, but the kid had a great time!)
No transit "nuts" are trying to get you out of your car. They're just trying get you to let them into the train, the bus, and the light rail, so you can have more room on the highway. It's a good deal for you, and costs less than adding lanes to the highway!

Oh - and remember if you're a business traveler, 99% of your time on a train to Chicago would be billable work-time. How much of your time would be billable on a plane or driving your car? Business travelers would recover their year's tax expenditures, plus business-class rail fare in one trip. Gov. Snyder is a business man and understands the value of this transportation option, which is why he supported rail during his campaign.

National Deficits: Government and Oil

2011-04-12T19:56:00.000-07:00

We're hearing a lot about the problem of deficit spending these days. It appears to have been taken on as the primary windmill with which the new House of Representatives has chosen to do combat. How much debt did the Federal Government incur last year?

$1,641,103,866,572.30 ($1,641 Billion)

No wonder people are concerned!

It's easy to find and track at Treasury Direct (I've put the link below) but there's another number that troubles me, too. It's what I call the oil deficit. People don't jump up and down and shout about it, but I think we should be concerned. Very concerned. That number, as of the last September 30, was:

$254,062,422,178.65 ($254 Billion)

Not as big, not as easy to track down, but very serious. This is the amount of money we (Americans) spent to purchase oil from abroad between October 1, 2009, and September 30 last year. It represents about 63% of the oil we use.

That money contributes mightily to our trade deficit, though it was only 15% of the Federal debt incurred in the same period . Let's compare it to a few other relevant figures:

$254B is nearly 7 times larger than the $38B budget cut enacted last week
$254B is nearly 170 times larger than the $1.5B cut from high speed rail
$254B is nearly 7 times larger than the $37B collected in Federal gas tax last year

Did you catch that? We send almost seven times as much money overseas for oil as we do to the Federal Government for highways and transit.

I'm told most Americans no longer believe in climate change, but even for that questionable majority, these figures should raise an alarm about our dependence on overseas oil:

$22B is what we sent to outright unfriendly countries for oil. During the same period, the Federal Government spent only $7B, about one-third as much, for public transit in this country.
$55B is what we sent to questionable allies. During the same period, the Federal Highway Trust Fund spent only $32B on highways in our own country.

No wonder there's so much pressure to cut back on spending for rail and transit: it's pretty clear who stands to gain, but it's not the American people. And it seems those who gain have ever-deepening pockets.

Am I the only one who finds something wrong with this picture?

To explore more:

Is the climate really right for trains?

2011-03-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

"The Climate is Right for Trains" - that's the slogan of Bombarier Transportation (BT). Today, I attended a talk given by BT's President, Monsieur Raymond Bachant at Chicago's Mid America Club, in cooperation with the Midwest High Speed Rail Association and the Canada-U.S. Business Council Chicago. (Bombardier is, of course, a very Canadian Québequois company, though it does business in 60 countries.)

M. Bachant is very upbeat about the climate for rail. Of course, it's his job to be upbeat - who ever bought anything from a gloomy salesman? But Bombardier has every reason to be upbeat as a major supplier of railway rolling-stock around the world: they expect Europe to add about 10,000 kilometers of high-speed rail in the next decade, while China is planning to add over 30,000 km. Even though BT is a relative newcomer to high speed rail, they have a great "track" record in all areas of rail vehicle design, from streetcars, to passenger coaches, to subway trains, to locomotives. I say they're relative newcomers, even though in the 1990s they helped design and build Amtrak's Acela trainset along with Alstom. Alstom has been in the HSR business since the 1970s, when they designed and built the French TGV, so I suspect it was a learning experience for the Bombarier folks. Of course, BT does make jet airplanes - the popular (with airlines) CRJ series - and that's got to count for something in the high speed business!

So that's where BT and M. Bachant are coming from. With over 100,000 BT rail vehicles in use in 60 countries around the world, they can perhaps afford to shrug off the odd behavior of governors of small regions like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida. To them, the future assuredly looks bright.

But does it look as bright to us in the U.S.? M. Bachant listed four things that are necessary for high speed rail to succeed for us here:

Consistent and continued funding of rail infrastructure
Compatibility: seamless, convenient, integrated transportation
Competitive environment (but this depends on point 1, Consistency)
Good planning

Here's my take on these...

Consistent and continued funding of rail infrastructure

Passenger rail needs to be "de-politicized", says M. Bachant, and I agree completely. In Europe, the need to excellent rail infrastructure is not a political football (ahem - soccer ball?) as far as I know. In the U.S., the need for good highways enjoys just about the same status. So when - if ever - will the American political establishment bring passenger rail to enjoy the same status as our highways do?

M. Bachant, in answer to a question from the audience, opined that the rising price of oil was the force most likely boost the political fortunes of rail.

Perhaps I'm just a bit cynical, but I think it will take more than that. I suspect that the majority of politicians will only start to favor passenger rail when significant political contributions start to come from passenger rail businesses. The politicians who make the loudest noises about balancing the budget are also quick to protect their biggest contributors from tax increases, which may indicate where their true interests lie.

Oh, and why does funding need to be consistent and continued? Because the boom-and-bust cycle brought about by inconsistent funding is muderous to businesses. M. Bachant pointed out the Bombarier now owns the remnants of two great American rail car builders: Pullman, and Budd. Both shriveled as passenger rail decreased in the U.S., but might well have survived if Amtrak had been able to continually upgrade its equipment over the years. Instead, Amtrak got a big chunk of money for its Superliner and Amfleet cars thirty and more years ago, but practically nothing more until 2009. No wonder our trains and subways are built by companies like Siemens (German), Breda (Italian), Talgo and CAF (Spanish), Kawasaki and Nippon Sharyo (Japanese). Those are all countries that have kept up a steady demand for new rail cars.

Compatibility

M. Bachant stressed the need for transportation to work together as a system - seamless connectivity between high speed trains, airports, regional expresses, and locals, buses, and taxis. This is most certainly true: public transportation must integrate seamlessly in order to compete with the automobile. In a car, you can go from the slickest, fastest freeway to an unpaved, rutted road, without getting out of your vehicle. Not so in a high-speed train. In order to come even close to the same level of convenience, public transportation must be very well planned and coordinated.

But there is another level at which compatibility is important; and though he didn't talk about it, I'm sure M. Bachant would agree: equipment and operating rules must be standardized as well. That's part of what's necessary for competition, the next point.

Competitive environment

Competition is necessary for any sector of a thriving, capitalist economy. M. Bachant didn't delve in to this very deeply, but I can fill in the gaps. Not only do we need a good field of suppliers for equipment, but if the playing field is level and there's enough passenger demand, we can have competition among passenger train operators. This isn't widespread, but in addition to Britain (the most obvious example), Switzerland offers examples of several operators running on the same rails.

In the U.K., a public corporation owns and maintains the track, while quite a few companies offer passenger service and others haul freight. You may have heard England's system dismissed as a "failure" by some American politicians, but countless people who visit Britain - and millions of Brits who ride trains - attest that service there is excellent and flourishing. (Yes, Megabus started there and is flourishing too, but that's another story!)

In Switzerland, the Swiss Federal Railways allow other companies to run trains on their tracks. Some of these are international (French, Italian, and German for the most part); others are freight carriers; and still others are regional operators providing extra local and commuter service for a canton, and subsidized by it - for example BLS, of the Canton of Bern. I believe there are similar arrangements in Germany as well.

Good planning

M. Bachant didn't go into detail with this; do I need to?

I do have an observation, though. Planning is a lot easier in a centrally-controlled system like China's. In 1990, the central powers there decided to invest in high speed rail. They didn't allow any opposition once the decision was made. Perhaps those who disagreed are now mining coal with picks and shovels in China's far northeast. The leaders then set in motion a large, well-funded group of engineers to plan routes and learn everything about HSR technology from the leaders in the field - Japan, France, and Germany. By 2007, they were ready to launch their service, and in ten years they'll have thousands more miles of high speed rail. Everybody who has visited has been awe-struck by how smooth, fast, pleasant, and efficient it is. But they probably didn't talk to the guys in the coal mines.

We don't work that way here. I'm glad we don't. Really. But it would sure be great if we could find a better way to pull together, instead of pulling apart what others have tried to build up.

Any ideas...?

To read more: -

Clarification: Ann Arbor to Detroit Commuter Rail

2011-03-22T14:30:00.001-07:00

In the last entry, I wrote,

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA), after reviewing the proposal for the Ann Arbor to Detroit commuter service, decided to "take over" the project.

I misunderstood what was happening: The Federal Transit Administration became the primary federal oversight agency for the AA-Detroit commuter rail project, instead of the Federal Highway Administration, which had previously had the oversight. SEMCOG is still the primary local agency in charge.

My apologies for any confusion and misleading speculation I may have spread. Thanks to Terri Blackmore of WATS for clarifying the whole thing for me!

Three Transit Updates: AATA, APTA, WATS

2011-03-17T21:01:00.000-07:00

Family Savings for Using Transit

American Public Transit Association released their monthly calculation of the amount a family would save by giving up one car and taking transit. The annualized average for the entire country is...

$9,904

Look for a figure over $10,000 next month, reflecting rising gas prices.

Ann Arbor Transportation Authority

There was a little shuffling around at tonight's AATA Board meeting about the Washtenaw Avenue Transfer Center (née Arborland). This is intended to get buses out of the flow of traffic while they wait for passengers, and make it safer for passengers to from one bus to another. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between AATA and the City of Ann Arbor has been drafted and needs to be ratified in order for work to proceed. But the MoU wasn't quite available yet, so the Board will vote electronically after having a chance to see it.

The big moment was the formal adoption of the historic "Smart Growth" plan as the 30-year goal for public transit in Washtenaw County. As Board Chair Jessie Bernstein said after the meeting, it's just a start. There's lots of work to do now. Remember though, signing the Declaration of Independence was just a start...but it was an important start. Still, there was a war to fight before it meant anything.

So what is the "war" we must fight before Washtenaw County actually gets the transit system envisioned in the Smart Growth scenario? Like any war, it will require good strategy, good funding, winning hearts and minds, and good troops in command and on the ground.

Good troops on the ground: we're fortunate here. The staff at AATA, including the two Michaels - CEO Ford and Coordinator Benham - have demonstrated their skilled and are eager to keep up the fight. We're also fortunate that Governor Snyder, our representatives at the state and federal level, and most of the elected officials in the county support the "Smart Growth" plan, according to Mr. Ford's extensive polling.
Strategy: some of the big strategic decisions involve timing and inclusiveness. Should we press for an early millage vote, while people's attention is still on the new plan, or should we go slowly, carefully, and make sure everything is "done right"? What's the best strategy for including all parts of the County, without losing revenue from Ann Arbor that provides extra services like Night Ride? Is an "Act 196 entity" really the best model for a county-wide transit authority, or might it come with some serious "gotchas"?
Winning hearts and minds has been a big part of the process so far, with two rounds of public meetings, a big Web push, and coverage in the media. That needs to continue. Input from public meetings indicates broad support county-wide for the "Smart Growth" option. Here's where we are so far, combining feedback from all the sources:

Lifeline Plus Accessible County Smart Growth Total

100

138

647

885

11%

16%

73%

100%

The "Smart Growth" option isn't really a plan, so much as a scenario - a proposal, a vision - as Board Member Roger Kerson pointed out at tonight's meeting. We've got to continue listening to input from the public, and continue education on what good transit brings to a region.
Good funding is "the elephant in the closet", of course. (No political implications intended!) A millage is almost certain to be involved, but other sources of funding are equally important. I can't over-emphasize the importance of public-private projects. It's one of the cornerstones of Wake Up Washtenaw's advocacy. It's working in Detroit with the M-1 light rail, as savvy business men there realized what they can gain by investing in good transit. We should consider everything from sponsored stops to transit centers with shops and cafés helping pay the bills, making passengers comfortable, and making a profit.
And we've got to help families realize what they can save with a good transit system. It's $9,904 this year, and it's bound to go up. Anyone care to guess what a gallon of gas will cost in 2041?

Lifeline Plus	Accessible County	Smart Growth	Total
100	138	647	885
11%	16%	73%	100%

The Board will have its annual retreat on June 3, and the focus will be on funding strategies for the Smart Growth model. That's when the "elephant" really comes out of the closet.

Washtenaw Area Transportation Study (WATS)

Looking over my notes, I don't see much to be happy about from the WATS meeting Wednesday morning (March 16). Well run meeting, positive up-beat representatives from the various agencies and governing bodies, but most items were just depressing.

Oh - one good item: the intersection of US 23 and Washtenaw Avenue will be reorganized this summer to improve pedestrian and bicycle passage. If you've ever tried to walk or bike through this intersection...you're probably dead. It's a killing zone. Motorists using the approach ramps have too many other fast-moving vehicles to look out for, and can't spare attention for mere human beings. I haven't seen the plans for the new arrangement, but it's got to be an improvement. (Of course, things will be really awful while they're working on it!)

Now the depressing stuff.

Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) admin staff is at 50% of its earlier level, and no immediate prospect of hiring anyone new. This is good news for those who want small government, but not so good for those who want our roads fixed.
The Federal Transit Administration (FTA), after reviewing the proposal for the Ann Arbor to Detroit commuter service, decided to "take over" the project. SEMCOG, which has been in charge up to now, does not know why (according to SEMCOG's point man, Carmine Palombo). This will result in a month or six weeks of delay. Sigh. (This may be just a wild guess, but perhaps the FTA didn't think SEMCOG's experience with rail projects was very impressive. Could it be their lack of "track" record? ;-) We'll have to wait and see if FTA can do any better.
Washtenaw County Road Commission (WCRC) has spent about $300 million for salt this winter, about $150 million over budget.
Two Ypsi Township projects - Golfside and Ford - will be postponed until next year due to lack of "obligational authority" (i.e. money) until October.
Governor Snyder has indicated that he won't be able to turn his attention to transportation issues until Fall. The House Transportation Committee, chaired by Rep. Olsen, will be preparing a recommendation for him late this summer.
A tremendous amount of confusion was revealed when Western-Washtenaw Area Value Express (WAVE) pointed out their request for new buses couldn't be entered on time to get them by next year. After hearing a lot of polite but tense discussion, my conclusion is that the fault rests squarely on the US House of Representatives. Their infighting, political posturing, and intransigence has prevented the Federal government from having a budget. As you know, the government is operating on a "continuing resolution" that goes from week to week, almost. In that environment, the FTA can't authorize any new expenditures. Without the FTA's OK, MDOT transit people can't permit new money to be obligated, so SEMCOG has blocked these requests from being entered in their on-line system. The result? Unreliable service between Chelsea, Dexter, and Ann Arbor in a year or two, when WAVE's worn-out buses start breaking down frequently.

Well, draw your own conclusions. I really wish Congress would stop partisan game-playing, show some statesmanship, and start governing the country.

To read more:

News from NARP and TTI

2011-01-26T08:52:00.000-08:00

You may be aware of NARP, the National Association of Rail Passengers, and MARP, its Michigan sister; you may even be a member. If you're not, you may want to take a look at NARP's latest newsletter on-line. In addition to news, there's some interesting analysis. I'll hit the high points here.

Politics

Do Republicans always oppose public transit and rail spending? No. It's pretty well known that outgoing California Governer Arnold Schwartzenegger actively encouraged California's high speed rail initiative, branded "Fly California", as well as many other environmentally conscious policies. NARP's newsletter details the efforts of Virginia's Republican governor Bob McDonnell to increase rail service in his state. The results are a model for working cooperatively with the freight railroads that own the tracks, increasing frequency, and investing state funds in projects that benefit both freight and passenger traffic. As a business-savvy politician, McDonnell knows that "investment" is more than a nice word for government boondoggles. His state budget has called for deep cuts, but not in transportation infrastructure, in which he plans to invest $4 billion. An interesting funding source for infrastructure is Virginia's 10% tax on car rentals, of which 30% is used for rail and conventional transit.

Further south, in Florida, Republican Governor Rick Scott has yet either to support or block the Tampa-Orlando high speed line. But the project is pretty hard to object to: most of the capital cost is covered by Federal funds, while the operating costs and risks will be covered by private companies, of which seven are bidding to operate the line. What's more, Associated Industries of Florida, a business lobbying group, is strongly in support of the project. Perhaps the only negative factor is the association between high speed rail and President Barak Obama, and the fear some politicians have of being linked to anything the opposing party favors.

Analysis

Some very interesting facts emerge in a white paper by NARP Communications Director Sean Jeans-Gail. He puts together figures from several sources that show the costs and benefits of rail transportation and compares them with the costs and benefits of highway funding. Here are some of the most significant:

Amtrak recovers around 75% of its operating costs from generated revenues;
U.S. commuter rail, on average, nationwide, covers 53% of it’s operating costs through the fare box;
Gas taxes, road tolls, and vehicle registration fees covered 51% of the cost of America's highways in 2008;
The average US household spends 15% of its resources on transportation, of which 94% goes to supporting its automobiles;
Families that use public transportation as an alternative to an additional auto save about $9000 each year (a figure I've often brought to your attention!).

Do Americans actually use rail as a meaningful transportation option? Between 1995 and 2008:

US population grew 15%
Highway use rose by 21%
Commuter rail ridership grew 28%
Public transit ridership went up 31%
Amtrak ridership grew 32%

Another source of information and analysis - perhaps better known to many of you - is the Texas Transportaiton Institute. These researchers have for many years been the primary non-governmental source of information on traffic nation-wide. Their primary focus is on roads and highways, and they do a great job with it. Their annual report came out last week - a feast for those who like to dive into the numbers and fish out their own conclusions. Congestion is one of their main focuses, and the amount of time and money lost to congestion is truly staggering. For each commuter in a major metropolitan area...

Average time lost to congestion: 50 hours each year, reaching as high as 70 hours in the worst areas, Chicago and Washington DC;
Gallons of gas wasted: 39 on average, 57 in Washington DC;
Money wasted: $1,166, and as high as $1,738 in Chicagoland.

The trend has been steadily upward: in 1982, the average commuter lost only 18 hours each year to congestion.

City-by-city numbers are available, so I looked at the numbers for the Detroit metro area. The good news: congestion is decreasing around here...but of course, we know why: the population is shrinking. So we're back to where we (Wake up Washtenaw) started: how do we make our region more attractive to people and businesses?

I think the figures here might give us a clue.

To read more:

NARP News, January 2011: http://www.narprail.org/cms/images/uploads/1101web.htm
NARP's "Transportation Infrastructure Investment - White Paper & Fact Sheet" www.bit.ly/travchoice
Texas Transportation Institute Urban Mobility Information: http://mobility.tamu.edu/

Green or Brown?

2011-01-02T20:43:00.000-08:00

The Great Lakes Echo had an interesting article last Thursday: "Detroit businessman proposes large scale commercial farming to struggling city". It's about John Hantz's plan to take Detroit's urban agriculture to new heights - or at least, to a far more ambitious stage. Hantz is a Detroit-area financier and entrepreneur with experience in real estate and banking, together with apparently deep pockets. His idea is to use Detroit's hundreds of acres of abandoned property to grow food, not simply on a family-by-family or soup-kitchen basis, but for profit, using the best techniques MSU's agricultural scientists can provide.

Now, why would that be of interest to transit-advocacy people or to Wake Up Washtenaw? Well, because what's really behind Wake Up Washtenaw is more than transit, it's sustainability.

If you've been following this blog for a while, you may recall the "White Paper" that appeared in sections here a couple of years ago. In January 2009, I put up the section outlining my concept of a new-built sustainable community based on a totally fresh start - a "town" with connections to the earth as well as other communities around it. This community would be able to sustain itself in food and energy, and take care of its own waste, while connecting its residents to the outside world - all without requiring them to own an automobile.

I have long believed that the only practical way to achieve these goals is to start with a large, empty tract of land and build from the ground up. In other words, to use "greenfield" development techniques. Many of my fellow environmental advocates have disagreed with me on principle, believing that we have enough "brownfield" areas to make greenfield development unnecessary. Current environmental thinking holds that the unused and underused parts of our cities and towns provide ample space for sustainable development, without sacrificing precious open space for human habitation. And this argument is especially telling in Michigan, the only state in the US to lose population over the last ten years.

Mr.. Hantz's large-scale urban agriculture plans seem to underscore the availability of thousands of acres within our Michigan cities and towns for profitably growing food. It's a wonderful revelation in one way, but is it the last nail in the coffin for greenfield development in Michigan?

I firmly believe there are good reasons to keep thinking about "green greenfield" development. I'd like to know what you think. Seriously. But here are my reasons for not abandoning the idea of sustainable greenfield development: With it, we can...

Use sustainable building practices from the ground up, rather than retrofitting old buildings and infrastructure to sustainable levels, which can be prohibitively expensive. We can start with LEED principles from the get-go, and build structures that can house many people comfortably with a low energy budget and the possibility of, for example, enclosed roof-top gardens the enable the air to be refreshed naturally during the winter.
Shape the community for sustainability. Rather than living with existing street and traffic patterns, we plan "outside the box" street layouts, transportation, and shopping for sustainability, while respecting and celebrating the natural features of the land.
Build energy production into agriculture and waste-management. Bio-waste from both agriculture and the residential waste stream can be used to produce energy, but it is difficult to do economically if energy, agriculture, and waste management are not planned as mutually interactive systems from the beginning.

Beyond these practical details lies the specter of Michigan's population loss. But study after study has concluded that the way to reverse this trend is to make Michigan the kind of place creative young people want to live in. They are the most likely to be able to revive Michigan's 20th-century economy by injections of 21st century creativity. And that's precisely where a totally new kind of sustainable community can really help. It frees the imagination from the mistakes of the past, the shape-restrictions of old buildings, and the constraints auto-oriented urban design. It allows creativity to work from the tabula raza, the natural state.

A sustainable greenfield development can incorporate existing natural features into the design, features which were long ago erased from the grid of city streets. It holds the promise of taking a section of cornfield and woodlots and actually increasing its agricultural productivity through intensive organic growing techniques, while at the same time greatly increasing its population and reducing the amount of carbon, waste heat, trash, and bio-waste. It allows science, engineering, architecture, and urban design to interact creatively and imaginatively.

So...what do you think?

To read more:

Great Lakes Echo (http://www.greatlakesecho.org/)
John Hantz's plan (http://greatlakesecho.org/2010/12/30/detroit-businessman-proposes-large-scale-commercial-farming-to-struggling-city/)
Wake Up Washtenaw blog entry on greenfield development (http://washtenawtod.blogspot.com/2009/01/5.html)
Wake Up Washtenaw White Paper (http://home.comcast.net/~krieg254/whitepaper1-0.htm)

Getting Back On Track

2010-12-16T14:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we got some interesting information from Smart Growth America (SGA) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) about how each the fifty states is preparing for "smart growth" and greenhouse gas reduction.

Before opening it, my very first question was, How badly did Michigan do? The answer - when I finally found it - was, Better than I thought!

The report, titled "Getting Back On Track: Aligning State Transportation Policy with Climate Change Goals," used lots of publicly available data sources to rate each state in several categories. One key point is that transportation decisions are made mainly at the state level. The Federal government can offer incentives and cash, but the states have the final say as to what they're going to do. Several good examples came up in the last few of months, as governors and governors-elect of New Jersey, Ohio, and Wisconsin threatened or vetoed federal transportation funding because it was tied to rail projects which, for whatever reason, were considered a waste of funds. Even powerful, local governments are stopped by their states, as in the case of New York City's 2007 congestion mitigation plan which the state legislature killed simply by blocking it from coming to a floor vote.

"Getting Back On Track" looks at three main types of criteria: Infrastructure Policies, Transportation Investment Decisions, and Touchstone Policies. The last refers to general state policies that impact - directly or indirectly - the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from transportation sources. A point score in each category, based on multiple indicators, gives a sort of "percentage grade" for each state. States were then ranked in each category to see how they compare. Here's how Michigan scored in each category:

	Infrastructure Policy	Transportation Investment Decisions	Touchstone Policies
Michigan's Rank	26	9	17
Michigan's Score	36%	51%	5 of 15 points

Our infrastructure policy seems to rank about average, but we ranked better in "touchstone" policies, and pretty well in actual investment decisions. That's good if we're being graded "on the curve". If you look at our actual scores, we're flunking in all categories. I don't suppose the laws of physics "grade on the curve", so when greenhouse gas emissions take effect in the environment, it's the score that counts - not the rank.

The scores from each category were combined to calculate an overall score for each state. Here are a few states that might be of interest to us in Michigan:

State	Rank	Score	Notes
California	1	80%	California tops the list. Interesting that the state which began the "freeway life style" is also the first to react to its limitations.
Minnesota	10	59%	Best in the Midwest
Illinois	13	53%	Second among near neighbors
Wisconsin	14	51%	Third in the Midwest
Michigan	17	48%	Fourth in the Midwest
Ohio	34	28%	Surprisingly low given its relatively high population and industrial base
Indiana	45	20%	Last in the Midwest, but it ranks with other states whose population density is low
Arkansas	50	2%	Arkansas may be HQ for the tops among the world's retailers, but it's dead last in green transportation.

The top states on the list are all coastal states with large, densely-populated areas: California, Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. The states at the bottom are all rural, low-density areas: Montana (41^st on the list), followed by Alabama, South Dakota, Wyoming, Indiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, West Virginia, Mississippi, and of course Arkansas in last place.

One way to look at this distribution is to speculate that high-ranking states have congestion problems that can't be ignored - but also, they have more abundant resources to deal with their whatever problems. So why is New York number 21? On the other hand, states at the bottom of the list have scantier resources to solve whatever problems they do have. Alabama, Indiana, and Nebraska each has at least one large metropolitan area which undoubtedly suffers from some degree of congestion and pollution.

Michigan falls somewhere in the middle, and of course we have our unique issues. We have areas of density, but there is a sense that we lack the economic resources to deal with the congestion and pollution. Then there's the fact that Michigan - and especially Detroit, its densest and most congested area - is losing population. Some people have the attitude that if we just wait long enough, Detroit will go away. That's a non-starter, for sure!

What next?

Because states have such an important role in setting transportation policy and practice, I'm going to pass along the study's recommendations for state action. Which of these are we already doing well in Michigan...and which can we do better?

Balance state transportation investments by:
- using state and federal resources to support robust public transportation service
- prioritize highway repair and safety over new capacity
- support non-motorized transportation, and
- ensure state fuel taxes can support all transportation modes.
Manage traffic through congestion pricing tools and incentivize low-carbon transportation options through comprehensive commuter programs.
Link transportation and land use in transportation plans, implement smart growth and growth management policies, and promote transit oriented development.
Set a course to reduce emissions by setting per capita transportation greenhouse gas or vehicle-miles traveled reduction targets.

What do you think? Which areas do we need to improve on, and how?

Get the full report here.

It's About Diversity

2010-11-08T14:33:00.000-08:00

Everyone in Michigan's transit community was tickled by the October 20 announcement of $150M for Wolverine rail corridor improvement under TIGER II, part of ARRA. This amount - trivial by highway standards - is truly significant for rail.

Congressman John Dingell was given the honor of announcing the grant, and I'm sure it's as significant for him as for us. But let it be noted that these funds were awarded based on US DOT's merit-based formula, not on earmarks from the Congressman. I'm proud that Michigan earned the money fair and square, rather than by whining to our legislators.

As a competitive program, TIGER II is able to fund the best projects from around the country. Using merit-based evaluation criteria allows the Department of Transportation to address some of the nation’s most critical challenges like sustainability and economic competitiveness. (http://www.dot.gov/affairs/2010/dot18810.html)

BTW - there was lot of negative campaign noise about Dingell 's age and long service in Congress. In the words of one blog comment/flame, "He’s a washed up old geezer…. Move on old dude and let some new blood and new ideas into office". I find it interesting that a congressman who was in office when the Interstate highway system was legislated (and I have to believe he supported it!) is now such a staunch advocate of high(er) speed rail. I wonder what "new ideas" our flaming friend was thinking of (if any)?

Many negative commentators seem to fear that transit investment will "take away" our cars. Of course, no transit advocate has ever suggested that seriously. But the critics seem quite happy to keep others from having further options. As one commenter jokingly put it, "We don’t need a railway. Rich people have cars and poor people can just walk."

It's a well-accepted maxim that there's strength in diversity. Michigan's economic woes stem in large part from lack of diversity. Over-reliance on manufacturing (primarily of automobiles) brought Michigan down further and faster in this recession than most other states.

It's the same in transportation. Cities with high-capacity electric rail don't quake in fear of OPEC as much as cities that depend on oil for mobility. They have a backup system. Families with transportation options over and above the automobile can spend their money on more diverse things. They have a backup system. We're still seeing a savings of about $9000/year for families that can use transit rather than owning and operating a second auto.

Transit makes it possible for a more diverse group of people to live in an area - including senior citizens and mobility-challenged folks, as well as immigrants from countries that don't depend on privately owned vehicles for mobility. Remember, Michigan Future found that the nation's most successful metropolitan regions are all more welcoming to diverse populations, including immigrants, than is Michigan.

Diversity and mobility options are hardly new ideas, but they have a powerful, positive effect on society. I appreciate John Dingell's support of those ideas, whether they're new or old. I'm glad he will be back in Washington come January.

Election Results: Where We Stand

2010-11-06T16:47:00.000-07:00

After Tuesday's midterm elections, a lot has changed. For those of us watching transportation policy and sustainable development, the results offer a mixed bag of good and bad news. Let's start at home and work our way up...

Local: Washtenaw County

The Ypsilanti City transit tax initiative was approved. According to the national Center for Transportation Excellence,

City of Ypsilanti voters were asked to approve a charter amendment to levy an additional 0.9789 mills specifically for public transit, restoring the original 20 mills that had been reduced. With the amendment in place, Ypsilanti would secure an additional $281,429 in revenue in 2011 for bus transportation through the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority.

The measure passed by a very comfortable 72%, indicating that even in hard times, Ypsilanti residents consider public transportation a high priority.

Ypsi residents often come to City Council meetings and protest cuts to AATA service, but being willing to pay for it is often another matter. Good job, Ypsi, for putting your money where your mouth is. Now, how about Ypsi Township...?

State Representative-Elect David Rutledge took an Internet class from me many years ago, before serving as Trustee at Washtenaw Community College. I found him to be thoughtful, curious, quick-witted, and eager to learn. Though I've disagreed with him over the proposed WCC parking structure (Blog: December 8, 2009) I'm very positive about his ability to bring about effective policy in Lansing.

State: Michigan

Governor-Elect Rick Snyder appears to understand the need for mass transit and the benefits it can bring - including attracting talented young people to our state and providing a life-line for people who don't have access to automobiles for one reason or another. His results-oriented investment budgeting philosophy is encouraging, since in state after state, investment in rail transit has brought spectacular dividends. I recommend the on-line video interview by the Detroit Free Press in which Snyder talks about Lansing's culture, his budgeting strategy, and specifically about transportation (at 4:20 in the 5:50 minute video).

Michigan citizens across the state voted overwhelmingly for improved transit options. According to the Center for Transportation Excellence, five transportation-related property tax issues were on local November 2 ballots around the state. Only in Eaton County did an issue fail. I mentioned Ypsilanti's victory for transportation ; in addition, there were victories in Bennington Township (by 66%), Caro (by 62%), and Spring Lake (by 80%). Looking back to the election of August 3, 2010, a lot of property tax mileages for transit were passed or renewed in Michigan: Bay County (64%), Branch County (70%), Clare County (61%) Genesee County (63%), Ingham County (67% and 63% on two issues), Lapeer County (67%), Ludington and Scottsville (figures not available), Saginaw (65%), Shiawassee County (figures not available), St. Joseph County (61%), Van Buren (68%), Wexford County (61%), and the SMART renewal in the counties of Wayne (74%), Oakland (78%), and Macomb (72%). Not a single issue got less than 60% support, except a failed proposal in Eaton County (lost by 45% in August).

And look who gave the highest percentage approval for transit in August: arch-conservative Oakland County, with 78%! Who says good transit is just a liberal issue?

Regional: the Midwest

The Big Bad News in the Midwest is two governors-elect, those of Ohio and Wisconsin, vowing to kill their state's high speed rail projects. This is especially disappointing for Wisconsin, which had contracted with Spanish railroad equipment builder Talgo to construct trainsets in a disused Milwaukee-area factory. For a governor to kill a project that was providing jobs is unusual. Wisconsin's high speed line was to run from Chicago through Milwaukee to Madison. The governor's reason for killing the project was its ongoing cost to the state (apparently ignorant of the ongoing economic benefits of passenger rail). He would rather put the money into the state's "crumbling roads and bridges".

Ohio's governor-elect apparently opposes rail for the same reason. Their brand-new passenger service would run from Cleveland through Columbus and Dayton to Cincinnati. In both Ohio and Wisconsin, supporters of rail haven't given up on legal remedies, though they admit their situation is grave.

On the positive side, Illinois continues to be solidly rail-supportive. As the rail hub of the Midwest, we need Illinois's continuing support.

National

Nationwide, the Center for Transportation Excellence tells us, "On November 2, voters approved 23 of 31 transportation ballot measures for a 74% sucess rate. When added to the 21 out of 26 measures approved earlier in the year, voter support for transportation ballot measures remains strong with 77% approved in 2010. This is well above the 10-year average of 70%."

According to Transportation for America (T4A, of which Wake Up Washtenaw is a partner) the general outlook for transportation reform is not bad at the Federal level. Although fiscal conservatives will be in charge of the House, and the Minority Leader of the Senate has vowed not to compromise, many of the new leaders understand the value of transportation diversity in general, and rail in particular. John Mica (R-FL) will chair the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, replacing James Oberstar. Although Mica has strongly criticized Amtrak in the past, he is a supporter of rail, of walking, and of biking. (You don't have to dislike rail to be a critic of Amtrak...)

As you probably know, the Surface Transportation Authorization Act (STAA) was introduced, but tabled during the last Congress, and the previous legislation extended. Congress will have to address transportation early in its new session. T4A expects that, compared to what the bill looked like when it was introduced during the 111th Congress, this will be:

Smaller
Involve more creative financing;
Have fewer programs;
Encourage quicker starts by reducing the environmental review process;
Focus on repair, maintenance, and safety;
Support performance measures; and
Encourage "smarter" transportation investments.

Though we can't expect the level of investment we saw during the last Congress, we can expect a shift that will encourage transportation diversity. Could be worse for transportation reform. Could be a lot worse.

When Transit Oriented Development Disappoints

2010-11-04T18:14:00.000-07:00

Rail~Volution 2010 was great. I'm very thankful to have been able to go to Portland this year. We expect great transit in large cities like Boston (which hosted Rail~Volution last year), but it's more refreshing to see a mid-size metro area that has invested in transit for that last 25 years.

There are so many great lessons to be learned when a thousand transit-oriented development folks gather in one place. What I'd like to focus on is when TOD doesn't work, or when it looks different from what we might expect or prefer.

The highlights of the week for me were the two field trips to TOD sites. The first was east to Gresham, the second west to Beaverton and Hillsboro.

East Side

In 1986, Gresham was a working-class town that became the eastern terminus of Portland's first light rail service, the Blue Line. It's still a working-class town with very little "gentrification" evident. Transit-oriented development appears confined to a few new buildings near stations, and a shopping center.

The TOD does follow the new urbanist principles of mixed use, residential over commercial. In the shopping center, the parking will eventually be located underground or beneath commercial-residential buildings. Otherwise, there's little to distinguish it from other recent developments. Well, perhaps the fact that it's recent development is a distinguishing feature in itself, since very little development has taken place recently.

Most of the eastern Blue Line runs in the middle of a wide boulevard. It wasn't a boulevard until the light rail was built, though - and lots of engineering work had to be done to mitigate the widening and leveling of the original two-lane roadway. The cost of building the line included re-doing hundreds of driveways, lawns, fences, and retaining walls. And though the neighborhoods don't look well-to-do, they certainly don't look run-down or impoverished except in one or two old warehouse districts where the loft/office refurbishing trend hasn't quite taken off.

A couple of things were disappointing. One was the new county office building whose front is turned away from the Gresham Central Transit Center, as if to ignore its presence. Another is the new station at Civic Drive being built within 30 yards of a new mixed-use development, with no architectural connection to it. In many parts of the world, developers and mall owners are eager to attach their space as closely as possible to rail stations. In most Japanese cities and towns, the railway station is the central shopping center, crowded not only with travelers and commuters, but with shoppers. There seems no physical reason why electric rail vehicles can't run through the middle of a shopping center here in the US, too. Federal transit legislation for years has encouraged public-private partnership in the construction of transit stations. So why aren't we doing it? In this case, the answer was, "Hmmm, well, we had this Federal grant to built the station, so we just did it." It has a (very nice) outdoor platform covered with a (very nice) glass roof, but is basically an outdoor space. What a shame the concept of integrating transportation and shopping just isn't part of most planners' thinking here in the US.

So on Portland's east side, light rail appears to provide a foundation to keep property values steady without overly inflating them. TOD has been modestly successful, and there is likely to be more as the economy recovers.

West Side

Beaverton and Hillsboro are in the opposite direction from Gresham on the Blue Line, both geographically and socially. Where Gresham is mainly working class, the west side is predominantly middle class and high-tech. In fact, Beaverton and Hillsboro were small towns up through the 1960s. Change came in the late 1960s when the Sunset Highway became a freeway, built to speed access to downtown Portland across the Tualatin Mountains from the west. Light rail didn't arrive until 1998, because it required a 3.1-mile tunnel bored through the mountains. But both towns have been sites of high-tech industry since the 1960s, starting with instrument-maker Tectronix in Beaverton, followed by Intel, which now operates four large campuses for research, development, and chip fabrication in the Hillsboro area. If there is a place where TOD should work, this is it.

Has it? Yes, and no.

The Beaverton Round is such an exciting project, and such a disappointing failure. Conceived by visionary developers Selwyn Bingham and Sylvia Cleaver, it was to include condos, shopping, and office space built, literally, around the light rail station and a park. What could have gone wrong?

For one thing, construction problems. The site is apparently over a disused sewage treatment plant, with all the remediation and uncertainty such a place can bring. Then there was use of shoddy materials and construction techniques, resulting in multiple law suits and requiring expensive replacement of windows and facing. (The sad details are here if you really want to know.) Continually plagued with financing problems, only part of the planned development has been built, and even less occupied.

Orenco Station's development fared much better. Longer in the planning, it involved more community input and balanced practicality with idealism. No compromise was made in new urbanist principles. The big disappointment to me is the location of the town's center: at a busy intersection, not at the rail station. In fact, it's a good quarter mile through (currently) empty space from station to center. Traffic in the center is heavy, and our group was warned that when the walk-light came on, we must hurry across the road because it was a short light. I hate to see a town center where pedestrians are chivvied and it's too noisy to hold a conversation. But as the developer pointed out, they couldn't have made it work without the traffic passing by to lure customers to the town's businesses.

And centering the town on the highway has worked financially. Businesses have leased most of the available space, and residents have bought most of the available housing. Once away from the highway, the open spaces and built environment are very inviting and peaceful.

This is a well-studied project, and one finding from the developer's study was what most attracted people to this TOD. No, it wasn't the transit (shucks!). Transit was seen as a good amenity, but what really drew people was the architecture and design.

Pac Trust, the developer, went in with little if any experience building residential communities - they had specialized in commercial and industrial. Not knowing what buyers would prefer, they had a number of styles illustrated by photos and drawings, and showed them to people. What folks kept saying "Wow" about was a design based on Boston's classic townhouses, so that's what they built for the town center. Free-standing houses are built in an English cottage style, with lots of quaint detailing. And it sold beautifully (though of course it doesn't hurt to be surrounded by large Intel facilities). What about shopping? Yes, there is a Starbucks on the main corner ;-) and one of the best Indian restaurants in the Portland area (Intel influence again). More important, they attracted New Seasons, Oregon's biggest regional natural foods grocery chain, to anchor the shopping district, along with a number of small, trendy shops. There's still a lot of undeveloped land in the TOD, but what there is has been developed very densely: 9.9 houses per acre, and far more units per acre in the townhouse and rental spaces. Washington County had no zoning that would allow that much density, so planned unit development standards were crafted and implemented for the new urbanist model.

The article cited has lots of discussion on whether there's decreased auto use due to proximity of work and shopping options, and that's clearly a win-win for any development. There has also been support in Todd Litman's blog of the notion that the biggest advantage of TOD is that people walk more. Looks like this is a case in point.

So what to take away? First and foremost, TOD has to be done well, and the financing has to be as solid as any other type of development - even if financing TOD has to be creative. But also, we may have to sacrifice some of our ideals to make it work, at least while the automobile is still in the ascendant. We can't expect TOD to create instant transit riders out of everyone, but if we can get them to walk and ride their bikes for the short trips, we've really done our job.

Moving You Forward

2010-10-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

In case you hadn't heard, AATA is working on a 30-year Transit Master Plan for the county. They would really like to engage you! The process involves public meetings all over the county, many of which have already taken place. (My apologies for not bringing this to your attention earlier - family stuff has been happening...) Here are the ones scheduled for the future:

Monday, Oct. 18	Manchester Village Offices	11 am-1 pm
Monday, Oct. 18	SPARK East	3-5 pm
Tuesday, Oct. 19	Milan Senior Center	11 am- 1 pm
Wednesday, Oct. 20	Dexter Creekside Intermediate School Cafeteria	6:30-8:30 pm
Thursday, Oct. 21 Public Forum	Ann Arbor District Library Main Branch Conference Room	5:30-6:30 pm
Monday, Oct. 25	Saline City Hall	6-8 pm
Tuesday, Oct. 26	Ann Arbor District Library Pittsfield Branch	11 am-1 pm
Tuesday, Oct. 26	Ann Arbor District Library Malletts Creek Branch	6-8 pm
Wednesday, Oct. 27	EMU Student Center	11 am- 1 pm
Wednesday, Oct. 27	Dexter Township Hall	6-8 pm
Thursday, Oct. 28	Manchester Village Offices	6-8 pm
Wed, Nov. 3	Milan Senior Center	6-8 pm

AATA has developed a great internal team to coordinate the effort, and a broad group of leaders and technically-involved people to guide the direction of the plan. Special kudos to Michael Benham, Project Coordinator, and Mary Stasiak, Community Relations Manager! These two have been tireless in moving the process along, yet they've managed to remain cheerful and outgoing in spite of their long hours and the high pressure. BTW - if you ride AATA, you've heard Mary - she does all the recorded announcements. :-) Go, Mike! Go, Mary!

Now, the best place to get involved is the Moving You Forward Web site. Check the list of meetings for up-to-date details. And play the Transit Plan Game!

Three Strategic Responses

2010-09-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

I'd like to share these comments with you. They're in response to a presentation made at AATA's budget retreat in August - unfortunately, this hasn't been made available online. Due to the Board's 2-minute limit on public comment, it was only possible for me to hit the highlights orally, but here's the full thing. The full Board meeting was televised on Ann Arbor Community Cable TV, and may still be playing if you check quickly.

Comments for AATA Board, September 16, 2010

First of all, I'd like to thank the AATA staff and board for their hard work on the six decision-point issues presented at the August budget retreat. I would like to add a few comments on the three issues affecting transit for Ypsilanti, to the Airport, and WALLY.

Strategic Issue Analysis #3: Work Transportation Between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. As a resident in and planning commissioner for Ypsilanti Township, this is important to me.

AATA Proposal w1 - #4 Washtenaw route: more frequent peak-hour service at 10-minute intervals: every 10 minutes is excellent. This level of frequency means people can go to a bus stop without worrying about schedules, and expect a bus to come along in 5 minutes, average.
AATA Proposal w2 -Ypsilanti local routes - service every 30 minutes all day: 30 minute frequencies makes a great improvement over the current one hour intervals. However, most of the routes are loops, which make them unattractive to choice riders. For example, an Ypsilanti Township resident boarding Route #10 at Forest and Ford would take 32 minutes to get to the Ypsilanti Transit Center in the morning, but less than half that time - only 13 minutes - to get back in the evening. Wake Up Washtenaw's recommendation: alter the routes to provide simpler, two-way service on each street; or failing that, run the loops in opposite directions every half-hour.
AATA Proposal w3 - #4 Washtenaw route - more frequent midday service: every 15 minutes is very good.
AATA Proposal w4 - Express service during peak hours between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor using Packard Road with no stops between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor transit centers: express service sounds like it might be a good idea, but is unlikely to succeed as proposed.
- Downtown to downtown doesn't serve the places where Ypsilanti residents work, as shown on the "Ypsilanti Area Residents Place of Work (LEHD)" slide (shown here - click the image for a larger version). The largest employment center is the U of M North Campus/VA Hospital complex with more than 3000 Ypsi residents working there; followed by the St. Joseph/WCC area with somewhere between 700 and 3000. EMU employs somewhere in the same range of Ypsi residents. Downtown Ann Arbor is the workplace for only 300 to 700 Ypsi residents. The high employment areas for Ypsi residents all happen to be served by one route, which would suggest that more frequent service along Route #3 would be the best solution.
- Intermediate stops are essential. A dedicated right-of-way between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti would make it possible for express service to get between the two cities quickly, but not with an "express" bus running in rush-hour traffic. In any case, without stops at important transfer points such as Arborland, and at heavy concentrations of employment, such as UM Medical Center, the express route wouldn't save time for most people.There is a dedicated right of way between the two cities: the Norfolk-Southern railway line. If you could commute during rush hours between the Ypsi Depot Town station-to-be and the Fuller Road station-to-be (near U of M Hospital), the train would take 10-15 minutes. But would it save time getting to your work place?
AATA Proposal w5 - Express service midday between AA and Ypsi: not cost-effective at the estimated $2.65 per new rider. Increased midday frequency (w3) is a far better investment at $1.58, and more helpful for increasing reliance upon transit in the corridor.
AATA Proposal e1 - #4 Washtenaw route - more frequent evening service: In spite of its relatively high cost per new rider, Wake Up Washtenaw believes this service would be a good investment. It would increase the ability to rely on transit among those who work late, including university students, hospital shift-workers, and those patronizing restaurants, bars, and cinemas downtown.
AATA Proposal e2 - #4 Washtenaw route - later evening service: another service that appears relatively expensive, but which Wake Up Washtenaw believes would be a good investment. The estimate of new riders (35) is low when considering the importance of evening frequency in increasing transit-oriented culture in our region. AATA's cost estimate for extending maintenance and supervision to evenings is placed entirely on the shoulders of Route #4, but would be lowered in the hopeful event that more routes get later evening service and absorb part of this cost.
AATA Proposal s1 - #4 Washtenaw route - later Saturday service at 45-minute intervals: we believe this would be more cost-effective at 30-minute intervals by attracting more riders. No regular AATA service currently operates at 45-minute intervals, so that odd timing would confuse many potential riders. Was this potential confusion taken into account in the model that predicted 430 additional riders? 30-minute intervals would decrease confusion, hence increasing potential ridership, without increasing maintenance and supervision portions of the cost.
AATA Proposal s2 - #4 Washtenaw route - later Sunday service: as with later Saturday service, 45-minute service intervals are confusing and have the potential to decrease ridership.

Strategic Analysis #4: DTW Service.

I am a frequent user of MDOT's Michigan Flyer service and would welcome better coordination between AATA and MDOT. The current service is quite good, and AATA service, as such, to the Airport isn't necessary. However, two problems need to be addressed to improve access between Ann Arbor and the airport.

Connection to the rest of the transportation system and passenger centers: the Flyer currently stops at the Four Points Sheraton, not far from Briarwood. This is reasonably convenient to I-94, but inconvenient to downtown and especially the University. The nearest AATA routes (numbers 6, 7, and 36) stop about two blocks away, but getting from AATA stops to the Flyer stop is confusing at best, and quite difficult when hauling a suitcase. I suggest route 36 be extended to the Sheraton; perhaps also route 6 or 7. [Update: in discussion with AATA staff, I learned that opinion is crystalizing around moving the Ann Arbor Flyer stop to the University Park-and-Ride on State Street, across from the Howard Cooper auto dealership. This would provide a direct connection with AATA Route #36, and a free place to park. The waiting facilities are not as comfortable as the Sheraton, of course, but apparently it's easier for buses to get in and out and takes no longer than going to the Sheraton, and seems the most satisfactory all-around solution.]
Frequency of service to the airport: The Flyer currently runs at two-hour intervals to and from DTW from early morning to late evening. That's a good start, but not enough for true convenience. Wake Up Washtenaw recommends one-hour intervals as the next step. It wouldn't be necessary to run hourly all the way from DTW to East Lansing. One option would be to originate a trip on alternate hours from the BTC, calling at the University Transit Center and/or Fuller road station, and the State Street area before going directly to DTW, operated by Indian Trails with coaches similar to those now in use. Three-way negotiations between MDOT, AATA, and the University could result in joint funding and marketing to make this new service a success.

Strategic Analysis #5: WALLY

Although the economy has put the brakes on WALLY, the economy of our region will be greatly enhanced when it is completed. The key to success is financial involvement of the private sector. Rather than looking only to governments to build stations, business interests can be expected to share in the investment if they can expect to earn profits from WALLY through any of several public-private partnership models. Not only can such partnerships fund stations that are more than concrete slabs, but they can engage the business interests of sectors that might lack enthusiasm for a totally government-oriented project. Given the current tight money situation, innovative financing arrangements such as the three-tranche system advocated by Christopher Leinberger for transit-oriented development could open possibilities for commercial and residential development. Wake Up Washtenaw recommends that in addition to seeking government funds, AATA actively partner with the U of M schools of Business and Urban Planning to make a case for private investment in the WALLY line to businesses.

Now it's your turn!

Weigh in on these issues yourself. Leave a comment or two!

Three Whoopees and two Wait-and-Sees

2010-08-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

We recently received three pieces of good news about transportation in Michigan, but there are still two important issues waiting to be resolved:

Whoopee! In the Detroit area, voters on August 2 strongly affirmed their desire to keep SMART bus service by renewing the millage. The margins were 71.8% in Macomb County, 73.7% in Wayne, and an astounding 78.1% in normally conservative Oakland County. Does this indicate a major shift in desire to see strong public transit in Michigan? (Here's the article in the "Freep".)
Whoopee! Also on August 2, US Department of Transportation Secratary Ray LaHood held a joint press conference in Detroit with Mayor Bing to announce significant progress in the M1 Rail project, to be built on Woodward Avenue. This project is especially important because it has moved forward largely through private initiative, led by Detroit businessmen Roger Penske, Mike Illitch, Peter Karmanos, and Dan Gilbert. Wake Up Washtenaw is dedicated to progress through public-private partnership. Of course it's well known that the Obama administration has made public development of improved rail service a priority, but private participation means the entire community will be behind sustainable development - not just the public sector. (Here's what Crane's had to say.)
Whoopee! The Michigan State Legislature last week passed the Complete Streets bills (2010 PA 134 and 135). We've become the 14th state to require new street designs to include safe pedestrian and bicycle facilities - not just more traffic lanes. This legislation was co-sponsored by Washtenaw County's own Rep. Pam Byrnes. :-) (The Michigan Complete Streets Coalition has the details.)

But wait...

Sigh. No legislation yet on a regional transit authority for all of the Detroit area.
Sigh. No resolution to the inadequate funding for Michigan's Amtrak service.

What About Low-speed Rail?

2010-08-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

This morning I read Hannah Clark's article, "Time for Better Railroads in Michigan?" and found a good update on what's going on in southeast Michigan. But the article is written from a northern Michigan perspective, and had this observation:

“I’d love to get on a train and go Up North, if it took four hours,” Mr. Steudle [MDOT's Director] said. “But, right now, it takes nine. It’s going to take a lot of money in physical infrastructure improvements.”

Yes, it would take a lot of money - both up front and ongoing - to maintain the tracks to Traverse city and Petosky for 79 MPH passenger service. (Not as much as maintaining a freeway for 70 MPH auto traffic, but let's face it: we do have a double standard.) But nine hours isn't really much time - if it's at night. Given comfortable sleeping and dining accommodations, an overnight train from southeast Michigan to Traverse City could have a big draw. Here's a word-picture:

Early on a summer Friday evening, a classic-looking train pulls out of the Troy-Birmingham Transit Center. Young families and retired couples have parked in the attached structure and boarded the train, some to coaches with reclining seats, others to roomettes and bedrooms with bunks and snowy linen. Sleeping accommodations at various price/comfort points offer a good night's rest to a range of individual and family travelers.

An hour after starting, the announcement comes through on the PA: it's time to serve dinner. Just as on many dinner-excursion trains now, an accomplished chef is on hand to cook up gourmet meals. Drinks, snacks, and food that appeals to kids are also available in the observation-lounge car. A game-arcade room is available for the kids who tire of watching the Michigan summer evening slipping past. For those who do appreciate the view, there's a dome car with an even better view of the countryside.

Gradually, the sun sinks to the horizon in the northwest. Sunset colors swell, and gradually fade from sky. While the older folks sink into their bunks to be rocked asleep by the gentle motion of the train, the teens hang out in the lounge and dome cars until well into the wee hours. Small children reluctantly snuggle in while their parents try to calm down their excitement - all night on a train!

An early sunrise Saturday morning finds the train rolling through the pines and birches of the northern lower peninsula, filled with sleeping people. At 6:30 a.m., the PA crackles to life with the announcement that the breakfast buffet is open: omelettes, pancakes, railroad french toast, fruit, yogurt, cereal, pastries, coffee, tea, and milk. Many ignore the announcement, rolling over to catch a few more Zs, but those who make their way to the diner find both food and friendly chat as they watch the lakes and hills of Wexford County slide by.

Shortly before 9 a.m., the train rolls in to Traverse City and parks on a siding. Most of the passengers head out to the waiting rental cars, tour buses, or nearby hotels. Some have elected to use the train as their base for the weekend, renting their bedrooms over Saturday night and returning to Southeast Michigan Sunday evening. Some will be returning after a week or two of vacationing "up north".

The trip back down is much like the northbound trip. The same services and accommodations are offered, and the schedule is timed to leave early Sunday evening, arriving at Birmingham-Troy early enough to allow working folks a reasonable commuting time.

How does that sound?

I think it sounds very comfortable, a lot of fun, and pretty expensive. Driving would certainly be cheaper - no question. Subsidies might be arranged: not government subsidies, because this isn't essential transportation. It's more like a cruise on land. But it would bring visitors and tax revenue to Northern Michigan. Hotels, resorts, restaurants, area visitors' bureaus and chambers of commerce could well see it as advantageous to offer packages which include some level of subsidy negotiated with the railroad or train operator. It could work - someday soon.

Here's the reference to the article that spurred my interest::

"Time for Better Railroads in Michigan? Fed’s big bucks, local forums build interest in rail transit, freight", by Hannah Clark. Great Lakes Bulletin News Service, referred to in Michigan Land Use Institute's site.

SEMCOG Swings Toward Transit

2010-07-03T08:41:00.000-07:00

You may recall that SEMCOG, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, is our "Metropolitan Planning Organization" (MPO). In the scheme of things these days, MPOs are an important link in the transportation funding chain. All requests for transportation dollars in urban areas like southeast Michigan have to go through an MPO before any federal funds will trickle down. And before any such requests make their way to Washington, they have to go through a public comment period. So Wednesday's request for public comment is an important phase in SEMCOG's latest revision of plans.

It's sad, though. Really sad that SEMCOG has to make these revisions. You see, Michigan's citizen's haven't come up with enough money to match the federal grants available to us, so SEMCOG has had to cut out some expensive projects and go for more modest ones. Most of the projects we can't afford to match have been "postponed" 2-4 years, but of course if we Michiganders don't decide to invest a little more in our infrastructure, they'll be postponed again. And again...

What's being cut out? Here are the biggies:

Replacing the Fort Street bridge over the Rouge River in Detroit (we lose $38.6M federal funds to save $6.7M of Michigan taxpayers' hard-earned money);
Just saying "No" to $30.0M federal dollars to save $4.6M Michigan money for reconstructing 3 miles of VanDyke in Macomb County;
By turning down $16.4M for M-53 reconstruction and intersection improvements in Macomb, we save an incredible $3.6M for Michigan.
In Washtenaw County, we're only saving $1.3M of our dollars by foregoing $8.8M federal dollars for rehabilitating a mile of US-12 through Saline.

In all, SEMCOG is waving off $100,328,000 of federal money in canceled projects. But wait! Not all of that is lost, because that Michigan money, together with another half million of state money, is being invested in fewer, less expensive projects. And instead of being all highway-oriented, most the added projects are more sustainable transportation modes. Here's what each area would get if this proposal is approved:

The Detroit area: new buses for SMART, computers for DDOT, a new vehicle for the People Mover, and a freight rail spur to serve the river port ($1,505,000: $1,220,000 federal, $226,000 state, $59,000 local);
In the wider SEMCOG area: a hand with Livingston County's LETS mobility assistance, vans for Boysville, and a transportation demand system for Michigan Rideshare; ($424,000: $343,000 federal, $81,000 state)
Dearborn: help to build its new rail+bus station ($28,204,000 all federal high-speed rail funds);
Washtenaw County: a hand with rebuilding the Blake Transit Center in downtown Ann Arbor, together with improvements for some heavily-used bus stops; and operating assistance for People's Express in the rural western parts of the county ( $1,134,000 $938,000 federal, $12,000 state, and $184,000 from AATA "farebox" revenues). In addition to the transit assistance, this proposal acknowledges Ann Arbor's plan to spend $2.5 million of its local funds to reconstruct three blocks of Stone School Road, between the I-94 overpass and Ellsworth Road; and requests $1,099,000 in unmatched federal funds for "signal interconnect" in various locations along Packard, Hewitt, Carpenter, Ellsworth, and Michigan Ave.

Here's a table summarizing the proportions of road to non-road investment:

	Federal		State		Local		TOTAL
Road Totals	$2,344,000	7%	$21,343,000	98%	$2,277,000	90%	$25,965,000	46%
Non-road Totals	$29,644,000	93%	$329,000	2%	$243,000	10%	$30,216,000	54%

State and local funding is still overwhelmingly road-oriented, but federal money is being channeled primarily to projects oriented toward public transportation: buses, vans, rail and stations, software for transit management. Way to go, SEMCOG!

You can read the Public Notice and download a PDF of the details at http://smcg.informz.net/SMCG/archives/archive_888634.html. Remember, though: these are just proposals. SEMCOG has opened the public comment phase until July 29, 2010, so let them know how you feel about this.

Mail: SEMCOG Information Center, 535 Griswold, Suite 300, Detroit, MI 48226;
Faxes: 313-961-4869;
Email: infocenter@semcog.org.

Comments can be made in person at the following meetings, all held at SEMCOG offices: Buhl Building, 535 Griswold, Suite 300, Detroit, MI 48226.

Transportation Improvement Program Development Committee (TIPDC), Thursday, July 15, 2010, 10:00 a.m.; discuss proposed actions and recommend Transportation Advisory Council support;
Transportation Advisory Council (TAC), Wednesday, July 28, 2010; 9:30 a.m.; present and discuss actions and recommend Executive Committee approval; and
Executive Committee, Thursday, July 29, 2010; 1 p.m.; discuss amendment and FY 2011-2014 TIP and take final action to approve.

From the Middle East

2010-06-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

(Originally written April 25, 2010)

It's been a busy few weeks in Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel! I wasn't there to study transit or development patterns, but there's no escaping the topic once you get into the habit of thinking about it. So here are a few reflections...

Lebanon

After a week in Lebanon, you can be sure I came up with some great ideas to improve their transportation - but of course, they're probably worth very little in the economic and political realities of 21st century Lebanon!

Lebanon is a prosperous little country, a mini-California in its climate and geography. During the long civil war in the 1980s and '90s, many Lebanese citizens fled to other countries (especially the Persian Gulf), where they worked hard and sent home lots of money. For the most part, this was invested wisely in buildings and infrastructure, so even though Beirut and several other Lebanese cities were bombed by the Israeli Defense Forces in 2006, there are very few scars left in busy Beirut. But it would not make much sense for Lebanon to invest heavily in infrastructure until the situation in the Middle East stabilizes and the Lebanese central government is able to assert its authority over the entire country.

Even if politics and international relations weren't tremendous factors, geography would be a big challenge for Lebanon's transportation structure. Most of Lebanon's population lives in a narrow strip of land running north to south along the Mediterranean Sea, hemmed in by mountains that, in places, actually jut out into the sea. Far from being a solid rampart, though, the mountains are riven by steep valleys that run mostly at right angles to the coast.

For some reason, there is very little public transportation in Lebanon. What few buses I saw were weary-looking 20-25 passenger affairs, apparently still in their gray primer paint; mainly Toyota Coasters. But as I mentioned, Lebanon has prospered, and most people seem to own a vehicle of their own. Some are certainly run-down and battered, but there are surprising numbers of new Mercedes and BMWs zooming around. US-brand cars are pretty few and far between, with Japan, Korea, and Germany the main providers, though the French have a solid foothold, and even the Chinese have a small toehold. The result of all this is traffic that makes I-94 at rush hour look like a picnic. It doesn't help that the Arab way of driving is very different from ours, resulting in some pretty hair-raising experiences until you realize that there's a system. Very few accidents actually happen, but it takes a long time to get anywhere, and there are no realistic options besides a car of your own, or a taxi. (I'm so glad I didn't try to rent a car.)

Most of the traffic is concentrated in the coastal zone, which has an expressway reminiscent of I-5 through Seattle or Portland. This is the western backbone of the country, which needs a robust public transportation axis on which to hang a multitude of east-west feeder lines. In effect, that's what the road system does now, but its capacity is inadequate, especially in the Beirut metro area. What a shame the coastal railroad was torn up 20-30 years ago - the capacity of rail is badly needed now. A moderate-speed railway along the coast would be ideal, topping out at 120 kh/h or about 85 mph - no need for a bullet train in this small country. It would need to be at least double-track all the way from north to south, with a 4-track main for local commuter service in the Beirut area.

The main part of the capital juts out on a peninsula into the Mediterranean, and a crescent-shaped rail loop following the coast to the downtown areas would work nicely. But there is a large urban area in a valley extending east from the coastal region. I'd vote for a busway along the east-west expressway into the city as the spine for this area.

In fact, all the east-west lines are ideal for buses. Many of the valleys are very steep-sided - canyons, really - so the settlements are often on the hilly ridges rather than in the valley-bottoms. As a result, the roads leading up from the coast are extremely steep and winding, quite unsuitable for rail, although in some places cable cars or funicular railways might meet short-distance transportation needs. Probably the ideal solution would be trolley buses for towns closer to the coast, and diesel buses for the more distant ones.

Electric buses offer several advantages over diesel in this environment. For one thing, the air is quite polluted in the densely-populated city, and zero-emission vehicles would be a great help. Lebanon generates quite a respectable percentage of its electricity through hydro-electric generating stations, so the pollution wouldn't simply be moved elsewhere. The rapid acceleration of electric vehicles is very valuable on steep hillsides, as you know if you've ridden trolley buses in San Francisco or Seattle. The ability to regenerate electric power while braking on down-slopes could save a considerable amount of energy - not quite enough to power the up-hill vehicles, but enough to help a great deal. Of course, the initial investment is high, but in a relatively prosperous, small, densely-populated metropolitan area like Beirut, it would not be an insuperable obstacle.

Unfortunately, the real obstacle is not so much financial as political. The deep, long-standing distrust between members of the different ethnic and religious groups in Lebanon pose a threat that would make it difficult for investors to justify long-term improvements in infrastructure. What a shame - Lebanon is a beautiful country with tremendous potential for success.

Amman, Jordan

I didn't spend enough time in Amman to make any meaningful observations, except that there are a lot of buses, large and small. Amman was the capital of the ancient Ammonites, mentioned several times in the Old Testament, and like most ancient cities, Amman's streets aren't laid out in anything resembling a grid. However, expressways have been built linking the neighborhoods together, tunneling through some hills and bridging deep gullies where necessary. This is a city where buses make sense, though electric (trolley) buses would be preferable to diesel buses if the capital investment weren't so high. I'm told that most of Jordan's electricity is generated with natural gas, so the overall CO2 would only be reduced a little, but particulate matter would be removed from the city. Probably not worth the investment until the cost of diesel skyrockets.

Jerusalem

The Holy City is a dense, bustling metropolis with a lively public transportation network. As of April 2010, the only public mode is buses, but there is a wide variety of them. Egged, the Israeli public transport cooperative, runs lots of full-size and articulated buses, mainly from the German firm MAN. It's a bit startling to American eyes to be looking at a street which to us appears to be a narrow, quiet residential street, and suddenly see a huge, articulated bus come roaring along it, packed with people, both sitting and standing. In addition to Egged, there is a company called Puma that runs large buses, but they tend to be older and appear accustomed to hard usage.

An American woman, an acquaintance who rides the buses frequently, mentioned that she had gotten on one at about 10 PM one night to go home, and had ended up having to ride it for an hour and a half. Why? Because at one stop, about 40 orthodox Jewish men had gotten on the already well-patronized bus, and were squeezed into a solid mass in the aisle. For a woman to try to push her way through such a mass of Jewish orthodox manhood would be absolutely and totally taboo. So when the bus came to her stop, she had to stay on and ride it around its entire route.

Then there are the mini-buses. These hold 10-20 people and run from the city to the outlying towns. They appear pretty much alike, except that the ones going to Jewish areas have blue stripes, and those going to Palestinian towns have green stripes. Of course, there are also huge, luxurious tour -coaches, which aren't exactly public transportation, but which seem almost more numerous than their humbler public brethren.

Most interesting is the Old City. There is only one kind of transportation there: your feet. The Old City is a maze of narrow passageways, often roofed over, between shops, houses, monasteries, hostels, churches, mosques, yeshivas, more shops, and who knows what else. I went into the Old City a number of times, and when I went alone I never failed to get lost trying to get out. Fortunately, getting lost was more of an adventure than a problem!

The Old City's ways are paved with stones worn smooth by millennia of pedestrians. Many are steep and have steps, but these all have little built-in stone ramps just wide enough for the push-carts used to supply the shops with their goods. I was warned that if you hear a kid yelling behind you, it's best to move to the side quickly, since the youngsters employed to push the carts love to zoom down the hills scattering tourists and residents alike.

The buses run only in the newer parts of the city, which is growing in population and area. So, guess what? Jerusalem is building a light rail system! Several busy streets in the new sections are torn up to make way for the rails and stations, and there is a wonderful, curved suspension bridge designed by the renowned Spanish architect/engineer, Santiago Calatrava. Señor Calatrava took a practical problem - a confined, busy space for a tight turn - and created a work of art, a lovely flight of fancy. If more elevated railways combined beauty and utility this way, cities like Chicago would be a wonder to behold.

The [High Speed] French Connection

2010-03-30T03:13:00.000-07:00

Today I attended the Midwest High Speed Rail Association's annual meeting in Chicago. The most interesting talk was from Monsieur Guillaume Gernin, of the Société National de Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF, the French national railway company). I want to tell you about it because high speed rail (HSR) is a key component of sustainable transportation and development. When properly integrated with other modes of transportation (local and regional transit, air, road, pedestrian, and bike), HSR enables people to move rapidly and seamlessly with little or no expenditure of fossil fuels or emission of greenhouse gasses. It can radically change development patterns and reduce sprawl by clustering residential and business development around stations and reducing people's need to own multiple private vehicles.

A little background: on December 11, 2008 (my birthday!) the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued a "Request for Expressions of Interest in Designing, Building, and Operating a High Speed Rail System" along one or more of eleven designated HSR corridors. This was part of the Obama administration's effort to bring HSR to America.

SNCF is a shareholder-owned company, though the major shareholder is the French government. In addition to operating some of the fastest HSR services around, SNCF has multiple subsidiaries and joint ventures in many parts of the world, including some in North America - and they'd like to expand their operations here. With that in mind, they submitted four Expressions of Interest in response to the FRA's request - detailed proposals for HSR in four areas: Texas, Florida, California, and the Midwest. You can get the entire 256 page Midwest PDF document here; the entire set is linked here.)

What makes this especially interesting is that SNCF has such extensive experience running HSR in France and designing systems for other countries. Their first HSR, between Paris and Lyon, began in 1981. Theirs was the first HSR in Europe, though Japan's Shinkansen predates it by 17 years. In other words, they have credibility.

They also make a profit on their HSR operations. It's extremely popular in France (as is HSR throughout Europe), giving all of SNCF about $1.75 billion USD profit margin in 2007, according to Wikipedia - though M. Gernin says other SNCF operations in France lose money.

Sounds good, but what would it cost? SNCF estimates the construction and equipment for the entire Midwest at $68.5 billion in 2009 US dollars. Compare that with the $8 billion appropriated under ARRA, and it seems pretty overwhelming.

But SNCF estimates operating revenues would pay back the initial costs in about 15 years. And consider the construction cost of the US Interstate Highway System, about $1.3 trillion, unadjusted for inflation. None of that has been paid back - though of course having the system has brought immense economic value...and changed development to the sprawl patterns we're living in today.

So recouping the investment in 15 years is pretty astonishing. It would be unbelievable, except for the wide and deep experience of SNCF. Their submission of the Expression of Interest was a business decision, based on the expectation of long-term profitability.

SNCF doesn't expect to go it alone. They expect to operate in partnership with government: 54% of the initial capital would come from government sources, and the rest from the private sector through joint venture partners and investors. After these are paid back, they stipulate that no operating or maintenance subsidy would be needed, based on their experience elsewhere. Wow.

The Midwest system SNCF proposes would operate from a hub in Chicago to end-points in Minneapolis, St. Louis, Detroit, Cincinnati, and Cleveland. Naturally, they don't expect to build the entire system at once. They suggest starting with O'Hare Airport - Milwaukee - Madison - St. Paul - Minneapolis and O'Hare - Fort Wayne - Toledo - Detroit, but of course that could change.

What would the system consist of? Dedicated double-track, much of it elevated. Trains would be standardized electric double-deckers. (M. Gernin said that when they started building HSR in France, "we had no idea we'd be so successful" and trains quickly became crowded; hence double-deck equipment from the start.)

How to achieve profitability? Their business model in France is based on the yield management system pioneered by US airlines. The system is based on the idea that the earlier people pay, the lower their price should be, and that popular times and dates cost more than less popular ones. Another factor in their financial success has been to provide connectivity with other modes of travel, especially air, and interoperability between high-speed and standard rail lines, so that high-speed trains can continue at lower speeds beyond the end of the dedicated tracks, and take passengers to a larger number of destinations.

Other factors critical to success: "de-risking" the process by public-private partnership, which reduces the risk both to taxpayers and investors; and including the company that will actually operate the trains in the earliest stages of the process, to insure there are no surprises or unworkable decisions made during the planning.

Sound too good to be true? Well, it does to me, frankly. Although SNCF has a history of successful HSR building and operation, US governments have a history of suspicion of foreign companies and of haggling projects to death. Just because SNCF made it work in Taiwan, Korea, Belgium, and Holland doesn't mean we can let them make it work here.

Guess I'm just feeling cynical. I sure hope I'm wrong!

Progress Here and Elsewhere

2010-03-16T11:36:00.000-07:00

Rail is beginning to move in Michigan and elsewhere!

M-1 Rail

The Woodward Avenue rail project is making good progress. Matt Cullen, the CEO of M-1, was interviewed the other day by Kelli Kavenaugh for Model D Detroit. He said the funding is almost all in place, and the M-1 team is working with MDOT on a complete redesign of Woodward Avenue from Hart Plaza to Grand Boulevard (the extent of the M-1).

For the redesign and rails to happen, a detailed Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) has to be submitted, and the state expects that to get done in 9-12 months. From there, construction would take a year or two, so we could expect the trains to roll in 2013. The second phase, to Eight Mile Road, could then get started and would take a couple of years more, bringing the trains out to the suburbs as early as 2014. Read the interview...

Amtrak

I attended a Town Hall Meeting in Chicago on March 6 put on by Amtrak and sponsored by Trains Magazine. Here are some take-away points:

Want to photograph Amtrak facilities? To avoid trouble from police and citizens concerned about terrorists, just let the nearest Amtrak or local authority know what you're doing. It's our constitutional right as Americans to photograph trains and stations, but it's also true that terrorists photograph their targets extensively to better plan their attacks.
Amtrak is planning to replace its equipment gradually in a continual upgrade process that will allow domestic rail equipment manufacturers to build facilities with some assurance that they won't be subject to deadly boom-and-bust cycles. Amtrak has always been a low-budget operation. Their passenger cars average 30 years old and several million miles of service. The oldest car in the fleet is a diner build in 1948.
Beginning in 2012, states will have to pick up the tab for operation of corridor trains, including our Wolverine Service (Pontiac-Chicago). This according to an Act of Congress, in the politically popular game of Pass the Hot Potato. Let's start letting our legislators know if we find that service useful, since we'll have to actually pay for it ourselves soon. (By the way: Amtrak operations recover 80% of their own cost, far better than most US transportation agencies.)

China

According to Zachary Shahan in a CleanTechnica, article based on Hong Kong's South China Morning Post and the Edmonton Journal, China is well on the way to constructing high-speed rail lines to connect it with Mongolia, Russia, Southeast Asia, India, Pakistan, and Europe. The high points:

China completed the world's highest rail line to Lhasa, Tibet, in 2006. (It's not high-speed, but uses US-build General Electric diesel locomotives and tops out at 16,640 feet.)
China completed the world's fastest high-speed rail line, from Wuhan to Guangzhou, in 2009. The express runs average 217 MPH, using equipment built in China, based on German (Siemens) and Japanese (Kawasaki) designs. It easily outpaces its nearest rival, France, whose top in-service average is 172 MPH.
Though already spending $300 billion on its own high speed network, China plans to build rail links to 17 other countries through barter agreements, at no monetary cost to them. China is more interested in rights to raw materials for its manufacturing than in money.
Negotiations are already said to be taking place between China and 17 other countries. China says the other countries approached it first, wanting to make use of Chinese experience and technology to build railways that would enable them to export their raw materials to China more effectively.
Building and managing such a rail network throughout Asia would cement China's position as the undisputed leader of commerce in Asia. Who could doubt that it would enhance their political clout there, as well?
The best-case scenario calls for completion of the network in 10 years. Whether or not it gets done in that time-frame, there's no doubt that China will get started on it soon. They have the money. They need the resources. They really want the political clout.

Conclusion

Rail transportation is clearly making progress: in Detroit, in America, and in Asia. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about how much progress is being made, where.

Commuting in Maryland

2010-02-18T17:51:00.000-08:00

Returning from sunny climes on Amtrak, I stopped in DC and Maryland yesterday to check out their commuter rail facilities.

On the way into DC, there was lots of evidence of transit-oriented development (TOD) in the Virginia suburbs, like these office+apartments near the Alexandria Amtrak/Virginia Rail Express/Metro station.

I spent the night in Baltimore, continuing from DC Union Station. "Make no small Plans," wrote Daniel Burnham, architect of that noble station and one of my personal heroes, "they have no power to stir men's blood."

During a refreshing pause in the lower level food court (above), I thought about which of two roughly parallel commuter lines I'd take to Baltimore. MARC (Maryland Area Rail Commuter) evolved from local service of the Baltimore & Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroads, crystallizing as a state-run service in 1976 with the collapse of private passenger service through the US. Michigan faced a similar decision at about the same time, but took a different route: we killed our commuter rail subsidies in the 1980s. SEMTA (Detroit-Pontiac) lost state funding and died in 1983, and the Michigan Executive (Detroit-Ann Arbor) perished of the same cause in 1988.

I decided to start on the Camden Line (Washington Union Station to Baltimore Camden Station) which runs over the B&O tracks on which service began in the 1830s . It's a diesel-hauled double-track line; my train was pulled by this GP40WP-2 (shown here at the Camden end of the line, only 4/5 of a mile from Mount Clare Station, the first railway station in the US, started in 1828).

The single-level Sumitomo/Nippon Sharyo coaches are a bit cramped with 3+2 seating; I managed to read on my laptop, but typing was impossible, even though my neighbor was a slender young woman.

In the morning, I took the a Baltimore light rail train to Penn Station, chatting with a friendly woman who was taking a passenger survey.

Baltimore's Penn Station is beautifully designed, but is showing its age and in need renovation and ADA upgrades.

I caught a Penn Line train back to DC. As you might guess, this runs along the former Pennsylvania main line, electrified in 1935. MARC uses AEM-7 and HHP-8 electric locomotives on this line. I'm not sure which pushed my train (our locomotive was beyond the end of the platform), but here's a picture of the MARC HHP-8 which was waiting behind us on the arrival track in DC.

All MARC trains push south into Union Station and pull out north. MARC's Penn line is said to be the fastest commuter line in the US, with some trains traveling up to 125 MPH. I doubt that my all-stops local got quite that high, judging from the WHOOSH with which an Acela passed us going the same direction.

The Kawasaki bilevel coaches were more roomy, and I was able to take care of email on the way (using my cell modem - no en route WIFI).

An amazing number of people streamed off the train into the station.

All in all, it was a smooth, enjoyable commute each way, except for the tight seating in the single-level coaches. I can't wait for Michigan to get our own commuter and light rail systems!

Leinberger and Zielinski Opportunity

2010-02-11T11:49:00.001-08:00

This will be one of the most interesting presentations for Ann Arbor on Transit-Oriented Development:

When: Monday February 15, 1:30-3:00 PM
Where: Art and Architecture Building Lecture Hall, North Campus, University of Michigan
Who: Christopher B. Leinberger and Susan Zielinski
Topic: Transit Oriented Development:
What? Why? Local Examples? How Do They Leverage Sustainablity?

Leinberger and Zielinski are both internationally known experts in sustainable development and transportation's rule in sustainability. Leinberger is probably best known for his article, "The Next Slum" in Atlantic Monthly, published at the height of the real estate plunge. He is a Professor of the University of Michigan and is to deliver a lecture to a class that day, but lives in Washington DC, occupied with his full-time research fellowship at The Brookings Institution. His insights into real estate finance are widely sought after, and we expect to get some good input on the 15th.

Sue Zielinski is also on the faculty at U of M, Managing Director of SMART (Sustainable Mobility & Accessibility Research & Transformation, a project of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute in Ann Arbor). She has observed and consulted with transportaton systems all around the world, so we can expect both broad and deep insights from her.

We're fortunate to have two world experts in our community, so go if you can! (I can't - anybody want to report on it for us?)

Passenger Rail, Low Population Density

2010-01-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

In the Fall of 2008, I spent three weeks in Japan to learn about the highly acclaimed Japanese rail system. Of special interest to me is how Japanese railways provide service to areas with low population density. You see, people often say the railways of Europe and Japan can't really serve as models for US passenger rail service, because their population is so much more dense than ours. It's very true that most of Japan and Europe are more densily populated than most of the US, and it's also true that passenger rail works best in densely populated areas.

So I made a point of visiting areas where population was relatively sparse: the south and east of the island of Shikoku; the inland areas of the southern island of Kyushu; and the entire northern island of Hokkaido. I've put together a couple of documentary videos with footage from my trip to Hokkaido; what follows is based on parts of the video narrative.

Hokkaido proved the best example, especially for us here in Michigan. It is at exactly the same lattitude as the Lower Peninsula of Michigan (though it gets more snow!). It's just slightly smaller in area than the Lower Peninsula. The population density is slightly less than Michigan's. Yes, you read the right: it's *less* densely populated. We'll get to the figures in a moment.

Hokkaido is Japan's predominant agricultural area. It leads the country in the production of rice and fish, and shares the lead in vegetable farming. The productivity of Hokkaido rice land is 10 percent above the national average. Wheat, barley and potatoes are other staple crops, and dairy farming is a Hokkaido specialty.

Although there is some industry (most notably paper milling, brewing [Sapporo beer!], steel-making, oil refining, building supplies, marine services and food production), most of the population is employed in the service sector. Tourism is an important industry, especially during the cool summertime that attracts campers and hot spring-goers from across Japan. During the winter, skiing and other winter sports continue to bring tourists to Hokkaido. Does that sound like what we might be looking at in Michigan's future?

Let's compare passenger rail systems in Michigan and Hokkaido. What is the actual relationship between population density and rail service? Since Hokkaido, at 173 people per square mile, is actually just a little less dense than Michigan, where we find an average of 179 in each square mile, we might predict that Hokkaido's rail service is similar or a little less that Michigan's.

What we find is radically different. Michigan has no commuter rail, no urban subways, no city street rail, no rail connections to any airports, and ten daily Amtrak round-trips, all starting or ending in Chicago and only serving the southern part of the state. Michigan does have five north-south expressways and three east-west ones.

Hokkaido, with slightly less density, has 4 commuter lines, 3 subway lines, five street rail lines; 72 daily round trips between the Sapporo regional airport and three cities, and about 154 intercity trains, serving every corner of the island. But Hokkaido has only one north-south freeway and one east-west limited access highway, neither of which reach the corners of the island, and one of which is still under construction.

	Michigan		Hokkaido

Area	97,990	sq mi	32,221	sq mi
Population	10,003,422	(2008 est.)	5,583,072	(June, 2008)
Population Density	179	per sq mi	173	per sq mi
Commuter rail	0	(so far!)	4	lines + local services to many towns
Urban subways	0	(so far!)	3	lines in 1 city
Street railways	0		3	lines in 2 cities
Airport rail connections	0		72	72 daily round-trips
Intercity rail	10	daily round-trips	154	daily round-trips (approx)
Limited-access highways	5	North-South	1	North-South (part-way)
	3	East-West	1	East-West (partly under construction)

Why this difference? Not population density, though Hokkaido's rugged topography has tended to concentrate population somewhat in valleys and along the seacoast, which has not happened so much on Michigan's "pleasant peninsulas". Both, however, have areas of concentrated population that could easily be served by rail.

Both Hokkaido and Michigan began serious settlement during the ninteenth and early twentieth centuries, with rugged, pioneering types coming to trade for fur with indigenous people, to fish, to mine, to harvest lumber, and to farm. But while Michigan became a manufacturing powerhouse in the twentieth century, Hokkaido remained primarily agricultural. Both Hokkaido and Michigan were served by extensive rail systems during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but Michigan's rail network was reduced much further in the late 20th century than was Hokkaido's.

So why the difference? It can be attributed largely to government policies in the post World War II era. Early in the 20th century, all of Japan's trunk railways were nationalized. Naturally, Japanese railways suffered heavy damage during World War II; they were reogranized in 1949 by directive of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's US General Headquarters in Tokyo as Japanese National Railways (JNR), a state-owned corporation.

JNR was operated professionally and was on the forefront of high-speed rail technology, developing the first dedicated high-speed railway in the world, the famed Shinkansen "bullet train", which began service in 1964. Unfortunately, JNR was also a favorite source of "pork" for members of the national legislature. Hundreds of unnecessary lines were built and services legislated by grasping politicians, eager to secure their reelection through favors to their home districts. (Where have we heard this story before?) By 1987, JNR's debt was over $200 billion USD and the company was spending 147% of its income - in spite of Japan's overall density of 888 people per square mile.

To put the railways beyond the grasp of politicians, JNR was privatized in 1987 and divided into seven companies, one of which is the Hokkaido Railway Company (JR Hokkaido). (In case you wondered, the six regional JR passenger operating companies own and maintain their own rails and stations, unlike the British system, in which a nation-wide company owns and maintains the infrastructure, and several competitive passenger and freight companies operate trains.)

Meanwhile, the United States after World War II spent lavishly on the Interstate Highway System. According to the Federal Highway Administration, the total cost of the Interstate system was nearly $1.4 trillion USD between 1958 and 1991, the period during which the system was officially under construction. [http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/programadmin/interstate.cfm] Unfortunately, our road system doesn't pay for itself through user fees, and has required propping up from general funds for the last few years.

To get a handle on the relative spending: the Japanese subsidized its railways by about $1700 USD per person. During approximately the same period, the US spent about $6,000 USD per person, meaning the Japanese citizen got his high-speed and regional rail system for about 29% of what the US citizen paid for his high-speed road system. Of course, the US spent some money on passenger rail during that time - but not much; and Japan spent money on limited-access highways. The US has far greater distances to cover as well.

The trend is clear, though: the US wants its transportation money spent on highways; Japan wants its spent on railways. The effect on population growth patterns is profound. The Japanese rail system subsidized dense urban growth, while the US highway system subsidized difuse suburban growth, popularly known as "sprawl". Nowhere has that been more pronounced than in Michigan, headquarters and devoted fan of the US automobile industry. Only after being afflicted with repeated oil crises has Michigan begun to consider beefing up its urban rail service with commuter and light rail in Detroit, and light rail in Grand Rapids.

Yet in Japan, including sparsely-populated Hokkaido, the railway company earns a profit. JR Hokkaido's bank balance was 68M USD as of March 2008. If you're interested in a more complete business report, a good source is an article in Japan Railway & Transport Review from March 2008, titled "Increasing Efforts to Strengthen Position as Leading Transportation Provider in Hokkaido", written by JR Hokkaido's Management Planning Department. (http://www.jrtr.net/jrtr50/topics.html)

Yes, there is government support, particularly for construction of new high-speed lines (now progressing in Kyushu and Hokkaido). But diversification is a strength and a theme of all the railway companies of Japan. Ever since serious abuses by US "rail barons" in late 19th century, anti-trust legislation here has strictly limited what US rail companies can own and what businesses they can engage in. JR Hokkaido has used diversification quite creatively to turn a profit.

A look through JR Hokkaido's Web site (roughly translated by Google) shows the company owns grocery stores, convenience stores, retail kiosks in stations; a medical clinic in Sapporo station; hotels in each of three cities and two in Sapporo; financial services (including stock trading, accounting, and a debit/ticket card); 3 hot springs resorts; 8 quick-cut ten-minute barber shops, bus lines that connect with trains; a travel agency; a toxic and sensitive waste disposal service; a driving school(!); urban development projects; and 10 major station retail and office properties, including a 38-story office tower on Sapporo Station, the tallest building in Hokkaido. One popular JR Hokkaido property is an amusement center under the elevated tracks near Sapporo station, with Internet-enabled "manga cafe", DVD players, TV, billiards, darts, massage chairs, and a large N-guage model railroad layout.

Hokkaido Railway has succeeded in avoiding red ink since 1997 not only by diversification, but by what might be considered "best practices": 1. Invest in infrastructure, maintenance, and cleanliness; 2. Research and develop better ways to provide rail service; 3. Develop a culture of meticulous attention to detail, especially in safety and punctuality; 4. Schedule and dispatch trains with extreme precision

If US passenger services followed these "best practices" and were allowed to diversify, who knows what we might see?

County-Wide Transit Done Right

2010-01-22T12:15:00.000-08:00

Wednesday's AATA Board meeting brought a great deal of information to light. One was the encouraging presentation by consultants of the August 2009 survey of attitudes toward AATA and county-wide transit. Details of that will be made available soon on AATA's Web site, and I'll let you know when they're up.

Most impressive was Director Jesse Bernstein's intense presentation of the process for moving toward county-wide transit, and his impassioned explanation of the benefits of rail transit. Both were very encouraging for those of us looking toward sustainable development based on transit. It's good to know someone on the AATA Board is not only aware of the economic and environmental benefits of rail transit, but also willing to expound upon them with fervor.

Ready, Aim, Fire!

Even more important, though, is the process Mr. Bernstein is insisting on for developing county-wide transit. Instead of saying, "Here's the experts' plan: like it or lump it", Bernstein strongly advocates working in partnership with the community to develop a plan that meets people's needs best. Yes, expert advice is important, but without community participation it's of little value.

Why? Because the community - the voters of Washtenaw County - have the final say in the matter. We, the voters, will decide whether it's worth parting with our hard-earned money to create county-wide transit.

Bernstein explains the process as consisting of three phases, easily remembered using the familiar phrase, "Ready, aim, fire":

Ready: Make sure the entire voting community is ready to participate, familiar with the issues involved in county-wide transit. What are the options? What are the costs? What are the benefits? It's preparation through education.
Aim: Find out what to aim for in county-wide service by taking some options to the community and getting input. What are the best routes? What level of service is needed? What kind of service do people want? What level of funding would work best? Though Bernstein didn't elaborate, I'm pretty sure he's referring to the "best practice": an iterative process in which input is gathered from a series of meetings, a proposal is built based on that input, and the proposal is refined through further meetings.
Fire: With a plan supported by the community, get financial support from the voters and implement the plan.

The "traditional" method of implementing a new service plan is to hire consultants who tell us what the best plan is, based on demographic patterns and possibly a survey, but without the community education and interaction Bernstein is proposing. The result may be a great transit plan in theory, but with little public understanding or support it's unlikely to be accepted and funded.

So I heartily applaud Mr. Bernstein for guiding the AATA in the right direction.

Updates, Updates!

2010-01-18T09:55:00.000-08:00

It's been a month since I blogged, so there's a lot to update you on! I'll be as brief as I can while still being informative.

WCC Parking Lot

You may recall my blog entry in December opposing Washtenaw Community College's proposal to build a parking structure. Phil Geyer and I independently presented suggestions to the WCC Board of Trustees at their December meeting with alternatives to the planned construction. According to the Washtenaw Voice (student paper), shortly after we left the meeting, WCC President Larry Whitworth said, "OK, we've got to get engineers started on the project." I'm not surprised.

But wait! meanwhile, Whitworth is doing a lot of good things: authorizing all-day shuttle service from EMU's huge, underutilized Rynearson Stadium parking lot and encouraging students and staff alike to use it. And the arrangement with AATA to provide four-month bus passes for a $10 fee to the WCC community has been rescued from near-failure with a $30K subsidy from the College.

The 208 Group

I recently discovered (or was discovered by) a group that's been meeting for 2-3 years with almost exactly the same goals as Wake Up Washtenaw. They, like me, started focusing on the Ann Arbor / Great Lakes Central Railroad corridor as a potential "green corridor", and they have a lot of dynamic, talented folks in their group. It's been a pleasure and inspiration for me to sit in on a couple of their meetings.

Their current push has been planning for a visit by Christopher Leinberger, the real estate / urban planning guru whose work as brought awareness of the fundamental shift in real estate patterns, from suburbia to urban re-growth. He has also worked with developers and financiers to craft a practical system for funding transit-oriented development. He'll be teaching at the University of Michigan, where he is listed as being on the faculty, though his time is spent primarily doing research at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. He will be giving an open lecture at the University at about 1 PM on Monday, February 15 - details have yet to be finalized. (I'll be out of town then, but hope to pass along news for you.)

Commuter Rail

Both Ann Arbor commuter rail projects are making good progress.

East-West: Ann Arbor to Detroit stations are being planned and preliminary site engineering is proceeding; Michigan Department of Transportation has authorized Great Lakes Central Railroad to refurbish some of the bi-level gallery cars it has in storage. These cars were purchased from Chicago's Metra commuter railroad when Metra purchased newer cars. A contract to acquire locomotives (probably by lease) is also in the works. The plan is to contract with Amtrak to operate the trains - a service which Amtrak provides for several state and regional rail services. $3.5M has been approved in the federal budget to fund operation. Needed track improvements, especially to East Detroit Junction, are awaiting funding as part of the Chicago-Pontiac high-speed rail corridor. SEMCOG will still be "passing the hat" for the local 20% match required for operating funds.
North-South: The WALLY (WAshenaw-LIvingston) line is also making progress. Stations are being planned, with the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority still maintaining overall supervision of the project. The set of gallery cars being refurbished includes cars for WALLY. Great Lakes Central Railroad will operate the line (and provide the locomotives, I believe). Funding is still an issue. Also an issue is connecting with the Ann Arbor Railroad, without whose cooperation service will stop at a concrete slab on Plymouth Road. The "Annie's" owners are reluctant to enter into negotiations with anyone until they're confident WALLY will really happen. (It's a very small company, and has little time to spend on "maybes".)

Ann Arbor north-south signature service

The city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan continue to work toward a "signature" rapid transit line connecting the Plymouth Road corridor, U of M's Pfizer campus, North Campus, Medical Campus, Central Campus, downtown Ann Arbor, the Athletic Campus and South State Street (Briarwood). The name "signature" is used to avoid reference to any particular mode of transit, though the most widely discussed is light rail. The first step, soon to come, is contracting with a consulting firm to study the possible options, ridership, and impacts. A recent announcement by the University indicated they are eager to move this forward, and as one of the best-funded organizations in the state, their eagerness is a big factor in its success. If no federal funds are needed, it might be completed in about 5 years - or at least, the University portion might - according to Eli Cooper, Transportation Program Manager for the City. Since federal funds will probably be needed for major portions of the line, a lengthy review and approval process would stretch completion of the entire line out to 10 or 15 years.

Re-Imagine Washtenaw Avenue

I've been working with a dynamic team of planners on revitalizing Washtenaw Avenue between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. We're about to go public, engaging the citizens and businesses along Washtenaw to get their input on what needs to be done, as well as inform them about possibilities. Coming soon: a new and better Web site. Meanwhile, link to the current site here.

Revitalizing East Michigan Avenue

It's my belief that East Michigan Avenue in Ypsilanti Township has the greatest potential for dynamic infill development - in fact, for all future development - in the Township. It's also the area that has the greatest need for redevelopment, given the dilapidation, crime, danger to pedestrians, and general nuisance to residents and government alike. I'm about to kick off a community effort to get this redevelopment to happen! The over-all vision is on the Wake Up Washtenaw Web site; working out details with community input will be a high priority this coming year.

Pedistrian Killed on Michigan Avenue

2009-12-11T12:08:00.000-08:00

Remember Wake Up Washtenaw's news note last month? "On average, each month more than 400 pedestrians are killed in America". It wasn't long before the statistical averages hit us in Washtenaw County. According to a report in The Ypsilanti Courier published Monday, December 7, thirty-five year old Shawna Pinson was killed shortly after 7 P.M. on Sunday, December 6. She was trying to cross Michigan Avenue near Wiard Road. There's a little convenience store near Wiard; perhaps she was trying to get something to eat for her three children on that dark evening (sunset was 5:01 PM). Her children are a boy age 14, and girls age 12 and 5. According to the Courier report, Ms. Pinson's family is "very cash-strapped right now and are searching for ways to bury their loved one during the holiday season." Assistance for Ms. Pinson's burial and holiday gifts for the children are being coordinated by her aunt, Kathy Augustiniak, 734-218-5131.

Michigan Avenue is five lanes wide at that point (two lanes in each direction and one for left turns) and the speed limit is 50 MPH. There is no pedestrian crosswalk at Wiard. The teenage driver of the vehicle that struck Ms. Pinson is quoted by police as having said the pedestrian was "suddenly in the roadway". Though the intersection is lit by two streetlights, there is no traffic control device there, and no median pedestrian refuge.

Our news brief on pedestrian deaths last month was based on Transportation for America's article, Dangerous by Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Deaths (and Making Great Neighborhoods). Wake Up Washtenaw has proposed making Michigan Avenue through Ypsilanti and Ypsi Township a transit-oriented infill corridor, based on a plan drafted by the Ypsilanti Township Planning Commission in 2001. The recommendation called for three measures to address the observed issues, "High vehicle speeds" and "Unsafe to cross street at intersections":

Coordinate with the County Road Commission and MDOT to install safe crosswalks at key intersections and destinations
Institute traffic calming techniques to reduce speeds along the corridors
Promote a convenient and comfortable pedestrian environment by providing
connections to neighborhoods and safe places for walking

This tragic death might have been prevented if the plan had been implemented over the last several years. It was approved on first reading by the Ypsilanti Township Board of Trustees in December, 2001, but according to the late David Nicholson, former Planning Director for the Township, the plan was ultimately turned down because a handful of businessmen stood up and claimed it would be bad for their businesses. (I can't find the minutes of the meeting at which this took place.)

Ypsilanti Township's motto is, "Putting Residents First". I've also heard township Supervisor Brenda Stumbo say, "We're all about jobs!" It's time to start looking beyond "jobs" to "life". Are we between a rock and a hard place financially? You bet. Do we need jobs? Sure we do. Is it acceptable to improve the jobs outlook by letting job-seekers be killed? Absolutely not! I don't know if Ms. Pinson was on the rolls of the job-seekers, but like so many in Ypsilanti Township, she was hard-pressed financially and may have been unemployed. Nobody would support the idea that local jurisdictions should maintain dangerous conditions to improve job prospects, but in effect that's what happened when the 2001 plan was not implemented.

Interestingly, the Township Board actually approved the zoning designations (B-5 and B-6) proposed by the Planning Commission in 2001, but no land was allowed to be zoned with those designations. It's time to revisit the plan and actually assign the new designations to the zones they were planned for. It's time to talk to the County and State about conditions on Michigan Avenue. No improvements will happen overnight, and no funds need be allocated to make it happen. Changes like these take a lot of time and coordination between agencies, authorities, commissions, boards, and landowners. We should have gotten started on this eight years ago, and although it's too late now for Shawna Pinson and her three orphaned children, it's not too late for the rest of us. It's not too late for the Charter Township of Ypsilanti to put residents first - even before jobs.

WCC's Parking Structure: so discouraging!

2009-12-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

On November 19th, I learned that Washtenaw Community College (WCC) is intending to build a parking structure. I've been researching the situation and becoming increasingly discouraged. Why?

Making room for more cars is a poor solution to a real problem. But equally important, it's a very popular solution. As you may know, I was a full-time faculty member at WCC for 24 years (1983-2007) and I'm teaching a couple of courses now, so I'm pretty familiar with what's been going on there.

The Ebb and Flow of Cars at WCC

WCC has a surge of cars coming to campus the first two weeks of class. Some of their drivers are doing errands such as registering for classes or buying books; others are attending classes; still others are simply using WCC as a park-and-ride where they can leave their car and take the bus to Ann Arbor. I admit it - I've done that myself from time to time, and talked to several others who do it regularly.

Because of the nature of community colleges, a lot of people enroll in classes but find they can't continue due to family or job responsibilities. Others are unprepared for college-level classes, but because of low tuition and high hopes, they enroll and try, only to discover that it's more than they can handle. The cumulative result is that the parking lot gets more and more empty as each term proceeds.

Another factor is the "recession rush". There have been several recessions since I came to WCC, and in all but one (the 2001 "dot com bubble bust") job layoffs have sent people back to the community college to upgrade their skills. The current recession is no exception - in fact, because of its severity, WCC has experienced a record boom in enrollment. That's why you may have seen photos of cars parked on the grass.

But after each recession, what happens? People go back to work and enrollment drops back down. Not as far down as pre-recession levels - apart from the boom-and-bust cyclces, there has been a slow but steady gain in enrollment over the decades. By midterm in every year since 1983, there has always been ample parking.

Why the Parking Structure is a Popular Solution

In The Voice, WCC's student-run newspaper, letters to the editor have applauded the parking structure decision by a large margin, compared to those who expressed opposition or even hesitation.

There are many reasons for this. One is the feeling that free, convenient parking is an American right. Donald Shoup's now-classic article, "The High Cost of Free Parking" (1997) explains in detail how free parking is mandated in new buildings across the US, which goes a long way to explain why the US has the highest per capita use of automobiles in the world.

But let's face it: for many WCC students, there is no way to get to the college without driving. We don't have a county-wide transit system, and for the many evening students, existing transit doesn't run late enough to get them home. I've often had evening students ask to leave class early so they can catch the last bus. Occasionally, I've given car-deprived students a ride home after class (against college policy!) so they could finish a test or group exercise.

After the first couple of weeks of a term, there has always been ample parking available, including the record-breaking Fall 2009 term. But it's only reliably available in the parking lot furthest from the classroom buildings, and people apparently hate to walk more than about two minutes from their cars to their classes. They seem to prefer circling the parking lot for 10 minutes rather than walk for 5. This term, I've have never had trouble finding parking 6-7 minutes from the building where I teach. During the first two weeks, I parked in EMU's stadium parking lot and took WCC's free shuttle bus back and forth every day. (WCC ran the shuttle for employees only during the first two weeks.) Yes, it added about 10 minutes to the commute, but it brought me to within a 2-minute walk of my building.

The proposed parking structure is to be built within a 1-minute walk of three buildings, and no more than 5 minutes from the furthest, so this is perceived as a great advantage over parking that's 6-8 minutes away.

Why the Parking Structure is a Poor Solution

There are several reasons why the parking structure is a poor solution to the problem.

First and foremost, the problem is mis-identified. The problem is not insufficient parking, it's lack of transportation options. If buses ran more frequently, to more parts of the county, and ran later in the evening, students would have choices besides owning and driving a car.

Even if we continue to focus on lack of parking as "the problem", the college doesn't have a permanent parking problem. As I outlined above, the college's main problem is the surge at the start of the term. The EMU stadium parking lot can easily handle the surge, and shuttle buses are a good deal less costly than a parking structure. They only need to be chartered for a couple of weeks each term, but a structure has to be funded and operated whether it's needed or not.

The college recently conducted a carbon-footprint survey. According to Dale Petty, the Electronics faculty member working on the survey, about 40% of the college's carbon footprint is attributable to people driving to campus. No matter what else the college does to reduce its carbon emissions, failure to address this aspect will leave WCC responsible a great, stomping footprint. Not only does a parking structure fail to address the issue, it encourages more people to drive.

How the structure is to be paid for is perhaps the worst aspect of the plan. According to material in the Board of Trustees packet for October 2009, the $11 million cost is to be paid for with a bond issue. But no millage is to be raised to pay off the bonds (it's pretty obvious the county wouldn't vote for such a millage!); instead, the repayment is to be made from the General Fund with the help of a surcharge to each credit hour. Initially, the surcharge would be $3, but that would go up to $4 as the debt load increases, before going back to $3 toward the end of the bond issue's life.

There are two problems with this funding model. One is that General Fund dollars should go to educating people, but the parking structure would suck funds away from education and put them into supporting our over-use of automobiles. The other is that everybody would have to pay the surcharge whether they use cars or not. Those who can't afford to buy and use a car would be compelled to subsidize those who are better off and can afford to drive. Such a regressive model should never be allowed at a community college.

In the final analysis, vehicle miles traveled have been declining nation-wide. The parking structure is a 20th century solution to a 21st century problem. The time to invest in parking structures was back in the 1970s. The parking problem will improve over time, not get worse; the cost of the parking structure will remain with us for many years, whether or not it's needed.

So What would be a Better Solution?

The first and best solution is simply not to build a parking structure. Continue use the EMU stadium parking for the surge.

It would be far less costly to pay people not to park in WCC's parking lot. A good start was made offering employees a free snack at the college coffee shop when they parked at EMU, and that type of incentive is just a start.

Now it's time to invest in transportation alternatives, which means the college should be working with AATA, send a representative to AATA Board meetings, support a county-wide transit system finanaically, as well as with lip service. There are consultants who can help identify less costly, more responsible alternatives. (I don't know who they are, but I know they're out there.)

Ultimately, no parking is free: it's very costly. Why should parking be free, when a bus pass costs $10 per term? A good start would be to require people parking at WCC to have a parking permit. At a minimum, that would keep people from using WCC as a park-and-ride lot. The permit could even be "free" - at least, at first. Offer registered students a choice: free parking permit, or free bus pass. That would level the playing field. Then, if a parking structure is built, a fee can be levied for parking permits. That would be a much fairer plan that putting a fee on every credit hour, regardless of a student's ability to drive.

WCC should be teaching the community about how to thrive in the "new, green economy". Let's teach by example.

Can we afford a county-wide transit system?

2009-11-17T21:37:00.000-08:00

In a recent comment about the county-wide transit idea, "EOS" wrote to the Ann Arbor Chronicle (2009-11-03) saying, "the rest of the county doesn't want and can’t afford AATA". Deliberations at both Ypsilanti City and Township's governing boards indicate that we want AATA, but believe we can't afford it.

That may be because we don't know how much our cars cost us compared with public transit. Knowing that good transit is a good investment, I set out to calculate what a county-wide transit system would save. I'm considering the ability of households to save money by giving up one automobile, assuming they own more than one.

Using data from the Census Bureau, we find 134,187 households in Washtenaw County, and projecting from figures on page 28 of the WATS 2007 Transit Plan, we can estimate there are 22,706 families with zero or one car. These households may not be able to reduce their auto-related costs significantly, even with improved transit, so we'll remove them from consideration.

That leaves 112,980 households that could reduce their number of cars if we had good, county-wide transit. How much would they save each year? Based on car ownership costs and gas prices surveyed by AAA on November 9, 2009, APTA estimates the nation-wide average saving is $9,190 annualized for households giving up one automobile and using transit.

Supposing every household that could, would give up one car and use transit. The theoretical savings for Washtenaw County would be 1,038,286,200, though of course that is unrealistic. Instead, let's suppose 20% of multi-vehicle households decided to get along with one less. The resulting county-wide savings would be $207,657,240.

Suppose we were to offer residents to split these savings between them and county-wide transit, with 75% of that remaining in the households, and 25% going to fund transit. That would leave the residents with $155,742,930, and give the agency $51,914,310: 181% of AATA's 2009 budget. Could that amount fund high-quality, county-wide transit?

The cost per household would be $386.88, while the household savings would be $1,160.64: a 300% return on investment.

How can we afford not to do that?

OK, I know there are quite a few people who would dispute this on several grounds. I'll have a go at playing devil's advocate, then answering their points:

Your estimate is based on everybody paying the tax, but only 25% of tax-payers using transit. Why should the non-users subsidize the users?
Answer a: Non-users benefit by roads relieved of 20% of their congestion. It costs far more to expand the road system, both in dollars and in environmental damage; plus in many places there simply is no more land to build roads on. If the county's population grows (and it is growing), congestion will grow worse with no practical way to build our way out of it.
Answer b: There is always a well-documented increase in business investment in areas offer good transit. Thus, investing in transit increases the tax-base, reducing the burden on individual tax-payers.
Answer c: Even those who don't use transit regularly will be able to use it occasionally, for example, when their car is in the shop or to send their kids to soccer practice. The better the transit system, the more convenient it will be to meet those needs.
Buses are not as efficient as they're cracked up to be, because they spend so much of their time driving around nearly empty.
Answer a: Most bus efficiency figures are based on cost per passenger-mile, which takes into account the high and low times.
Answer b: A serious effort is being made to get rail transit for Washtenaw County. Rail is even more efficient than bus, because of energy savings from steel wheels on steel rails, and because one operator can handle a vehicle that carries far more passengers.
Answer c: When automobile efficiency is calculated, the cost of parking spaces should also be included, but often isn't. Each car requires roughly three parking spaces: one for home, one for work, and one for shopping, school, or entertainment. In addition to the construction and maintenance costs of each parking space, there is significant environmental impact due to the impermeable surface creating dangerous storm runoff, and because large parking lots force businesses to be farther from each other and from the street, increasing travel time, expense, and discouraging walking.
That's a lot of savings! Aren't they going to come from other, established areas of spending, and hurt local businesses?
Answer a: Some would come come from local business such as gas stations, car dealers, and maintenance shops, yes. But consider the increased employment in transit operation and maintenance.
Answer b: A great deal of the cost of driving an automobile leaves the local area already, including finance charges (in many cases) and most of the cost of gasoline. With lower energy use per passenger mile, transit costs return a higher percentage to the local economy.
Answer c: According to AAA, 23% of the average cost of automobile ownership is depreciation - the cost of a new car spread over its useful lifetime. Economists tell us the rapid depreciation of autos makes them a poor investment. That's true even in Michigan, when you consider that a relatively small percentage of autos that drive in Michigan are actually assembled here, and that their parts come from all over the world anyway. Using the savings figures I estimated, $155.7 million could be invested or spent in other ways that boost the local economy.
All these figures are based on estimates. As far as I'm concerned, they're a crock.
Answer a: Yes, they're estimates. Every business venture, before making an investment, makes similar estimates based on currently available figures, with a lot of assumptions thrown in. I've tried to make the figures and assumptions clear so you can reach your own conclusions. Please do so in a responsible manner.
Answer b: This took me - an amateur - a few hours to figure and write up. We do need more accurate estimates, so more time and expertise is needed. That's probably why AATA wants to hire a consultant to prepare a proposal for county-wide service.

How Much do we Support Other Countries?

2009-11-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

I've often wondered how much of my gasoline expense is going to support other countries, especially ones that don't agree with us or are hostile. I looked up some figures, made some calculations, and came up with this:

$667.03

of my gas money goes to other countries this year. That compares with $72.73 in Federal highway tax, $104.35 in Michigan highway tax, and $83.79 in Michigan sales tax. That's a total of $260.87 in taxes to my own governments, only 39.1% of what I send overseas.

Curious? Concerned? Read on...

Suppose you own a mid-size sedan and drive it a moderate 15,000 miles each year - an average car driven an average distance. According to AAA, 11% of your cost is for fuel. They estimate a national average cost of $8,106 for car ownership and operation in that case, so the cost of gas for a year is $1,581.

Michigan's Attorney General (Republican Mike Cox) has posted a Web page giving the breakdown of the cost of a gallon of gas. It's based on the June 5, 2009 average cost of $2.89 per gallon of self-serve regular. Based on that breakdown, we pay 4.6% in Federal highway tax, 6.6% in State road tax, and 5.3% in state sales tax (which is less than 6% because the state doesn't tax the highway taxes). That's 17% in taxes, $260.87 annually for our average case.

Since the Attorney General's information lists only the wholesale price of gas, we have to dig deeper to find out how much of what we pay goes to the cost of refining crude oil, and how much is for the crude itself. I went to a U.S. Department of Energy page that gives a rough idea of that breakdown. Of the 2008 average retail price (the most recent), 69% was the cost of crude oil ($1,058.96 in our average case), and 7% was refining and profits ($199.51). Of course, that's as volatile as the the cost of crude, so we can use it only to get a general idea of where our money goes.

OK, so how much of our crude oil comes from other countries? According to another Department of Energy table, the U.S. imported 63.0% of its oil (2.9 billion barrels) through the end of August, 2009 (the latest figures available). So of our yearly gasoline payments, $391.93 goes for U.S. crude, and $667.03 goes overseas.

The sources of imported oil are listed by country in an on-line table. Now comes the fun part. I divided the source countries into three groups by their political stance toward the United States:

Friends (including our two biggest sources, Canada and Mexico):
1.9 billion barrels imported, 40.8% of an average gallon of gas, costing the average motorist $436.06 yearly;
Questionables (such as Saudi Arabia, our fourth-largest supplier, which is politically aligned with the U.S. but has a repressive government and holds values very much at odds with ours):
7.4 million barrels imported, 15.8% of our gallon, adding up to $167.48 yearly; and
Non-Friends (such as Venezuela, our third-largest source of oil - and the country where I was born! - whose leader Hugo Chavez campaigns actively to discredit and undermine the U.S.):
sending us 3.0 million barrels, 6.4% of each gallon, costing us $67.50 this year.

Let me emphasize, this categorization of countries is solely mine, based on my news sources. If you'd like details, just ask.

It's of some concern that 22.2% of our gas money to enrich countries that are either questionable friends or outright unfriendly. That amounts to $234.97 we're paying each year in "taxes" that benefit shaky friends and unfriendly governments. And there's not a thing we can do about it.

Except one: reduce our dependence on imported oil.

How?

We can wait for more efficient, non-petroleum-dependent cars to come out. May they come soon - and may they be affordable!

But in the meantime, there are tried-and-true ways for all of us: take public transit, walk, or ride a bike.

An Incident in New York

2009-11-11T07:10:00.000-08:00

For the last few months, I've been pondering a little incident in New York City. It was Memorial Day Weekend, and I was playing host to Felix, a friend from Mexico who had never been to the US. I'm not in the least a New York City guy, but this is my country. Felix had hosted me at his modest home in Oaxaca State, and now he was attending a United Nations conference of indigenous peoples, so I felt privileged to go to New York (by train, of course!) and show him around a little.

We had walked up Fifth Avenue, past imposing buildings, classic churches, and crowds of weekend tourists, to Central Park. I had been looking forward to sharing the park with Felix, but after ten minutes or so, he asked to go back to the streets. "I have plenty of trees where I live; I didn't come to New York to see more of them," he said. Of course, like any good host, I acceded to my guest's wishes and headed with him to the nearest park exit.

Felix and I had a good visit, and we both enjoyed the scenes of the city. We rode the A train all the way to Far Rockaway and basked briefly on the boardwalk by the sea. But his remark about the trees stuck in my mind like a bit of fiber caught between my teeth, and it wasn't until this morning that I was able to work it out in the shower (where my best thoughts often come!).

Felix grew up and lives on a rugged mountainside, cloaked in majestic trees. Right outside his family's front door are a coffee tree and a cacao tree. The scene is spectacular, uplifting, inspiring. Making a living there is tough, and they're isolated by lack of transportation and rains that turn the hillside into a slick mud-slope. Felix had to carry 50-kilo bags of cement on his back up the hill to build his house. I can understand why he doesn't totally "appreciate" the beauty of his spectacular mountainside retreat, and enjoyed seeing what it was like to live in a place where streets are level and well paved.

But I still felt disappointed that he hadn't spent more time in Central Park. It was certainly logical that he didn't want to "see more trees", and I couldn't understand why I felt let down.

Today's "shower insight" was this: you can't truly understand a city if you don't see - and appreciate - the parks along with the "concrete canyons". This is particularly true of New York City, where Frederick Law Olmsted began his career in park design, and with it brought the concept of green spaces into the heart of American urban design. In so many ways, Central Park is the "heart" of New York City, without which the totality of the city can't be appreciated. I feel the same way about Seattle, the loveliness of whose Freeway Park comes to mind often when I think of that city.

To me, the skyscrapers of a city are impressive and the trees are beautiful, but it's the sight high-rise buildings through the trees that brings me a true sense of awe. The contrast of the natural with the man-made is what expresses the full humanity of the city. Each without the other is insufficient for our needs. Humanity cannot reach it fullest potential living in a forest, beautiful as it may seem. Nor can it attain the heights of its capacity in a "concrete jungle".

I guess that's what I wanted Felix to see. I'm just sorry it took me so long to express it.

PS - I've decided not to blog more from the Moving Minds conference. There's another day-and-a-half, and some of the topics, like transportation security, are beyond my scope. I'm sure a few more good ideas are will to pop out, but I'm also sure the majority have surfaced. Now, on to action!

Moving Minds 2

2009-11-10T18:18:00.001-08:00

There were a lot of ideas bounding around in the Michigan League today, but many ideas recurred or were expressed in different ways. Here's my take on them:

Coordination between modes of transport is essential, and there are many creative things we can do at points where modes intersect. People need to be informed where the intersections are, and what they can do at each one. In fact, looking at these nodes of intersection is a creative way to leverage scarce resources.
Sharing resources is another universal need. The waste of having millions of automobiles spending most of their time taking up parking spaces calls for lots of creative thought. The Zip Car model is one solution; the "slug line" (flexible carpooling, mentioned in last night's blog) is another.
Lack of information about public transportation is one of the biggest barriers to its use in the USA. There are many electronic solutions to dynamic information, like bus or train arrival times, but good signage and paper maps are the most reliable for static information like route maps. Electronic trip directions have a lot of potential, but in many cases haven't been perfected yet.
Culture and psychology are significant barriers. Presenting a positive vision of the future is the best way to inspire people and get them to participate in change; fear (of climate change or terrorism, for instance) produces only short-term gains, followed by long-term resistance to change. An example that came up many times was GM's Futurama, a vision of a future where cars and highways brought freedom and the good life. Futurama was presented at the 1939 Worlds Fair in New York, and inspired the generation that created the Interstate Highway System.
Psychologist Clotaire Rapaille identifies automobiles in the US as symbols of freedom, identity, and sex - extremely powerful forces in our lives. There is no way, IMHO, that public transportation can replace automobile's link to the identity and sexuality of many Americans, but I believe significant numbers of Americans now see cars being as much burdens as they are passports to freedom.
The needs of the developing world are similar to those of the developed world, but the solutions are not. An information-intensive system is very appropriate for places where smart-phones and computers are a small fraction of the average person's annual wage. A simpler, less costly system is necessary in places where that's not true, or where literacy rates are low.

MOVING MINDS: the next transportation infrastructure

2009-11-09T21:45:00.000-08:00

Moving Minds is the theme of this year's SMART conference at the University of Michigan (UMich). SMART is "Sustainable Mobility & Accessibility Research & Transformation", a project of CARSS, the Center for Advancing Research and Solutions for Society at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I'll be passing along the highlights of the conference for you, day by day.

New Mobility Primer Salon: Pecha Kucha style

This was our first session. What's Pecha Kucha? It turns out it's the Japanese expression for "yackety-yak" or "yadda-yadda". The idea is to present a creative idea through a short, image-intensive presentation. (PowerPoint on steriods?) The limit here was 5 minutes. Of course, this won't make much sense without seeing the images, but I hope this will give you an idea what to look into more... I'll revisit this and add links to all the presentations SMART makes available on the Web.

What floated to the surface of this intense session? With so much being presented, everybody will have picked up something different. Here's what floated my way:

Changes in population and energy availability make for an extremely complex mobility problem, or rather, series of problems. There are no magic bullets (though there may be "magic buses"!). Rather, the solution lies in a combination of ingenuity and telecummunications, taking into account the needs of the diverse humans who need access to jobs, food, and entertainment.

Want to sample tidbits? OK, here goes...

GLOBAL MEGA-FORCES: Tom Gladwin, UMich
We seem to expect super-technical advances to solve our problems, but... Climate change, water availability, ecosystem health, population size, poverty prevenence, and urbanization are the mega-forces to confront. Interactions are complex, but climate change is the major driver. Climate refugees move to urban areas (slums) around the world, and all are poor, if not desperate.

ENERGY FOR TRANSPORTATION: Sue Nichols UMich Phoenix Memorial Lab.
Nothing is simple! What you love one minute, the next minute seems to have a lot of problems (the "Britney Spears effect" LOL!). Energy solutions need to be wholistic. Human nature resists change, and we get NIMBY, BANANA, and NOPE attitudes.

ACCESSIBILITY: Jonathan Levin, UMich Department of Urban and Regional Planning
Stats on who drives most shows per capita is related to population density. The purpose of transportaiton is not movement, but access. Accessibility = meeting our needs through mobility, proximity, or connectivity. Rather than measure vehicle miles traveled, a better measure of urban transportation is a rather complex formula encompassing distance and destinations such as jobs, entertainment, and life necessities.

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND TRANSPORTATION: Joe Grengs, UMich Department of Urban and Regional Planning
Social injustice: anything that holds back a person from reaching their full potential. People who live without cars in our auto-oriented world are largely invisible to us. What to do? Change land development patterns; measure accessibility. We need to see cities as made up of multiple worlds - not all from a dominant-group perspecive.

NEW MOBILITY AND INCLUSIVE GOVERNANCE: August Mathias, Advisor, National Confederation of Municipalities of Brazil
When government doesn't provide needs, people will take it into their own hands. the planning process should involve the people for whom the planning is being done, changing to a flexible, innovative, decentralized decision making process

TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT: Deena Fox, Architect, Rossetti of Detroit
What is TOD? Walkability, connectivity, diverse and dense mix of uses, diversity of housing types oand price points; quality architecture, sustainable communities with good access to transit. Transit drives real esate development, producing a dynamic, memorable environment.

COMMITMENT TO HIGH SPEED RAIL NETWORKS IN SPAIN: Robert Polk, Former Director, Detroit DOT.
Mr. Polk was very impressed by Spain's commitment to high speed rail. They have invested $116B in HSR, or 1.5% of their GDP. An interesting fact: 0.1% of greenhouse gasses in Europe are emitted by trains, 3% by airlines, and 15% by road trafic.

BIKESTATION: Andrea White-Kjoss, Mobis Transportation
BikeStation provides sustainable "last mile"transportation linked to transit - bike parking, changing, showers, repair for bikes; e-accessible. Thirty bikes can park in the space of 1 car at their Washington DC Union Station site. "...not what it provides, but what it makes possible" - Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, about the DC BikeStation.

500,000 TONS: Robin Chase, ZipCar
There are 325,000 members of ZipCar, using only 6,500 cars. Each normal (non-Zip) car requires 3 parking spaces (work, home, leisure), while a ZipCar requires only one. Robin estimates there is a 93% reduction in automobile usage (emissions, fuel use, parking...) among ZipCar members, 40% of whom do not own a car, due to change in driving habits. Paying for the car by the hour encourages more efficient habits, resulting in saving 500,000 tons of carbon emissions.

LESSONS FROM THE SLUG LINES -FLEXIBLE CARRPOOLING: Paul Minett, Trip Convergence Ltd.,
their goal is to "make it easier and more rewarding for people to share rides." In the San Fransicso Bay area and the DC area, there are informal ridesharing systems known in DC as "slug lines". People line up in designated places, like the BART station in Berkeley, and are picked up by people with cars who can save time and money crossing Bay Bridge into San Francisco. Paul observed 116 carpools being formed in 1 hour in Berkeley. 9,000 people in Bay Area use flexible carpooling each day. In DC "Slug Lines", 2,000 riders per day get to the Pentagon. Trip Convergence is setting up a new project in Seattle, aiming for more efficient organization.

AUTONOMY: Jeffrey Adik, Intraduce, on personal transportation and goods movement.
This hyper-slick presentation pushed automatic vehicles. Lots of graphs of several mentions of the Department of Defense were thrown at the audience, but not much of a coherent or realistic program.

DELIVERING THE GOODS IN CITY REGIONS: Sue Zelinski, UMich SMART Program
Goods movement is our teacher especially in Japan and Germany. Supply chain efficiencies; moving less stuff less far; reducing the impact of trips by using last-mile bike and foot couriers.

TDM AND TECHNOLOGY: Alan Huynh, University of Southern California, Urban Planning major
TDM = Transportaiton Demand Management, encouraging people to use alternative modes of transportation rather than build more highways. Alan spoke of the convergence of social media like Facebook, mobile technology, and Web 2.0 making transportation more personal; there are no cookie-cutter solutions, and it necessary to be sensitive to the culture of a region. But using technology can help bypass the mires of bureaucracy.

MAGIC BUS TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM: Adrian Fontino, Shepherd Intelligent Systems
Shepherd (SIS) is a spin-off of UMich; their system has been running 4 years on UM buses, now tracking AATA Route 6 (my route!!). They're working to solve what extensive research (and commonse sense) say are the toughest problems in getting people to feel comfortable using public transportation: Navigating unfamiliar cities; never know "when the damn bus will come!"; can't find the best way to travel from point A to point B via public transportation. Solution: great SIS algorithms for predicting bus arrival times!

EXCESS CAPACITY: Robin Chase reprise
ZipCar does for cars what hotels do for beds. Add open platform Web technology, and we'll get something like CouchSurfing for transportation! We need open devices, open data, open networks, engaging the common man.

GET DOWNTOWN: Nancy Shore, Ann Arbor Get Downtown
New Mobility hub network - people are what drive transportation; we need to help them integrate their transportation. Where do transportation modes intersect? (Parking, bus, bike storage, etc.) Those are hubs, and should be marked on maps along with bus stops.

THE PERSONAL VEHICLE: Dan Sturges, Intrago
Last-mile mobility, hybrid of personal vehicle and transit. 80% of people have trouble getting to a transit stop. Dan has designed several "Neighborhood vehicles"; A related venture, ItMoves, is working to provide a "mobility bundle" to help people get where they need to go by transit.

NEW MOBILITY HUB NETWORK CHECKLIST: Raj Cherubal
Lack of knowledge on the part of the public is frustrating. How do you multiply the benefit of transit? Raj proposes a quick checklist to engage designers in multi-modal transportation and prevent the many specialists from overlooking essential details unfamiliar to them.

MOADL (MOBILITY OPEN AMBIENT DATA LANGUAGE): Kyle Lawson
This is a proposed standardized way to organize and retrieve mobility information, that can be utilized within applications.

NEW MOBILITY AND USABILITY:Ilona Posner
Challenge: we spend a lot of effort building a product, but the user connection is often left as an afterthought. Usability guarantees the success. Enter, USER-CENTERED DESIGN, balancing needs of users, business, and technology. (This has been applied to lots of products, and we need to apply it to mobility design.) BTW, Ilona checked Google Maps, as we all do, to find the meeting venue: 100 Washtenaw Ave., Ann Arbor, MI. Try it - Google will take you to Ypsilanti instead!

HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN: Barbara Knecht, Institute for Human Centered Design, Boston
Meet the 21st century human for whom we are designing new mobility systems. Social sustainability! Not all humans are created equal, and as medical advances make a productive life for people who formerly would not have lived, we need to design mobility systems to meet their needs.

AFRICAN COUNTRIES - THE FRONTIER OF SUSTAINABLE ABNORMAL PROFITS: Andrew Russell, CEO of Kab Shuttle, Cape Town
Rather than talk about the Kab Shuttle enterprise, Andrew delivered a sales pitch for investment in Africa. Not too credible in certain respects, but perhaps some South Africans are desperate to get non-Chinese investment?

Inspiration from Rail~Volution

2009-10-31T20:02:00.000-07:00

My last blog entry was such a downer (for me, at least) that I didn't send out a notice about it to anyone. If you haven't read it, now's a good time, because a) this will be an antidote, and b) I'm going to mention some stuff in it shortly. (Link to "Left Behind" here.)

So I'm in Boston now at Rail~Volution - "Building livable communities with transit". A couple of years ago, Megan Owens (of Transportation Riders United) recommended that I come to this conference, but last year I headed off to Japan instead. I'm glad I did, but this conference is "freakin awesome"! I don't feel any better about Michigan's situation, but I feel much more able to cope. I got good pointers from several people, I've seen lots of transit, a fair amount of transit-oriented development (TOD) and heard about much more, but most of all I've been inspired by the people and places that have made transit really work - and really bring prosperous development - in their cities.

It started with the first plenary session. Speakers included Michael Dukakis, former governor of Massachusetts and 1990 presidential candidate; Bill Millar, President of the American Public Transit Association (APTA); Ron Sims, Deputy Secretary (and COO) of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development; Peter Rogoff, Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration; and Derek Douglas, Special Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs. Big hitters.

Bill Millar is a wonderfully warm, loud and boisterous fellow, well placed at the head of APTA. He reminded us of all the great advances transit has made in the past year, including the opening of several new rail transit systems around the country, and of course the 180 degree shift in federal policy on transit with the new administration. This policy shift is also the reason why the FTA, HUD, and the White House were all represented here together.

You see, the President understands the close link between transportation policy, urban development, and quality of life. Sims emphasized the President's commitment to meeting diverse housing needs. Rogoff recognized that some metro areas are real pros when it comes to writing government grant proposals for transit, but many of the areas that need transit the most are newbies, and need help with the whole process. He will direct the FTA to shepard those areas through the process.

Douglas mentioned the President's commitment to more efficient ways of moving people around: the 50 major metropolitan areas of the country share one characteristic: congestion. The President has said that the US can't be globally competitive if we're burning up resources in congestion.

All of them stressed the essential nature of regional cooperation. Loners (jurisdictions that don't work with their neighbors) don't stand a chance of getting a government grant. And all the agencies - FTA, HUD, the Federal Railroad Administration, and the Federal Highway Administration - are committed to working together on grant approval. That's because of the realization at all levels of the interconnectedness of transportation and urban growth. What a waste of funds to build affordable housing where there's no transit. John Porcari, Deputy Secretary of Transportation, echoed all these messages when he took part in a panel today. At last, the federal government "gets it".

Today's plenary was an inspiration to persistence. Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon knows how to work effectively over a long time period. As you may know, Portland is the "poster child" for light rail, streetcars, and smart growth; it's in his district. He is willing to work long and hard to get things moving - on rails or any other way that makes sense.

The final inspiration came from an unexpected source: John Cowman, Mayor of the City of Leander, Texas (population in 2000: about 7,000). I quoted him in my last blog entry. Yesterday afternoon I was on Boston's Red Line subway with a group going to see the Ashmont TOD site. I looked across the crowded car and did a double-take, seeing what looked like "John Cowman" on the conference badge of a very ordinary-looking fellow - in spite of his memorable name. OMG, I thought, is this the man I quoted in my blog last week without permission? If so, I'd better talk to him before he discovers it for himself!

It was indeed the Mayor of Leander. He turned out to be very friendly, and admitted to not using the Internet much, so I need not have been concerned about quoting him. He's very positive and projects an image of having succeeded almost by accident. Not at all, of course! He is a master of getting people to do what he thinks is right. He often says, "I just want to help," and "I just wanted to make things better."

He heard about smart growth from people at The Seaside Institute, and immediately recognized it as an opportunity to take his city from backwoods obscurity to sustainable prosperity. He campaigned successfully for the Austin-to-Leander commuter rail service I highlighted last time, and got Council to set aside a large area of town - 23,000 acres, or about 1/3 of the city - for TOD. How did he manage this in conservative Texas? (Well, maybe not as conservative as we thought?) A combination of political smarts, enthusiasm, a willingness to fight for his town, knowing his limitations, and what he calls "moxie".

Oh, and by the way...the employer coming to Leander is Valence Technologies, a maker of lithium-ion batteries and other green-energy equipment. (Michigan: are we green with envy?) According to The Statesman of Austin, Valence plans to employ 2,700 people by 2012, and 1,300 more by 2016, making 160,000 battery packs each year. Valence is an Austin company that currently manufactures batteries in China, but they've decided to bring their operation back home. Keeping local business in the area is the best way to grow our prosperity, according to many economists, because unlike outside companies they have roots and a stake in the community. And let me remind you: "the first words out of their mouth about why they selected Leander was, 'access to public transit.'"

I told Mr. Cowman how I impressed I was, and how much I wanted that kind of growth for my home town. He laughed and invited me to "come on down" and let him give me the "dime tour".

According to him, the best thing that had ever happened in Leander was a severe water shortage in the late 1990s, which forced the town to re-think everything about how they would operate. Michigan is in a pretty severe shortage now too - though it's not about water...

Bottom line from Rail~Volution for us in Michigan? Don't be discouraged. Use our misfortunes to re-think how we operate. Be humbly persistent, and very enthusiastic in our determination to turn things around. Use our resources, not limiting ourselves by thinking that resources = money and we don't have any. Use a lot of moxie!

Jun-10	$1,510,957
Jul-10	$1,856,179
Aug-10	$1,951,460
Sep-10	$1,284,960
Oct 10 - May 11	$12,437,081
	$19,040,637