Hong Kong
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Being a real estate developer/transit agency might be shady, but it sure is profitable:
The subway’s underlying net profit, which excludes any changes in valuation of real estate properties, rose to 8.57 billion Hong Kong dollars (1.1 billion U.S. dollars) for 2007. A large chunk of MTR’s profits comes from the developing and selling of real estate properties. MTR has built residential real estate surrounding train stations, selling 7 billion dollars worth of units last year. The construction of these flats, however, were accounted for in 2006 books, so the profits in 2008 are suspected to be less than the previous year. Ridership remains to be at a high for Hong Kong’s subway. About 948 million rides (an increase of 8 percent) were taken last year.
November Bound
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Mayor Nickels stopped by the Friends of Seattle post-prop-1 event tonight to spread the news that Sound Transit is planning to go to the ballot in 2008 with a new, smaller package. I say, Huzzah!
Mike @ CIS has a good wrap-up.
Forums!
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
So… I’ve never really publicized it, and you’d have to know about it to get it, but we have message boards — forums — on this site. I added a link on the top nav bar to make them more visible, and you can find them at:
http://www.orphanroad.com/forum
Let me know what you think… or… better yet… post a message on the boards!
Redmond Transit Center
Bryan (aka quux) added a bunch of great pictures of the Redmond transit center to the STB flickr pool, and pointed out the TOD that will be happening at the new transit center. There are two plans for the TOD, this one which includes building ontop of the park-and-ride center, and this one that doesn’t, with the park-and-ride intact. I am kind of surprised that the total number of parking stalls will remain just 386, which isn’t a tremendous number for an a park and ride so well served by ST express bus and Metro KC bus service.
I kind of wish they would put in more parking stalls. Is that odd? I just feel like only 386 spots might lead to people figuring the lot is full often enough to simply continue on driving to work… Maybe I am crazy, but I think in suburban areas, even with TOD, you still need park-and-rides in 2008. You can always develop them into something else later.
More Streetcars in Tacoma Demanded!
Andrew Becherer weighs in on this Tacoma Urbanist post about how Tacoma neighborhoods are demanding streetcars as part of ST2. The Tacoma neighborhoods are demanding that any Sound Transit proposal in the future must contain funding for a streetcar system in Tacoma connecting its neighborhood mixed use centers”.
Strong language. We’ve been following the Tacoma Streetcar issue for a while now, and I personally love the idea. My question is this: is that streetcar part of a regional transit network? If it is, then it could be part of a Sound Transit package. The Tacoma Link car in place certainly does, as it connects Sounder, Sound Transit express bus, and Pierce Transit buses to downtown Tacoma. The First Hill Streetcar would provide a similar service for the employment centers on First Hill and Capitol Hill (the third largest in the State after Downtown Seattle and downtown Bellevue). Would a major network in Tacoma do that, or would it simply connect the neighborhoods in downtown? That’s the question that would need to be answered before it could be considered by Sound Transit.
Transit Study at UW
This appeared in my Inbox, and may be of interest to people looking to make a few bucks for science.
[We] are conducting a study called “UbiGreen,” which is exploring how mobile technology can be used to create self-awareness about transportation patterns and their affect on the environment. We are actively recruiting participants in the Seattle area to participate in a pilot study of this technology. If you are interested in participating, please email ubigreen@gmail.com or reply to this email.
See Study Details below for more information.Please feel free to forward this email to family members or friends who you think might be interested.
— Study Details —
Participants are wanted for a two week study of a custom mobile phone application, which attempts to help reduce auto use by encouraging other transportation options. Participants receive a free data plan during the study and $100 for their time. This study is being conducted by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington.
The study involves a 1.5 hour kick-off meeting in which we will talk with you about the system, set up your technology (a mobile phone and a small sensor device worn around the waist), and ask you to complete a questionnaire. To participate, you must be willing to wear a small sensor box about the size of a pager around your waist for the duration of the study. At the end of the study, there will be another 1.5 hour meeting in which we will talk to you about the study, ask you to complete a final questionnaire, and tell us your impressions of our mobile phone application. The study will last between two-to-four weeks.
Participants of all genders, ethnicities, and abilities are encouraged to partake; however, you must be 18 years of age or older and fluent in English. You must also have a cell phone from Cingular, AT&T or T-Mobile. Pay-as-you-go plans are not acceptable. We will pay for an unlimited data plan during the study. Participants must be willing to use a cell phone that we provide for the full period of the study. We will move your SIM card to the new phone at the start of the study and move it back at the end.
Please email us at ubigreen@gmail.com if you are interested. Please note that we cannot guarantee the confidentiality of your email.
Translink and Real Estate, Take 2
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
A couple of months back daijimin at STB and I went back and forth
over Vancouver’s proposal to become a real-estate developer. At the time I argued that it was illegal because TIF is barred in our state constitution. Daijimin said, in response, that “if it’s illegal, we might as well go ahead with the even shadier plan of buying the land with eminent domain, building light rail then selling it after the prices go up. That way you capture all of the gains.”
Well, now that more details of the plan have emerged, I think daijimin may have been on to something: Translink has, it seems, gone with the “shadier” approach.
The nickel version of the idea is this: Translink needs funding to build new rail lines, and they know that the property around the stations is going to be in demand, so why not go the extra step and develop the property yourself and use that money to finance the project? It’s certainly more attractive than more property or sales taxes.
There are a couple of problems…
The first is eminent domain. Giving a property developer that kind of power sounds like a recipe for a massive conflict of interest. Already Translink is saying that the only way to reall make it work is to buy the property on the sly:
To build three rapid transit lines in a decade, TransLink will need to secure high-density zoning from municipalities to feed ridership and create opportunities to profit from the real estate appreciation, Jacobsen explained.
To acquire the land cheaply and beat out developers and speculators, TransLink will have early discussions about alignments and station locations and then quickly and quietly buy the land where stations are to be built.
Shady! Especially if, as a government agency they have access to the records about property transactions that private developers don’t have.
The second issue is that property development is itself a risky business. I know that Vancouver (and Cascadia generally) is supposed to be The Land Of Eternally Rising Property Value, but reality doesn’t work that way. Developers go belly-up all the time. Do we really want the trains to stop running if the real-estate market tanks?
Now, Vancouver’s planners are hella smart and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve thought of these things. Or maybe it’s just different in Canada and the idea of giving a government agency that much power doesn’t make anyone sweat. After all, they’ve already done it in Hong Kong, apparently.
But if we’re looking for a potential solution for our own fair city, it seems like a LID is a safer, more reliable revenue stream, but one that effectively accomplishes the same thing. Of course, a LID requires all the property owners to approve. Even in South Lake Union, where the vast majority of the property is held by a single owner who was in favor of the tax, there was significant opposition from some property owners.
In short: there are no free lunches!
A Rehash: What Was Wrong With The Monorail
A week ago, while talking about the viaduct, a friend said to me “If only we had just built the monorail…”
A few days later, when he regained consciousness and they took him out of the ICU (joking! joking!), I had calmed down. I gave him a list of why the monorail would never have worked, was a bad idea in the first place, and would probably have ended up half-built and bankrupt:
First, putting your technology choice in your law is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of. Your law should always say something like “high capacity transit” or “fixed guideway transit” – something flexible – that way you don’t get backed into a corner. There were very few initial bids for the monorail – and only one that held up for long. This is not a standardized transportation system – there are many competing technologies for both trains and guideways. They’re generally proprietary – only one vendor will sell you the trains to go on your tracks. That means single bids, which kind of defeats the purpose of competitive bidding, don’t you think?
Second, don’t claim your fantastical technology will “pay for itself”. Seriously, that was how this all started – “it will be profitable”, we were told, “companies will be falling all over themselves to get the contract”. Yeah, and my buddies in Baghdad don’t know where to put all the floral arrangements. The original monorail group started out with that claim, then moved to $18-36 million a mile with operating costs recovered through fares (still no chance in hell), then more like $50-100 million a mile… eventually it became clear that it was, actually, a transit system, and that transit systems do, indeed, cost money. Too late: making all those crazy claims killed their credibility.
Third, and maybe even most importantly: This was supposed to be grassroots, bringing people together. Instead, it became an anti-light-rail festival of lies, alienating the support of transit users and people with brains everywhere. “Light rail can’t climb a grade”, they said, when the stretch we’ve built along SR-518 is as steep as their Hitachi monorail could do. “Light rail isn’t elevated”, they said… I hope everyone on this blog realizes the humor in that statement. “Light rail is so expensive”, they said (and I’m leaving out their capital letters and exclamation points) – but it turns out that the differences in cost between light rail and monorail are negligible. They poked fun at their base supporters, and it cost them.
Fourth, to cut costs, they planned to use single tracking and switches over the West Seattle Bridge (and they eventually cut Ballard from their plan entirely). Switches, for monorail, are huge, cumbersome devices that take many times longer than standard rail switches to actually switch over. The maximum frequency of trains over the bridge would have been choked off by switch actions between every set of trains. Even after making that decision, the monorail agency still advertised three minute headways – when they would have been physically impossible.
The rose-colored glasses the monorail agency looked through at every issue bit them time and again. They claimed that their real estate costs would be low because they “only had to pay for posts in the ground”, that their columns would be “thinner than light rail” (they weren’t), and that they would offer a “quieter, smoother ride” – they wouldn’t have. I’m not even discussing the financing plan – it was astounding. Along every step of the way, the agency lied, taking advantage of Sound Transit’s bad position at the time to hit as hard as they could at light rail, rather than collaborating. Oh, yeah, and they spent more on advertising alone than they were bringing in. …And their projections for car ownership (their funding source was an MVET) were far too high.
I’m glad they’re gone. There was no opportunity for mass transit there – they failed so many times in so many arenas that I hope that’s clear. All they did was confuse the public and spend our money. Yeah, I know, Ballard and West Seattle residents feel cheated – but it’s like Publishers’ Clearinghouse – you weren’t actually going to win a million dollars. We don’t have the tax base in Seattle alone, especially not just with an MVET, to build mass transit in that corridor.
We will. Once light rail is built northward to the county line, those will be the next logical places for Sound Transit to build using North King money.
County Transfers Monorail Cash to Transit Improvements
King County will take the last $426,000 from the Monorail project and transfer it to transit improvements West Seattle and Ballard. The monorail project overall cost the taxpayers $125 million.