February 17, 2009 at 7:39 am
by Andrew Smith
 Photo by sparktography I had a long conversation with Rick Olson of the Puget Sound Regional Council. He was not able to tell me which projects were shortlisted, but did shed some light on some of the workings for the transportation aspects of the stimulus bill. Some people have remarked to me that we’re in a good position for getting competitive stimulus grants because of a lack of investment in transportation infrastructure, and Mr Olson ensured me this was not the case. Rather, it’s the combination of a long-term lack of investment and the relatively recent passage of laws like Proposition 1, the Nickel tax and the 9.5 cent tax that has meant we have the a backlog of projects, but enough designs and engineering estimates done that we could actually spend the money.
When the US House passed an smaller infrastructure stimulus package back in November, local agencies started getting their projects in order and prioritized. The stimulus debate dragged on through the lame-duck session, and is only now finally passed, so even the PSRC has had a lot of time to review the projects. Once the bill is signed into law today, the PSRC will likely be able to announce the selected projects within a month, and the Washington State Department of Transportation should have a similar time frame. Generally about half the money needs to be oblidged within 90~180 days (depending on which bucket the cash comes from), and before that can happen, environmental impact statements and early designs need to be completed.
Below the fold I break down the specific funding categories, which ones the PSRC is going to distribute, and which will be distributed by the US DOT in all the wonky details.
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February 17, 2009 at 7:28 am
by MIKE SKEHAN
Congress, in a bold stroke of progressive thinking, has quadrupled the investment in High Speed Rail (HSR) to 8 Billion. The funds will be doled out by the FTA on a competitive basis, and with just 12 HSR corridors in the nation to date, our own Cascade Rail Corridor, using existing Talgo tilt trains is in line for a huge chunk – Maybe?
1/12th of 8 Bil. Is 666 Mil. – but I’m not naive enough to think we’ll out compete California and other large states for a full share. As I have advocated here before our state is in a very competitive position to capture the needed funding to accelerate progress towards making the dream a reality.
We have many of the pieces in place. You can learn more about the latest plan from the WSDOT here.
Many of these projects, such as the Ft Deviance Bypass and Vancouver, WA rail yard bypass are or will be shovel ready. This makes sense on so many levels: Consider a trip from Seattle to Portland via car, plane or HSR.
• Car Travel: 144 miles @ 60 mph takes 2.4 hours, costing $70 (IRS 50.5 cents/mi)
• Plane Travel: About 3.3 hours, costing $70. (LRT to/from airports, 1 hour security and boarding, and a 50 minute flight)
• HSR Travel will take under 3 hours, and cost about $30. For the business traveler who can use the time on the train as billable hours, it’s a no brainer.
Greenhouse emissions are much lower for trains than planes and all but a few cars. Fuel efficiency is a hands down winner for rail!
Using and “Incremental Approach” to funding our HSR line adds train sets, more frequent trips, and increases train speeds to 110 mph along sections of the line. On-time performance is increased from 60% to 97% Ridership will nearly double over 10 years, and the entire corridor, when fully built, could be operated at a profit.
I’m referring to our adopted state plan for Option 3, costing $537 Mil. The report concludes that thousands of jobs will be created, and benefit cities all along I-5 in the billions.
With the Feds now aiming to pressure freight railroads to reduce or eliminate slow orders and improve on-time performance to 80% or greater, now is the time to look towards the future.
Again, the support STB has given to rail transport is appreciated. I hope you can find the time to encourage our elected leaders to grab this low lying fruit. Thanks.
February 16, 2009 at 8:50 pm
by Martin H. Duke
There have been a couple of comments recently about HB 1490 that basically plead for us not to call people NIMBYs, arguing that people have legitimate concerns, etc, etc.
First of all, we reject the premise that density and walkability make a neighborhood worse. At the same time, people have a different aesthetic sense of this and there’s no moral content in that judgment. But even if you accept the argument that density is an unfortunate requirement of our environmental situation, that doesn’t free people of the NIMBY charge.
Typically, whatever project a NIMBY opposes actually will have negative impacts on the neighborhood. No one’s property values ever went up because a jail or sewage plant was built close to their home. So in a narrow sense they’re entirely justified in opposing the project.
The point of the NIMBY epithet is that from a regional perspective the projects are of critical importance, and have to go somewhere. No one argues that we can get by without having any prisons or sewage plants. The frustrating thing is that those protesting the project typically want the service – we ought to detain dangerous criminals, or treat sewage before it goes into the water supply. They just want someone else to pay the proximity costs of that service.
To bring this back to the TOD bill, in liberal Seattle, no one is going to come out and say that we shouldn’t have more dense neighborhoods somewhere. People can be “pro-environment” and “pro-density,” but the “character” of their neighborhood just so happens to be incompatible with environmentally sustainable, dense development. They perceive those lifestyles as having net costs and want someone else to bear them. Meanwhile there are a very finite number of rail stations where really dense development makes sense, so they are de facto arguing for a reduction in the number of densely constructed units in the region.
I don’t think anyone believes the bill is perfect, and there are people working with Futurewise and TCC to fix the problems that do exist. But there’s also a lot of solid opposition to the bill from people that think higher zoning is Stalinism, or that are “pro-density” but just don’t want it wherever they are. It reminds me of the “pro-transit” people who could never seem to bring themselves to support any transit measure that actually ever went to the ballot.
February 16, 2009 at 3:30 pm
by Andrew Smith
I’m trying to wrap my head around the final stimulus bill, and I’ll have a post with some numbers and details, but it’s interesting to look at the final copy and notice the hand written changes made in the bill. Here’s a link to the transportation section. Whole pieces were removed, sections were added, all appearantly at the last minute. Every change in the bill was obviously made for a reason, and I suppose if you watched C-Span really closely you could determine why. Granted, I’ve never followed a single piece of legistlation so much before, but I had no idea this is how Congress did business.
February 16, 2009 at 1:07 am
by Andrew Smith
 Photo by joiseyshowaa Now that the Stimulus Bill has finally passed, we move next to spending the money. In the Central Puget Sound, area the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) is going to have a huge role in deciding how the transportation money gets spent; they’ll choose how to spend most of the $200 million or so for transit our state will get, and another $50 million or so in roads money. If you’re wondering what the PSRC is, and how they got that power, read on.
First a history lesson. In the early 20th century, interurban railways and later the automobile enabled American cities to grow past their political boundaries and bleed into each other. Sprawl became a major issue in transportation planning and some metropolitan areas struggled to coordinate that planning across the political boundaries. In 1962, Congress required any urban area with more than 50,000 people to have a “Metropolitan Planning Organization“, to plan transportation and to allocate federal funding for local transportation projects. You can read more about the history of MPOs here.
In our area, the PSRC has evolved from the “Puget Sound Regional Planning Conference” which was created by King, Pierce, Kitsap and Snohomish counties in 1956. The PSRC predecessor released regional transportation studies every decade, and worked on coordinating land-use and growth patterns. It took on the duties of being our area’s MPO in 1973, and in 1991, the PSRC was empowered by the state to enforce the Growth Management Act. That same year, the Federal Government passed the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, which gave MPOs more power over decision making and better funding.
In terms of organization, the PSRC looks a lot like other transgovernmental agencies like Sound Transit or the now-defunct RTID. The PSRC has a 32-member executive board consisting of elected officials from local governments in the four counties, plus a staff of about 70 planners and administrators. Their funding comes from member fees of the communities in the area, a small amount of state support, and large federal contribution. Each year, the PSRC distributes $160 million in federal dollars for transportation projects in our area, you can see the list of projects funded by the PSRC here. Here’s a link to their TOD studies, here’s one to their transportation study, and here’s one for population and employment trends.
Now with the added stimulus cash, the PSRC is going to get a little more than a typical year’s worth of funding to distribute, with some tougher requirements than normal. In addition to the PSRC’s normal project funding requirements, the stimulus cash needs to be pushed toward projects that create a lot of jobs, and half of the funding needs to be spent within 180 days. Here’s the list of all projects (PDF) the PSRC is considering for stimulus cash. The list is $3.815 billion worth of projects, and there’s going to be something like $180 million in cash all told for roads, transit and ferries. Here’s the list pared down to just transit, there’s $1 billion worth of projects, and likely just $120 million or so in cash. So only a fraction of the projects will get any funding, and the big ticket items like North Link acceleration or the Central Streetcar are unlikely to get anything.
The rest of the $500 million or so in roads money is going to be decided by WSDOT, and here’s their list if you want to get depressed. WSDOT recently pushed the work of fully building the two-way HOV lanes on I-90 out to 2017-2019. The two-way HOV project is a prerequisite for building across I-90, and if the project is pushed off that far, East Link will either open late, or will not connect to Seattle when it first opens. An Eastside-only light rail line would have less than half the ridership of a rail line connected to Seattle, and the lower ridership would hurt any federal funding request for the project. WSDOT has asked for just $9 million for the HOV lane project, and is expecting Sound Transit’s stimulus request to cover the rest. I-90 two-way HOV lanes also increased the overall car-carrying capacity of I-90, and it’s shameful that WSDOT expects transit dollars to pay for most of the whole project.
I’ll post again as soon as I know anything about which projects have been short listed. I hope this post helps you understand a bit better how the stimulus projects are going to be award.
February 15, 2009 at 2:41 pm
by Martin H. Duke
Via the Transport Politic, the New York Times reports (scroll all the way down to “$192 million”) that the maximum employer tax deduction for transit benefits is being increased from $120 to $230 a month, which happens to be the current level of benefit for employers when providing parking.
Locally, you have to buy a $3.50 PugetPass to come up with $120 in expenses, so it should only really matter for some Sounder commuters. Still, it’s a nice and inexpensive encouragement for employer incentive programs. It also serves as a reminder of just one more hidden subsidy for drivers who are tired of having to subsidize other peoples’ transportation.
This was the key provision of Rep. Earl Blumenauer’s HR 6495 last year, and it’s good to see it slip into the stimulus.
February 14, 2009 at 6:07 pm
by Martin H. Duke
 Seattle Times Andrew recently had a thoughtful post on how HB 1490, the Transit Oriented Communities bill, could backfire by making neighborhoods less inclined to accept transit service. There’s less reason to fear that now, as the latest version of the bill,which hit the street Friday night, significantly waters down some density requirements, while still being a step in the right direction. (The Senate version of the bill is SB 5687.)
The new draft requires 50 units/acre only in areas previously defined by the Puget Sound Regional Council as “growth centers.” These centers are: Auburn, DT Bellevue, Overlake, Everett, Federal Way, Kent, Lakewood, Lynnwood, Puyallup, Redmond, Seatac, Capitol Hill, DT Seattle, Northgate, the University District, DT Tacoma, and Tukwila. For the most part, these areas are already zoned for dense development, so the impact in terms of raw density should be minimal.
For other stations not so blessed by the PSRC, cities “must adopt comprehensive plan provisions and development regulations that can achieve a similar level of walking, biking, and transit ridership, and a similar number of affordable housing units” as is required of the growth centers [Sec 8, subsection (7)]. It remains to be seen how this very vague language, bereft of any required number of units, evolves further in the legislative process.
There are still lots of other sensible provisions in the bill about waiving minimum parking requirements [Sec 8(1)(h)]. The walkability requirements are important, and the newest draft makes sure that developers aren’t discouraged from building mixed use developments. This is still a good bill.
This blog doesn’t have any official position on affordable housing legislation, but there are very aggressive provisions for it that will make a real difference in some of the more affluent station neighborhoods. In fact, it’s surprising to me that many affordable housing advocates who I personally know to be in favor of this bill haven’t been more effective in countering the attacks of the Displacement Coalition’s John Fox.
Of course, the fact that the bill no longer requires a place like South Bellevue to upzone doesn’t mean that the hysteria and misinformation surrounding this bill will go away, so we’ll see if it has any impact on the East Link Segment B alignment. Affordable housing can certainly be unpopular, but opposition to it requires a lot more euphemisms.
There are a bunch of other common-sense changes, such as taking into account topography in the 1/2 mile radius. I won’t detail them all here but those interested in the urban planning minutiae should read the new draft and post their observations in the comments.
February 13, 2009 at 2:02 pm
by Andrew Smith
 Hong Kong, photo by Mike McD I generally support HB 1490, the TOD bill that TCC and Futurewise support and is now working its way through the State House. The bill, which we’ve discussed here, here, here, here and here, among other things, requires zoning that would allow densities of 50 units per acre in a half-mile radius around “high capacity transit” stations. 50 units per acre is not exceptionally dense, about three stories of apartments, but even that much density can change the character of neighborhoods. Certainly we need more walkable communities and more housing around stations means more riders for transit, which means we get a better value out of our investment. But is this the best way to get it?
While I want those neighborhoods to change (that’s the point), the people living in those neighborhoods may not, and that’s where I get concerned. Won’t the increased density requirements make NIMBYs, who likely already don’t support train stations in their neighborhood, even more opposed? Won’t it make building light rail stations we’ve approved more difficult? Won’t it also give the NIMBYs more ammunition to fight against future rail expansions? They will easily be able to say “a vote for more light rail/commuter rail/etc is a vote for the destruction of your neighborhood!” This may not be a concern now, since we aren’t going to be voting on more light rail any time soon, but I’d hate if the reason that a future transit expansion vote was rejected was because residents in that area fought against it. I fully expect land around light rail stations to densify eventually, simply because the demand for denser communities has been rising steadily over the past decades. But does a one-size fits all system really make sense right now? South Bellevue is a very different place than Northgate or even the Rainier Valley. Would HB 1490 be a success if it pushed the station to the 405 alignment?
I still support the bill generally, but the potential answers to questions worry me, and just saying, “tough, NIMBYs are going to have to deal” is not a good answer. The last time Seattle told NIMBYs to keep quiet, they passed the CAP initiative and many other anti-development bills that increased sprawl dramatically. I know we need to do something about TOD, but I think we need to make sure we do it right.
February 13, 2009 at 12:09 pm
by Martin H. Duke
 msg150.com As announced previously, the first STB meetup for several months will occur Wednesday, February 25 at 6 pm. It will be in a private room at the Ocean City Restaurant in Seattle’s International District, at 609 S Weller St.
Why the private room? We’re planning to have senior representatives from Sound Transit, King County, and the City of Seattle there, and hope to have some combination of short remarks and Q&A with them. The plan is to have “cocktail hour” begin at 6pm and have the program begin at 7.
The down side of the private room is that we need to guarantee numbers to the restaurant. As a result, we’re charging $5 per head and requiring pre-registration, the proceeds from which will all be spent on appetizers for the group. We’ll get a mix of vegetarian and non-veg stuff. The objective is to make sure people show up, not to make a profit.
If you’re planning to come, please send us an email at seattletransitblog@gmail.com (Subject: Meet-up). You may click the paypal button below; if you don’t want to use paypal, ask for a snail mail address in the email in order to send us a check. The deadline for registration is Saturday, February 21, 10 pm.
Speculation and questions about who the guests are will be ignored by people in the know, partly because we might have to make some last-minute substitutions.
See you there.
February 13, 2009 at 10:00 am
by John Jensen
Just a quick reminder that Metro will be operating with reduced service on Monday in honor of Presidents Day.
- Routes operating on a normal schedule: 2, 5, 5EX, 8, 11, 15, 15EX, 16, 17, 18, 18 EX, 21, 21 EX, 22, 23, 25, 27, 30, 35, 38, 51, 54, 54EX, 55, 56, 56EX, 57, 66, 71, 71EX, 72, 72EX, 73, 73EX, 74EX, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 99, 105, 106, 113, 118, 119, 121, 122, 125, 128, 131, 132, 154, 155, 173, 180, 200, 204, 209, 213, 221, 222/233, 225, 229, 234, 236, 238, 240, 245, 248, 253, 280, 301, 306, 345, 347, 348, 522, 540, 545, 550, 554, 555, 556, 560, 564, 565, 577, 688, 901, 903, 908, 909, 914, 916, 917, 918, 919, 926, 927, 941, 952.
- Routes operating on a reduced schedule, where trips marked with “H” in the timetables are not operating: 1, 3, 4, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17EX,19, 24, 26, 26EX, 28, 28EX, 31, 33, 36, 37, 39, 41, 42, 42EX, 43, 44, 48, 48EX, 49, 60, 64, 65, 67, 68, 70, 75, 101, 107, 110, 111, 116, 120, 123, 134, 139, 140, 143, 148, 149, 150, 153, 158, 159, 164, 166, 168, 169, 174, 177, 179, 181, 182, 183, 187, 190, 194, 202, 203, 211, 212, 214, 215, 216, 218, 230, 232, 242, 244, 249/921, 251, 252, 255, 257, 269, 271, 303, 312, 311, 330, 331, 342, 346, 358, 915, 929. Additionally, some trips on routes 31, 65, 67, 68, 75, 167, 197, 205, 272, 277 and 372 will not operate due to the University of Washington not being in session.
- Routes not operating: 2EX, 7EX, 9, 32, 34, 45, 46, 53, 76, 77, 79, 114, 126, 133, 152, 157, 161, 162, 167, 170, 175, 191, 192, 196, 197, 201, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210, 217, 219, 237, 243, 247, 250, 256, 260, 261, 265, 266, 268, 272, 277, 291, 304, 308, 316, 355, 372, 373, 600, 661, 885, 886, 888, 889, 890, 891, 892, 912, 925, 935, 981, 982, 984, 986, 987, 988, 989, 994, 995.
Sounder will be operating on a holiday schedule but the rest of Sound Transit’s service is unaffected.
February 12, 2009 at 9:46 pm
by Andrew Smith
 3rd and Pike from Robin Kiley
February 12, 2009 at 7:47 pm
by Andrew Smith
 Tyson's Corner by glass window I find reading and thinking about the future of suburbs endlessly fascinating, particularly when it involves suburbs turning into medium or high-density urban environments. This interview with Christopher Leinberger brings up two of my three favorite talking points on the subject: how suburbs can transform themselves and what is happening in Tyson’s Corner (the third is Downtown Bellevue, which I think most people get way wrong).
A couple of quotes below the fold, though I recommend reading the whole thing.
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February 12, 2009 at 4:00 pm
by John Jensen
Over the last few weeks both Metro and ST have released early ridership numbers that, of course, break all records:
- “Estimates show 118 million trips were taken on Metro buses in 2008 – a seven percent increase over 2007,” Metro Press Release.
- “Last year we carried 16.1 million passengers in our Sound Transit trains and buses, which is up 17 percent, or more than 2 million riders from a year earlier,” Sound Transit’s CEO Report.
My route (#8) has definitely been less crowded since this past Summer’s crunch loads that came with high gas prices (or maybe just good weather). It’s worth noting that service is not growing with the ridership, unfortunately, and Metro may be forced to cut service without additional revenue.
Comments Off
February 12, 2009 at 1:22 pm
by Andrew Smith
Martin noted the cost and ridership numbers Sound Transit and the PSRC came up in a study of commuter rail on the Eastside BNSF lines. Comparing these numbers to previous estimates by pro-Eastside BNSF groups and to the costs of the services Sound Transit is operating or planning to, it becomes apparent that passenger rail service on that line is never going to materialize.
The State legislature mandated Sound Transit and the PSRC study the corridor after Cascadia Center of the Discovery Institute – a pro-Eastside BNSF Rail, anti-light rail group – studied the corridor and said they would be able to build commuter rail on the line with $278 million in capitol costs and a $15.4 million operations with a 5,000 rider projection, which is the same “baseline” estimate Sound Transit had in their study. Other groups came up with similar estimates, for example HDR Engineering said it would take $225~$250 million in capital costs. At these prices building the line seemed very cheap, the operation costs were just a bit more than those of Sounder’s and the whole package seemed like a good deal.
Then comes the Sound Transit PSRC study, which says what I’ve been saying all along: this isn’t as cheap as it looks. At $1.1~$1.3 billion, it costs more than all capital expenditures for Sounder, and some of those aren’t even finished yet: the transit center at Tukwila Station, the D-to-M street bypass, among others, haven’t been completed. Even short of these rider-generating improvements, Sounder has more riders for the cost than the BNSF rail line.
The operations costs of the line are staggering as well. At a cost $24 million per annum (the low estimate) and 6,000 riders per day (the highest estimate, the one that includes truncating bus service on 405), the service costs more than three times as much per rider as East Link will. East Link is supposed to get a little more than 45,000 riders per day, operate 20 hours a day, and have an $80 million annual operating budget. The “average” case, ie, the baseline ridership estimate for the BNSF line (5015 riders per day) and the middle range of the operating costs ($27 million), has a per rider cost that is higher than that of Sounder North, which has been widely criticized for its extreme costs. Put another way, the Eastside BNSF is $16 a trip at the cheapest, and $22 in the average case, and over $30 per trip in the worst case.
Even if there was serious interest there is no money. Sound Transit has put aside less than 5% of the capital costs. It would be amazing if a generous benefactor or a group of investors gave $1 billion for the line, but that won’t happen. A private investor might have been willing to put in $200 million if the operating costs were $15.4 million a year and there was a subsidy, but no investor would put $1 billion to build a train line that will cost at least $16 a trip to operate.
In summary, the BNSF was supposed to be a good deal: it was supposed to cost a lot less to build than Light Rail and get a good number of riders. Proponents said through a public-private partnership, it would take very little public money to build rail there, and that in comparison East Link was a bad investment. The were clearly wrong, BNSF Eastside Rail costs far too much to build, and still to much to operate. There’s no hope of a public-private partnership here, and thus there’s no hope of a rail line.
February 12, 2009 at 4:30 am
by Martin H. Duke
 Sound Transit/PSRC To comply with a legislative directive, Sound Transit and the Puget Sound Regional Council conducted a preliminary feasibility study of Eastside Commuter Rail, the results of which were published last month. There’s a summary here (pdf), and you can wade into the gory detail here.
For those of you not paying attention, through a bit of financial kabuki the Port of Seattle worked a deal to purchase the BNSF rail line highlighted at left for use as a trail and (possibly) a commuter rail corridor.
The Sound Transit 2 package budgeted a $50 million contribution to the capital costs of a line if a private operator agreed to assume the other costs. If no such partnership materialized, the $50 million would be redirected towards buses in the I-405 corridor.
The report predicts (and these numbers are very preliminary) that ridership could be as high as 6,000 per day, with capital costs of $1-1.3 billion, and annual operating costs of $24-32 million. Those numbers are based on running 33 trains per day in each direction on weekdays. This volume is possible because, unlike our current Sounder trips, passenger trains here wouldn’t play second fiddle to BNSF freight. By comparison, the currently planned Sounder trips, when complete, will have cost less than $1 billion in capital and about $30 million a year to run.
If a partner can be found to take ST’s $50 million and cover the other billion, this project could be an absolute steal for the region. If you look at ST’s most recent ridership report, South Sounder averaged 9,296 boardings per weekday and North Sounder a mere 1,132. It’s true that they have far fewer than 33 round trips per day, but they cover the highest-ridership periods, and the scheduling issues with BNSF can’t merely be wished away. $50 million to increase Sounder ridership by 50-60% would absolutely be worth it.
However, the requirement for a private investor is a hugely difficult one. Even with a ticket in the $10-20 range, it will take decades for an operator to merely recover the capital expenditure, to say nothing of debt service and operating costs.
Furthermore, although the cost estimate does include replacement of the entire track, the study did not evaluate all bridges along the route, some of which raise serious concerns. Inevitably, as mitigation costs to litigious neighbors start spiraling, we’ll see those costs rise.
Note also that the area under study does not extend through downtown Renton to connect with the existing Sounder line. Even if money were found to pay a larger public share, a significant segment of the line is outside the Sound Transit district and therefore would require funding from a non-Sound Transit source.
Since Eastside commuter rail has often been used as a stick to hit East Link, it’s also worthwhile to point out that East Link, while costing between $2.8 and $4.5 billion, is conservatively estimated to result in about 45,000 riders per day.
I haven’t yet reviewed anything but the summary, but feel free to post nuggets from the main report in the comments.
Brian Bundridge previously reported the $1 billion cost estimate here. The blog had a collective roundtable on the subject (without the benefit of a professional study) in two long posts.
February 11, 2009 at 11:31 pm
by John Jensen
If you use MyBus.org to track Metro buses you may have noticed some downtown or slowdowns recently. While waiting for MyBus to regain its footing, you can check out One Bus Away. OBA uses the same back-end technology, but supports tracking at every bus stop that Metro serves and is a bit easier to use than MyBus. It also supports iPhone, SMS, and even calling into a computer that talks to you.
February 11, 2009 at 3:30 pm
by Brian Bundridge
While this isn’t in our region, a passenger was caught riding on the outside of Caltrain today. The passenger was riding in between the cars. While this isn’t as crazy or suicidal as the guy who rode the TGV and ICE at 186mph…it still is amazing and puzzling that people would be insane enough to pull it off.
For me, whom has ridden on the side of a railcar (legally) I get nervous at 10-15mph. 70+ is an entirely different level. Photo by lazytom
February 11, 2009 at 3:15 pm
by Andrew Smith
 Photo by the Martin in the STB Flickr Pool The PI Police Blog has the scoop that a bus driver on the 42 route has been selling drugs on the bus for the last few weeks. The good news is that the 42 bus is being abolished when Light Rail opens, and the Link cars have cameras and locking doors between the drivers and the passengers, so no drugs will pass back and forth.
H/T to Gordon Werner.
February 11, 2009 at 2:59 pm
by Andrew Smith
The New York Times is reporting that the House and Senate are close to reaching a deal on a final version of the stimulus plan, even ahead of the Conference Committee. The Times reports that there is $789 billion in tax cuts and spending. It’s too early to say what exactly is in the bill, the Times says the ridiculous car-purchase tax breaks and home-purchase tax loans have been “sharply reduced”. I’d say this is an improvement as long as transportation isn’t cut, since much of what is in the bill will not stimulate the economy and isn’t really worth putting into law.
Not everyone’s happy:
Some critics also suggested that the final figure was too small to be effective because of the grave condition of the American economy.
“I am not happy with it,” said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa. “You are not looking at a happy camper. I mean, they took a lot of stuff out of education. They took it out of health, school construction and they put it more into tax issues.”
Mr. Harkin said he was particularly frustrated by the money being spent on fixing the alternative minimum tax. “It’s about 9 percent of the whole bill,” he said, “which we were going to do later this year in a tax bill. Why is it in there? It has nothing to do with stimulus. It has nothing to do with recovery. This makes no sense whatsoever.”
He’s right. The economy is in much more serious trouble than it looks on the surface, and it looks really damned scary on the surface. The problem is this stimulus has too little that will actually stimulate the economy, too much that won’t stimulate the economy, too much that takes too long, and too much that shouldn’t be done at all. But at least it has some of the things that we want done, somethings that will be quick, and won’t entirely be spend on bad projects. Hopefully it will help shore up the economy, but I don’t expect it to do all that much.
I pray the President and Congress will take a look at the “low-hanging fruit” in our passenger rail systems in upcoming bills.
February 10, 2009 at 11:01 pm
by Andrew Smith
 Photo by Transplanted Mountaineer Today in Flordia, President Obama said this about transportation:
It’s imagining new transportation systems. I’d like to see high speed rail where it can be constructed. I would like for us to invest in mass transit because potentially that’s energy efficient. And I think people are a lot more open now to thinking regionally…
The days where we’re just building sprawl forever, those days are over. I think that Republicans, Democrats, everybody… recognizes that’s not a smart way to design communities. So we should be using this money to help spur this sort of innovative thinking when it comes to transportation.
That will make a big difference.
Good stuff! Except, the last time I loved something Obama said, it was “[W]e will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s”. Now the stimulus doesn’t contain all that much transit as a portion of the overall bill, about 1%, but transit could see money more in future budgets.
Via Transport for America.
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