With the sudden end to Colorado Railcar Manufacturing LLC, announced on December 23rd, 2008, left a huge hole in a unique market; The end of the only Ultra Dome passenger cars and the end of the only known FRA-Compliant Diesel-Multiple-Unit.
The rest after the jump
Continue reading “Colorado Railcar Gone: What is next?”
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Sounds like it was a big success:
If you walked around downtown Phoenix on Saturday, you saw something unusual: people. Thanks to light rail, bars and restaurants that are nearly empty on many weekends were buzzing with people.
(via)
I hope to have some more reports soon from friends who rode it this week. The catch, of course, is re-orienting downtown Phoenix’s development to make it more attractive as a form of commuter transit, not just a recreational or tourist people-mover.
Not much going on today!
I would like to know what the hell is still wrong with the Streetcar.
UPDATE: We have numerous reports in the comments that the Streetcar is running, but on Saturday morning the Metro website still reports it as down. In a way that’s almost worse.
UPDATE 2: As of 1 PM the Streetcar is no longer reported as out of service.
Bloomberg is reporting the sample of state stimulus plans publicly released are roads-heavy. While that’s bad news, it shouldn’t be surprising at all:
Missouri’s plan to spend $750 million in federal money on highways and nothing on mass transit in St. Louis doesn’t square with President-elect Barack Obama’s vision for a revolutionary re-engineering of the nation’s infrastructure.
Utah would pour 87 percent of the funds it may receive in a new economic stimulus bill into new road capacity. Arizona would spend $869 million of its $1.2 billion wish list on highways.
As Matt Yglesias has pointed out, this is not shocking because most state constitutions are structured to limit the power of the major metropolitan areas. Just imagine what would happen if the stimulus check were simply handed over to Olympia!
This bears watching, but I’d say it’d be most productive to make sure that our Congressmen and Senators know that we want a lot of the money delivered straight to the city and county level. As our very own mayor is quoted in this Washington Post article:
In Seattle, Mayor Greg Nickels said that the list of projects submitted by Washington state included only one in Seattle, for a ferry dock, while the city has ambitious hopes for removing a hulking highway ramp in a revitalized neighborhood and accelerating a light-rail expansion.
“Metro areas really are the engines of the economy, and to the extent that this can go directly to the metro areas rather than a cumbersome state process, it will have more effect,” Nickels said. “States can do a nice job in rural counties, but in metro areas it’s not always a good relationship or very nimble.”
As it stands, Congress, wanting to keep things simple, plans to disburse the money under existing formulas — funding for roads and bridges will go to state governments, while money for public transit will go to the local agencies that receive transit funding.
Image from Wikimedia.
Via Oran, KOMO has posted some video of a 1987 news segment that, in turn, shows some transportation-related video from the 1920s through 1960s.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
If you’re able-bodied and getting stir-crazy at home, consider doing what the city won’t and shovel a patch of road, a bus turnout, or other useful piece of infrastructure. I was able to do about 12-lane feet in an hour with a mediocre shovel, so in a sufficiently dense neighborhood, some collective action could actually make an appreciable difference in a particularly difficult spot, such as a steep hill.
Something like this is more productive than yet another round of Grand Theft Auto, and helps dispel our rep as a bunch of liberals waiting around for big government to help us.
15th and Aloha, 1903. I grew up four blocks from here, 80 years later.
Check out this amazing flickr set from the “Seattle Municipal Archives“. At least we’re getting a Pine Street Subway, only 90 years later:
Merry Christmas.
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
I’ve been out of town with family since Friday, so I’ve missed the snow insanity enveloping the Pacific Northwest. But I have to say, I’m in agreement with Geov @ Horse’s Ass. From my perspective, the response to the snowstorm is an embarrassment to the city and an indictment of our leaders.
Providing emergency response services is priority one. Getting the transit system up and running should be priority two.
Greg Nickels is the Ray Nagin of the North. Ron Sims is our Kathleen Blanco. Let’s get it together, folks.
For those of you tired of talking about the snow, Dan Voelpel of the Tacoma News-Tribune wrote a thoughtful column lamenting the way in which local leadership is allowing the Streetcar expansion to spend several years in planning stages:
Meanwhile, here in Tacoma, the movement to install an expanded streetcar network inexplicably hasn’t generated the sense of urgency nor the momentum among our leaders to put it on a fast track to reality.
Even though it already won the seed money: $79.55 million for building the track and $3.7 million more to buy the streetcars…
Not only that. Sound Transit front-loaded the proposition in Tacoma’s favor. The 15-year transit expansion package gives early dibs on the available money pool beginning next year to Tacoma. That concession came because Sound Transit already has done some preliminary planning to extend the 1.7-mile downtown Link in both directions – past Freighthouse Square to the Puyallup Tribe’s Emerald Queen Casino and north through the Stadium District to Tacoma General Hospital…
Realistically then, on that snail’s pace, Tacoma probably wouldn’t see construction start on a streetcar network until late 2012.
“I don’t understand it,” said Morgan Alexander, founder and executive director of Tacoma Streetcar, a grass-roots organization devoted to building public support for connecting Tacoma’s business districts with streetcars.
“I think (the planning) could be done affordably and quickly, so we could get a shovel in the ground by the end of 2009,” he said.
Voelpel goes on to list the decisions that have to be made before they start moving earth, and proposes a set of choices that would get things moving.
He’s right, of course, that an extended planning phase is asking for trouble. These things always take longer than planned because someone, somewhere, will file a lawsuit.
Furthermore, it’s nice to see a columnist in a local daily newspaper whose transportation opinions aren’t transparently motivated by their status as an SOV driver on Mercer Island.
Tacoma readers: what do you think of Voelpel’s solution?
(H/T: Gordon Werner)
Image by Oran in the STB Flickr Pool.
My cars aren’t going anywhere.
With Snowpacolypse possibly continuing until after Christmas, getting around by car is still looking like trouble. I made the mistake of driving on Saturday, and even my new Subaru couldn’t really handly the snow. I hit an ice patch, ran the car into the curb, and messed up the alignment. My bus route to work has been cancelled, so I’ve been working from home, but I’ve still needed to get food, diapers and water for me and my family. This Seattle Times article suggests I’m not alone in visiting neighborhood shops.
Good thing I live in a walkable neighborhood. My address gets a perfect 100 from Walkscore, and that has made such a difference over the course of Snowpacolypse. I’ve got four supermarkets, four drugs stores and dozens of take-away restaurants to get everything I need. I have even been able to get my Christmas shopping done on the Ave.
Anyone else been snowbound at home with no transport to work? Glad to live in a walkable neighborhood? Wish you did? Think I’m a wimp for not driving a four-wheel drive car? Let me know in the comments.