The Atlantic Cities: 

“The Sorry State of the New York-New Jersey Public Transit Connection

Eric Jaffe. April 10, 2012

A few days ago, New York City released a report showing the feasibility of a plan to extend the subway system across the Hudson River and into New Jersey [PDF]. The proposal — which would connect a new 7 train station in Manhattan with a rail terminal in Secaucus — would carry 128,000 riders a day. Mayor Bloomberg called the plan a “promising potential solution” to a “serious and urgent” problem.

No sooner did that call go out than the MTA, the city’s subway authority, put a serious damper on this solution’s potential, saying the project was not “an economically viable idea.”

So it’s been with New York-New Jersey transit plans in recent years. The importance of such a project to the New York metro area is painfully clear. Though the transit corridor is operating near capacity, estimates suggest travel demand between the two states will increase 38 percent by 2030. Meanwhile the two single-track tunnels currently running under the Hudson into Penn Station are a hundred years old.”

Image: G.A.O. 

The Atlantic Cities: 

“15 Ideas for Making Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor Better.

Eric Jaffe. April 4, 2013

Early last year, the Federal Railroad Administration launched NEC FUTURES — an effort to plan out the passenger rail investments needed in the Northeast Corridor through 2040. This week it released a short list of ideas [PDF] for improving the region. FRA is calling these 15 ideas “Preliminary Alternatives,” whittled down from a larger basket of about a hundred. The next step is an even smaller set of “Reasonable Alternatives,” and by early 2015 the administration is expect to arrive at what it may well call a “Single Alternative,” but what the rest of us will probably just call a decision.

NEC FUTURES is the latest attempt to prepare for growth in the country’s most important rail corridor, following the $151 billion “vision” [PDF] for the Northeast that Amtrak released last summer. The FRA has (rather wisely) chosen not to subject itself to the political ridicule that surrounded Amtrak’s price tag, but as a result it’s a bit tough to evaluate the options set forth by the administration. Generally speaking, they range from limited capacity upgrades to an enhanced high-speed service — as well as a “no build” option that more or less maintains the status quo.

The impetus for all these plans, of course, is that rail travel in the Northeast Corridor is both thriving and seemingly set to thrive even more. Amtrak ridership in the region is steadily growing, with trains now carrying a greater share of passengers than planes in the corridor, and yet there’s plenty of room for improvement. NEC FUTURES makes the case that the Northeast is also deserving of great investment given its economic importance to the country — generating a fifth of the nation’s G.D.P., according to an FRA chart.”

Photo: Reuters

Euro Cities: 

“Residents enjoy free public transport in Tallinn

Feb 18, 2013

On 1 January 2013, Tallinn became the largest European city and the first European capital to provide free public transport to its residents. The initial results of the move are encouraging: the use of public transport in Tallinn has already increased by 10% while traffic in city centre has reduced by 15%.

Many major cities are seeking ways to reduce traffic levels in the city centre, turning to measures such as congestion charges or building new roads. However, the Estonian capital decided that offering free public transport to its 423,000 residents would be the most effective means of confronting the challenge.

The city council was already subsidising 70% of the costs of public transport, but this new initiative is adding a further €12 million to the city’s annual transport expenditure. The city will get some of the money back though, with the national government offering a bonus of around €1 million for every 1,000 residents registering (by way of personal income tax).On 1 January 2013, Tallinn became the largest European city and the first European capital to provide free public transport to its residents. The initial results of the move are encouraging: the use of public transport in Tallinn has already increased by 10% while traffic in city centre has reduced by 15%.”

Photo: Euro Cities

Human Transit:

is speed obsolete?

Jarrett Walker. April 21, 2010

For a while now, a strain of urbanist thought has been asking:  Should we want transit to be slower?

That, broadly speaking, is the question raised by Professor Patrick M. Condon at the University of British Columbia (UBC).  Condon heads the Design Centre for Sustainabilityinside UBC’s Department of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and is the author of the very useful book Design Charrettes for Sustainable Communities.  In his 2008 paper “The Case for the Tram: Learning from Portland,” he explicitly states a radical idea that many urban planners are thinking about, but that not many of them say in public.  He suggests that the whole idea of moving large volumes of people relatively quickly across an urban region, as “rapid transit” systems do, is problematic or obsolete:

The question of operational speed conjures up a larger issue: who exactly are the intended beneficiaries of enhanced mobility? A high speed system is best if the main intention is to move riders quickly from one side of the region to the other.  Lower operational speeds are better if your intention is to best serve city districts with easy access within them and to support a long term objective to create more complete communities, less dependent on twice-daily cross-region trips.

It’s an interesting question, and it’s having a significant if not always visible impact on transport planning.  Darrin Nordahl’s 2009 book My Kind of Transit, reviewed here, also praises slow transit; he makes that case in the same way you’d advocate for “slow food,” by pointing to the richness of experience that comes only from slowing down.” 

“Transit villages in N.J. blend past with future, and spark development

By Mike Frassinelli/The Star-Ledger . Sept 22, 2012

New Jersey Transportation Commissioner Jim Simpson surveyed the old railroad town that was trying to revitalize its main street.

He looked at the renovated movie theater that attracts scores of families and at the refurbished building that serves as a practice center for Olympians on the U.S. table tennis team.

Simpson looked at Dunellen and saw the past — and the future.

“This is like old wine in a new bottle — all of the ingredients for success are here,” he said last month at a ceremony to name the Middlesex County borough the state’s 26th Transit Village, communities built around transportation hubs, making it convenient to get around without a car.

A report and database due out Monday by New Jersey Future — the result of more than three years worth of study — assesses development opportunities around New Jersey’s transit stations and heralds the importance of transit-oriented development.

The report by the smart growth and transportation choice advocacy group shows that what is old is new again in New Jersey as towns look to the past — their train stations — to make them desirable for a new generation of commuters who have eschewed their cars.

“In particular, the ‘Millennial’ generation has expressed a preference for driving less and walking more, and employers are increasingly heeding the imperative to locate in places where they will be accessible to a young workforce that wants multiple transportation options,” the report stated.

New Jersey Future’s research director, Tim Evans, has spent 3 1/2 years assembling a database looking at New Jersey’s 243 transit stations, including 205 rail stations, 16 major bus terminals, 12 ferry terminals and 10 terminals that have more than one mode of transportation, such as Hoboken Terminal, which has trains, buses and ferries.

It’s the first time such a study has been done of New Jersey’s extensive network of transit stations, and suggestions were made for how to better use the vital asset in the future.

The report lists transit municipalities with the greatest number of jobs (Newark, Jersey City, Edison); station areas featuring the highest population densities (9th Street and 2nd Street stations in Hoboken on the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail and Hoboken Terminal); stations in neighborhoods where at least one-third of households do not have a vehicle (Warren Street and Washington Street on the Newark Light Rail); stations in neighborhoods having a median home value greater than 200 percent of the statewide median (Millburn, Summit, Peapack) and stations where fewer than one-third of parking spaces are typically occupied (Point Pleasant Beach, Florence, Cinnaminson).

The report could help policy-makers and developers put the right kinds of incentives — such as urban hub tax credits or Transit Village designations — in the right kinds of locations and help municipalities understand the strengths and weaknesses around their transit assets, said Elaine Clisham, New Jersey Future’s director of communications.”

Via: The Star Ledger

Photo: Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger

Photo: 

“Want Healthier Seniors? Give Them Bus Passes

Nate Berg. Sept 24, 2012

Health problems and age go hand in hand. This inevitability is acceptable, but it doesn’t have to be such a strong correlation. One universally accepted methos to improving the health of older adults is to get them to be more active. An easy way to do that, apparently, is to give them bus passes. For the older adult population in the United Kingdom, simply having free access to the bus can dramatically improve public health, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

In 2006, a new system was put in place that gives any person 60 and older a bus pass that allows free local travel on public transit. Researchers from Imperial College London found that those with bus passes were much more likely to take frequent walks and to get around by “active travel” – walking, cycling or using public transit. They also found that these increases in active travel cut across social and economic groups.

The study used data from the UK’s National Travel Survey for the four-year period between 2005 and 2008.

Another related study shows that this can be an important way to improve the overall health of older people in the UK. About 20 percent of people over 60 currently achieve their recommended amount of physical activity solely through active travel.

Of the nearly 17,000 people interviewed, about 57 percent reported having a bus pass in 2005. That number jumped to nearly 75 percent by 2008. The cost of the program – £1.1 billion a year – has caused some to call for it to be canceled.

And while these results are a good argument for keeping the program in place, they are also very UK-focused. In the U.S., a similar program might not be able to reach the same goals simply because of the lack of public transit options in many cities and towns. As designers and public officials face growing concerns about the aging U.S. population to be able to “age in place,” these results offer a promising path for ensuring the health of older people. But without the community design and public transit access, it’s not likely that U.S. cities would be able to see the same results.”

Via: The Atlantic

Photo: Hasan Shaheed / Shutterstock.com

“Tunneling Below Second Avenue

By KIM TINGLEY. Aug 1 2012

Unlike ants, moles, gophers and skinks, humans aren’t instinctively tunneling creatures. When we go underground, we are partly admitting that we’ve made a mess on the surface and partly showing off.

In Manhattan, where street traffic tends to stall, only one subway runs the length of the East Side. Every weekday, 1.3 million passengers — more than are carried in 24 hours by the transit systems of Boston, Chicago and San Francisco combined — cram onto the Lexington Avenue line. Yet the chaos above and below has inspired afeat: about 475 laborers are now removing 15 million cubic feet of rock and 6 million cubic feet of soil — more than half an Empire State Building by volume — out from under two miles of metropolis. In December 2016, that tunnel will make its debut as a portion of the Second Avenue subway — the great failed track New York City has been postponing, restarting, debating, financing, definancing and otherwise meaning to get in the ground since 1929.

This past spring, between 69th Street and 72nd Street on Second Avenue, cages descended every eight hours, five days a week, lowering roughly 50 men in neon vests and hard hats into a deep hole. Overhead, fluorescent bulbs provided a noonish light and yellow ventilation tubes undulated. A cool, roaring wind filled the void and carried the intense aroma of Emulex explosives, an ammonia like, Fourth of July smell. Men with tripods surveyed; men with blowtorches welded; men guiding hoses poured concrete (men outnumber women 100 to 1). They took brief lunch breaks and relieved themselves hastily where and when they could.

The hurry actually began more than 80 years ago, when city leaders first proposed constructing a new subway parallel to the Lexington line to serve the developing East Side. It would run from 125th Street south to Houston and cost $86 million. Then came the Great Depression. Then World War II. Then existing subways needed repairs. In the early ’70s, short sections of the Second Avenue tunnel were burrowed at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge, between 99th Street and 105th and between 110th and 120th, before the city’s looming bankruptcy in 1975 halted all digging. The dream of a Second Avenue subway lay dormant until April 12, 2007, when contractors for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority again broke ground — to extend the Q line from 63rd and Lexington over to Second Avenue and up to 96th Street. That alone costs $4.5 billion. Eventually they will lengthen the Q to 125th and dig a new line, the T, from the Financial District straight up Second Avenue to 125th Street. At least that’s the plan.

One evening in March, Amitabha Mukherjee, an engineering manager at Parsons Brinckerhoff, the firm supervising construction at Second Avenue, led a small group through a tunnel headed from 69th Street toward 63rd. The tunnel was dark, but there was, in fact, a light burning at the end. Where the rock was naturally fractured, groundwater squeezed in, darkening the walls with Rorschach figures: here a stegosaurus, there a lady in a gown.

“Geology defines the way you drive the tunnel,” Mukherjee said. The bedrock below Second Avenue and for much of the rest of Manhattan is schist — a hard, gray black rock shot through with sheets of glittery mica. Some 500 million years ago, Manhattan was a continental coastline that collided with a group of volcanic islands known as the Taconic arc. That crash crumpled layers of mud, sand and lava into schist, lending it an inconsistent structure and complicating tunneling: in some places, the schist holds firmly together, creating self-supporting arches; in others, it’s broken and prone to shattering, forcing workers to reinforce the tunnel as they go to keep it from falling.”

Via: The NY Times

Photo: Richard Barnes for The New York Times

“Can Light Rail Carry a City’s Transit System?

ERIC JAFFE. August 1, 2012

We often think of light rail as a single component of a larger transit system, but if it’s done right it can just as soon serve as the foundation. Since 1981 a dozen American cities have built light rail lines atop bus-only systems. In five of them — Dallas, Portland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, and San Diego — light rail now accounts for at least 30 percent of all transit ridership in the metropolitan area, even as it covers less than that much service space in the region.

Transit researchers Gregory Thompson and Jeffrey Brown of Florida State, known for their espousal of multi-destination transit systems, recently took a closer look at these light rail systems to determine what characteristics define the best of the best. In a recent issue [PDF] of the Journal of Public Transportation, Thompson and Brown identify two of these “backbone” systems in particular — Portland and San Diego — as far more efficient than the others.

Thompson and Brown settled on three key factors in the success of these systems. First, a great light rail system anchors a transit network that’s dispersed throughout a metro area. Second, it acts as an express regional alternative to the local bus network. And third, it promotes transfers between the bus and rail systems. The researchers believe these traits can serve as guides for future light rail planners “by setting forth attributes that these services need to possess in order to attract substantial ridership.”

In good Olympic spirit, the researchers then judged all five of the above “backbone” systems and gave them scores of up to five points on each success marker, for a possible total of 15 points. Here’s how the light rail systems placed, from highest- to lowest-scoring. (Caveat: the data were collected circa 2007, which made the evaluations especially unfavorable to Salt Lake City’s popular TRAX system, so we’ve omitted that here.)”

Via: The Atlantic Cities

Photo: Flickr user TriMet via Creative Commons

“L.A. — transit’s promised land

Which major U.S. city is at the cutting edge of forward-thinking transportation planning? Surprise: It’s Los Angeles.

By Taras Grescoe. July 7, 2012

I’ve spent the last three years traveling to 14 cities around the world, looking at how places as diverse as Copenhagen, Tokyo and Bogota are trying to escape congestion, pollution and sprawl by finding alternatives to the car. When people ask me which major U.S. city is at the cutting edge of forward-thinking transportation planning, they’re always surprised when I reply that it is Los Angeles — those “72 suburbs in search of a city,” according to the tired put-down — that is working hardest to improve transit. Some express astonishment that transit is an option in L.A. at all, which leads me to soliloquize, a la Joan Didion, on the “rapture-of-the-freeway” and the joys of strap-hanging in SoCal.

L.A. has a two-line subway, I tell them, running trains through cavernous stations, like the one at Hollywood and Vine, where the ceilings are covered with oversized film reels. (You can actually get to the Oscars by subway!) The Orange Line’s buses shoot into the heart of the San Fernando Valley along dedicated busways. The articulated, air-conditioned buses look like something dreamed up by the set designer of “RoboCop”!) Connecting on one of the city’s four light-rail lines can take you from Pasadena to Mariachi Plaza in East Los Angeles, or from Culver City to the Long Beach Aquarium. When you’re downtown, or in more than a dozen other neighborhoods, you can hop a ride on the peppy, pint-sized DASH buses. (And get this: The fare is only half a buck!)

If Gov. Jerry Brown’s plans go through, I add, someday your gateway to the city won’t be LAX but the gorgeous Mission Revival-style Union Station, after a ride on the nation’s most advanced bullet train.

Many Angelenos are surprised to learn that their city’s reputation is at an all-time high among international transit scholars. This is the place, after all, that consistently ranks first in measures of commuter stress, as well as in hours wasted in traffic. (According to the Texas Transportation Institute’s latest urban mobility report, traffic delays in Los Angeles now amount to half a billion hours a year.) Of the nation’s 10 most congested commuter corridors, seven can be found in Los Angeles.

But it’s important to remember that freeways, though they have become the city’s de facto conduits for commuters, came relatively late. Los Angeles was originally a railway city, its early form set by the Southern Pacific Railroad and Santa Fe Railway. Its dispersed industrial suburbs were laced together by the inter-urban Red Cars of the Pacific Electric Railway and the local Yellow Cars of the Los Angeles Railway, a public transit system that, before World War II, was considered by many to be the best in the world.

Outsiders may see freeway-driven sprawl, but metropolitan Los Angeles is actually more densely settled, over its entire urban area, than the New York-Newark metro area. That makes the area ideally suited for the transit revival its leaders are trying to foster.

Los Angeles’ problem, though, is that it also suffers from a chronic transit deficit. Although many European and Asian cities of comparable stature built urban highways in the 20th century, they did it in tandem with development of their metro and commuter rail systems. (Shanghai, for example, took just 16 years to build the world’s largest metro system — one now more extensive, in terms of track mileage, than New York’s subway.)”

Via: LA Times

Photo: Passengers wait for the a Metro Red Line in Hollywood. (Los Angeles Times / December 10, 2011)

“RAILVOLUTION! Cincinnati plans for more streetcars while constructing its first route.

Steven Vance. June 1, 2012

In his seventh State of the City address on April 10, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory talked about the streetcar the city had started building in February, introducing the subject with, “And you all know that I could not let you out of here tonight without talking about the streetcar.” Mallory linked the streetcar creation to a strategy to help the city thrive. He also laid out a vision for a much larger rail transit system.

Building the first line took persistence. Hamilton County voters rejected a proposed plan for improved and expanded transit in 2002. Then ballots in 2009 and 2011 tried to block the city from building streetcars. Both failed.

Part of the city’s marketing message for the rail network is that the streetcar system will attract new businesses. An economic development study the city commissioned found that property values would be greater and emissions and pollution reduced. The study also found savings in congestion and reductions in crashes when people choose to take a streetcar over their personal automobiles.

The city government is leading the planning and construction of the streetcar system, and Metro, the local transit agency, will operate it. The route will reach from downtown to Over-The-Rhine Historic District, making 18 stops in its roundtrip journey. The construction costs are estimated to be $99.5 million plus utility relocation. A fare price hasn’t been determined.

The April speech brought more specifics: Mallory announced that the city selected CAF USA to design and manufacture the trains and showed renderings of the proposed design. Attractive trains aren’t the only outcome of a good transit system. Mobility and connections are key, so Mallory described a second route in Uptown, for which the city is seeking $1.2 million in federal New Starts funds for a study.

The city’s vision doesn’t end with light rail. Mallory mentioned using light rail alongside two highways and commuter rail (faster trains covering longer distances) for other corridors. These efforts will require regional cooperation, said Meg Olberding, spokesperson in the city manager’s office. “The Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments has long-range planning tools and would pull together our partners, including Hamilton County, Metro, and the state and federal Departments of Transportation.”

Though Ohio Governor John Kasich refused federal funds to plan for and construct high-speed rail lines in the state, Mallory will push forward: “I do not believe that we should give up on the idea of high-speed rail in this state.”

Via: The Architect’s Newspaper

Image: City of Cinncinati