Blog Entries of Note...

Image by SP8254 via Flickr

From the Craig's Compendium Blog:

Farmington’s Future…is it transit based?

A real estate agent up in Farmington talks about the Farmington Station project. He also mentions how he wished he didn't have to leave Farmington to spend his retail dollars. Of course by spending money in a chain store he is still sending his money out of town so what's the difference?

From Streetsblog San Francisco:

What Does Beauty Have to Do With Sustainability?

Should A older Wal-Mart or an urban freeway that destroyed a neighborhood be considered for historic preservation since some of them are getting up in there in age?

The Myth of the Urban Driving Shoppers

Most small business owners fear the lost of parking spots and always blame their drop in customers on a lack of parking. However, a new study in one community found out that many customers do not arrive by car.

Planning Department Unveils San Francisco’s First Pedestrian Priority Street

Plan for a street in a tourist area that will focus on the pedestrian.

From the California High Speed Rail Blog:

Sacramento Meltdown

More from the circus that is going on in California. It now looks like all transit operating funds will be cut meaning massive cuts to service across the state. Now they are also talking about a "hard spending cap" which would mean if a project is approved by the voters, a similiar amount has to be cut from the general budget.

From Transit Miami comes:

Homestead the new Doral??

The author makes a good point in that we need to change the way we look at developments and make them less autocentric.

Our New Passenger Rail Grid

The National Association of Railroad Passengers has released their newest dream plan for rail passenger routes. Sadly it looks pretty similar to a map I found that they produced in 1978 except there are fewer trains actually running now.

The Stimulus Bill Illustrated

From Trains for America:

Boardman set to shake things up at Amtrak, dismayed at staff “burnouts”

Hopefully Boardman will shake things up at Amtrak is it is badly needed, but I will believe change will happen when I see it actually happening instead of just talk.

More HSR money on the way?

Once again, High Speed Rail will do little for us out here in Utah. What we need is upgrades to existing routes and increasing the system of trains.

From the Overhead Wire Blog:

Oscars Lame Again

Strange, none of those green talking actors and actresses actually took green transportation to the Oscars. To top it all off they closed the Highland/Hollywood subway station for "security reasons" which created more traffic problems.

Phoenix Ridership to a Good Start

Light rail is working even in Phoenix.

From the Cap'n Transit Blog:

The goals of transit funding, and its obstacles

Something that everyone should read.

Blog Entries of Note...

Image via WikipediaFrom Stephen Rees's Blog:

Aston Martin designs Routemaster

OK, here is an idea to get more people on the bus, have them built by a famous auto maker like Aston Martin. After all, many people will never have the opportunity to drive such a unique car but someday the people in London may be able to say that they rode in one. However, don't hold your breath on any getting built as the article says.

Transportation minister expects fast track for Evergreen Line

The Vancouver BC area is looking to add another transit line and it could possibly be Light Rail. The current system is called Advance Light Rail as it is automated and is either above or below ground.

The problem with ALRT just like Monorail which is something Monorailist will never tell you is that it is proprietary technology. If they want to use ALRT there is only one company they can go to: Bombardier. With LRT there is a host of manufacturers to build the cars and you can add different cars (i.e. UTA has cars from both Bombardier and Siemans as does Portland).

From the Denver Infill Blog:

Putting Our Best Foot Forward

The Denver Infill Blog looks at how important Pedestrian traffic is to a neighborhood and looks at some of the projects currently taking place in that city. Incidently, I took a picture in Denver last year and most people think it is from Europe until they look closely. Lots of pedetrian traffic, outdoor restaurants, and a transit mall. However Denver still has more work to do.

From the Mobilizing the Region Blog:

Running on Empty: Ways to Fix the Highway Trust Fund

The high gas prices earlier in the year severly hurt the highway trust fund as many people found alternatives to driving. That in turn hurt the highway trust fund along with people driving more effiecient vehicles. So how do we solve the delema?

From the California High Speed Rail Blog:

The Trouble with LA Union Station (UPDATED)

The blog looks at how the high speed rail line will service downtown Los Angeles. One of the problems I have with their proposals is that it will make tranfering from Amtrak, Metrolink, Metro Light Rail, Heavy Rail, and Buses much more difficult.

Too many times project such as this do not take into consideration people tranferring to and from the service to other carriers and California needs to do it right the first time.

From the Transit Sleuth Blog:

A Few Trains, Nothing Else

Porltand like Seattle is a travel nightmare right now. These cities are just not used to dealing with the amount of snow fall they are getting pounded with in the last week. Even the Spokane Transit Authority in Spokane has canceled most bus service and this never happened in the many years I lived there.

From the Trains for America Blog:

Conservative rail advocate, Paul Weyrich, dies

Paul Weyrich had been a big supporter of transit and rail for many years which put him opposite many of his Republic collegues.

Ray LaHood named Obama’s Transportation Secretary… good for rail?

Many are disappointed by Obama's pick for Secretary of Transportation, but LaHood has been know to support transit projects. It will be interesting to see how he performs his duties.

From Streetsblog LA:

Bush Administration Rejects O.C. Toll Road Plan

This shocked both sides of the argument on this Orange County Toll Road. Nobody expected the Bush Administration to stand in the way of a road being built.

Ray LaHood, Known Unknown

More aobut Ray LaHood the new Secretary of Transportation for President Electo Obama.

From Streetsblog:

In Boulder, They Plow the Bike Paths First

Bike Paths and Sidewalks are basically ignored by most cities when it comes to plowing. In fact, most cities leave local landlords repsonsible for the plowing that often never gets done. I know only small stretches of the sidewalks I travel which are in Holladay and Murray ever get shoveled.

From the RT Rider Blog in Sacramento:

November ridership statistics

John goes over the RT ridership numbers from November. Because of lower gas prices ridership increases are tailing off. However, there is one major thing to note about their ridership: two single light rail lines have more ridership than the entire bus system.

Of course here in Utah TRAX represents 33% of all UTA ridership and once again is only two lines in one county while UTA covers SIX counties.

The Evil Transitator (continued)

The Govenator continues to rob transit for other projects.

From the Intermodality Blog:

Who moved my train?

Many people love to complain about our transit system. Well take a look at Houston to see what can go wrong. Voters approved expansion of thier starter line in 2003 and they still have little to show for it. Meanwhile things are happening here in Salt Lake City.

From the Baltimore Innerspace Blog:

MLK/Franklin-Mulberry

Another excellent piece about taking a blight and turning into a better area. There is also a great point made about how the Hopkins Hospital is being built with giant new parking garages but no infrastructure upgrades in the transportation system to deal with the additional cars.

Blog Postings from this week...

Image via Wikipedia First up from the Mobilizing the Region Blog:

In NJ, “Son of Toll Hike” is Born

While Utah looks at the possibility of its first toll road, the New Jersey turnpike authority is looking to increase toll charges in order to replenish the state highway trust fund. A portion would go to the New Jersey Transit project to build additional tunnels from New Jersey to Penn Station in New York to deal with train congestion out of the area.

From the Denver Transit Stop Blog:

Public Private Partnership Pilot Program (Penta P)

This talks about the RTD in Denver looking at Public-Private partnerships in order to get some lines built in its Fastracks program.

The author has an excellent description of the various types of partnerships and how they work so it is differently worth a look.

From the Xing Columbus (Ohio) Blog:

Money Never Disappears for Sprawl

The blog mentions that Ohio has instituted a policy of fix it first meaning that it will fix existing highways before starting new ones.

From the Transit Miami Blog:

Boondoggle

A couple of weeks ago an article was published in some magazine that listed the biggest boondoggles (by who's classification?) and Transit Miami points out while its own project the expansion of Metro Rail has not happened so far, you have to question some of the others on the list including the unique Sydney Opera House.

From the Transbay Blog:

Sunday Streets and More, This Labor Day Weekend

San Francisco closed a street to create a pedestrian fair.

From the Overhead Wire:

Making San Francisco More Accessible by Amtrak

There is a couple of ways to get to San Fransisco by Amtrak. First by long distance train you can get off in either Emeryville or Oakland and take a bus to the San Fransisco or if your on one of the corridor trains you can take BART from Richmond (which I did on multiple occasions).

However, the post points out about the disconnect between local, state and national carriers which was pointed out in the intragration series.

Battlefield NIMBYism

Article from New Jersey were NJ Transit wants to put commuter trains on a existing rail line but people who run a revolutionary war battlefield think railroad tracks are a blight and should be eliminated.

From the RT Rider:

The cost of free parking

Growing a transit lifestyle in barren soil

John talks about difficulties in buidling a transit lifestyle in Sacramento. You can see the comparisons to many places in along the Wasatch Front.

From the N-Judah Chonicles:

Just What IS A "Green Bus Shelter" Anyway?

Putting grass on top of a bus stop shelter makes it a green shelter?

From the CTA Tattler:

Higher gas prices mean big CTA ridership increase

Chicago is also having a major increase in ridership in both rail and bus.

Articles from the week...

Image via Wikipedia From the Mobilizing the Region Blog out of the New York area comes this:

Highway Removal Olympics: Who Will Win the Gold?

San Francisco became famous for becoming the first area to remove a freeway after the 1989 Earthquake did serious damage to the largely completely freeway along the Embarcadero. Instead of a stub freeway they now have a beautiful pedestrian friendly boulevard with streetcar service.

Sadly, here in Utah we went the old direction with the rebuild of I-15 so we lost all the potential that could have been done with putting the freeway in a ditch and then a cap on top of it.

From Light Rail Transit Online comes:

TOD vs."TAD"

This has some good information about TOD developments. We are starting to see some developments coming on line and will see more in the future. I have noticed that more advertisements for housing stating that they are close to a TRAX line.

From the Denver Infill Blog:

The Denver Union Station Story

A great story about the history and future of Denver Union Station. While Salt Lake City let Boyer have their way with the Union Pacific Station, Denver is working to rebuild their magnificent Union Station. While it will not be a perfect situation (the light rail tracks will be about a block away from the completed station), it shows the what can be done.

That article was referred from the Denver Transit Stop Blog which has this story:

Sprawling From Grace

This talks about a video that is going to be shown at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this week. What I found interesting is the part of the video that talks about preventing gentrification and keeping character and diversity in a neighborhood.

From the Transit Sleuth comes this entry:

Last Night Wondering

Adron talks about his day doing things in Portland after work including how transit played a pivotal role in his activities. What this really points out is how Portland has become a city in which you can leave the car at home and hopefully Salt Lake will be there soon.

From Transit Miami comes:

UM: Wising Up To Transit

Apparently freshman are welcome at the University of Miami but their cars are not. The university is located on a Metrorail line and like the U Of U has their own shuttle service around the campus. When I was attending Railvolution last November I made a trip over to Coral Gables which included transferring from MetroRail to a bus to head over the Biltmore Hotel to take some pictures. In the 10 minutes I waited for the Metro Bus I counted at least six U of M shuttle vans stopping at the transit center on their trips around the campus.

From Streetsblog comes this:

The Parking Cure, Step 1: Diagnose the Problem

Previously I talked about how new school guide lines have made new schools walking unfriendly over the course of the last several years in this entry: Schools and Sprawl.

This situation in New York is very similar in that regulations have been enacted over the years that are pedestrian and transit unfriendly and need to be changed.

From the Seattle Transit Blog comes:

News Stands

Could news stands at certain TRAX stations help the newspaper and magazine businesses? They seem to work well in some of the major cities (obviously Seattle is not one of the them...yet), but what about Salt Lake City? Can't use the weather argument because cities with worse weather than us have them.

From the RT Rider comes this information from Sacramento:

RT's worst-case scenario at a glance

RT's current $2.00 fare may go up to $2.25 and severe bus cuts may be necessary. Once again Sacramento like most California systems are dependent on funding from the state and the Govenator is busing trying to transfer funds from transit to highways so they transfer that to other programs.

From Portland Transport:

Streetcar Loop Moves Forward, Your Input Needed on Future Routes

Portland is looking to extend its streetcar line across the Willamette River to the east side of Portland. Portland has been dealing with the federal governments bias toward buses over rail for in trying to get the streetcar off the ground.

From Cap' Transit Rides Again comes:

Cities are Born in Moments of Transition

Interesting perspective on why downtown areas died including highway bypasses.