How do you build a better place? It takes effective transportation solutions, good Urban Design, good planning, and the political will to make it happen.
In April, I had the opportunity to attend the American Planning Association conference which was being held in Chicago which also meant that I would have the opportunity to explore its transit system for the first time.
For those that love exploring transit systems, Chicago is a great place to go. Not only does it have its famous "L" system which is operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), but also CTA buses, METRA Commuter trains which included diesel trains out of 3 stations in the Chicago Loop area, electric line that runs south from a fourth station, the last true interurban line the South Shore, PACE bus service and loads of private bus operations.
METRA Electric train at South Chicago (93rd Street terminus).
Today was the final day at Railvolution and the my final day in Portland.
There was two workshops today and I attended the one discussing employment centers near TOD and an introduction to complete streets. The first session had some good information from Los Angeles on the concentration of employment on the subway the sea which was followed by a presentation from a Bellevue, Washington planner discussing how that city is planning to develop two station areas beyond the downtown alignment controversy.
The session on complete streets showed what states have passed legislation mandating complete streets (which also points out how little is being done about it). The session also talked about some of the difficulties being experienced getting road engineers on the program because it isn't part of their "little black book".
Finally I went on my final mobile workshop of Railvolution which discussed some successes and difficulties of developing suburban TOD in the Portland area. We had the opportunity to check out several TOD projects and I will be discussing what was talked about on those tours and some of the things that was not talked about.
That finishes up my time at Railvolution and Portland. On Friday I head up to Seattle on Cascade Talgo operated by Amtrak. For anyone who has not had the opportunity to ride the Talgos in service in the northwest I highly recommned it.
Upon arrival in Seattle I had the opportunity to take my first ride on Link light rail but it was only through the downtown tunnel. From there I picked up a rental car since I will be heading to areas with poor transit service during the week and non-existant service on the weekends.
This blog is being made from the city of Portland, Oregon as I spend a couple of days in the city before attending Railvolution which starts on Monday.
The entire time I am in Portland I will be using Tri-Met bus and rail service to get along. I wish I could say that the trip started on transit but I needed to be at the Salt Lake airport at 6:30am and that is an hour before the first UTA route 550 gets to the airport so I had to use the Express shuttle to reach the airport. Hopefully once TRAX is operating they will have earlier service for those taking those first flights of the morning.
After arriving in Portland I made the short walk over the the MAX station which is located near the baggage claim area of the airport terminal. It has been 6 years since I was last on the Red Line from the airport and there has been many changes. Back then the train didn't allow passengers off at the Mt Hood station, but today there has been a large amount of development along the line, sadly much of it auto centric such as IKEA and Target but there is also some hotels locating along the line and promoting their access to MAX.
At the Gateway Transit Center I transferred to the Green Line since it is the only MAX line I have not ridden. The train I caught from Gateway came from the Ruby Junction carhouse on the far end of Blue Line in Gresham so there was not many passengers.
The Green Line epitomizes why freeway transit lines don't work well. Except for the SE Main station which serves Mall 205 which is also an auto centric shopping center, most of the stations are difficult to reach and have difficult access from street level. The one exception is the SE Flavel station which is at street level and has bus service directly in front of it. However, the most of the high density residential development in the area is actually located on the opposite side of the freeway from MAX with the freeway creating its usual wall between neighborhoods.
The final station is at the Clackamas Town Center Mall. However, to reach the mall you have to pass a multi story parking garage which also houses the bus stops of the transit center and then the main mall parking. Once again the transit center is on the mall property but does not integrate with the mall. Hopefully over time mall management will see the opportunity of blending the mall with the transit station.
I then headed into downtown Portland on the Green Line while I had been down the transit mall in a bus a few years ago, today I rode light rail down the famous transit mall. I was hoping to ride the new Siemens S series cars that Portland has and will soon be in service for UTA but every train I rode had the older Siemens low floor cars.
I also had the opportunity to ride the Portland streetcar on the short stretch that I have not previously rode from Riverplace to the current end of the line at SW Lowell. I was hoping to ride the Willamette Shore Trolley along the proposed route of the Lake Oswego Rapid Streetcar but their website said they have mechanical problems that will have it out of service until sometime in December.
I also shopped at the Safeway Store at Jefferson and 10th which is on the streetcar line. This store is actually a pedestrian friendly store. Despite what Kroger says, a pedestrian friendly store can be built and be successful.
Portland is an outstanding town to explore by transit and by foot and I will be doing more of that tomorrow.
Anyone who has paid attention to transit advocacy over the years have been hit in the face by the road warriors with the statement: "Transit represents only a small portion of trips".
First of all when it comes to numbers, numbers can be manipulated any way you want to make your point especially if you have a agenda to extend. What the trip numbers don't tell you is several things:
They do not compare how many trips are taking in a particular corridor say from the area of the Sandy TRAX station to downtown.
Second, this numbers also include business trips including commercial deliveries and pick ups.
Second, the logic of the road warriors is that all these people driving instead of other options "choose" to drive. The truth is that people have little choice but to drive but there are ways to reduce the driving numbers.
Do we have choice?
The question is, do people choose to drive or is there no alternatives.
As I said in my posting about Density, TOD and TAD, few people have the choice to reduce auto trips. Even higher density development throughout the area is truly auto centric and does nothing to reduce auto trips.
As I mentioned in that article, if a person needs some basic supplies at a grocery store or basic convenience items the only choice is to talk a mile or more but more realistically is to get into the car and drive.
Statistics show that many auto trips are less than two miles in length.
Reducing Trips with TOD
As I mentioned in the TOD article, one of the important aspects of TOD is to reduce unnecessary auto trips. This is done by providing businesses such as cleaners, restaurants, small grocery stores near these developments.
If people live in these developments, they can quickly walk to these services without getting in their car. When I lived in Charlotte, North Carolina back in 1990-1992 my apartment complex had a shopping center within its confines. In fact several apartment complexes were withing walking distance of this shopping center.
Instead of driving to the grocery store or other stores in the shopping center I could walk reducing many unnecessary auto trips. In fact my walk to the shopping center was probably less than many people's trips across the Wal-Mart parking lot.
Not only do these provide services for the residents in the TOD developments but they can also reduce trips for those that park at transit stations. A person could get off their TRAX train, grab their dry cleaning, pick up a gallon and milk and head home. The alternative is the person first gets off TRAX, drives to the dry cleaners, then drives to a grocery or convenience store, then finally drive home.
Reducing Paratransit Trips:
As I have mentioned before, the biggest cost facing transit systems is the unfunded mandate to provide ADA Paratransit service. I am not saying this service is necessary for the people that use it, but what the Federal Government did was burden transit systems to provide service without any additional funds to provide it.
However, one of the benefits of TOD is that it gives those with physical disabilities the ability to live in areas where they don't need paratransit service as frequently as they do now. Not only does this allow the mobility impaired to have more options but it will reduce the number of extreme paratransit trips.
Government and Other Services
Another problem with our current system is the how hard it is to access many government and other services such as libraries, government buildings, and post offices.
Post Offices
Few people realize that until a couple of years ago the Postal Service did not have to abide by our current bad zoning ordinances much less any transit friendly ones. Many post offices are extremely pedestrian unfriendly such as the one in Midvale despite it being close to the Midvale Central TRAX Station.
Also many main post offices have been moved to where it is convenient for their trucks to hub not for their customers. For example the one at 2100 South and Redwood is close to transit but is very hostile to pedestrians.
The future of the postal service is beyond the scope of this blog but there needs to be a thoroughly study on what its future is. Should people living in urban areas continue to subsidize the mail delivery in rural areas? How much is it costing to provide home mail delivery service across the suburbs?
One solution would be to put small contracted postal stations in TOD developments in addition to other retail development. Like other services the postal service should concentrate new post offices close to transit connections.
Libraries:
Libraries are another government service that need to focus their locations where transit access is easy and convenient.
Lets take a look at the Holladay library as an example since I frequent that one. While it is currently on a bus line by moving it either to the new a few blocks away to either the new Holladay Village center or to the largely abandoned center at the northwest corner of Murray-Holladay and Highland that badly needs to be re-purposed.
Another solution would be to create pick up points at TOD developments so that people could order books and pick them up on the way home from work or while running other errands.
Other Government Services
Too many recent government buildings have focused on building Taj Mahals facilities that have poor access for citizens. New government buildings should be designed economically and with easy acccess for transit riders and pedestrians.
Final Thoughts
This was a small example of how we can reduce short auto trips.
It will take collaboration between private businesses, government agencies, and other organizations that provide services. It will not happen overnight and will have resistance, but in the long term a more sustainable area will be created.
Transit Oriented Development is starting to take off in Utah. Just like other cities it takes a few years of successful service then the development starts coming. Of course as more people look to alternatives from higher gas prices TOD makes even more sense.
This goes along with the complex going up at the Sandy Civic Center TRAX station and the project the Murray North (4400 South) TRAX station.
However, as I have mentioned before, unless the city works toward making the entire area more walkable and pedestrian friendly the projects will only have moderate success.
For those of you that have been waiting anxiously since I did day 1, here is my experience on Day 2 in Miami.
I actually slept in late (8:30am Eastern Time which of course is 6:30am Mountain Time which is still late for me) but was ready for the day. My goal today was to ride the entire MetroRail line and the South Dade Busway.
First I walked over and up to the Metromover Station. I first rode to the final station on the Omni loop which is School District. What a difference two blocks from my stop. This area is filled with vacant lots and abandoned buildings. One interesting note is that this station has a car washer for the Metromover which seems like a strange location.
I then took Metromover to First Street and walked down to Flanger in order to get my visitor pass for the transit system (Metromover is free). However, when I got to the address I wrote down from the Metro Dade website I couldn't find were to go so I walked west trying to find it. Just a few blocks away was the Government Center so I figured I would check there on where I could buy my Visitors Pass. The brochure for the visitor's pass I saw online does not show this Metro-Dade location selling the visitors pass but when I got to the window they said they could sell them. I thought they would ask for ID to prove I was from out of state like Metro does in Seattle but they just took my money and gave me the pass.
Next I took MetroRail to the northeast end of the line at Palmetto. This station was added a few years after the original system opened and is the last new station to open until the extensions they have planned open in a few years. It appears that they plan never to extend the line beyond the station since way this station was designed which is short sighted but typical transit system mentality.
I briefly got off the train to take this picture:
Next I rode the train all the way to the other end of the line at South Dade. This is the connecting point for the South Dade Busway. Here is a picture of a couple of trains at South Dade. You can see some graffiti in both of these pictures. Despite security personnel being at every station, the system is covered with graffiti. It may not be the New York subway in the 70's but it's pretty close.
As you can see from this picture there is TOD being built at this station which is the only sign of it I saw anywhere on the system.
Here is a couple of picture I took of the area were you catch a bus including the ones using the busway. Buses that are arriving at the station arrived on the opposite side to the right of the photos. There are signs with route maps but they only include frequency of the buses not actually times. I originally planned to ride the entire busway but was getting kind of hungry. Two 34 expresses left with Standing Room only before a busway local 31 came in and I took it. Wouldn't you know that the bus I grabbed was wrapped on the left side !! Just my luck. While I was really craving Chinese Food especially a buffet, after a few stations I saw a Taco Bell and decided just to stop and eat before it got any later. Here is my bus letting me off. I would end up with the same bus coming back. I walked across US Highway 1 to the Taco Bell and ate. After words I came back caught that same 31 and then transferred to the MetroRail. I rode it back to the Government Center were I decided to ride MetroMover over to the Brickell Area. Here you can see another MetroMover car coming off the Brickell Loop. Here is a photo from the front of our MetroMover car. As you can see that ride has some characteristics of a roller coaster. At the end of the line at Brickell I decided to get off, walk to the water then walk back toward downtown. Here is a Metromover train passing over the Miami River on the section of track I had just been on. Just like Charlotte when I lived there a brief shower came in and dumped for about ten minutes and a half hour later it was clear again. Miami Dade has a bunch of the new Opus Optima buses like UTA however, they have the "BRT" front end that is supposed to make them look more sleek and magically make riders think it's light rail. I looked for a convenience store but the only thing I found was a Walgreens. I purchased a couple of things, and then continued walking. Since by this time I was soaking wet from sweat due to the humidity and heat I decided to walk over to the MetroMover's Bayfront Park Station and head back to the hotel thus ending day 2 in Miami.
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