Transit on Thursday: Short Stuff Edition

Gotta Hand It To Them...
Complaints from the vertically challenged are nothing new on Metro. But short folks unable to reach overhead bars comfortably became increasingly vocal when Metro started eliminating the floor-to-ceiling bars they relied upon to keep from being tossed to the floor by rocking rail cars. In an effort to get passengers away from the area around the doors, Metro has been losing the central vertical bars in favor of shorter rising from seatbacks along the aisle. In response to the complaints that the aisle bars and horizontal seatback handles were not enough, Metro has decided to test spring-loaded, swing down handles, which extend down eight inches further, on the overhead bars of one rail car. The riders interviewed in the Post article all seemed to like the new addition. Metro will continue to survey rider response with cameras, as it evaluates whether to install the handles system-wide. No mention of how much the handles cost to install.

For those not lucky enough to happen upon car #6027 and experience the pull-down handles for themselves, Metro has posted a video of the handles in action on the bottom of this press release. (Nice effort, but the Post's video was way better...)

Virginia's Red Light District
Here at Transit on Thursday, we love to think that transportation planners and elected officials read us every week, rapt with our brilliant critique of transit decisions around the region. Then we wake up. However, we will point out it was just over a week ago that we argued the value of traffic cameras. This week, the Virginia House, who in the past have shared no love for photo-enforcement, approved a measure to allow towns in the commonwealth to install red-light cameras at intersections. The cameras had previously been used in several Northern Virginia areas until the law that authorized their use was not renewed in Richmond. We're not sayin'. We're just sayin'. Even the Post followed our lead, editorializing in favor of cameras! We'll just conveniently ignore the rule about correlation and causation...

The Tysons Tunnel Code
The Tysons Tunnel has to be one of the most confusing transportation projects ever to come to the D.C.-metro area. With politicians saying one thing, federal officials saying another, groups of businesses raising millions to study alternative plans, and $900 million dollars at stake, it's like a transit geek's version of a Dan Brown novel. In the most recent development, the federal agency that tentatively agreed to spend $900 million on the Metro extension to Dulles has claimed it never stated a preference for an elevated track through Tysons Corner. NoVa politicians including Frank Wolf and Tom Davis have intimated that, though they would prefer a tunnel, federal transit officials have suggested that to build it would risk federal funding that makes up a quarter of the project's total budget. How ambiguous.

Local blogs have recently been rumoring that such statements were untrue. If anything, however, this new information makes the situation even more uncertain. An article in the Examiner suggests that the feds have more or less told Virginia to figure out whether it wants a tunnel or an elevated track, assess the costs and benefits, submit the proposal for funding, and hope for the best. Hopefully Virginia won't need to jump through the same hoops that Langdon dude did to figure our little subterranean mystery out. Frankly, we're not sure anyone involved in this is up to the task.

Two Faced MoCo Transit
Like many major metro areas that have been experiencing a lot of rapid growth for several years, Maryland, especially in Montgomery and Prince George's County, is also trying to deal with traffic. Faced with the decision to build out Maryland's transit or road infrastructure, Maryland opted for the latter, pushing through the Intercounty Connector over much local opposition to both the project and the process by which it was evaluated and approved. While supporters say the $2.5-4 billion tolled highway will provide a vital link between I-270 and I-95, opponents point to studies that show the highway will actually lead to more area traffic while increasing air pollution and cutting through neighborhoods and parkland. Perhaps most importantly, to pay for the roadway, Maryland will have to dedicate decades worth of state and federal transportation funds to the project.

The state continues to aggressively push the ICC, which technically broke ground this year but is still hung up in legal and financial wrangling. That's why it is a little hard to believe when Montgomery County officials placed transit projects including the Purple Line between Bethesda and New Carrollton and the Corridor Cities Transitway, a transit link running from Shady Grove to Clarksburg, at the top of their list of transportation priorities. In the article, even they acknowledge that funds will not be available for years. Montgomery County, which was largely split on the issue of the ICC, still played a key role in allowing the road project to move forward. And we all know that unless you are able to back a project with cash, it is worth little more than the paper it is printed on. So what's the point?