March 27, 2008
Transit on Thursday: Love Your Local Development Blogs
There have been a lot of interesting, local ideas about the future of public transportation in the D.C. metro area floating around the internet this week, so Transit on Thursday has gathered them all up for your perusal.
As a starting point, Dr. Gridlock (Robert Thomson) of the Washington Post posted a very detailed map that outlines the next big forays in D.C. area transit - streetcars and bus rapid transit, or BRT. Of course, you really have to project for these ideas, as the implementation of these routes and services probably wouldn't be set until the year 2030, according to DDOT. Instant gratification aside, his map neatly shows off how the area could enhance its cross-city routes (you know, like that L'Enfant dude wanted). Personally, not having to change lines or wait for an unreliable bus to go from Woodley Park to Shaw to Eastern Market and back again would be pretty nice. How about being able to sweep north on 16th Street during rush hour - that would be pretty useful. Of course, the really exciting part is that experimentation with these transit options are not far off - there have already been BRT studies commissioned in Prince William County, and new streetcars will begin construction in Anacostia this summer.
But there are plenty of other ideas not being supplied by DDOT. For instance, BeyondDC, one of our favorite sources for developmental features, put up it's own vision of the future of D.C. area mass transit, following a long line of other potential plans put forth at Greater Greater Washington, amongst other web sites. Touted as a "transit vision," there's a significant discourse on the reasoning behind the plan - notably that "Like pre-industrial medicine focusing on bloodletting, highway engineering is junk science." The vision really picked up steam when a dialog about them broke out in the comments over at former DCist editor Ryan Avent's blog - if you like to keep current on the state of local transit, the back-and-forth is kind of required reading.
The area has the brains to help build a better system of public transportation - now, hopefully, the powers that be will take the best of what these ideas provide into consideration.
After the jump: more local love, plus Dulles Rail's last precious gasps of air.
Photo by m hoek.
So, Where's Your Metro Stop Rank?: Speaking of great local transit analysis, Rob Goodspeed, DCist Editor Alumnus and Master of Color Coded Bar Graphs, posted a fascinating analysis of Metro ridership by station yesterday. His findings? 37 percent of Metro stations (mostly areas in which there is little room for growth or other readily available transportation options) average less than 5,000 riders per day. The problem, as Rob puts it, is:
If the entire system is subsidized by taxes, these stations are the most deeply subsidized. Given the huge expense of the station construction, maintenance, and staff, is it acceptable to let these stations remain underutilized?What do you think? How would you encourage ridership at these stations?
Dulles Rail Project On Its Last Wheels: We noted it in yesterday's Go Home Already, but yesterday's withdrawal of a lawsuit by Tysonstunnel.org is another sign that the proposed Dulles Rail extension is as good as dead in its current form. The project, which has a backstory that you'd have a hard time making up, is now suffering from the almost certain loss of $900 million in federal funding - and when your enemies start conceding that a fight isn't wort fighting anymore - well, the idea has lost it's legs. It should be noted that the project - estimated to cost $2.5 billion as recently as January of this year - had ballooned to a cost of about $5 billion.
Engines and Cabooses: Alexandria will be providing a new free trolley line beginning April 1 - the trolley will run between Old Town and the King Street Metro station, seven days a week, between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. - but we're more excited about the link it will provide with the water taxi service from the National Harbor...Getting around will be pretty tough this weekend - we'll have a more detailed post on street closures later today, so stay tuned...New major rehabilitation project for the George Washington Parkway is in the works.
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I think he's trying too hard to read between the lines on the Metro station thing. The busiest stations are, unsurprisingly, by and large downtown where people work, or end-of-line stations with parking lots where hordes of suburbanites get on.
The least-used stations are not destinations, they only serve residents of that specific neighborhood. Nobody goes to Minnesota Avenue to shop.
There's no point in trying to encourage ridership at these places. As those neighborhoods develop and improve, ridership will increase. They will be magnets for development, either residential or commercial, like Columbia Heights and U Street in time.
Ack! Will you quit calling it a "trolly." If it looks like an ass, is dimpled like an ass, and sounds and smells like a drunken Irishman's pickled egg farts like an ass, chances are that it's an ass. Calling it "Tucker Carlson" and giving it a goddamned bowtie will not change that.
Four rubber wheels + an engine - running on time = bus.
Peace,
+++JMJ+++
You mean to tell me that a Trolley is coming to Old Town? An Old Town Trolley, per se? What an original idea. There must be some trademark infringement in there some place.
Now can we close these underused stations after 10pm, it will speed up trains and cut some labor cost.
Trollies in da hood yo!
So I'm going to leave Old Town where I could go to Restaurant Eve and take a water taxi so I can eat Ketchup?
I don't really get what's supposed to be the big draw of this National Harbor for locals.
Here is the big draw:
Restaurants: Dining options will include 10 or more full-service, white table cloth restaurants.
Fashion: The creation of a “Fashion Boulevard” will give guests a variety of shopping options, including a strategic mix of national high-end brands along with unique to the market local flavors.
Entertainment: A planned block of entertainment will offer a comedy club, dueling piano bar, Irish pub, jazz club and more.
Thats right! Locals want white table cloths at a dueling piano bar while shopping at Old Navy.
Interesting that Navy Yard and New York Avenue are both on the less than 5000 riders list. It seems like the existing development plans around both of those areas (for the ballpark district and NoMa) could naturally lead to a bump in ridership over the next few years.
National Harbor ain't for locals. It's for the Fort Washington/Indian Head crowd who don't want to drive to Largo for haute cuisine and getting shot at.
Old Town's idea for the water taxi is so they can steal business from National Harbor, not send people to it. You got a big hotel and convention center crowd that will want more than Chef Ashton Kutcher can provide.
Aren't they supposed to provide some pedestrian access via the Wilson Bridge?
The King Street Trolley (no trademark infringement there) is already running on an undefined schedule as a test run; I saw it picking folks up at the King St station twice yesterday.
I'm with you Monkey -- it annoys the hell out of me when people use the word "trolley" to describe a bus dressed up to look like ye olde trolley. My mom calls them "rolleys" to humor me.
To be a total transit nerd, by definition a trolley operates on electricity drawn from an overhead wire. Technically, the trolley is the piece that connects the vehicle to the wire (also known as a catenary). Trolleys can be on rubber tires (we call those trolleybuses -- they have them in San Francisco and Boston) but that catenary is an essential ingrediant.
A vehicle that has an internal combustion engine and rubber tires is a bus no matter how fancy its outfit.
The King Street Trolley will have a "lively brass bell," according to WTOP's Erin Robertson. I am comforted that a "deadly brass bell" will not be used in this crowded tourist area.
Speaking of infringement:
From a taxidermic perspective: "trolley" is another word for a catenary-pole. So technically, a streetcar isn't a trolley unless it gets power from above. And that's why the term "trackless trolley" (i.e. electric bus that gets power from a catenary) is an accurate term.
A vehicle that gets its power from an internal cumbustion engine and runs without tracks is neither a streetcar nor a trolley nor a trackless trolley. It's a bus.
If they want it to sound cute, they should call it a jitney.
-posted by me this morning
Where do I file my plagiarism claim (which will be in the low eight figures by the way)?
"Now can we close these underused stations after 10pm, it will speed up trains and cut some labor cost."
Absolutely not. I don't see any reason to create a two-tier system for marginal time and cost savings.
The weird thing about "underused" stations is that people always want to cut service to them. How the hell is that supposed to solve the problem of the station being underused? It will just start a downward spiral.
I don't see any reason to create a two-tier system for marginal time and cost savings.
Tell that to the people riding at 1 AM trying to get back to New Carrolton at before they pee themselves. And yet they have to make stops at deserted stations like Minnesota Avenue...then Deanwood...then Cheverly...then Landover....oops.
Didn't make it.
That's kind of funny, Reid. Jinx?
(I promise I didn't plagiarize -- I've actually been doing work today and this is the only post I've read all day)
Old Town's idea for the water taxi is so they can steal business from National Harbor, not send people to it.
Now that makes sense.
Regarding the metro extension cost, the $5 price tag is for the entire 2-phase project. The $2.5 figure is for Phase I, which is the one trying to get federal funding. So no, the price hasn't doubled in a few months.
$5 and $2.5 billion, I mean.
How is keeping them open going to create more riders? To create more riders you have to either increase the density around the station, put up a parking lot or improve connectivity. If these stations can pop that up overnight, then fine keep them open; until then, shut them down!
naalex:
Perhaps I slightly overstated the estimated hike, but it's not like the project didn't ever go up in price. For instance:
In the meantime the cost estimate for Phase I rose from $1.52 billion in December 2004 to $2.4-2.7 billion in March 2007.
So, we're still talking an enormously large spike in estimated costs.
For stations that are greatly underutilized, why not shut them down at an earlier hour so that Monkey won't suffer a self-peeing indignity? Sort of like how Arlington Cemetery is shut down after a certain hours and trains speed right through it.
And it annoys me no end to see that Union Station is the most heavily used station, yet the management of people flow is such a mess.
its, possessive, has no apostrophe!!!!
The weird thing about "underused" stations is that people always want to cut service to them. How the hell is that supposed to solve the problem of the station being underused? It will just start a downward spiral.
Exactly. I live across the street from Waterfront, but I almost never use it because the frequency of service on the Green Line is so abysmal. (Notice how the only Green Line stations in the top 20 stations are L'Enfant Plaza and Gallery Place -- both stations that primarily exist to serve other, better, lines -- and how the Green Line has more stations in the bottom 20 stations than any other line.)
A vehicle that gets its power from an internal cumbustion engine and runs without tracks is neither a streetcar nor a trolley nor a trackless trolley. It's a bus.
Cumbustion? What exactly do these trolleys run on again?
the problem with the underutilized stations is the lack of density at these stations. as others have noted, new growth around new york ave. and navy yard will increase the traffic at those in short order. in other places, it's time to get crackin' and follow the tenets of transit-oriented development.
build up, not out!
You won't find a bigger proponent of TOD than myself, but simply because a station isn't highly used right now doesn't mean that TOD is a realistic option. Transit oriented development should come out of a nexus where you have underused land and transit access. Looking for underused transit stations is a kind of backwards way of approaching the problem, I think.
Looking for underused transit stations is a kind of backwards way of approaching the problem, I think.
I hear ya, but what other option to we have? At the very least shouldn't we consider TOD as a factor when large tracts of land become available near Metro stops?
Hine Jr. High (right near Eastern Market) is getting ready to close. TOD would dictate that when weighing what to do with that land, a proposal for multi-unit housing should be given more consideration that a proposal to build more $800K townhouses. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
They already have a free bus on weekends for people to shop around in Old Town. How about extending that free bus to other parts of Alexandria. Buses in Alexandria run every hour outside of business hours and then you get 3 buses within the same 10 minute period.
I hear ya, but what other option to we have? At the very least shouldn't we consider TOD as a factor when large tracts of land become available near Metro stops?
Without question. Still, then the analysis should focus on land near metro stops, not ridership at those stops.
I understand Rob's point, and I agree with a lot of his proposed solutions, but I think those are sort of good remedies regardless of the problem, and the pathway to reaching those conclusions is somewhat convoluted.
. . . the pathway to reaching those conclusions is somewhat convoluted
What isn't convoluted about Metro and development in the DC area? It's just the high price of doing business.