Bank, Commission, Capital Budget, or Business as Usual?

My latest Planetizen post: Getting the Transportation Infrastructure We Need

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Public Transit

From a speech to the annual meeting of the American Public Transportation Association:

Last year, public transportation ridership reached its highest level in 50 years. While this upward trend is tremendously encouraging, it is overloading many of your systems, and making the need for infrastructure investment all the more pressing.

The question is not whether we must invest in our nation’s infrastructure, but rather, how do we pay for it? How do we proceed in a fiscally sound way?

One idea being considered is an infrastructure development bank to promote public and private investment in projects of regional and national significance, including public transportation projects. The bank would be an independent federal entity that would evaluate major infrastructure proposals and finance the best of them using a variety of financial tools. [...]

I know you have a keen interest in the reauthorization next year of the surface transportation bill, SAFETEA-LU. [...]

House Democrats are committed to robust public investment in public transportation. We are committed to advancing a bill that – at a minimum – honors the historic 80/20 funding split between highways and transit. The reduction of transit’s share below 20 percent that occurred in the 2005 reauthorization will not be repeated.

We are committed to reforming the New Starts process for funding rail transit projects. Many of you have worked long and hard to develop New Starts projects, only to have the Bush Administration move the goal posts, forcing you to comply with new criteria. This must stop.

It is essential that the environmental and economic development benefits of rail transit become fundamental criteria in the decision-making process for New Starts. We see with each new light rail system – whether the location is Dallas, Minneapolis, or Portland – a tremendous upsurge in transit-oriented development around rail lines and stations. Transit and the high-density development that accompanies it both have tremendous value in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and putting us on the path to a low-carbon economy.

Measuring Regional Transit Oriented Development

WMATA recently released the 2008 Metrorail Station Access & Capacity Study (PDF) which analyzes how the system can accommodate future growth in detail. David has a good summary of the report’s major recommendations for improvement and expansion. A table in the report caught my eye that showed the estimated number of jobs and households around a number of Metrorail stations from the year 2005. Metro’s Office of Long-Range Planning was kind enough to provide me the complete spreadsheet of the number of households and jobs within half a mile of each station, distilled from the Washington Council of Government’s transportation planning data. (I assume the numbers were calculated by summing the jobs for each traffic analysis zone whose center was half a mile from a Metro station.)

I’m using the data for a larger ridership study that should appear here sometime in the future, but in the meantime I realized it allows us to evaluate the level of transit oriented development in each jurisdiction. For Montgomery County and Prince George’s County, because the stations are spaced sufficiently far apart, we can also estimate the percentage of total jobs within half a mile of a Metro station. This relative measure takes into account the many more jobs in Montgomery County. Because the half mile radii overlap significantly in Arlington, Alexandria, and D.C. I can’t easily say what proportion of all jobs are accessible by transit for those jurisdictions.

Here’s the results after averaging the development for each station in the various jurisdictions.

The analysis confirms what we might expect: D.C. and Arlington have the most jobs near their stations, and the Prince George’s County stations have the fewest in absolute terms. The pattern holds in relative terms for the Maryland counties — according to the WMCOG data, roughly 50% of Montgomery County’s 500,293 jobs were within 1/2 mile of a Metro station, versus only 38.4% of Prince George’s County’s 358,450 jobs. While I agree there’s much Prince George’s should be doing to boost development around their stations, there are a couple important caveats. The county has seen much less real estate investment than other parts of the region, and the Metro stations are much newer. Metro made it all they way out to Shady Grove in 1984 and Glenmont in 1998, versus Greenbelt in 1993, Branch Avenue in 2001, and Largo Town Center in 2004.

For households, on average Arlington County’s stations have slightly more than D.C. stations, likely a reflection of Arlington’s aggressive development of high density housing along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor and the low-density residential neighborhoods surrounding many D.C. stations.

Not surprisingly, some of the least-used stations I identified in my popular post on station ridership also have the least development around them. My next step is to use a regression to evaluate the relative role of jobs, housing, parking, bus lines, multi-modal access, and a variety of other variables to explain ridership.

Obama: Congestion Pricing ‘Thoughtful’ and ‘Innovative’

In an exclusive interview with a New York television station, Senator Barack Obama described congestion pricing as a thoughtful and innovative approach to the problem of congestion. In the interview he described it as a way to reduce congestion, reduce pollution, and invest in infrastructure and mass transit. With an April 7th deadline approaching, New York City appears poised to approve a historic congestion pricing plan. (See Streetsblog for exhaustive congestion pricing coverage.)

> WNYC: “Obama Urges Oversite of Financial Markets, Supports Congestion Pricing“

Taking the Train in Dallas

Before very recently, I knew very little about Dallas, Texas.

That changed for two reasons. First, it’s the location of the site used for this year’s Urban Land Institute Hines Student Urban Design Competition. I was a member of a team at the University of Maryland that submitted an entry, creating a land use and development plan for a long-neglected district near downtown. Regrettably we did not win, but it was great fun and involved a crash course in Dallas architecture, planning, and history. Second, I was invited to my friend Eric’s wedding, which is to be held next weekend in Dallas, his fiancé’s home town. The trip will provide the opportunity to visit downtown, and if time allows perhaps even the project site.

One of the surprising findings from my ULI research was the city’s extensive light rail system. My previous post on Light Rail in unlikely cities neglected to mention Dallas. After a transportation planning process in the 1990s, Dallas Area Rapid Transit began building a light rail system. The first portion opened in 1996, and today the system carries an average of 63,400 passengers daily over 45 miles of tracks seen in the system map to the right.

However, planned extensions in various stages of planning and construction will over double the size of the system, bringing the total to over 91 miles. (As a point of comparison the D.C. Metro is 106.3 miles) Here’s what the system will look like when planned work is complete.

The full plan officials are working from has even identified additional corridors for transit.

What is the larger economic and social context of this development? A 2004 study by the Dallas Morning News described Dallas at the “tipping point,” identifying underperforming schools, a weak tax base, low quality of life, and a slow economy in the center city. What’s missing from the detailed report is how little the spatial forces are explicitly recognized in the report. Sprawl is made possible by transportation infrastructure and land use policies, and any comprehensive solution must come from these sectors. The symptoms of sprawl are clearly described in a 2005 “update” to the original report:

Unchallenged, the report said, the city will continue on a downward spiral.

It works like this: High crime and cratering schools send droves of middle-class families into communities like Frisco, Rowlett and Garland. Eventually, businesses follow. Dallas sales and property taxes plummet, reducing funds the city needs to fight crime and fix its schools.

Evidence of the outward migration can be seen on a drive north, 25 miles out of the city, through a sea of tri-level trophy homes in communities with double-digit growth.

The light rail transportation infrastructure being developed is necessary but not sufficient to counter these problems — also necessary is the political will to coordinate land use policies, control fringe development, and tackle stubborn problems like crime and education. The agency’s aggressive pursuit of transit oriented developments (a building is already under construction adjacent the future light rail station in the photo at the top) is a positive sign, but with only 63,400 riders a day the system has a long way to go.

Calling for a New Eisenhower

In the 1950s, President Dwight D. Eisenhower championed a program to construct a nationwide network of highways to connect the nation. As a young soldier he had personally experienced the poor condition of American roads, and had seen first-hand on German autobahns how important a system of modern roads was for national defense purposes. The interstate highway system was born.

In 2008, we are in a similar position. European cities have some of the world’s best public transportation systems while Americans struggle with mediocre public transit and traffic congestion. Experts agree both our national security and solving global climate change depends on bold shifts away from oil consumption.

Will the next president step up to the challenge? That idea was suggested to me last night by David from Greater Greater Washington. Perhaps Barack Obama will cite personal experience riding Chicago’s struggling transit, or Hillary Clinton will describe New York City’s overcrowded subway, as they sign historic laws creating world-class transit systems in every American city. Perhaps John McCain, who voted against the last transportation bill because of its excessive earmarks, will sign a performance-based transportation bill to create energy-efficient transit systems nationwide for our national defense.

Does America need a new Eisenhower to champion world-class transit in every American city? After all, they’ve already started, even in McCain’s home state.

‘The genie is somewhat out of the bottle’

The “genie” a Bush appointee at the Department of Transportation is referring to is congestion pricing, or the practice of setting tolls high enough to keep traffic flowing. The quote closed a cover story in today’s Washington Post about both congestion pricing and privatization of the nation’s transportation infrastructure. Long discussed by economists as the preferred solution to highway congestion, the article describes how Bush appointees have provided funding to several congestion pricing pilot programs.

Setting aside the issue of privatization, congestion pricing may prove one of the most-discussed aspects of the debate surrounding Congresses’ next transportation bill. At the hearing where the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Committee unveiled their report the issue was the subject of one of the hearing’s more heated exchanges. The committee’s suggestions include new road capacity, allowing congestion pricing on the interstate system, as well as substantial new investment in mass transit.

U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) didn’t like what he heard. Roughly 1 hour 37 minutes into the hearing he interrupted the presenters to engage in a lengthy tirade about congestion pricing. “I’m particularly concerned about some of the arguments we’re receiving about congestion pricing, I think there are some very substantial equity issues.” He posed the example of a worker whose commute was impacted by congestion pricing. “What are the alternatives as a consumer if there isn’t a viable mass transit option?” he asked, “What’s your choice? Tell your boss you’re coming in two hours later? … Sell your house? Quit your job?” Representative DeFazio went on to argue he believes congestion pricing won’t reduce traffic, just cause traffic to overload local roads. “What we’re talking about is public infrastructure, a public good,” he said, exasperated, “I can’t see how this is some grand solution when people don’t have alternatives that are comparable.”

While Congressman DeFazio’s argument that congestion pricing was a form of rationing was quickly dispelled by a commission member, the other arguments he raised were not discussed will no doubt be heard many times again. I think he has several misunderstandings:

First, implementing congestion pricing does not necessarily mean tolling all lanes. In some cases existing high-occupancy lanes are converted to allow additional drivers for a congestion toll. Elsewhere, it may be possible to add tolled lanes to an existing highway. (Like this project along I-95 near Baltimore) These solutions wouldn’t impact Congressman DeFazio’s worker, only perhaps ease his commute by removing some private vehicles. It would also have the added benefit if creating new options for all drivers — a faster commute would be available when they were in a hurry.

Second, he doesn’t consider some of the issues I considered when examining the ethics of performance parking. One, we know the wealthy are more likely to own vehicles, more likely to own multiple vehicles per household, and also drive more miles per year. While I have not seen any studies on the matter, these facts suggest congestion tolls may in fact be progressive in the aggregate. Two, existing congestion his very high real costs to all drivers in the form of time, pollution, and fuel. With new congestion pricing, Congressman DeFazio’s hypothetical worker may have to pay more in tolls, but be able to clock more hours on the job or even find he can now commute farther to a higher-paying job. Three, new tolls may have additional unintended effects. Congressman DeFazio seems to consider traffic inelastic, meaning it won’t be impacted by tolls. However, according to the National Household Transportation Survey only 19% of travel is commuting to work, and 30% is for recreational and social purposes. It seems reasonable to expect some of the drivers will drive less in response to higher costs, or even use mass transit.

While Congressman DeFazio’s concern with equity is well meaning, we should consider the complex impacts of new tolls in a sophisticated way. While transportation is and should be considered a public good, as riders of public transportation know that good is often provided at a fee.

> W. Post: “Letting the Market Drive Transportation“