Streetsblog New York City

The federal DOT has just released its guidance for states seeking a share of its $8 billion in high-speed rail funding -- and tucked in the rules are standards that could prove crucial to the project's success.

The definition of high-speed rail can vary depending on the source. The original White House outline cited a top speed of 150 mph, while European and Asian networks can go as high as 200 mph.

Today's DOT guidance uses the same standard that was outlined in last year's Amtrak reauthorization bill: high-speed trains are those "reasonably expected to reach speeds of at least 110 mph."

That standard appears flexible enough to include most regional rail plans. California's high-speed authority believes the state's service can reach a top speed of 220 mph. The states working on a midwestern rail network with Chicago at the center, however, envision their trains achieving an average of 67 mph for local service and 78 mph for express rides.

In addition to speed, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will initially evaluate high-speed rail proposals using six criteria, with each one assuming a different priority level depending on the pot of money that's being spent.

Here's where things get a bit complicated, because high-speed rail aid has been split into four tracks.

The first two use stimulus money for projects and programs, and the second two use money from the annual congressional appropriations process for planning and project execution. In fact, DOT's guidance says the first two tracks of money -- the $8 billion popularly referred to as high-speed rail stimulus money -- may not be paid out in full this year, "to allow for potential future rounds of solicitations and awards which occur after 2009."

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It appears Chicago politicians who privatized city parking meter operations traded short-term political gain for long-term fiscal pain.

Chicago may have left as much as $974 million on the table under the terms of last year's agreement with Morgan Stanley. A June report from the city inspector general [PDF] blasted the deal for being rushed, secretive and vastly too expensive for taxpayers. The report's revelations incensed motorists already antagonized by a ragged roll-out of meter rate hikes.

All in all, it wasn't the money for nothing bargain the City Council seemed to think it was back in December when Morgan Stanley handed over a check for $1.157 billion. This manna from Wall Street plugged the city's gaping budget hole and allowed the council to avoid painful tax hikes and service cuts. It also enticed lawmakers in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, where officials were considering their own parking privatization deals.

In return for the upfront cash, Chicago leased its 36,000 parking meters for the next 75 years to the Morgan-led consortium, and granted it the authority to double and triple meter rates. By 2013 downtown meters are slated to double to $6 per hour; neighborhood meter rates are to double to $2 per hour.

The deal was pushed hard by Mayor Richard Daley. The core of his privatization argument was that Chicago lacked the political will to raise meter rates and that desperate fiscal times demanded unlocking the value of public parking. He noted that city meters were only generating about $20 million a year, and because of neighborhood resistance, meter prices hadn't gone up in 20 years. His conclusion was that Chicago had to outsource the political will to raise meter rates.

However, the inspector general's report concludes that, "If Chicago were to keep control of the parking-meter system and operate it under the same terms as the private company, the system would be worth approximately $2.13 billion (in present dollars)," or $974 million more than the city received. Ironically, another cost of Chicago parking privatization was that it quashed a number of neighborhood-supported parking improvement districts, in which higher meter fees were to be invested in local pedestrian, bicycle and transit improvements.

While public-private partnerships can be appealing because they require motorists to pay more of the actual cost of driving, are these deals really the only way to overcome political resistance to higher motoring fees?

Today, from Design New Haven, a tale of two shopping plazas. 

One, anchored by a Shaw's supermarket, is in the thriving heart of downtown New Haven, a city that was just ranked in the top 25 "Best for Gen Y" nationally. The other is a Target complex in the middle of an industrial wasteland at the city's edge. Which is more friendly to human beings?

We'll let Design New Haven's editor, Mark Abraham, tell the counterintuitive story:

Shaw's Plaza is in the heart of downtown New Haven, but connected to nothing.

The Shaw's Plaza, built in the mid-1990s, is home to the only major supermarket in Downtown New Haven, and attracts many local residents and Yale students...

Despite the supermarket's popularity and the incredibly high density of the surrounding neighborhood (according to the Census, the Dwight neighborhood just west of Downtown has a population density close to those of many of the central boroughs of London, 50-60% higher than that of Chicago or Downtown New Haven, and about 3X higher than that of the East Rock neighborhood), there are no crosswalks or traffic calming measures anywhere near the store. In addition to the lack of any pedestrian plaza right at the store's entrance, DNH readers regularly observe families of all ages, even people in wheelchairs, trying to cross Whalley Avenue near the Shaw's plaza. Usually, they dart across under great stress. To make things worse, vehicles regularly speed in excess of 50MPH down the 4-lane, median-less highway...

In contrast... the Target Department Store in North Haven, Connecticut opened about five years ago as part of a National Realty project, and is located in an industrial zone near the city's old landfill (known as "Mount Trashmore"). Other than its location off of I-91, Target has no physical relationship with any surrounding residential or commercial areas.

The store is the epitome of "dumb growth." But wait!

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The disparity between the 13 percent of road fatalities suffered by non-drivers and the amount that the federal government spends on their safety -- less than one percent -- may come as a surprise to some Americans. But the situation is far worse in the developing world, according to a new World Health Organization report.

Surveying data on crashes and driving from 178 nations, the WHO found that wealthy nations such as the U.S., U.K. and Germany own more than half of the world's registered cars but suffer only 8.5 percent of global traffic fatalities.

It is low-income nations, from Vietnam to Ghana to Nepal, that must contend with more than 40 percent of worldwide traffic deaths despite owning less than 10 percent of all registered cars.

The WHO also found that non-drivers bear a significant share of traffic's health risks. Pedestrians and bike riders of all types account for nearly one-half of the world's 1.27 million annual deaths on the road.

Only 15 percent of nations, according to the report, have laws that fully address the five risk factors for traffic safety: speed, helmets, child restraints, seat belts and drunk driving.

As the Washington Post noted, the report's authors (who received funding from Mayor Mike Bloomberg's philanthropic group) think their conclusions can provide momentum for something resembling a global "complete streets" movement:

Until the current recession, auto sales in some developing countries were increasing by more than 10 percent a year. The authors hope the report will help stimulate governments and engineers to design roads that can accommodate a huge influx of cars but also out-of-car users.

Not that it didn't deserve the attention, but last month's car-free Times Square debut overshadowed other major Broadway safety improvements like these to the north -- including pedestrian islands and separated bike lanes -- which are now well on their way to being implemented. These pics were taken last weekend just south of Columbus Circle between 57th and 55th Streets.

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Despite a growing awareness among conservatives that walking and biking are causes worth backing, Republicans on Capitol Hill continue to condemn bike-ped programs as wasteful "pork". The GOP's latest potshots at sustainable transportation come during debate over a health care bill that focuses mainly on insurance and hospitals, but also includes a public health grant program aimed at encouraging exercise.

Sen. Mike Enzi (WY), senior Republican on the health committee, slammed the legislation for seeking to "pave sidewalks, build jungle gyms" and expand bike access to help improve public health:

We need to root out the waste, fraud and abuse that is driving up health care costs -- not create a whole slew of new wasteful programs.

It's unclear whether Enzi knows that the federal government already has a program to encourage biking and walking, nor whether he's aware of their demonstrated public health benefits. But his talking point is already migrating to other Republicans, who have twisted the health care bill's proposed "community transformation" grants into a big-government bogeyman.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) picked up Enzi's baton today in a speech against the health bill:

[E]arly indications are that it will direct billions of dollars to things like having the government build sidewalks and government-subsidized farmers markets.

The idea here is to use tax dollars to encourage healthier lifestyles. But at a time when Americans are buried under medical bills and frightened about losing the coverage they have, farmers markets and sidewalks aren’t the reforms they have in mind.

In Washington politics, the term "kumbaya moment" is used to describe those rare occasions when self-interested stakeholders join hands to support a set of reforms. And today's appearance before the Senate Banking Committee by the chiefs of three Cabinet departments -- Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency -- definitely qualified for kumbaya status.

The first bit of news that emerged from the Senate hearing was the EPA's inclusion in the Sustainable Communities project that DOT and HUD announced in March. Yet a potentially bigger gesture of unity came from Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), the Banking panel's chairman, who is planning legislation that would put some teeth behind the three agencies' goals.

Dodd said his forthcoming bill would create a competitive grant program to "provide incentives for regions to plan future growth in a coordinated way that reduces congestion, generates good-paying jobs, meets our environmental and energy goals, protects rural areas and green space, revitalizes our Main Streets and urban centers, creates and preserves affordable housing, and makes our communities better places to live, work, and raise families."

That's quite the mouthful. But it also suggests that even as Congress' jam-packed schedule pushes the prospects for a federal transportation bill past the September 30 deadline, senior lawmakers are committed to helping the Obama administration make good on its promises to encourage transit-oriented development and environmentally friendly land use practices.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson even used a scientific metaphor to describe the agencies' goals. "Pedestrians are a good indicator species for a healthy community," she told senators today. "We're all about building a healthy community of pedestrians."

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Tonight and Thursday, DOT and New York City Transit will conduct the last of their spring and summer Bus Rapid Transit Phase II workshops. The workshops are intended to allow DOT and NYCT to educate the public on Select Bus Service, and gather feedback on neighborhood transit needs, as the agencies plan future routes and service improvements.

Tonight's event will be held at New Dorp High School (465 New Dorp Lane, between Hylan Blvd. and Mill Rd.) in Staten Island; the final workshop is set for Thursday at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan (Bldg. A, enter on W. 27th St. between Seventh and Eighth Aves.). Each begins at 6:30 p.m.

For more background, check out the SBS web page and the "Introduction to Bus Rapid Transit Phase II" report [PDF] for the basics of New York-style BRT.

Back in February, Brooklyn CB7 hosted a public workshop where DOT and the Department of City Planning explored ways to make Brooklyn's Park Circle a more appealing gateway to Prospect Park -- and a less terrifying traffic vortex for everyone outside of a car to navigate. Participants floated a number of ideas to mark off more space for pedestrians, cyclists and horseback riders, and tonight you can help shape what comes next. From DOT's announcement:

Help determine what short-term safety, circulation and landscaping improvements should be implemented this fall by the Department of Transportation and Parks & Recreation. The proposals were developed in response to a lively and participatory community “brain storming” workshop and will be presented by NYCDOT.

Tonight's workshop kicks off at 6:00 p.m., at International Baptist Church (312 Coney Island Avenue, by the circle).

The nation's largest metropolitan areas -- which account for 63 percent of the U.S. population and 73 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) -- have received less than half of the surface transportation money allocated so far under the Obama administration's economic stimulus plan, according to a new report compiled for the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The transportation stimulus report was released over the weekend during the mayoral conference's annual meeting, which lost high-profile attendees to a firefighters' strike in the host city of Providence, Rhode Island.

Its data suggests that cities, while they remain economic engines and shoulder much of the environmental cost of congestion, are getting the short end of the stick from state DOTs that have control over a significant share of stimulus money.

The top 85 American metro areas have received $8.8 billion, or 48 percent, of the $18.6 billion in stimulus aid given to state DOTs by the Federal Highway Administration, according to the mayoral conference's report.

The report found several cities that generate a large amount of economic activity for their states getting a comparatively small share of transportation aid. Los Angeles, for example, contributes 39 percent of California's GDP but received 25 percent of its stimulus money. Indianapolis fared even worse, netting just four percent of Indiana's transportation stimulus money while generating 39 percent of the state's GDP.

Using congestion estimates from the Texas Transportation Institute's (TTI) most recent Urban Mobility study, the mayoral conference's report also found that urban areas have not received stimulus money to match their traffic burden.

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Much of the talk on the Streetsblog Network in the past few days, perhaps prompted by the recently concluded Congress for the New Urbanism conference, is about transit-oriented development. The real estate crisis, it seems, may finally be pushing the issue into the mainstream.

Hub and Spokes cites a recent article in the New York Times about new and proposed light rail lines in communities around the country, such as Carrollton, TX. "Are we finally seeing the key connection between transit and housing?" Hub and Spokes asks. "The drive-to-qualify model is no longer viable."

Over at CUNY's Sustainable Cities Blog, they picked up a piece by Grist about "the best US transit systems you never knew existed":

I was familiar with a few of their case studies (the Olympics-driven Salt Lake light rail, for example, is fantastic) but some were a complete surprise. Who would have thought that tourist-clogged Orlando was an up-and-comer? Or that the proud Confederate capital, Richmond, was a contender? Perhaps these success stories can be read as a sort of silver lining to our current economic woes.

Meanwhile, Mobilizing the Region has the latest on New Jersey's transit village program, which "provides financial incentives to communities committed to community revitalization, traffic reduction and air quality improvement in the areas surrounding their transit hubs." Orange, NJ, is the 20th municipality in Jersey to get the designation, which comes with $100,000 in funds and technical assistance in planning improvements around the train station there.

And Light Rail AZ is writing about how real estate agents are marketing apartments along the rail line that goes from Phoenix to communities like Mesa and Tempe. One is offering a free 31-day rail pass for new tenants. And the apartments are attracting a rare breed in the Sun Belt, the carless human:

Over at the La Paloma Apartments in Tempe, Veronica tells us that a lot of their residents are students, and she also mentions that "many of our residents are people that don’t have cars."

Imagine that.

Never one to pass up a moment in the spotlight, City Council transportation committee chair John Liu delivered some choice theatrics at this morning's hearing on the Bicycle Access Bill (Intro 871). At a committee meeting ostensibly devoted to easing the way for New Yorkers to commute by bike and bring their rides to work, Liu seemed more intent on confronting DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. There was no vote, leaving some to question whether the bill, which enjoys the support of 29 co-sponsors and Mayor Bloomberg, would become law before the City Council's summer recess.

Before I get to that, a little explanation is in order about the current status of the bill. This is the second committee hearing on Intro 871. It's been reworked substantially in the seven months since the first hearing, with both transportation advocates and the real estate industry weighing in. The bill has also been tweaked since Streetsblog posted the revised text earlier this month. I don't have the most up-to-date version available, but based on today's testimony, there are two notable changes:

• The bill now clearly states that building owners can claim an exemption if "secure" bike parking is available nearby. This should close a potential loophole in previous language, which granted exemptions for buildings near "sheltered" bike parking. That's the good news.
• The bad news: The bill no longer requires buildings that have a passenger elevator but no freight elevator to provide bicycle access. Previously, any building with a passenger elevator big enough to accommodate a bike had to comply.

The current legislation is still strong enough to merit the support of transportation advocates, but the loss of passenger elevator access is significant. Said bill sponsor David Yassky, "My hope is that at some point in the future, the bill will be amended to include passenger elevators." We have a request in with the Department of Buildings to determine how many buildings this exemption would affect.

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Jim Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, will release a "white paper" on his plans for the upcoming federal reauthorization bill in a press conference on Wednesday.

It's important to note that the paper will serve as an outline -- legislative language is expected to emerge later. (Streetsblog Capitol Hill's bet is still on the final days before the July Fourth recess.)

Here's how Oberstar's office put it in an official release:

The authorization bill is currently being drafted and will replace the current authorization, SAFETEA-LU, which is due to expire on September 30. Oberstar has promised that the new authorization will transform the way the federal government invests highway, safety, and transit funds.