DaninDC

I just fear that without an overly aggressive commitment to TOD, there won't be enough development in the corridor to substantiate the BRT line, a la the Waterfront Line. At worst, this could prevent any future transit service expansions or enhancements in the future. In the future, the attitude that transit is only for the poor, disabled, and elderly MUST change.

Ain't that the truth. I'm painfully reminded of it every time I come home and see Cleveland wasting away. I could digress so much further, but I'll curb it here. BRT succeeds in Curitiba for reasons that have not been embraced in North America. Here's a summary (from lightrailnow.org): Curitiba is a compact city (with triple the population of Cleveland). Its five main radial bus lines are only about six miles long, with an average bi-articulated bus speed of just 12-13 mph (20 km/hr), too slow for longer trips. According to Volvo – manufacturer of some of these buses – "The average speed of the express buses is 32 km/h, and for the bi-articulated buses which stop every 500 metres, 20 km/h [12.4 mph]." [source: Volvo Buses – Curitiba] A United States transit study group visited Curitiba in 1998. The following excerpts from their report summarize some of their findings: Prepayment of fares and level boarding, systems typically found in rail systems, create a very efficient boarding and deboarding process. A bi-articulated bus (a 5-door, 82-foot bus built by Volvo and currently used only in Curitiba) with a load of 270 people can board or deboard in about 20 seconds. The average speed of buses using the busway is 13 miles per hour--twice the estimated speed for buses operating in the same Curitiba corridors in mixed traffic. (Note: average speed of the Washington Metro is 30 mph) A Curitiba bi-articulated bus (twice the length of a standard 40-foot bus) seats only 57 – its "270 passengers" are mostly standing! This would hardly appeal to American riders. By comparison, a new low-floor 40-foot bus seats about 38 people, 1/6 of a 3-car light rail train. Even Thomas Rubin, a zealous supporter of "Bus Rapid Transit" against virtually any rail alternative, raises questions about the applicability of Curitiba's operation to Southern California: First, it is somewhat questionable if large numbers of Southern California riders will accept the degree of overcrowding that we observed in Curitiba for long trips. More important, however, the Consent Decree in Labor/Community Strategy Center v. MTA requires MTA to operate buses with a peak load factor (the ratio of total passengers at the peak load point of each line to the number of seats on the bus) of no more than 1.2:1 by 2002. The Curitiba loads of 270 were achieved on buses with 57 seats, a load factor of 4.74. [source: Thomas A. Rubin, "The Future for Transit in the San Fernando Valley", page 23] As for creating dedicated bus lanes along heavily traveled Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, the idea of taking two existing traffic lanes plus its landscaped median for buses has so far received vocal opposition and little public support. It appears Curitiba will be getting a rail system – the City of Curitiba's web site shows a monorail on a page (in Portuguese) of plans for a "Metro Elevado." While Curitiba has its fans, light rail's speed, comfort, and capacity have made it a popular success in the United States. Phoenix just voted to join the western cities of Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Denver, Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, and Minneapolis, that all have or are building light rail. (DC is about to start building two streetcar lines. Even residents of Manhattan, home of the U.S.'s slowest bus fleet, have argued for an east-west light rail link.) In addition, the residents of Curitiba are largely poor, in higher percentages than Cleveland anyway. They don't have the option of cars for the most part. Curitiba also has highly restrictive zoning along the BRT corridors, and focuses high-density development along the BRT lines. Cleveland hasn't particularly committed to the idea of transit-oriented development, as we found out in the post-1996 world. There are plenty of technical reasons why BRT is inferior to rail. The only advantage that BRT *sometimes* has is lower capital costs, but even that is not a given. *Acceleration/deceleration of rail is superior since steel-on-steel has lower coefficients of static and kinetic friction than rubber on asphalt. *All pavement materials are susceptible to cracking, frost heave, and freeze/thaw cycles. You will never eliminate cracks in the road or potholes, especially in Cleveland. *Buses have much shorter service lives than rail vehicles. The average service life of a bus is 12-14 years. Rail vehicles can last 40-50 years or more. *Buses have higher maintenance costs due to more moving parts. Of course, being as objective and diligent as they always are, RTA has accounted for this in the life-cycle cost of the EC boondoggle. Of course, anyone who's ever ridden both buses and subways knows all this already.

I will say, though, that despite its operational problems, the Baltimore Light Rail does a halfway decent job of connecting BWI and Penn Station to downtown. I've taken the commuter train to Baltimore many times (which is a pretty darn good service) and transferred from the train to the light rail to get downtown. Now, if only the commuter trains ran on the weekend! Agreed that Detroit is *completely* backward with regards to transit, which is amazing considering how many Detroiters weekend in Chicago. It's almost as if they live in a bubble up there, and pay no attention to what is happening outside their little world. In any event, the Ann Arbor - Detroit commuter rail has a pretty good shot at being built. It has strong support near the western end of the proposed line, and there is talk in Lansing of extending the line to that city. SEMCOG has already received $100 million in federal money for study and construction of the line. Cleveland would have better Amtrak service if the State of Ohio actually kicked in money for trains like Michigan, Illinois, and a host of other states do.

The jury is out on whether or not less frequent stops are a good thing. What people in L.A. found on the Wilshire Line is that even though the stops were spaced further apart, reducing BUS trip times, people had to walk even further to the stops, increasing OVERALL trip times. ...and is RTA going to ensure that Euclid Avenue is maintained in pristine condition? A huge reason why I don't like BRT is that the comfort of the ride is highly dependent on road maintenance, which is always backlogged. Even if the road were maintained in mint condition, it will still cost a heck of a lot more than the maintenance required for rail tracks, and the ride quality still won't be as good as steel-on-steel.

What is noteworthy about the T Silver Line, though, is much of it is grade-separated, running through a subway tunnel. When I was there in November, I noted there is a direct connection to the Red Line and commuter trains at South Station. I'm just not convinced that landscaping and a paint job is going to significantly improve service over the #6. Aside from prepayment of fares, the operating characteristics are very much the same.

Transportation and land-use work hand in hand. In the DC area, the Metro opened 30 years ago, and areas around stations are still developing. Arlington has been completely transformed into a modern urban county. Neighborhoods in the District that were once given up for dead in the 60s, 70s and 80s now have $500,000 condos. True, you need density to support transit, but you need the transit to support density as well. Otherwise, people will just bitch that there isn't any place to park their car. Park and ride tends to work well for commuter rail, where trips are largely during rush hour, and are mostly peak-direction. It's a waste for a heavy rail subway or light rail, though, since the parking lots don't generate nearly as much ridership as a densely-built neighborhood. Given that a parking garage costs $15k - $20k to build, park and ride is by far the most expensive way to get people to a rail station. For commuter rail, where a line might carry only a few thousand people a day (as opposed to 250,000+ for a busy subway line), park and ride can work out in the 'burbs. As I stated above, there has been a lot of development around Metro stations in the DC area. The least amount of development, however, has occurred at the suburban park-and-ride stations. Some of these stations have parking structures for 5000-6000 cars. So, not only are you paying for the parking facilities, and giving commuters cut-rate parking fees, but you're not reaping any tax revenue on that land. Granted, some of these stations have good ridership numbers, but considering that many of those riders drive 20 miles to get to the station, it's not so impressive, especially considering there are stations in-town with higher ridership within a 5 block walk.

Yeah, because trains are too expensive....

I'll back that up. Lots of hotties at Michigan take up the Environmental program within CEE. That's the one thing my classes had over all the EEs, CEs, MEs and Aero's. Now I'm a practicing structural engineer, and about half my office is women, if you must know.

It's the beginning of the end! I'll be astonished if this actually comes to fruition. You would think these idiots learned after they created 15 congested lanes. Now they'll have 23 lanes of bumper to bumper traffic. Good job, geniuses!

Wrong. Other cities have seen RAIL transit projects spur substantial private investment. I don't know of one instance where bus rapid transit has led to increased investment.

It doesn't really take a whole lot to make a commuter rail line effective. Since commuter rail is mostly rush-hour based service, you could operate three trains a day in each direction and people would ride. The mode lends itself well to a common hub with outlying park-and-ride stations, as opposed to light or heavy rail, which require nodes of dense development to operate effectively. On top of that, it's easier to achieve a higher farebox recovery ratio than light rail. If Miami and Los Angeles can operate successful commuter rail lines, so can anywhere else.

clvlndr, squares don't "do" anything. Reread what you and I both wrote. We're saying the same thing. Public Square suffers because it is too compartmentalized, with the compartments segregated by wide roads that are a bit intimidating to cross on foot. Campus Martius succeeds because it is a well-defined public space in a city with a dearth of such spaces--an oasis if you will.

Ah, but once you start moving earth, things get damn expensive real fast! Take down the knee walls first....

Interesting you mention Dupont, KJP. I was thinking of Dupont in my earlier post, because that is a fantastic public space. Part of it, I think, has to do with what I'll call the "approachability" of the circle. From across the circle, you can easily see grass, trees, the fountain, and benches--it invites you to come on over. The walls around the quadrants of Public Square have a tendency to hide the public space from view, and discourage one from crossing the street.

If I remember correctly (forgive me), the quadrants of Public Square each have knee walls around the perimeter, correct?

The various social organizations that feed the homeless in DC do the same thing--they park alongside the squares downtown and feed the homeless during rush hour. The problem at Public Square in Cleveland, I suspect, isn't so much feeding the homeless as it is that the Square isn't populated by many other people. In other words, treat the disease, not the symptom.

That's a pretty arrogant statement, don't you think? Where should these people feed the homeless that would work better for you?

Mr. Dick has never been to Houston, has he? Right now in Maryland, the state government has been pushing the Intercounty Connector (ICC) for several years. The ICC was put on the planning boards 40 years ago as part of an "outer beltway", but was never built. Studies have already shown it would do nothing to alleviate congestion on the Capital Beltway, despite a cost of $3 billion. Maybe it's just my naive little brain here, but wouldn't you reassess the need for something after 40 years? Consider that much of the traffic nightmare in suburban Maryland was only created after they decided to widen I-270 from 6 lanes to 12 in the late 1980s.

Yeah, let's build elevated decks and viaducts, 'cause that's the easiest thing to do. Morons.

What, did you analyze the lateral bracing system or something?

According to free market think tanks, "modernizing" means being able to drive anywhere you want at 100 mph unimpeded. While I support a market-based approach to highway transportation (tolls), I do think there is the potential for disaster when "leasing" publicly-owned resources to private firms. Indiana is whoring the Toll Road for a 75 year period. Does anyone really think the $3.8 billion is going to last 75 years? If not, then what they're really doing is a one-time fix--not a permanent, sustainable policy change. What do you do when you run out of highways to sell? Do you sell the State Capitol to a private company in order to add more lanes to I-71?

The main economic problem with such a large building is that if substantially occupied, would sap a lot of people into one space. Sure, Cleveland has some prominent tall buildings, but for the 8th largest CBD worker population, it's pretty damn dead. No doubt, the large concentration of workers in Key Tower and the Terminal Tower help to decrease circulation on city streets and keep those 140,000 workers confined to a relatively small area. I would rather see a whole lot of smaller, more human-scaled buildings that generate more pedestrian traffic. If, however, I'm selected to engineer a monstrous skyscraper, who am I to complain if I'm getting paid? :-)

Structurally, I can make it work. When are you sending out the RFP? :-)

I don't think anyone is arguing to shut outsiders out of the urban neighborhoods (unlike the suburbs, which use exclusive zoning and restrictive covenants to enforce socioeconomically homogenous communities). City neighborhoods, one of which is downtown, must be functional for the people who already live and work there, or there will be zero visitors from the outside. I guess I'm lost. Do suburbanites require extra entertainment options that are not desired by city dwellers? Are suburbanites so fundamentally different in what they eat, what they buy, and their leisure pastimes that they have different needs in an urban setting? To me, it would be insulting to see an enterprise in my neighborhood that caters almost exclusively to outsiders, as if the people who already live there aren't good enough to patronize this particular enterprise. This isn't snobbery--it's just common sense.

No, but replicating the Avon Lakes and Gates Mills in urban neighborhoods for the comfort of suburbanites is even more destructive. Urban neighborhoods need to serve their own residents and workers first, and outsiders second. If someone wants to come into my neighborhood for a meal or a beer, that's fine. Just don't be disappointed and upset because it doesn't look like your own.