Triangle Regional Transit

[monsoon]

That was an interesting article. It would seem they are rethinking the idea to run a train on the current route. If anyone goes to the meeting, I would appreciate it if you would put a summary here on UrbanPlanet.

[pack-man]

people have been saying to run it to RDU for years. People might actually ride the thing if they did.

[ChiefJoJo]

Here's a link from News 14 to preview the forum tomorrow. There are some really good speakers: David Price, david King (new TTA boss), Ron Tober (CATS boss), developers Greg Hatem and Greg Sandreuter, and other transit officials from around the country. I will be attending.

[ChiefJoJo]

Update from the meeting:

It was an outstanding forum in my view. I made a few notes, but left them at home so I'll go on memory...

(1) David Price is an asset to the region and is very knowledgeable on transportation issues. He's been a big-time supporter of TTA and he knows the challenges of getting this thing done. I came away impressed with him. He discussed the federal funding issues that are crunching the FTA. He mentioned the bipartisan House transportation committee recommended a much funding for the transportation bill last year, but Bush wanted it much smaller (I inferred this was in part due to funding of Iraq and Katrina--funds aren't as plentiful in Washington these days). Something like $16B in projects and $8B in actual New Starts funds in the last budget, so lots of projects are being left out due to tougher standards. Also, Price mentioned the coming problems with freight rail and passenger rail--there is high demand on these corridors and Congress may address some of these issues next year.

(2) Development panel was good. Cherokee is committed to making TTA work. They have a lot at stake, but made clear that additional local money would almost surely be required to get the rail project going due to FTA $ issues. Grubb Propoerties is doing Elizabeth and Hawthore in Clt--two bigtime TOD projects along the streetcar line. Property values are many times higher now than with the previous uses there (I think up to 10X). It's clear that transit spurs economic development if done right. All felt that the demographics of the region, the US, and the timing is right for more dense, urban development--that people demand to be in areas where they can walk and shop without a car by choice, not necessity.

The Cherokee speaker said something that surprised me but is very true... when transportation is built with public money, real estate becomes more valuable around it, so developers profit on the backs of taxpayers--he said govt needs to tap into the increased land values associated with these projects--be it a new freeway or a new transit line (that means impact fees, real estate transfer fees, etc.). Grubb guy said the tax system, etc still favors sprawl--it's too easy to build on 100 acres of farmland than a redevelopment project in the city--feels that needs to change if we want smarter growth.

An idea was mentioned: maybe we could use impact fees or TIFs from TOD (increased property values around station) for transit since numbers show over 60% of TOD residents don't have kids (and most property taxes go to schools). Sort of the Cherokee idea of capturing the development benefits of real estate that's near new transportation facilities.

(3) Ron Tober (Charlotte) was excellent. Maybe it's just because it wasn't in front of city council or MTC, but he was impressive. Showed the System Plan, pics of the South LRT under constr., etc. Mentioned advantages of having a typical center city area (hub and spoke system) in Clt vs Triangle--also CATS is dept within City, and not a separate transit authority like TTA, which is also an advantage. Got some wows in the crowd for the 485 LRT station where CATS is building a parking deck under a new ball field for the school there--essentially CATS got land for free from CMS and adds a "green roof" as a play area for the school (one of the neatest parts of that project IMO). Said do not forget about importance of bus networks. They are key to any system even though they do not get the press. Said latest issues with budget lately are bumps in the road and they will keep moving forward. CATS system will be ~$3.9B at buildout.

(4) Salt Lake City, DART (Dallas), and RDT (Denver) all had transit offiicals there. It was interesting to hear so many of the same experiences they each went through. I have more details but in every case, they had gone to voters for a transit referendum, and in all cases, they were voted down (Salt Lake in '92, DART in '89, RDT in '96) , sometimes up to 2-1 against transit. They all heard "people won't get out of their cars" "no one will ride it" "it doesn't go to the airport" etc... so many of the same issues we have heard here. They all regrouped and went back into the community and got support... businesses, politicians, public, etc. RDT guy said people had thought it was "RDT's plan, not the public's plan" (sound familar?).

All these systems now have a partial or full cent sales tax for transit. Utah they have different tax depending on county--6 counties, and some have 1/4 cent, some 1/2 cent, etc. I thought that was interesting. The DART guy mentioned that Triangle is the only metro with this configurantion, ie, three cities and no central DT--said that will be tremendous challenge to make work, although he did mention demographics & population of Triangle are similar to when those systems were being planned (2030 population for RDU = ~2.3M ppl). Salt Lake said we have to look at this regionally or it won't work--can't be city vs city.

He (DART guy) also said key ingredients for making a transit plan work are: (a) that you have a problem (ie,congestion) (b) have a well though-out solution--a multimodal plan with public support

[Cary NC]

Chief Jo Jo

Thanks for the synopsis and all the typing. I too was at the forum and it was great. I felt much more upbeat that this can and will work to get us on track in bringing regional rail to the area.

I did find it interesting that rail is just one option for the national panel.

Mr Grubb's idea for hillsborough street was great of using a street cars. All the developers were nodding yes on the potential Hillsboro st has for dense use. He said in Charlotte they are using a streetcar which is quicker to build and cheaper way between two high dense employers. A hospital with 5,000 staff and a Comm College with 43,000 people. Reduce the lanes of the street and they now are going to have a high dense pedestrian ONLY area anchored by the hospital and Comm College.

I found the comments interesting also about a line to the airport. Which seem to be wanted very badly here.

Something all three national panel members and Charlotte have in common are 1. no line to the airport yet, and in some cases not for a long time and 2. they are all hub airports. SLC- Delta, Denver-United, Dallas- AA, and Charlotte- US Airways. Mentioned by Mr Tober, a hub airport have a lot of people coming and going but not staying in Charlotte. This is one difference with RDU. We are not a hub so there are alot people staying in RDU.

Look forward to attending more of these seminars

[Cary NC]

For those interested, here is a link to the survery the handed out at the forum. They are looking for public input so that they can begin to shape guiding principles and the direction they are going to take.

Encourage all to fill it out and submit online.

http://www.wtsncevents.org/surveys.cfm

Click on The Triangle

[uptownliving]

It is good to see all the positive feedback on this transit meeting. I hope the positive energy turns into positive actions for Triangle Transit. I look forward to reading more in the future.

[danclever]

For those interested, here is a link to the survery the handed out at the forum. They are looking for public input so that they can begin to shape guiding principles and the direction they are going to take.

Encourage all to fill it out and submit online.

http://www.wtsncevents.org/surveys.cfm

Click on The Triangle

[Cary NC]

Thanks to all who attended and for reporting to the forum. I wish I could've been there. Was there a good turnout?

Sorry for the dumb question- was this forum hosted by the WTS, the author of the survey above? Did they express interest in hosting another seminar in the future? (Edit- Oops- just found the answer- they did sponsor it).

Did Ron Tober or anyone else talk much about bus rapid transit, esp. as feeder lines to fixed rail transit? I'm starting to think that Raleigh, Durham, RTP should start there first. Pick a bus line that intersects the future rail line and goes by the largest employment/entertainment centers, and make it a BRT line. Maybe it's a misconception, but it seems that the FTA is more in love with BRT these days. I also think it would make a future regional fixed transit line more palatable to the FTA and the public.

Also, did the reps from the cities mention the role of zoning and planning practices in aiding/hurting their transit systems? Did they mention the role of citizens advocacy groups?

[ncwebguy]

I wanted to go to this, but had four cans of Food Lion vegetables begging to be traded in for a fair ticket.

It is good to see professionals agree with my unprofessional view of public-private partnerships using the land value increase to help fund transit instead of being the "give away" to developers that makes sprawl so attractive. Hopefully a lot of the same people will go to the city sponsored lecture mentioned somewhere earlier presented by the author of "The High Cost of Free Parking".

I don't like the idea of BRT "building" rail ridership. A lot of people feel a train has a better chance of arriving and departing on time vs. buses, since they can't stay out of traffic from end to end the way rail does. But if rail is promised, ideally the corridor will develop and take care of the ridership questions.

[danclever]

The only way he would consider it as a developer would be in the case in TX where BRT is the preliminary to rail. Meaning the transit authority set a threshold of so many riders and once that is accomplished then they build the rail and move the bus to another route where they want to instigate a rail route. SO BRT is used to create ridership.

[monsoon]

The FTA has been beseiged by anti-transit politicians over the last decade and they have been told to push BRT and treat it equally with LRT. It's a way to say that they are pro-transit but the reality is it is a way to continue massive funding on highway projects. There isn't a BRT project in this country that doesn't, at least in part, use existing highways.

The reality is that people don't want BRT and it has not lived up to the promises made for it for ridership. Much of the theory behind using BRT is based on a field trip that several politicans took to Curritiba, Brazil in the late 90s. Curritiba constructed a home grown BRT that is impressive looking for the number of people it carries and they claim it runs in the black and did not require much funding to construct. What was missed in this (either by incompetance or it was deliberate) was that Curritiba's system served people who could not afford automobiles and operates in conditions that most Americans would consider intolerable. There are also disputes on how much it cost to build this line that centered around corruption of local officials cooking the books. None the less, every transit system that seeks federal funding from the FTA is forced to consider this option now.

A couple of comments on what was posted above about Tober/Charlotte. One of the lines in Charlotte is proposed to be BRT whereas the people served by this line want LRT. They have made the decision to put off this decision for 5 years in hopes there will be a change at the FTA that is more favorable to LRT.

Also, the streetcar line that is currently proposed for Charlotte will cost almost $300M to build and it only increases ridership over the current bus system by 3000 riders. It is unlikely that it will receive the funding to be built. It's my opinion that street cars are basically a waste of money because they do operate in the ROW and thus are subject to traffic like everything else, and this can't be mitigated by traffic signals because there are issue with pedestrians, bike riders construction work, etc. Also the lack of defined stations and response times are big negatives. They are not worth the cost to construct.

CATS is a department of Charlotte, but it does not make transit decisions. Those are made by the MTC which is comprised of the mayors of the 7 municipalities in Mecklenburg, the head of the county council, and a member of the NCDOT. Each gets one equal vote on decisions. The advantage of this arrangement is that it forces the local politicans to take a personal stake in the decisions made for transit and it gives the smaller towns in Mecklenburg a say in what happens in the county they share with the 800lb gorilla, Charlotte.

[ChiefJoJo]

Speaking of which, did any of the speakers mention the role of advocacy groups to counter anti-transit propaganda?

[ChiefJoJo]

N&O: Q & A with TTA Boss David King

[sax184]

BRT is in its infancy in the US and has shown no ability to drive real estate development in any significant fashion. The places where it has driven real estate (Curitiba, Bogota, etc) are developing world cities that have more command-and-control governance. What this means is that banks are unlikely to lend money for TOD around BRT.

In North America, Ottowa's BRT is touted as the cat's meow, but it lost ridership for 20 years from the mid-80s to just recently, when it finally started gaining riders again.

Also, the BRT to LRT thing in Houston in my mind, is a lot of hot air until we see them lay track. There has yet to be a single instance in the US of a transit agency putting in BRT and then replacing it with LRT.

[monsoon]

N&O: Q & A with TTA Boss David King

[orulz]

For example, maybe they could have just one bus maintenance facility and service all of the Triangle's buses there and take the savings and apply it to rail. Or maybe they could all buy new vehicles in one contract to reduce costs. I think there is a lot of opportunity for things like that which would make more money available to build a rail line.

[ChiefJoJo]

Consolidation is a no brainer for me, but there are so many turf battles to be waged. Maybe some level of consolidation can be acheived one small piece at a time.

I know that Chapel Hill has been resistant to any consolidation because they have a no-fare system, which does not translate very well to any other system in the Triangle. The whole issue of a regional transit or transportation vision is going to be very tricky to pull off. Not only is the region extremely unique geographically (three cities some distance apart with a suburban research park in the middle) as we heard in the forum last week, but also there are a lot of fundamentally different viewpoints on land use and transportation--one trip from Orange to Wake County will show you that. It's sort of the same reason that there are two MPOs in the Triangle and not one.

I hope everyone realizes that the next year or so will be extremely important to this region's liveability and economic viability in the future.

[ncwebguy]

The problem with system consolidation is that many people fear that any consolidation (shared repair facility, bulk bus purchases) will automatically lead to "full consolidation". The full system consolidation proposed a year or so ago was fought by people who were afraid some underperforming routes in CAT and DATA would be killed in one unified system. Cities feel their bus system names alone provide a sense of identity.

There are plenty of turf wars (political/back room/power struggles) at play too. CHT, DATA, and CAT's person who determines bus purchasing would like to retain their power. Are there existing contracts requiring one or more of the bus systems to purchases vehicles from a specific vendor? I know NC based Thomas does the TTA buses, and may provide for the other systems as well, but I don't know for sure. How much of a volume discount would a bus supplier be willing to provide? The same goes for advertising. How would rates be set? What percentage of buses would get ads?

Also, individual maintenance supervisors for each system, etc. They would likely prefer being on top of their little fifedoms than second tier of a smarter, more efficient consolidated shop. It also would lead to potential favoritism and/or prioritization -- i.e. would CAT buses with highly used routes get fixed before C-Tran buses?

Riders may be resistant to change that a unified numbering and timing scheudle would require. They know to look for bus 10 at a certain time. It would take months of education, but I think this is an easily accomplished goal.

Would a unified system make it easier or more difficult to get grants, etc. to operate? A sales tax increase for transit would go a long ways to help unification by reducing the funding individual cities currently contribute. I like the current "region pass" provided by TTA, DATA, and CAT, but can see the difficulties in incoporating Wolfline, CHT, C-Tran, and Duke University's bus systems. Getting corporate sponsorship in exchange for free ridership from places like IBM, Cisco, EPA, etc. would go a long way to increasing ridership. If companies had only one place to go to negotiate such a deal, it would be a lot eaiser than talking to TTA, DATA, CAT, and C-Tran individually.

I think they need to start small/behind the scenes, and the maintenance facility (and possible depot) could be a good start. I look at changes in transit being similar to how to cook a frog -- put a frog in hot water (instant consolidation) and it'll jump right out, but put a frog in room temperature water and slowly raise the temperature (buses, repair facilities, routes, etc.), and soon enough you have a boiled frog.

[Cary NC]

Cities feel their bus system names alone provide a sense of identity.

[tjoad]

http://www.newsobserver.com/243/story/502940.html

Poll results favoring the need for a better mass transit system.

[dmccall]

I was very critical of the TTA's poll that was conducted about a year ago. This poll, however, looks quite solid. I wonder if the TTA had conducted a poll this well if it would have swayed the Fed's perception of demand in this region. Here's a link to the full results of the poll.

[Damien]

What's even more reassuring is that this story was on the front page. I bet the anti-rail advocates layed golden eggs when they seen that triangle residents favored rail mass transit on the front page of the N&O.

[monsoon]

.... I wonder if the TTA had conducted a poll this well if it would have swayed the Fed's perception of demand in this region. Here's a link to the full results of the poll.

[ChiefJoJo]

So what is everyone's opinion as to where future transit corridors should go?

Should we rethink the whole TTA red line and try BRT or some such idea, or should we refocus and try to achieve additional funding for the line we have ready to be built?

This is what's basically planned or studied at this point, although I don't believe any definition of technology other than the TTA red line (DMU), and Eastrans (commuter rail) has been done. I could see perhaps LRT along the 15/501 corridor and BRT to RDU along NC 54.

I pretty much agree with what's there but I've always felt that there could be a revival of the streetcar along Glenwood Ave--maybe from the future intermodal center up along Glenwood to at least Five Points and perhaps Crabtree. Also, with the development of North Hills, I would be nice to connect it to a system in some way.