The Atlantic Cities had an interesting article a couple of days ago about Chinatown buses. What I found even more interesting than the article itself was the the accompanying map.

Streetcar impact on residential development demand.

Will DC’s streetcar system be worth its $1.5 billion expense? A recent study indicates that the answer is a resounding yes.

One of the key differences between buses and streetcars is that streetcars induce land development. That benefits the city from a Smart Growth and urbanist perspective. It also turns out to be a big win for the city’s coffers.

The DC Office of Planning’s Streetcar Land Use Study was commissioned to determine the impact that the city’s planned streetcar network will have on development, and on city tax revenue.

The findings are, to put it mildly, extremely positive.

Positive impacts

According to the study, the great benefit of streetcars will be that they tremendously expand the number of households and business properties that are within walking distance of a rail station. With streetcars, the share of DC residents within a quarter mile of a rail stop will increase from today’s 16% up to 50%.

That will correspond to an increase in the value of properties along streetcar lines by $5-7 billion. Another $5-8 billion in new development can be expected, resulting in a total property value increase of $10-15 billion due to streetcars.

That would result in $238-291 million in new tax revenue for the city each year, after completion of the 37 mile streetcar network. At that rate it would take only 6 years for the city to recuperate the full $1.5 billion cost. After 6 years, the tax revenues would be pure profit.

Tax revenue isn’t the only benefit, of course. The demographic impacts are significant. Compared to a no-streetcars baseline scenario, over a 10 year period the streetcar network is anticipated to induce 6,300-7,700 new jobs in the District, up to 12,000 new households, and up to 1.3 million square feet of new retail development.

That is a big deal.

The study goes on to conclude that these sort of dramatic results are only practical with streetcars.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is often mentioned as a less expensive alternative to streetcars. However, according to the study BRT would require exclusive rights-of-way in order to begin to achieve some of the same benefits as mixed-traffic streetcars. The property acquisitions necessary to provide exclusive bus lanes would more than negate any cost savings achieved by using buses, and the impacts on development would still be less. At the end of the day, BRT would be neither cheaper nor as effective.

Meanwhile, the expense of Metrorail and light rail would make them cost prohibitive to use for such an extensive network. If the District wants 37 miles of new transit, they are not options.

Negative impacts

There are of course some negative impacts. The largest of which is the effect such a tremendous increase in development demand would have on affordable housing.

The study recommends that in order to mitigate that impact, a range of policy prescriptions will be necessary. Recommendations include upzoning certain areas so that supply can keep up with demand, mandating inclusionary zoning in new developments, and greater code flexibility to allow accessory dwelling units such as alley houses.

Another negative impact is that streetcars running on a curbside alignment preclude the possibility of converting parking lanes to travel lanes during the peak period. With curbside streetcars, parking lanes must be either permanent, or absent.

The report also mentions the complications inherent to bicycle-streetcar coexistence. It notes that quality bike infrastructure will be necessary along streetcar corridors in order to minimize conflict.

Funding mechanisms

Although federal funding may become available at some time, any realistic scenario for the funding of this network must include a substantial local contribution.

In addition to DDOT’s normal funding mechanisms, the study identifies potential other sources of streetcar construction funds. Developer contributions and Tax Increment Financing (TIF) appear to be the most promising.

Developer contributions may be possible where very large developments would benefit from streetcar services, such as at Walter Reed or the Southwest Waterfront. The city could negotiate for a contribution of a few million dollars, knowing that the value of the development will increase by a greater amount with the presence of a streetcar.

Tax Increment Financing has even greater potential to fund a very large percentage of the program. TIF is a process in which the city uses bonds to build the initial capital investment, then repays the bonds using the increase in property tax revenue.

The report estimates that using the TIF process, the District could realistically support $600-900 million in bonds. That would approximate to between 40-60% of the total $1.5 billion cost.

These funding strategies will have to be explored in greater detail, and the negatives associated with streetcars will have to be addressed. But if this study proves correct, streetcars are going to be a big, big win. A decade after the system is built the city will be a better and more livable place, construction debt will be repaid, and the tax revenue will be rolling in.

 Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

Image from Marcan Tiger Preserve.

The fourth round of the popular TIGER funding program was announced this morning by USDOT. The program can be used to fund virtually any kind of transportation project, and is extremely competitive nationally. The DC area has been successful in the past, and may put forth another regional application.

Here are the details of the program:

• It provides a total of $500 million, with several sub-categories.
  • Up to $100 million may be used for intercity passenger rail. USDOT says this will be a priority this round.
  • At least $120 million must go to projects located in rural areas.
  • Up to $175 million may be used to leverage loans under the TIFIA program.
  • The remaining $105-280 million (depending on the amount used for TIFIA) will go towards “traditional” TIGER recipients such as ports, transit, roads, cycling, and complete streets projects.
• For projects located in urban areas:
  • There must be a minimum 20% local funding match.
  • The minimum grant award shall be $10 million, meaning the minimum project size (with local match) is $12.5 million.
  • The maximum award is $200 million, but it is unlikely any awards will be larger than $20 million.
• For projects in rural areas:
  • There is no required local match.
  • Projects may be as small as $1 million.
• Pre-applications are due February 20, and final applications on March 19. This is an incredibly short turnaround time.
• Funds received under the program must be obligated no later than September 30, 2013. “Obligation” is a specific federal term. It does not mean projects have to be completed by that time, but rather means they must have passed through the extensive federal planning process. This deadline essentially means that only projects which have already begun planning, or which can be planned unusually quickly, are eligible.
• As is always the case with TIGER grants, regional collaboration is encouraged, and USDOT will strive for equitable geographic distribution of funds around the country.

Earlier this morning, WMATA’s new Seven Corners bus depot officially opened. The new transit center is more like a super-sized bus stop than a true bus station, but nonetheless it’s a solid improvement.

Here is a map showing the transit center’s location. It takes advantage of the recently built pedestrian bridge over Route 50, which is a nice touch.

I happened to be in Seven Corners a couple of weeks ago and snapped these pictures of the almost-finished project. Forgive the cell phone quality.

Interesting graphic, grabbed from the Alliance for Biking & Walking.

If we can get 12% mode share with less than 2% of funding, imagine what we might achieve with more serious money.

As Virginia moves forward with private partnerships in order to build and operate HOT lanes, one of the issues that will have to be worked out is how fast traffic in the HOT lanes is designed to move. The state wants HOT lanes to move at totally uncongested speeds, while the private companies that will manage tolls would make more money (and would move more people) allowing the lanes to become somewhat congested, but not as much as the general purpose lanes.

Proposed Virginia Senate Bill 212 is intended to answer that question, and proposes to guarantee that traffic speeds in HOT lanes be protected. That’s all well and good, in theory.

But see if you can spot the problem with the proposed language:

“Any contract for the construction of any additional lanes that include HOT lanes or the conversion of any existing lanes to HOT lanes… shall specify that average vehicle speeds shall be at least as great as the posted speed limits.”

O RLY? “At least” as fast as the legal speed limit?

Traffic courts would have fun with that one.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), this legal paradox will almost surely be caught and corrected. Don’t count on ever actually being able to treat HOT lanes like the autobahn.

Modern Antakya. Image from Asaf Aynur.

Last year BeyondDC ran a story about Tayasal, a Mayan city that survived until almost 1700. Obviously the story had nothing to do with urbanism in Washington, DC; it was just a tidbit of urban history that I found fascinating. I said more such stories would appear from time to time, under the History of Cities tag. Here’s number 2.

Antioch was at its height the second largest city of the Roman Empire, after Rome itself. It may have had a population of up to 600,000, and was the chief metropolis of the Near East for centuries, through the late ancient world and into the early middle ages.

I’ve always been curious about Antioch. Why didn’t it survive into the modern era, as its peers Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Damascus did? There is a modern city on the same site in today’s Turkey, Antakya, but it is a totally different place, and its modern population of 200,000 is a fraction of its ancient size.

Antioch survived the fall of Rome and remained an important city under the Byzantine Empire into the Crusader Era, before finally being abandoned around 1400. Its long decline lasted almost 1,000 years, and probably began with the silting of its port around 500 CE. The city was on the front line of the wars between Christianity and Islam, and changed hands multiple times over hundreds of years. It finally died after the Mongol Empire’s invasion resulted in a dramatic depression of Middle Eastern civilization in general, and the end of the Islamic Golden Age.

Photo by XYZ+T on Flickr.

It seems like a no-brainer that the long-planned Dulles Airport Metro line should include a stop at Dulles Airport, but to one key decision-maker, that remains an open question.

At yesterday’s meeting of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), board member Robert Clarke Brown, a presidential appointee, suggested re-routing Phase 2 of the Silver Line to skip Dulles Airport.

The airport station is expensive, he says, and so MWAA should consider simply not building it. Metro riders hoping to access Dulles would instead transfer to some kind of shuttle or people-mover from the Route 28 station, the next closest.

Skipping the airport and replacing it with a people-mover would reduce the project’s overall $2.8 billion price tag by approximately $70 million. That, argues Brown, is reason to take his suggestion seriously. It shouldn’t be.

To the MWAA board’s credit, they quickly rejected Brown’s proposal. As they should have. The main goal of Phase 2 of the Dulles Metro project is to provide service to Dulles Airport. Failing to do so means the project would not meet its main goal.

Cutting so many corners that you don’t achieve your goal is not cost savings, it’s failure. Far from saving $70 million, by failing to provide Metro service to Dulles Airport Brown’s proposal would actually waste billions.

After all, if you’re going to force airport riders to transfer onto a shuttle anyway, why not make the transfer at Whiele Avenue, the end station for Phase 1? Why bother building Phase 2 at all? The other Phase 2 stations are all primarily park and rides, and it doesn’t make much difference at which station drivers park, so without the connection to Dulles Airport the entire argument for why Phase 2 is necessary in the first place becomes extremely flimsy.

So flimsy that many people would wonder whether the project were worth its $2.8 billion (minus $70 million) price.

The planning history of the Silver Line is replete with compromises. Express tracks to the airport or no express tracks? A subway through Tysons Corner or an elevated line? Airport station at the terminal or a few hundred feet away? At every step of the process, planners have had to weigh the ideal service situation agaist the costs. That’s life in the world of transportation planning.

But this is one compromise that absolutely cannot under any circumstances be made. The absolute minimum requirement for a Metro line to Dulles Airport must be that it actually reaches Dulles Airport. Period.

Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

Today BeyondDC steps outside its usual urbanist role to help raise awareness of a big problem: Congress is considering breaking the internet with a set of radical new laws that would give private corporations nearly unlimited power to accuse anyone of copyright infringement, and to then effectively shut down that person’s website. The effect of such far-reaching and broad regulations would be catastrophic to the free exchange of ideas on the internet as it exists today.

Several of the internet’s largest sites are participating in a “blackout” today, shutting down their main content in protest of a law that could shut them down for real if passed. BeyondDC may not be Wikipedia or Reddit, but everyone needs to know about these proposed bills. We cannot let them pass without a fight.

Here is more information if you are interested. Below are some screencaps of major webpages taking part in today’s blackout.

Wikipedia

Google

Reddit

Yesterday on Twitter I linked to a neat map of tree biomass in the 48 contiguous states. Some people had trouble opening it and asked me to show it here. I’m happy to oblige.

The map is based on data from NASA, and originally came from Reddit. Correction: Here is the source.

Click the image for the full-size version.