Charlotte streetcar construction. Photo by Reconnecting America on flickr.

President Obama yesterday nominated Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx as the next Secretary of Transportation. If Foxx’s experience in Charlotte is any indication, he’ll make a strong choice.

During his nomination press conference, Foxx said “cities have had no better friend” than the US Department of Transportation under outgoing Secretary Ray LaHood, and that if confirmed he would hope to “uphold the standards” LaHood set. That’s great news.

The fact that Foxx comes from a major central city is also a huge benefit. It means he understands urban needs, which aren’t just highways.

Charlotte may not be New York, but it’s made great strides in the right direction. The city’s first rail line opened a few years ago, and a streetcar line is under construction now. Charlotte also gained bronze-level status as a bike friendly community in 2008, and launched bikesharing in 2012.

Foxx has been a strong advocate for urban rail, especially streetcars. He knows transportation and land use are tied at the hip, and has fought repeated attacks on Charlotte’s streetcar by former Mayor and current North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory.

He’s also worked as an attorney for bus manufacturer DesignLine.

Foxx also knows that state Departments of Transportation can sometimes be part of the problem. At the federal level, it’s common for USDOT to delegate responsibilities and funding to state DOTs, under the assumption the states have a better understanding of local needs. But state DOTs aren’t any more local than any huge centralized government. And since they usually focus on highways, the result is that federal dollars mostly go to highways as well.

Since Foxx fought with the state over Charlotte’s streetcar, he knows that funneling everything through state DOTs means states hold the cards. He knows that can hurt cities.

Finally, Foxx hired Arlington, VA’s former county manager, Ron Carlee, to run Charlotte’s city government. Foxx would have heard about Arlington’s reputation for progressive transportation planning during the hiring process, and presumably counted it in Carlee’s favor.

Of course, no one can really predict what kind of Secretary Foxx will be. When progressive champion Ray LaHood was first tapped for the job, the blogosphere worried his history as a Republican from rural Illinois meant he’d be a status quo highway builder.

But we do know that Foxx has made a priority of building transit in his home city, and has had to fight to make it happen.

 Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

Construction of the Silver Line Phase 1 remains on pace to finish in September. The construction team is testing the tracks and adding station details, including the finishing touches of the canopy at McLean station, shown below.

In Phase 2 news, authorities have identified Clark Construction and Kiewit Infrastructure to build the next phase, past Reston to Dulles and Loudoun County. An official contract is expected in May.

McLean Metro under construction. Photo by Stephen Barna of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project.

Rendering of potential H Street FBI building. Image from Arthur Cotton Moore via Washingtonian.

As the FBI searches for a new headquarters location, most of the options have focused on the suburbs or Poplar Point, but Washingtonian reports on another proposal: Keep it downtown, at H Street and North Capitol Street, NW. But that location has serious downsides.

The proposal would repurpose the existing Government Printing Office buildings on North Capitol Street, and add a new extension to the west. The new building would be over 2 million square feet, and would cover multiple blocks from New Jersey Avenue to North Capitol.

Ideally an employer as large as the FBI should have its offices downtown, but the FBI isn’t just any employer. Its building is likely to be a security fortress, which means it won’t be very good for pedestrians, or have ground floor retail. H Street is an important pedestrian and retail spine. Giving up a long stretch of it to the FBI would be just as bad there as it is on E Street, where the FBI is a sidewalk dead zone.

Actually, a dead zone on H Street might be even worse. Walmart is building an urban format store directly across the street from the FBI proposal. And love Walmart or hate it, it’s going to be one of downtown’s biggest retail draws. That means this exact block of H Street is about to become one of the busiest retail main streets in the city. It should have retail on both sides.

One advantage of this FBI proposal is that the land is already owned by the government. That does mean it’s less likely to get retail on it, but putting the FBI building on it would cement that, literally.

There are other questions. DDOT’s proposed crosstown streetcar would run along H Street. The FBI has never weighed in on streetcars, but would they throw up security-related roadblocks? It’s unknown.

According to Washingtonian, the FBI would close G Street entirely to traffic. That further cripples the L’Enfant grid at a time when other projects are trying to restore the grid nearby. And would this forbid pedestrians and cyclists as well?

Finally, the existing GPO buildings are among Washington’s most prominent historic red brick buildings, and were designed by a prominent architect at the time. The FBI concept renderings show a courtyard in the middle of the GPO building, but aerials show no such courtyard currently exists. That suggests the buildings will have to be completely gutted to fit the FBI. Is that a worthy tradeoff?

Any proposal that keeps the FBI downtown merits serious consideration, but given the FBI’s security requirements, and given the potential for this location to be redeveloped with something even better, it may be preferable to let the FBI go. Putting the FBI on this block might be better than having it remain a parking lot, but almost any other building would be more ideal.

 Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

Tysons grid of streets, no. 2.

Maryland and Virginia will both enact major new transportation funding bills this year. Neither bill says exactly which projects will be funded, but here are the top 10 projects in Maryland and Virginia that most deserve to get some of the funds.

Number 1: 8-car Metro trains. Metrorail is near capacity, especially in Virginia. More Metro railcars would mean more 8-car trains on the Orange, Blue, and Silver Lines.

Number 2: Tysons grid of streets. Tysons Corner has more office space than downtown Baltimore and Richmond put together. Converting it to a functional urban place is a huge priority.

Number 3: Purple Line. Bethesda, Silver Spring, Langley Park, College Park, New Carrollton. That’s a serious string of transit-friendly pearls. The Purple Line will be one of America’s best light rail lines on the day it opens.

Number 4: Baltimore Red Line. Baltimore has a subway line and a light rail line, but they don’t work together very well as a system. The Red Line will greatly improve the reach of Baltimore’s rail system.

Number 5: Silver Line Phase 2. The Silver Line extension from Reston to Dulles Airport and Loudoun County is one of the few projects that was earmarked in Virginia’s bill, to the tune of $300 million.

Number 6: Arlington streetcars. The Columbia Pike and Crystal City streetcars both have funding plans already, but could potentially be accelerated.

Number 7: Route 7 transit. Leesburg Pike is the next Rosslyn-Ballston corridor waiting to happen. Virginia is just beginning to study either a light rail or BRT line along it.

Corridor Cities Transitway, no. 8.

Number 6: Corridor Cities Transitway. Gaithersburg has been waiting decades for a quality transit line to build around. BRT will finally connect the many new urbanist communities there, which are internally walkable but rely on cars for long-range connections.

Number 9: MARC enhancements. MARC is a decent commuter rail, but it could be so much more. Some day it could be more like New York’s Metro North or Philadelphia’s SEPTA regional rail, with hourly trains all day long, even on weekends.

Number 10: Alexandria BRT network. This will make nearly all of Alexandria accessible via high quality transit.

Honorable Mentions: Montgomery BRT network, Potomac Yard Metro station, Virginia Beach light rail, Southern Maryland light rail, VRE platform extensions.

 Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

The Purple Line won’t happen without more money. Image from Maryland MTA.

Yesterday, Maryland governor Martin O’Malley released his proposal to restructure Maryland’s gas taxes to raise $3.4 billion for transportation over 5 years. The plan is superficially similar to the recent Virginia transportation funding bill, but improves upon it in several ways.

Maryland needs new revenue this year. Without it, the Purple Line, the Corridor Cities Transitway, and the Baltimore Red Line could all stop moving forward.

The key to the bill is a new 2% wholesale tax on gasoline. Wholesale taxes differ from normal gas taxes in that the gas distributor pays them rather than the consumer. The distributor then usually passes the tax along to consumers via higher prices.

The plan partially offsets this wholesale tax by reducing the normal gas tax, from 23.5¢ per gallon to 18.5¢ per gallon. But the plan would also index the new lower gas tax to inflation, so it would increase slightly each year.

Taken together, overall tax revenue from gas would go up by about 2¢ per gallon as soon as the bill takes effect. In 2014 the 2% wholesale tax will increase to 4%, increasing gas tax revenue by another 9¢.

Maryland’s bill versus Virginia’s bill

Both bills reduce the normal gas tax but add new wholesale gas taxes. But while Virginia plans to reduce its total gas tax and subsidize highway building with revenue from other sources, Maryland’s proposal sticks to the principle of transportation user fees.

Unlike Virginia’s bill, Maryland’s does not include new fees on hybrid car owners, increases to the sales tax, nor any taxes on land or hotel visits.

Like Virginia’s bill, Maryland’s specifies that if Congress allows states to raise internet sales taxes, Maryland will do so, and will allocate some of it to transportation. If Congress doesn’t allow an internet sales tax by 2015 then Maryland’s wholesale gas tax will increase from 4% to 6%.

One thing Maryland’s proposed bill does that Virginia’s does not is to index transit fares on MTA buses and trains to inflation. That will put more burden on transit riders, but will also provide MTA with a more predictable budget.

Since Maryland cannot impose rules on WMATA without agreement from DC and Virginia, WMATA fares will not be indexed to inflation.

Smart Growth advocates are generally more supportive of O’Malley’s proposal than the Virginia bill. Montgomery County councilmember Hans Riemer says the bill “appears to be a very strong plan and just what Maryland needs to get big infrastructure projects going.”

The bill will undoubtedly face stiff opposition from Maryland Republicans, so its passage is no sure thing. But O’Malley’s proposal is co-sponsored by Senate President Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch, so it is clearly a serious initiative with a real chance of becoming law.

 Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

McPherson Square. Image from Google Street View.

Sometime earlier this month the National Park Service finally removed its fences from McPherson Square. The fences had been blocking access to most of the park for about the same length of time that Occupy DC had its tents there.

Occupy DC first started using McPherson Square in October, 2011. By January, 2012 they covered the entire park, but in February the majority of campers were removed. Some tents remained until June. In total, Occupy’s tents were up in McPherson Square for about 8 months, with the heaviest concentration lasting only about 3 months.

Shortly after booting Occupy from McPherson Square, the National Park Service fenced off all the grassy portions of the square, so they could regrow grass. The grass was back by late summer 2012, but the fences remained until just recently. They were up, completely blocking anyone from using most of the park, for about 8 months. That’s as long as Occupy used the park, and more than twice as long as Occupy’s full strength.

And of course, Occupy didn’t stop anyone from using the park the way NPS did. Occupy was there, in the way, but they didn’t put up fences. Occupy never tried to physically stop other people from using McPherson Square.

This NPS “fix” was worse than the “problem”, and was the latest illustration of how NPS prioritizes grass above the people who actually use their parks.

For years NPS has managed DC’s urban parks like Yellowstone or Yosemite, treating them like nature preserves instead of social places for people. They have gotten a little better in recent years, with new leadership in charge of DC park lands, but obviously much improvement is still needed.

If Maryland’s legislature fails to raise new transportation funding this year, the Purple Line light rail, Baltimore Red Line subway, and Corridor Cities Transitway BRT could all be cut or seriously delayed.

While reading a report about the Corridor Cities Transitway, I stumbled on these renderings of two of its more important stations. The first shows King Farm, near Shady Grove Metro, and the second shows Metropolitan Grove, a TOD in Gaithersburg where the CCT will meet an existing MARC station.

Note the relatively simple brick stop shelters, especially.

King Farm station.

Metropolitan Grove station, showing MARC on the left.

WashCycle reports today that the proposed 9th Street cycle track isn’t going to happen, because it is being removed from the regional long term plan. Fortunately, that’s incorrect.

I’ve spoken with DDOT about this, and they explain that the cycle track is still planned, and is simply being removed from the regional document because it doesn’t have to be listed there. The purpose of the regional plan is to model air pollution, and DDOT’s concept for the cycle track won’t impact the pollution computer model enough to bother with the added bureaucracy of keeping it in the plan.

Ironically, taking the cycle track out of the regional plan will actually make it easier to deliver, because it will reduce the number of bureaucratic hoops DDOT has to jump through in order to make the project happen.

Welcome to the confusing world of federal transportation reporting requirements!

Photo by sbluerock on flickr.

When is a moratorium, for liquor or otherwise, useful? When is it not?

Theoretically, local moratoriums on certain types of development can strengthen neighborhoods by encouraging a broader mix of uses. Unfortunately, they rarely actually work that way. More often, moratoriums are misused by opponents of growth in general, to try and slow or stop change.

As DC debates the possibility of a moratorium on liquor licenses on U Street, it’s worth discussing the issue more seriously than yesterday.

The basic truth of moratoriums is that they don’t usually stop things, but rather move them somewhere else. Banning bars on U Street doesn’t eliminate demand for bars, it simply pushes any new supply to the next best location. Residential moratoriums, which are sometimes used in fast growing suburbs, are the same.

So any discussion of a local ban on any particular use needs to consider where that use is most appropriate. It’s not enough to just say “I don’t want more of X in my neighborhood.” We have to plan where we do want that use, make sure it can happen there, and then plan what we want in the banned location instead.

Malls versus neighborhoods

One of the advantages suburban malls have over urban neighborhoods is total control of the merchant mix. Mall owners know that it’s important to have a wide variety of stores, so the best malls typically lease spaces to shops that will improve their mix, rather than those that will pay the highest rent.

When you’re at a mall and Verizon has a big luxurious shop, but AT&T and T-Mobile only have little carts, it isn’t because AT&T and T-Mobile can’t afford to outbid that shoe store down the hall; it’s because the mall owner will only lease out one big space to cell phone providers.

That isn’t limiting the free market. On the contrary, it’s taking a broad long term view of the market.

Urban neighborhoods usually can’t be as selective, because every building has a unique owner. Mall owners are concerned about the overall profit of the entire mall, so they can turn down high leases on individual storefronts if they think it will pay off with a little more business everywhere else. But if you only own one individual storefront, you’re going to maximize it with the highest paying tenant you can find.

That sometimes results in neighborhoods with a bad mix of stores. We certainly see that in DC, where many of our retail strips have a glut of bank branches, cell phone stores, and pharmacies.

So if used carefully, moratoriums can help level the playing field for urban neighborhoods with a lot of small land owners. If the neighborhood is desirable enough to fill all its storefronts regardless, and if the moratorium is thought of as more of a way to promote something new rather than limit something old.

But moratoriums shouldn’t be tossed around lightly. The key is to plan for what you do want and then make it happen. Moratoriums fail when they’re used without a master plan guiding them towards a specific goal.

And sometimes, it’s worth having a high ratio of certain things. For example, as a regionally-significant nightlife district, it’s acceptable for U Street to have a lot of bars.

 Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

Photo by Joshua Davis.

In response to Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s insane plan to fund transportation by eliminating the gas tax, Democrats in Virginia’s House of Delegates have proposed an alternative. It combines Democratic and Republican proposals to increase the gas tax statewide and give Northern Virginia separate authority to raise its own new funds.

Yesterday, the House Democratic Caucus outlined principles they believe should underlie any transportation funding plan for Virginia, and offered their support for a collection of 9 alternate bills which they say form a bipartisan path forward and an alternative to the governor’s plan.

Among those bills are Republican-written proposals to institute a new 5% fuel tax and to raise sales taxes in Northern Virginia specifically for transportation projects in that part of the state.

Any transportation plan, the House Democrats say, should:

1. Generate at least $1 billion in new money per year.
2. Rely on a realistic, dependable source of revenue, based on Virginia’s actions, not potential federal changes that may or may not happen.
3. Not transfer monies that otherwise fund schools, health care, and public safety.
4. Fund not just maintenance, but construction, including rail and transit.
5. Provide additional revenue both immediately and into the future.
6. Give authority to Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to raise additional funds for their own transportation needs.

These are solid principles, and they offer a stark contrast to McDonnell’s plan. The governor’s proposal would raise far less, and relies on money from the general fund, as well as from a federal Internet sales tax that has not passed Congress.

The 9 specific bills that Democrats cited as true to those core principles are HB1677, HB1878, HB2063, HB2179, HB2253, HB2333, HB1450, HB1472, and HB1633. The House could pick one of those 9 to push, or it could try to amend one of them to combine the best provisions from all.

Republicans control the Virginia House, and the Senate is evenly split, so any plan will need GOP support to pass.

Although it’s true that some questionable highway projects would surely be built if Virginia ultimately adopts this transportation funding plan, this also offers far more support for transit and urban needs than the governor’s proposal, and it doesn’t include as many harmful, regressive policies. This is a far more reasonable outline.

 Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.