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.
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.
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Everyone knows about the dignified statues in places like Logan Circle and Lafayette Square, but do you know about Unicorn Lane? It’s in Upper Northwest, along Oregon Avenue, just west of Rock Creek Park (map).
Why not let buses drive on highway shoulders to get around congestion? According to a regional task force, that can be done, and it does often work, but it’s not quite as simple as putting a sign up and saying “let’s do it”.
With pressure mounting to stretch dollars and improve mobility, creative ideas like putting buses on shoulders are getting more attention. Maryland is considering the concept on I-270 and MD-5, and Virginia hopes to have a pilot project on I-66 operating in Arlington by 2014.
These would add to the handful of locations around the DC region where buses are already allowed to use the shoulder. The most notable example is the Dulles Access Highway inside the Beltway.
The main complicating issue is that highway shoulders are usually too narrow and not free enough from obstructions to immediately open them up to buses. Interstate highway standards call for 9 foot shoulders, but you need at least 10 feet for a bus, and really 11 feet is preferable. So a typical highway shoulder will have to be beefed up in order to be used as a bus lane.
That’s a lot easier, and cheaper, than just about anything else you could do. But it’s still a construction project that has to be planned and funded.
Minneapolis has an extensive network of over 300 miles of shoulder bus lanes on highways. But it’s taken them over 20 years to get there. They have a continuous program that adds a few miles each year. They started with the low-hanging fruit, and have worked up to more complicated stretches.
That’s the idea behind Virginia’s pilot project on I-66. At first, the section where buses will be allowed will be short. It won’t be a busway so much as a spot where buses can jump ahead of a queue of cars. But over time VDOT could lengthen the segment and provide a larger benefit.
For safety reasons, buses are usually only permitted to go 35 miles per hour when using shoulders. But that’s enough to get by the worst congestion. If traffic is moving faster than that, buses just stay in the regular lanes.
AAA’s official company spokesman John Townsend says GGW’s David Alpert is a “nerd, ” a “ninny, ” is “developmentally retarded, ” and is “like the Klan.”
If AAA thinks it’s good business practice for its spokespeople to make offensive personal attacks, then AAA isn’t a company I will ever have anything to do with. I don’t currently own a car, but someday I probably will. AAA won’t be my insurance partner when that day comes.
And in the mean time, if this is how AAA thinks and represents itself, guess how seriously I take their positions on transportation issues.
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Frequent transit maps specifically illustrate buses and trains that come at least every 15 minutes. They’re great tools that help people easily identify the most convenient routes. More and more transit agencies are publishing them. In other places, transit advocates are making their own.
Hopefully in the near future every transit agency will produce a frequent map as a matter of course. But for now they’re still pretty rare.
Wouldn’t it be great to have links to every one in the US and Canada? I think it would. So let’s make a list!
Here’s what I’ve got so far. Of the 42 US and Canadian urbanized areas above 1 million population, I’ve found 14 with frequent transit maps, including unofficial versions. I found several via the Human Transit blog, where Garrett Walker talks about them often.
Surely there are more. If you know of any I haven’t caught so far, leave a comment and I’ll edit the list.
Construction of DC’s H Street streetcar is proceeding apace, but the street infrastructure isn’t the only thing going on. The rail vehicles themselves are also actively under construction. DDOT already has 3 streetcars, but more are needed to provide enough service.
This is one of the new vehicles, under construction at manufacturer Oregon Iron Works. Delivery should come later this year.
DC’s newest streetcar vehicle, under construction.
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WMATA has heard the criticism that its Metro stations are too dark, and will use Bethesda station as a pilot to test new brightening concepts. They’ll also test new features designed to speed passengers through more quickly, improve wayfinding, and increase safety.
Yesterday WMATA unveiled plans for its Metro station of the future. They are using Bethesda because it’s an underground station with a center platform, which makes it the hardest type to illuminate. If they can make Bethesda bright, they can do it anywhere.
Here are the 6 main improvements they’ll test:
New wall-mounted lights along the length of the platform, and new information pylons with larger signs and more real-time displays.
Reflective metal panels along the vending wall will be brighter, eliminate shadows, and reduce clutter.
Smaller manager kiosk will make room for more fare gates, which will be reflective metal instead of “Metro brown”.
Anti-slip flooring at the base of the escalators.
Overhead lighting in the mezzanine.
Glass walls replace concrete, allowing more light through.
Some of those would require expensive retrofits. Stainless steel walls aren’t cheap, and neither are all-new pylons up and down the whole platform. It’s probably unlikely that all 42 underground stations need or would get all of these improvements, to say nothing of the 44 above ground stations. It could be that some stations only need more lighting, while others only need more fare gates, or anti-slip floors. Some might not need anything at all.
As it moves forward, WMATA will have to tailor its specific improvements to the individual needs of each station. But before they do that, it makes sense to test the set at the worst offending station.
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My Washington, DC bloggers license requires me to publish at least one cherry blossom-related post each spring. I skipped it last year, and now I only have 9 fingers.
Seriously though, I grumble about tourists as much as anyone, but the Tidal Basin during cherry blossom week truly is a joy. Here are some pictures.
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Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
