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Federal funding for transit projects will now consider their impacts on overall urban livability and sustainability, not just the cost-per-unit of time savings.
In a dramatic change from existing policy, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today proposed that new funding guidelines for major transit projects be based on livability issues such as economic development opportunities and environmental benefits, in addition to cost and time saved, which are currently the primary criteria.
In remarks at the Transportation Research Board annual meeting, the Secretary announced the Obama Administration’s plans to change how projects are selected to receive federal financial assistance in the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) New Starts and Small Starts programs. As part of this initiative, the FTA will immediately rescind budget restrictions issued by the Bush Administration in March of 2005 that focused primarily on how much a project shortened commute times in comparison to its cost.
Great news, perhaps, but I look forward to seeing how FTA is going to turn something as subjective as livability into a quantifiable measure that can be used to score projects, particularly since the payoffs lie in development that a proposed transit line might be expected to trigger, but that usually isn’t a sure thing at the point when you’re deciding to fund the line. And of course, travel time does still matter.
Read the complete statement from Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood below.
My New Zealand colleagues Julie Ann Genter and Stuart Donovan have built a great practice doing research on transport and land use policy issues for national and local government. They are both especially strong on parking policy. They’ve put together a little video explaining the problems with hidden parking subsidies in an urban context, also featuring Auckland University’s Tim Hazeldine.
The video is based on Donald Shoup’s definitive book, The High Cost of Free Parking. It obviously talks mostly about Auckland, but the issues it presents are the same in almost any New World city.
Julie Anne Genter also has a paper on the topic here.
Thanks to Joshua Arbury of the Auckland Transport Blog for reminding me about this.
The New Republic’s blog The Avenue notices some good news for US transportation planners and advocates:
Last week, President Obama signed the 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act, an amalgam of six separate appropriations bills providing $447 billion to an array of federal departments. A small fraction of this funding is devoted to supporting federal statistical agencies that generate the demographic, economic, and social data that will help metros better understand themselves. …
This post, which points out that transit can’t be judged on the low ridership of services where ridership isn’t the goal, drew this question from Rob:
I have a question about cities with weak urban cores. I don’t know much about Seattle, but the story that the numbers tell is that the city’s population is currently near its historical high. But what do you do in cities that are losing population, like many in the rust belt? In my hometown, Cleveland, the population is lower than it’s been since 1900. Many urban neighborhoods are no longer the densest areas (there are 3 inner-ring suburbs more dense than the city-proper). What do you think?
As I explained, if Seattle’s King County Metro were pursuing a pure ridership objective, it would cut almost all service in the low-density suburbs and put all those buses in Seattle as higher frequencies on dense corridors. The principle is the same in any network:
If your goal is ridership, follow patterns of dense development with intense service.
New York City transit supporters are on fire today as their transit agency, the MTA, announced deep service cuts. Service cuts are happening all over the US this year, as the economic crisis has cut into most of the local funding streams on which agencies rely. In many cases, including California and New York, the problems have been compounded by raids on state transit funding streams to help balance state budgets.
There seems to be plenty of blame to go around for New York MTA’s especially dire straits. The New York Times offers three expert views on their “Room for Debate” forum, though the three don’t seem to be disagreeing. Two emphasize the need for more secure government funding, while the third points out the need to push back harder on labor costs, and it sounds like they can all be right. None of them says that service cuts are a good thing. Continue Reading →
Everyone should know how to respond to stories like this, because they’ll keep coming. From Kevin Libin at Canada’s National Post, an article called ‘Save the Environment: Don’t Take Transit.” It quotes the usual suspects, but it still needs a clear response: Continue Reading →
Are you currently employed in some aspect of public transit planning, management, policy, or operations? Do you deal with public transit as part of your job, which could be in anything from town planning to social services to journalism? If so, please click the email button under my photograph at right, if only to tell me who you are. I’d like to know that you’re out there reading. You’re also encouraged to submit comments that way.
Most comments on this blog seem to come from people who are interested in transit as advocates or activists, and their input continues to be encouraged. I hear less often from professionals who read the blog; I suspect that’s because of professional risks associated with stating opinions under your own name. That’s fine, but I’d still like to hear your perspectives, so use email. Continue Reading →
Joseph E asks an excellent question in response to my last post about the new Swift BRT, in Snohomish County north of Seattle. Here’s the heart of it:
Jarrett,
do you feel the wide stop spacing is a benefit? I was inclined to think the stations are too far apart. In comparison, commuter rail stops every 1 to 3 miles in most places (well, on the East and West coast), but always has an exclusive right-of-way, crossing gates, and high-speed operation between stations.BRT should be capable of accelerating faster than diesel commuter trains, and obviously can stop much faster than even light rail. So why not have stations every 1/2 to 1 mile? It is much easier to walk 5 or 10 minutes to a station than walk to a local bus stop and transfer a mile down the road.
Although I’ve done some Bus Rapid Transit planning, my Canadian colleague, Steve Schijns, has been doing it for decades, including important work in both Ottawa and Brisbane. He’s also up to date on a lot of the BRT happening around Toronto. In response to my previous post, he sent along these thoughts, which I thought I’d share verbatim: Continue Reading →