Getting Back into the Swing of Things

I read an interesting opinion piece over the weekend about tolls vs. a gas tax as funding sources for "transportation". Check it out here.

I am assuming that by transportation the writer means solely highways because he doesn't really refer to any alternate forms of transportation. Between the author and the commentors, there a lot of misguided arguments. You get everything from the idea that increasing the gas tax alone will help, to the very common misconception among the pro-highway set that, other than vehicle cost/repair/maintenance (including filling up at the pumps) driving is and should always be free.

The events of mid 2008 have shown, in my mind that relying on a gas tax to fund transportation is not a solid bet. As gas prices increased independently of the tax, people drove less, to the tune of 12.9 billion miles. This caused the revenues of the tax to decrease by nearly $71 million. Tolling, I think has worked well, and should be expanded. Pennsylvanians need to know that driving is not free, and tolling provides the perfect method of explanation to the public at large. Ok… you can't toll everything, but I sure wish you could, and it certainly seem more stable than a gas tax. During 2008, the revenue from tolls increased despite the fact that nationally, vehicle miles driven decreased. (The increase was NOT from a fare increase either: the toll revenue increase occurred because the amount of vehicle miles traveled was higher in 2008 than 2007). There are mileage tax plans out there, but I don't even know if I like big brother having the potential of knowing where I am all the time, let alone what Cletus in central Pennsylvania will think of the idea.

I don't have the answer to taxing highway or road usage and the point of this post wasn't to propose an answer. At the risk of generalizing, this submission and the subsequent comments just go to show how ignorant people really are. There is a general misunderstanding of how roads and transit are funded; people still have this concept that "I pay for transit that I don't use and it's therefore a waste but don't have to pay for roads I don't use, and that makes roads more economical".

Another thing to take away is people's general dislike of transportation agencies. The Turnpike Commission gets a bad rap, but unlike PENNDOT was profitable until Act 44 required a $750 million contribution that put their numbers into the tank. There's a reason that Ed Rendell wanted to Toll I-80, it works on I-76.

Check out the Turnpike Commission's webpage here which goes into the details on their finances.

Reconciling Sprwal and Transit Part 2

To answer my first two questions from the previous post, I hope so, and yes.

Now to elaborate just a little bit. I personally believe this type of construction or planning will slowly fade away with time. Eventually, it will be seen for what it is, resource consuming, inefficient, and just plain wasteful. Is that time now? I like to think so, but there's not a whole lot of hard facts to say that it is in fact the truth. In the Pittsburgh area specifically, much of the re-development of former industrial sites are in the areas of commercial and residential development. There hasn't been a lot of re-development of former industrial sites in an industrial capacity.

That leads us to the answer of my second question. Because sprawling industrial parks will not suddenly disappear from the landscape, it is worth making an attempt to integrate them with transit, especially those closer to urban centers.

The hard question

Now that I've answered the easy questions, the hard question is how exactly do we integrate these sprawling industrial sites with transit? It's certainly going to cost money, and you will be hard pressed to get the owners of the parks to shell out for the integration. Most likely the authority which operates service to that park would have to shell out, but that's another topic for another post.

Before you can even think of integrating an industrial park, like RIDC East or West, Southpointe, or any industrial park you have to give them decent transit service period. The RIDC Parks have decent bus service, but I'm talking about station stop on a separated grade system, whether that be BRT, LRT or even commuter rail.

In this sprawling environment, simple access is not enough, however. A patron getting off at a central transit stop in a sprawling industrial park could be potentially be faced with a mile+ walk with no sidewalks to their place of employment.

The answer to me is pretty simple; a mini circulator. A small bus that runs on a schedule that is closely tied to the schedule of the connecting transit (BRT, LRT etc.). This circulator should provide at least street corner service, if not front door service (This ability would obviously be impacted on the size of the industrial park). Schedule integration is the key. If someone can get right on a bus from their connecting form of transit, and be able to do so under protection from the elements, they would be much more likely to utilize the transit service as opposed to waiting 5 to 10 minutes for a bus to make a connection, potentially exposed to the elements.

The Harder Question

The biggest sticking point, as usual is the cost. Will this be financially feasible? In my mind a circulator would be a relatively inexpensive investment with relatively low operating costs. The big issue from a cost standpoint is getting the connecting form of transportation (BRT, LRT etc.) to the industrial parks. Most of these parks are missing connections to begin with. That is step 1 to integration, and must occur for these mini circulators to make any sort of sense.

If they (the politicians and public) can be convinced to give industrial parks adequate access to public transit, getting the circulators, by comparison will be easy.

Reconciling Sprawl and Transit

The United States has seen a resurgence of interest in transit and transportation modes other than private automobiles. While vehicle mileage is still incredibly high, the amount of miles driven has dropped over the last two years after reaching an all time high in 2007. Additionally, more people rode public transit in 2008 than in any of the previous 49 years. Poor economic times, fluctuating gas prices, and continuing negative news about the state of the environment have helped sustain that interest.

Many Americans are beginning to re-think our strategy on transportation and infrastructure. If this trend is to continue it will mean a massive upgrade and expansion of our non-automobile transportation system. While this is clearly positive, in my mind, there is a large amount of sprawling suburban style development which is still in place. Even though this type of development is shrinking, it is doubtful that suburbia is going to disappear anytime soon. This is especially true in the Pittsburgh area. Suburbs such as Cranberry Township (whose population has increased from just under 15,000 in 1990 to approx. 27,000 today) are continuing to expand, despite the economic times and a renewed interest in smart growth.

Sprawling suburban development does not just encompass the cul-de-sac development, there are suburban style strip malls that serve commercial needs and huge sprawling industrial parks with large green lawns, ponds and parking lots larger than the buildings they serve.

These types of developments lend themselves well to automobile transportation but because of the wide distances, large spacing, and long winding access roads they do not lend themselves well to transit integration. A central transit hub or station located in the physical center of any type of suburban development will not usually be sufficient to provide that development, or that mall, or that industrial park with transit service. Spreading the development out makes walking distances longer and even when distances are acceptable, the facilities (i.e. sidewalks) do not often exist to allow people to move between a home/office/store and a central transit hub or station.

I could talk about integrating varying types of suburban development with transit, but for this post I will focus on industrial development. This is partially because of my experience living in the city and commuting to the suburbs and because I think opening up suburban industrial parks to effective transit operations has a good chance for success if done right.

There are many industrial parks in the Pittsburgh area that fit this bill; RIDC Park(s) in Blawnox, and Robinson, Southpointe in Canonsburg, and Westmoreland Business and Research Park, just to name a few.

These existing developments bring up some interesting issues/questions. Are parks like these, "the wave of the past"? Is it worth integrating parks like these? Without "starting over from scratch", how do you integrate these types of parks with expanded transit systems? Is it possible, i.e. financially feasible?

These are all questions I intend to answer (or at least give my opinion on) but this post is growing by the second, so I will leave those opinions for a follow on post.

On Gas, Commuting , and Pure Truth

I don't plan on posting anything too earth shattering today, but there seems to be several articles/posts that are all intertwined and I think worth drawing attention to.

Apparently, a group of businessmen have gone to Washington D.C. (Mr. Smith style) to lobby for an increase in the gas tax, so we can get back to repairing our infrastructure and (most importantly) get back to building new highways to meet our "21st Century" transportation needs. While I agree cheap gas is bad, I do not think that raising gas prices to further our wasteful infrastructure habits is good. Perhaps it's even worse than cheap gas.

Trains For America talks about what if gas was $20 dollars a gallon, and how that would be bad. I think the price of gas does need to be higher, or people will not seek alternative means of transportation, however, a commenter brings up a good counter-point that along with those prices will come increases in raw material/construction costs which may make large capital projects (like HSR) cost prohibitive. I guess my short answer would be to find a price that makes people want to seek alternate forms of transportation but not so high that it would affect transit projects negatively.

Finally, I read a post over at The Radical Middle was truly a treat to read. Sometimes someone makes a point so clearly, and so succinctly, that you are both impressed and envious. Impressed at the clarity and simplicity, and envious that you would be challenged to write the same thing in a manner approaching its common sense and brevity. Enough schmoozing, here's the link. I'd try and recap and analyze what is written, but I wouldn't do it justice.

Am I a hypocrite?

I got a comment a few days ago (I think, I put away the blog for the weekend) basically asking me why I don't practice what I preach. In other words, I blog about sustainable communities, when I don't really live in a sustainable community.

It's a fair question, and is certainly worth a response on my part. I guess the short answer is I do live in a sustainable community. I can hit the busway with a stone from the back of my house, can get a bus to just about anywhere I need to within the city and can walk to basically everything I need (food, booze etc.) The problem is I don't WORK in a sustainable community.

I've thought a lot about my current situation and figured out that there are really four options. I tried to pick the option that is best for myself and my family while taking livability issues into account:

1. Find a better job (by that I mean, one in Pittsburgh that I could commute to via public transit). I'm constantly in the search for a better job, but the economy is not the best, and unemployment has finally begun to catch up with Pittsburgh. At this point I am glad to have a job.

2. Seek a job in a different city that would satisfy the requirements that I consider ideal(walkability, and easy access to public transit). I could probably find a job elsewhere in the country, but the fact is I am committed to living in Pittsburgh. It's important to me, and to my family that we stay here.

3. I could move closer to my job. I could cut down on my commute and save on gas, drive less and do less damage to the environment. However, I'd be moving to suburbia, and my reduced driving to work would be offset by the fact that I would have to drive to do everything else. I believe if I did this, it would make me more hypocritical than I may already be.

4. I could live in the city, but commute to work. This option represents my current arrangement, and I like to think of it as making the best of my current situation. Right now, I have to drive a lot to my place of employment, but I've tried to minimize the damage I am doing, both to myself and my environment. I drive a small car that gets 35-40 MPG (which will be replaced by a hybrid as soon as the budget allows), and I still live in the city. This means that for social events, shopping or most anything else, I can still walk or utilize public transit. This option is not perfect but allows me to stay in Pittsburgh while still having some benefits (the transit and walkability) that would not be available in a different option.

Am I a transit role model, of course not, but I think the important thing is that I try to take livability issues into account in the decisions I make. I think that is the key for us as a nation moving forward. Does everyone need to be religiously committed to moving into a T.O.D. condo or apartment complex? Of course not, but we need to start realizing that much of our suburban living is unsustainable, and for us to factor sustainability into our thought process in some manner.

A Flair for the Obvious

In completely unsurprising, yet sadly true news, our Infrastructure is obsolete and it's broken. A group of state level heavy hitters from across the country, including the Governator himself, have also put together a report on how to overhaul our transportation system and our infrastructure.

To anyone who has an interest in transportation related issues this counld be the unshockingist news of the century. It is however right on the mark. Our transportation infrastructure is overburdened and outdated. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, it will cost an estimated 2.2 trillion dollars to fix our transportation infrastructure. Additionally, the bipartisan coalition (with the Governator's help) issued a report on our transportation system which outlined the following changes that they feel must be made:

-Change the political approval process (less earmarks for transportation projects, more transparency)
-Emphasize Livable, Sustainable communities (YES!)
-Expand of public transit and passenger rail (YES!)
-Fix what we've got right now
-Tolls with variable pricing based on time of day
-Public/Private partnerships for transportation projects
-Create a stable revenue stream for transportation (Do something about the Federal Gasoline Tax and Highway Trust Fund)

I agree with all of these ideas and agree that these are all legitimate concerns. In my mind, the first concerns are fixing the infrastructure we've got now and making transportation funding solvent(that includes fiscal responsibility amongst transit agencies. No more$60,000 per year bus drivers who pay 3% of their health care and can retire at 50*).

However, the greatest long term point of emphasis needs to be sustainable living! Incentives have to given to stop the sprawl happy, auto accessible only types of development that have been the hallmark of the last 50 years. I can speak, from my terrible daily drive, that this kind of construction is still taking place around Pittsburgh. Public Transportation and alternative methods of transportation (i.e. trains) will only have so much value when there is a massive amount of sprawl. This will be a huge challenge given that some cities haeve nearly their entire infrastructure based on suburban style single family homes and single use commercial and industrial development.

While depressing to view, the beginnings of suburban slums and suburban abandonment signal something good. They signal that we are moving in the right direction and SLOWLY beginning to re-concentrate our population in ways that are more sustainable and transit friendly.

*I'm not attempting to cite a specific statistic, merely illustrate through rough estimation how labor costs for transit agencies are exorbitant.

My Dirty Transit Secret

So here I am, blogging/bitching about how transit does not get enough attention and funding, and how more people should drive less and use public transportation more frequently. Well, I should come clean.

I live a double life. In my ideal (weekend) life, I either walk, or hop on the busway or another bus to get to things that I need to. (That is slowly becoming easier with continuing development in East Liberty, and that pace will hopefully quicken) Life is good.

Then there is my dirty little secret. 5 days a week, I get in a car, and I drive 40 minutes in the car, by myself to work and back. Don't worry, I hate it. It's stressful, tiring, and long. In fact, I daydream about being able to hop on the busway, or any other form of public transit and sit back, and relax, read, listen to music etc, while I am taken to work.

Why do I live this double life you ask? Because I have to. I really tried to find a way to make it work using mass transit, but I can honestly say it would not work. I would have to take a Port Authority bus to Pittsburgh Mills, wait (and I mean wait), get a Westmoreland transit bus to New Kensington, (wait again), and then take another Westmoreland County bus the remaining distance to work. If it were to work for me, I would have to leave three hours before work started. That would put the start of my journey at 5 A.M. Even if I were committed (or crazy) enough to undertake that daily sojourn, it would not be possible, because of how early my trip would have to start.

My goal is to at some point take a job in Pittsburgh that is more commuter friendly. For now I am stuck. Even if I wanted to move to a location closer to work, where I could take public transportation, I would have to get in my car anyway to run errands because the area is so rural.

What's my point? Plan development intelligently. The office park I work in was created for people to drive to individually, access to public transit was not even an afterthought, it was NEVER considered. Now we're paying. From a completely practical perspective, gas won't be cheap forever (thank god my car is fuel efficient). At some point $50.00 a tank for a small car will become the norm again. This is not to mention the other effects (the least of which not being my sanity).

Sure we have to bring transit to the people, but in some cases, you need to bring people to the transit. Part of a good T.O.D. plan is to integrate workplace space, so people can live shop AND work. Part of building a good transit infrastructure is integrating development that supports public transit, not development that barely takes transit into account, or does not take it into account at all.

My hope is that some day office parks like the one I work in now will be considered relics of a bygone era.