Which (Light Rail) Line Comes First?

The recently announced update to a light rail study in the Tampa area will evaluate the best options for a "first line." It's either a USF to downtown route, or a Westshore to Downtown route.

Photo from: http://www.tamparail.org/

My thoughts:
The Westshore route to Downtown must include a connection to the airport, and the USF to Downtown route must be routed down Florida Avenue instead of through East Tampa.

Florida Ave runs through a bevy of commercial, residential and community amenities (Lowry Park Zoo/Sulphur Springs Water Tower Park) that would add to the attraction of that line--and a lot of these areas just need that extra push to become highly-regarded neighborhoods in Tampa. They CAN become encouraging places for those that want to live close to the "urban core" can realize their desire, in fact it's already happening.

The East Tampa route admittedly runs through some of the poorest areas of Tampa, does not really reach any area of promise until it hits just north of Ybor, which already has a street car that goes through Channelside into downtown. The one plus is that the right of way is already available from CSX, but I do not feel that getting right of way down Florida Avenue could be a huge issue.

For now, I'll wait for the study to be conducted before I go into any more detail, I will be happy either way...as long as tracks are going in the ground in the best-most impactful-route.

Transportation Alternatives Should be the Solution

You learn a lot when you attempt to traverse a city using a form of transportation that has not been catered to for decades. Walking, biking, even 'bus-ing.' The ease with which our cities have attempted to solve the problems of congestion with an added lane on the highway, or roadway, calls to mind many other unimaginative choices that our cities/governments make. Further, the lack of attention to those that choose to get out of their car and use some human-power to move through cities, proves just how lazily our cities continue to use our tax dollars.

As much denser cities are finding, the addition of a lane-and the removal of a lane-do not effect the congestion levels on the road. Let me say that again--neither adding or removing a lane makes a proven improvement on congestion. Examples include the removal of a lane in Midtown NYC for a pedestrian park (video below) and the conversion of an auto lane in Vancouver for pedestrian traffic.

It is difficult to understand how these experiments can prove something that seems to have eluded our city planners, governments and, yes, commuters for so long. Nevermind the unexplained abandonment of street cars, trolleys, meaningful bus services and even responsible growth initiatives in many of our cities-adding a lane is an unsustainable, and highly costly choice that our cities make over and over and over. Never learning that simply adding a lane does not have a lasting impact on traffic.

I recently attended a meeting where the Tampa Downtown Partnership presented the progress and programs of the previous year, and at the very mention of light rail and high-speed rail, coming to Tampa and Florida respectively, and the room lit up.

People are hungry for the sexier, more progressive and "green" transportation alternative that Obama has made a priority. But, I wonder if they really understand the effects that a true commitment to mass transit will have on the city.With examples like Denver, Portland, Charlotte and even Phoenix, it seems that the results are speaking for themselves-now it's time to change the solution.

Why, you ask?

Photo above courtesy Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization

Midtown NYC takes away lane, adds pedestrian attraction:

Job Creation and the Stimulus Package

Saw this today, and thought it was interesting in relation to the "bipartisan" debate going on in Congress over the Stimulation package, remaining TARP funds, etc. The amount of jobs created from a $1 billion investment in some of the areas mentioned in the original, and current, stimulus--as it relates to the effects of the same amount of spending in our nation's defense:

(you might want to click on the image to see the numbers--showing that a $1 billion investment in mass transit would create the more jobs than a similar investment in health care, defense, education, and home construction/weatherization)

Stopping the Bleeding, or Creating a New Strategy?

Obama, Congress, heck even the Automakers are saying that the auto industry needs to create a new model to be viable in the 21st century. Yet, little is really going to change with this first stimulus (though seems it may be in doubt today) to the big 3--it will be the first of more than one, depending on bankruptcy, and Thomas Friedman in his Op-Ed in the NY Times today has a good point as to why this will not work:

our bailout of Detroit will be remembered as the equivalent of pouring billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the mail-order-catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into the CD music business on the eve of the birth of the iPod and iTunes. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into a book-store chain on the eve of the birth of Amazon.com and the Kindle.

The problem I have with his column (which can be read here.) and the idea of the "car 2.0" is that our problems don't start and stop with autos. It starts and stops with the way that we depend on automobiles, the way we live too distant from our normal daily activities (work, school, errands, etc.) and the way that we travel distances that could be more efficiently traveled (en masse) by high-speed rail.

These automakers are responsible for killing the sustainable transit options of the early 1900's, Americans were all too happy to drive alone and live further from the city-center and the oil/gas industry has been reaping the rewards--and using that money to line the pockets of government.

It is time for a paradigm shift--it is not about the most efficient car, it is about the most efficient forms of transportation and more sustainably built cities and lives.

I'm going to have to finally watch "Taken for a Ride" a film about an "auto and oil industry campaign, led by General Motors, to buy and dismantle streetcar lines. Across the nation, tracks were torn up, sometimes overnight, and diesel buses placed on city streets.