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Bicycles in Japan

By | | Mission
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Lots of people ride bicycles in Japan and there are a few bike lanes in streets. But most of the designated bike lanes are on sidewalks.

Today I walked on a street in Kyoto that was eight lanes wide. The sidewalks were split by a small fence with one side designated for pedestrians and the other for cyclists.

It struck that if anyone suggested dividing U.S. sidewalks into pedestrian and bicycle sides, many people would be outraged that pedestrians would have to give up space to bicycles. Yet these same people expect motorists to be willing to give up street space for bicycles.

I’m not saying the Japanese way is necessarily right. I still think the best way to protect bicycle riders is to designate local streets as bicycle boulevards. At the same time, I don’t think the real agenda of those who want to put bike lanes in busy streets is not pro-bicycle but anti-auto.

$336,000 to Go Back to School

By | | Transportation
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The Honolulu Rail Authority just gave its CEO a 22% pay raise on the condition that she goes back to school to learn about how to be a CEO. In her three years as CEO she has harassed employees, offended board members, and overseen escalating costs, yet the board decided she is worth $336,000 a year.

Honestly there is no point in me making any jokes about this because the whole thing is a joke. Such as the fact that she has no prior CEO experience but instead previously worked for HDR and other rail contractors that helped cause some of the cost overruns. Or the fact that the board will pay for her to spend much of two years at UC Berkeley learning how to do her job. Or the fact that the board will also pay for her to receive executive “coaching,” which is a scam in itself.

And finally there is the fact that the board excused her whopping pay raise simply because it is her first raise since they hired her in 2021. Has your pay gone up 22% in the last three years?

Time Off

By | | Housekeeping
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The Antiplanner will be in Japan from today through September 23. I doubt I’ll make any posts during that time, but I might send a couple of photos.

If all goes well, I’ll take a ride on this train.

Since the Federal Transit Administration hasn’t yet posted July transit data, my analysis of that data will have to wait until my return. If you are eager to review the data, it will be here (currently showing June data, but it will show July when it is posted).

What Is Wrong With Our Country?

By | | News commentary
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Four people were shot and killed on a Chicago Blue Line elevated train early Labor Day morning. Police say the victims, who were not seated together, appeared to be asleep at the time and “may have been homeless.” A suspect is in custody, and police say it was “an isolated incident and a random attack,” as if that is supposed to make people feel safer.

Some reports of the murders claimed the crime took place on a commuter train; others said it was a subway. In fact it was an elevated train. Photo by AlphaBeta135.

When I learned about these murders, I had already been thinking about transit crime because of a story that appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press about the decline of the intersection of Snelling and University, two of the most important commercial corridors in Minnesota’s capital city. Continue reading →

July Driving 99.2% of 2019

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Americans drove 99.2 percent as many miles in July 2024 as the same month in 2019, according to data published by the Federal Highway Administration yesterday. This is one of the few times that monthly highway traffic data have been released before transit ridership data.

July transit data are not yet available.

Except in April 2024, when driving dipped below 94 percent of pre-pandemic levels, miles of driving have been 99 percent to 103 percent every month for the last year. As usual, rural driving was more: 3.5 percent above 2019, while urban driving was 2.8 percent less than in 2019. However, driving on urban interstates grew 1.4 percent.

Amtrak Ridership Nosedives in July

By | | Transportation
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Airlines carried 4.5 percent more passengers in July 2024 than the same month in 2019, according to TSA passenger counts. But Amtrak numbers dramatically dropped, carrying nearly 15 percent fewer passenger-miles than July of 2019, according to the state-owned company’s monthly performance report.

July transit and highway data are not yet available.

The report shows that Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor carried 11 percent more riders in July than in 2019, but state-subsidized trains carried 8 percent fewer riders and long-distance trains carried 15 percent fewer. State-subsidized train ridership fell despite the fact that Amtrak added two new routes and extended a third one. Continue reading →

Transit Trouble in Kansas City

By | | Transportation
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Kansas City is one of the few urban areas to see ridership recover from the pandemic. Recent transit data shows that the region’s transit carried 99 percent as many riders in the first half of 2024 as the same months in 2019, albeit mainly because it has reduced fares to zero. However, all is not well with transit in the self-described Paris of the Plains.

The Kansas City streetcar is a great success if you ignore the fact that it has never earned a single penny in fare revenues. Similarly, KC’s bus system’s recovery from the pandemic is less impressive considering it isn’t earning any fares either. Photo by Jazz Guy.

Earlier this week, the Blue Springs city council voted to end support to the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA). The suburb of about 58,000 residents had paid the transit agency $73,000 for transit services in 2022-2023, but the agency had increased its requirement to nearly $123,000 for 2024-2025 “without much justification for the increase,” the city said. Continue reading →

Feedback on 14 Years & $2 Billion

By | | Transportation
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Earlier this week, I commented on a Trains magazine article about Illinois spending $2 billion and 14 years to increase average passenger train speeds between Chicago and St. Louis by 5 miles per hour. This was done by increasing top speeds to 110 mph, but one of things I wrote was that “trains reach that speed only for a few short segments.”

Greg Richardson, the author of the Trains article, wrote to correct me on this point, saying that trains are able to travel at 110 mph for 148 miles or 52 percent of the 284 miles in that corridor. That’s less than the 92 percent that was promised but certainly more than “a few short segments.” I apologize for the exaggeration. Continue reading →

$553 Million a Mile for Elevated Rail

By | | Transportation
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The Honolulu Authority for High-Cost, Low-Capacity Transit (HART) has signed a contract with Tutor Perini to spend $1.66 billion to build 3 miles of elevated rail line. The company will also build six stations on that rail line. This is the biggest contract for the Honolulu rail project let to date, but as expensive as it is, this doesn’t include all of the costs of planning, engineering, and design of the line.

As recently as a year ago, this segment of the project was expected to cost around $1.1 billion, and at least some people believed that the transit agency would have to reject all bids if they came in much higher than that as it simply doesn’t have the funds to complete the project. A previous bid of $2.0 billion by the same company was rejected in 2020, but HART apparently decided it could afford $340 million less than that amount even though it was about $400 million more than expected. Continue reading →