With typical fanfare, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced $1.5 billion in “Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery” (TIGER) grants to 51 cities. The complete list of grants includes new “modern streetcar” (isn’t that an oxymoron?) lines in Dallas and Tucson, plus an extension of the existing streetcar system in New Orleans.
“In an overwhelming show of demand for the program,” said LaHood, US DOT “was flooded with more than 1,400 applications.” What a surprise to find that there is an overwhelming demand for free money.
Among the lucky winners was Tucson, which received $63 million toward the $150 million cost of a 3.9-mile streetcar line between the Arizona Health Sciences Center and the University of Arizona. So now students can take the streetcar to the hospital when they are too drunk to walk. (Sorry, that’s an insult: most students are too smart to ride streetcars.)
Dallas is getting $23 million of the expected $58 million cost of a downtown-area streetcar line. The line will connect with the city’s light-rail line so anyone who is eager to change from a 20-mph light rail to a 7-mph streetcar will have the opportunity to do so.
Detroit is getting $25 million toward the $143 million cost of a 3.9-mile rail line. The TIGER grant calls it a light-rail line, but it sounds more like another streetcar as it is entirely on Woodward Avenue — home of the annual Woodward Dream Cruise auto show. In your face, auto lovers! I guess the Dream Cruise is going to have to find another street to cruise upon.
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New Orleans is getting 100 percent of the anticipated $45 million cost of extending its streetcar line to the city’s train station. This station “is a major southern hub for Amtrak, with three trains serving the station.” Wow! Three whole trains. (Note that it is not three trains a day, since one of those trains only goes three times a week.) That is really going to generate a lot of streetcar ridership.
Other rail-transit TIGER grants include $25 million towards a light rail on congested Woodward Avenue in Detroit (in your face, auto lovers!), $23.2 million towards reconstruction of part of Portland’s streetcar line at a higher elevation (mainly to make it possible to eventually run light rail on that line), and $55 million towards a commuter-rail extension in Massachusetts.
In all, rail transit accounted for only about 16 percent of TIGER grants, with another 18 percent going for other transit projects, including bus-rapid transit in Denver and Las Vegas but otherwise mainly various sorts of transit centers (which the Antiplanner considers a complete waste). In addition, $83 million, or about 5.5 percent of the total, went to the project aiming to convert the old post office near Madison Square Gardens into a train station as a belated apology for allowing the destruction of Penn Station.
About a quarter of the funds went to road projects (some of which is supposed to also benefit transit, such as a bridge in Tulsa that will be used by both autos and commuter trains). A slightly larger share, more than 26 percent, went to various freight rail projects. I don’t know why CSX and the other freight railroads are so poor they have to ask for government handouts. Various other freight projects, mainly port facilities, got another 7 percent. The remaining funds, about 3 percent, went to some pedestrian and bike path projects.
Supposedly, some 80 cities are interested in building streetcars, so quite of few of them must be disappointed by these grants. But perhaps many will come to their senses and realize that they dodged a bullet by not having to subject their streets to this nineteenth-century transport mode and their taxpayers to all the subsidies that will be required to “revitalize” the neighborhoods ripped up for streetcar tracks.
NUTS!
Regarding “Transit Centers”…
The cheapest way to get between NYC and DC is on one of the “Chinatown Busses” These different private businesses transport you from street corner to street corner without the burdern of a “transit center.” They do it at a profit, they offer remarkable deals (“$1 each way”), and they offer ammenites (“wifi”). The business model is so successful that there are multiple businesses competeing for this market. As much as I support noble architecture, I’m still and American that likes a great discount!
NUTS!
Regarding “Transit Centers”…
The cheapest way to get between NYC and DC is on one of the “Chinatown Busses” These different private businesses transport you from street corner to street corner without the burdern of a “transit center.” They do it at a profit, they offer remarkable deals (“$1 each way”), and they offer ammenites (“wifi”). The business model is so successful that there are multiple businesses competeing for this market. As much as I support noble architecture, I’m still and American that likes a great discount!
Man, Randall, not get enough sleep last night or what? There is an extra helping of bitterness in your post today.
Also, the Dallas light rail system goes a lot faster than 20 mph. It goes about 30 mph through downtown and once it leaves downtown it pulls about 55-70 mph between stops for almost 30 miles into the suburbs.
Wow, a free chance to take a potshot at the University of Arizona Wildkittens. There are so many possibilities I can hardly choose just one! Maroon and gold giddiness all over!
Maybe it’s enough to say that the U of A (and/or Tucson; they’re basically interchangeable) is so stupid they think spending $38.5 million PER MILE for rail transit is cost-effective. This, in a city that, for lack of a proper commuter freeway, ceded the initiative for suburban growth away from the high-dollar high-tax-base foothills and off to Marana and Green Valley for the simple reason that those can be readily reached from the interstate.
Or I could just say “Fork ’em, Devils!” and think about those four times ASU Football has won the Pac-10, versus… how many times is that now for UA? Remind me.
Mike, I’m a UofA alumnus, a Tucson resident of twelve years, and many a meal of mine has been paid by local land development; and your assessment is dead on.
This is one issue where I completely agree with the AP. Forget about the warming, forget about density issues, forget about freedom and yada, yada, yada. Judge it by dollar alone. This thing fails, fails, fails.
TexanOkie,
You are quoting top speeds. I was using average speeds. I checked Dallas light rail schedules to find out average speeds. Riding end-to-end on all three lines (not counting where they overlap) would take 114 minutes. Since the three lines have a total of 45 miles, that’s an average of about 23.5 mph.
The Antiplanner is way too harsh on TIGER. After all, this morning he apologized profusely for all kinds of ethical problems and promised to do better.
Mike, do I need to remind you about years of consecutive NCAA Basketball Tournament selections?
UofA 25, ASU 1
t g,
You’re a better sport than I, sir! 🙂
Agreed with your take on the rail project issue: I think that even when there is disagreement whether to consider the project in terms of pragmatism or principle, if it’s absolute roadkill (pun intended) by BOTH metrics, how does one possibly justify moving forward from there?
Several of my in-laws are UA grads and remain Tucson residents. As they work professionally, they are among that percentage of Tucsoners who actually go downtown to work (one is at the One Church building if memory serves, another is somewhere near there). I remember asking the the one who lives out toward Tanque Verde how on earth you commute to work from there in any kind of reasonable time. His answer: “You can’t!”
The whole rebuilding-the-I-10 logjam only compounds matters… I try to imagine what would happen if they tried closing the I-10 through Phoenix from the 17 junction through the south 202, for like 5 years. It would have been travel armageddon.
Ah, Andy, always basketball with you ‘Cats. I suppose you gotta take your victories where you can find them. 🙂
Red Line: http://www.dart.org/riding/dartrailredline.asp
Parker Road to Westmoreland…~1 hrs 5 mins (1.05 hrs) About 28 miles distance = 26 MPH.
Coincidentally, using a car from these stations yields a travel time of about 1 hrs. 10 minutes in traffic. Avoiding tolls and highways does not help, either.
I’ll be curious what the delay will be like @ rush hour.
Dear tg,
I know it is unfair to hold ASU to academic standards, but I have to point out that ASU has, at most tied, for the PAC 10 football title just three times: in 1986, 1996, and 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific-10_Conference#Football
🙂
Also, the Dallas light rail system goes a lot faster than 20 mph.
It probably can go faster than 20 mph, but if you look at the 2008 NTD data for DART’s revenue train miles and hours, you get an average speed of about 21.5 mph.
MJ: Is that the most accurate measurement of MPH?
Cars Emerge as Key Atmospheric Warming Force: Study
February 19, 2010 by Adam Voiland
DS
So that aerosol hypothesis is still getting traction, eh? Interesting.
The aerosol effect is measured.
DS
Any new LRT will have many problems, cost too much, have few riders, make title difference, and interfere with vehicle traffic. Often-times a lane or 2 is taken away, left turns become limited & more difficult, signal timing is messed up, etc.
It is ridiculous to spend that much money for so little distance. It certainly won’t replace anybody’s car. And I would bet that the expense & energy (including GHGs) will be far more than any alternatives modes of travel currently being used.
What the hell is wrong with a bus? There are routes on all the major streets, which are laid out in the standard grid system, with superblocks at each mile. Mostly residential on the interiors; some 1/2 mile medium streets. (I lived there 10 years)
The distance doesn’t make sense.
The hospital complex & the main UA campus are adjacent.
Actually, the LRT might go downtown.
Tucson is very conducive to bikes.
Andy,
Oops, my error — I mistakenly included ASU’s last WAC win, since the list I was looking at listed ASU’s conference championships by year. There were just so many WAC football championships by ASU, it’s hard to sort them out compared with UA, who only won the WAC twice and never as sole champion. But hey! At least UA was the sole champion three times back in the Border Conference era… which is only half as many times as, yep, ASU. 🙂
MJ: Is that the most accurate measurement of MPH?
The data is self-reported, so I think it’s about as accurate as you’re going to get, short of going out and actually sampling a bunch of train runs. Over the course of the year, the measurement errors should average out.
But the underlying method works: distance / time = speed
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Not sure why Randal has a comment here, shorted/self-quoted at that.
Readers seem to rarely visit posts over a few days old.
Hey, Randal, how about reformatting this, to get more responses?
Check out IMDB for ideas.
As this is now, comments drop off & any response, after a few days is not noticed. The RSS does not work very well. If there was a “latest”, list there would be more discussion.
These statist planners seem to think that they can avoid certain topics, facts, questions & people do not like to revisit the past or be unread.
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