Author: Winstina Hughes

Call It The Hogan Line: Maryland Seeks Study Of Baltimore-To-D.C. Maglev

Posted on by Winstina Hughes

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan might have found a pricey train worth pursuing. You just won’t be able to ride one in this country, at least not for many years.

During a 12-day trade mission to Asia that started May 26, Hogan is visiting Japan, where he will take a ride on the famous maglev (short for magnetic levitation) train that tops 300 miles per hour. There is more to the governor’s trip than mere curiosity about the fastest train in the world.

The Maryland Department of Transportation has applied for a federal grant to study a maglev line between Baltimore and Washington. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is reviewing the application for $27.8 million and is expected to make a decision later this year. Maryland is the only state interested in the maglev grant dollars.

The request comes as Hogan is threatening to cancel the suburban Purple Line and Baltimore’s Red Line transit projects because, in his view, they are too expensive, and the state’s representatives on the Metro board of directors are pushing the transit authority to tighten its budgets, potentially jeopardizing a planned expansion of Metro’s rail fleet in favor of bringing the existing fleet into a state of good repair.

Only a few states are even eligible to apply for the maglev grant. Under a 2008 federal law, three potential maglev projects were identified east of the Mississippi River: in Pittsburgh, Atlanta-Chattanooga, and Baltimore-Washington. Pennsylvania transportation officials returned the grant money to FRA, making it available to another state. Maryland went after it.

But the governor’s interest in maglev is puzzling to regional transit advocates who say the train’s prohibitive cost dwarfs that of the projects Hogan is threatening to cancel.

“There are so many other transit needs in the state of Maryland and the D.C. region, there is no possible way we could see going down the path of billions of dollars for a maglev,” said Stewart Schwartz, the executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, one of the most vocal proponents of the 16-mile Purple Line light rail project between Bethesda and New Carrollton.

The Maryland Department of Transportation did not return calls and emails seeking comment.

Hogan has called the Purple Line’s price tag of $2.4 billion unacceptable – despite the promise of nearly $1 billion in federal aid – and his administration is expected to decide this month whether to proceed on scheduled construction.

What’s practical?
At the D.C. region’s transit authority, Maryland’s representatives are pressuring the Metro board of directors to hire a financial whiz instead of a transit specialist to be the next general manager. They are behind the board’s decision to delay the full expansion of the rail fleet well into next decade in favor of replacing more of Metro’s older rail cars, a move – pending federal approval – that could save $800 million this decade.

But the estimated cost of building a maglev line between Baltimore and D.C. is $10 billion (a maglev trip between the two cities would take about 15 minutes). Although Japan has promised to put up $5 billion, Schwartz said the idea is not practical.

“What’s needed is a decision in favor of the Purple Line and the Red Line, and additional investment in Metro rail and MARC commuter rail to enhance transit for far more people far more effectively,” Schwartz said.

Hogan will be joined in Japan by his secretary of transportation, Pete Rahn, and representatives of the D.C.-based firm The Northeast Maglev, which has been advocating a Washington-to-New York maglev for years. Its estimated price tag is $100 billion, or about more than twice what the federal government spends annually on surface transportation through the Highway Trust Fund.

Going all the way
Maglev experts said the Baltimore-to-D.C. line would take five to 10 years to build and provide dubious benefit.

“It would make no sense to build such a high-speed system unless you are going to go further, presumably at least to New York if not to Boston,” said John Harding, the former chief maglev scientist at the Federal Railroad Administration. Harding retired from FRA in 2004.

“It would be very hard to imagine that the ridership and fares would be sufficient to support such an expensive system, because obviously there are other alternatives which I would think would be much less expensive,” said Harding, who said his enthusiasm for maglev has waned over the years.

“It meets opposition at every point so I think it is very doubtful that we are going to see maglev here for a long time,” Harding said.

The maglev concept in Maryland dates to the late 1990s, when Congress created a program to be administered by FRA. The idea was to build a short line to demonstrate maglev’s effectiveness before building a long-distance, intercity corridor. FRA picked seven projects for further study. Among them was the Baltimore-Washington line, but the state legislature dropped the project in 2004 and federal funding fell away.

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City should expand Inclusionary Zoning

Posted on by Winstina Hughes

D.C.’s transformation from a city struggling and losing population in the 1990s to today’s increasingly popular and booming district has brought many benefits. But this transformation has created a growing affordable housing crisis. Many longtime residents and would-be new transplants without large bank accounts feel that they don’t have a place. Local leaders from Mayor Muriel Bowser on down rightly perceive this as a problem that must be addressed.

Unfortunately, there is no one magic bullet to keep our city inclusive and make sure longtime residents can enjoy the same amenities as wealthier new comers. Rather, we need to look at an array of policy solutions as we would a toolbox where a number of different tools are needed to effectively tackle any job. In keeping with this metaphor, we also need to remain ready to add to that toolbox and sharpen or upgrade existing tools.

One tool ready to be sharpened is Inclusionary Zoning, or IZ.

Adopted in 2006, IZ requires builders of most residential developments larger than nine units to set aside 8 to 10 percent of the units as permanently affordable to middle-class and lower-income house- holds. Typically these units are reserved for families making between 50 and 80 percent of the area median income. For a household of two, this equals $44,000 to $70,000 a year. IZ pays for lower priced homes in market rate developments by allowing the developer to build more units than would otherwise be allowed under zoning rules. It requires no direct subsidies. Thus we are able to use our city’s sustained building boom to create additional affordable units now and bank them for the future.

Critics say the program is too slow to put units on the market. To date, just over 100 units, mostly rent- als, have become available. As of late April, 61 of 105 available IZ rental units had been leased, with another 11 sold or under contract out of 13 for sale. Additionally, the beginning of the program has suffered from many administrative kinks.

Both of those initial problems are being addressed. IZ’s slow start will soon be a thing of the past, with an estimated 1,000-plus units currently in the pipeline. Many of the administrative problems are being resolved, and the city now has a fully staffed team to manage the program. The IZ program is operational and doing what it was designed to do. The Urban Institute recently pronounced D.C.’s pro- gram sound and of great potential.

IZ is about to deliver 19 affordable units in Upper Northwest at 5333 Connecticut Ave., and is now leasing 17 affordable homes at the Drake at 17th and O streets in Dupont Circle. How else would such moderately priced housing opportunities ever be possible there?

But IZ can and should do more. That’s why a coalition of housing, religious, labor and smart growth groups is urging the Zoning Commission and mayor to act. The D.C. Council just passed a resolution asking the same. We should strengthen IZ to increase the number of low-income households that qualify for the program and the number of IZ units produced.

This means bringing down the top end of the income range from 80 percent of area median income (AMI) to 70 percent AMI or lower, and increasing the number of units gained at the 50 percent AMI level (affordable for a two-person house- hold earning just under $44,000 annually). We should also ask for at least 10 to 12 percent of homes in a residential building to be affordable, and provide additional bonus density and zoning flexibility to ensure developments recover the added cost of the affordable units.

Fixing any problem as complicated as D.C.’s affordable housing crisis requires a lot of tools. IZ is one way we can make up ground in our affordable housing crisis — and one that doesn’t require millions of dollars out of D.C.’s budget. It helps working-class residents have more housing options as prices continue to rise out of reach. Other programs better address the needs of those at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Along with strengthening IZ, these other efforts — part of the needed continuum of help require our deepened investment and support, too. The unprecedented level of funding for affordable housing in the budget proposed by Mayor Bowser and given initial approval by the D.C. Council is a great start to the Bowser administration and council session.

We hope that Mayor Bowser and the Zoning Commission will take the opportunity to act now while our city continues to attract more people and build new housing at a rapid pace.

Cheryl Cort is policy director at the Coalition for Smarter Growth and a leader of the DC Campaign for Inclusionary Zoning.

Read the original article here.

Letter of Support to US DOT for Potomac Yard Metro

Posted on by Winstina Hughes

I am writing to express our strongest possible support for the City of Alexandria’s application under the U.S. Department of Transportation’s FY 2015 National Infrastructure Investments discretionary grant program (formerly “TIGER”) for the Potomac Yard Metrorail Station. The project involves construction of an infill station on the Blue and Yellow Metrorail lines in the City of Alexandria, which is one of the core jurisdictions in the Metropolitan Washington region. The station would serve a major redevelopment site within five miles of downtown Washington, DC.

Williams: Parks planning needs public input

Posted on by Winstina Hughes

A recent study of planning theory and practice … suggests that the ineffectiveness of city planning results from two key factors: the tendency of planners to be pulled along by the prevailing political currents and the consistent refusal to formulate a notion of the ‘Good City’ that draws upon the widest possible base of support.”

— Christopher Silver, “Twentieth-Century Richmond: Planning, Politics and Race”

Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, thought Richmond had turned the corner on planning.

He and his wife had moved here the year before, and the public engagement surrounding the Downtown Master Plan “was absolutely inspirational,” he recalled.

But a half-dozen years after that plan’s approval, the 20th century described more than 30 years ago by Silver, a former professor of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University, sounds a lot like Richmond in the 21st century.

Last week’s forwarding of the proposed Kanawha Plaza makeover by the Planning Commission had all the traits of Mayor Dwight C. Jones’ approach to public projects — a blitzkrieg of lobbying and behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing, a dearth of public say, and a fast-track product guaranteed to leave folks asking, “What just happened?”
From the Stone brewery to the Shockoe ballpark plan to the pro football training center, there has been dissatisfaction over the level of transparency and public engagement.

The $6 million Kanawha Plaza renovation — to be bankrolled mostly by the corporate sector — will execute a plan produced in part by a design firm hired by Dominion Resources. The rehab could be completed in time for the bike race in September.

So much for the concerns of the Urban Design Committee, which were pretty much ignored as the mayor’s team pushed through a plan that calls for a large lawn at the center of the park, a stage like structure, a food truck area, retention of the plaza’s fountain and other grading and landscaping improvements.

At least one planner questioned what would be the lack of shade at the plaza during summer months; another was critical of the “disjointed” process and the lack of input from people who live downtown.

Even with the time crunch, it shouldn’t have come down to this.
Rachel Flynn, former director of planning and development for Richmond and now director of planning and building for Oakland, Calif., noted that numerous cities have forged public-private partnerships to address the design of public spaces, citing Bryant Park and the linear High Line Park in New York and Post Office Square in Boston as successful examples.

“The key was the hiring of excellent landscape architecture firms with very strong track records in creating beautiful public spaces, that are highly popular,” she said in an email last week. “If the city wanted to turn public responsibility over to the private sector, then they should have required the highest design standards.
“The hired firm, KEI Architects, is not a landscape architecture firm — and therefore doesn’t have the experience in designing successful public spaces,” like the aforementioned parks, she said. “Richmond deserved the best landscape architects for this project and the best design for its citizens. What a missed opportunity.”

While Flynn questioned the design, Schwartz lamented the process that led to it.
The Coalition for Smarter Growth has urged Richmond to have a more inclusive planning process, greater transparency and public involvement in the economic development process, and more sharing of information on the city’s website.

“We have a lot of creative talent in this city that we should tap. You get better decisions and outcomes in this city when you bring everyone to the table and tap their ideas,” Schwartz said.

He observed that there’s significantly more public involvement as a routine part of the planning process in Northern Virginia. And he lauded the Sacramento region’s Blueprint along with Envision Utah as broad outreach planning that we would do well to emulate. A byproduct of Envision Utah was a deeply conservative state’s construction of two light rail lines in Salt Lake City.

If that can happen there as a result of collaboration for the greater good, what can’t we accomplish here? For us to be not just a good city, but the best city we can be, we need broader involvement and fewer political power plays.

Or as Schwartz said, “We’ve got to turn away from the old way of doing things where just a few people make decisions about the future of our diverse city.”

A city guided by prevailing political currents, rather than transparency and inclusiveness, is guaranteed to stray off course.

Read the original article here.

Searching For Transit In I-66 Expansion Plans; Public Funds Give Virginia Options

Posted on by Winstina Hughes

Virginia is thinking about taking a different approach to toll roads.

After ceding future toll revenue on the I-495 and I-95 Express Lanes to the private-sector firm that built those highways in Northern Virginia, officials announced on Tuesday the results of an internal analysis on whether planned toll lanes on I-66 from the Beltway to Haymarket should remain under state control.

By fronting up to $600 million in public money for the estimated $2.1 billion project to build 25 miles of high-speed toll and carpool lanes on I-66 outside the Beltway, the state could reap hundreds of millions in toll revenue over the next 40 years to pay for other transportation improvements, said Aubrey Layne, Virginia’s Secretary of Transportation.

“The private sector is going to build this road. The private sector is probably going to operate this road. I’m not sure if the private sector is going to finance this road,” Layne said in remarks to reporters.

If the state decides to publicly finance the widening of I-66 to 10 lanes (five in each direction: two HOT lanes and three regular purpose lanes), it would mark a significant departure from the policy of previous administrations.

In the multibillion-dollar deals that built the Express Lanes on I-495 and I-95, the state’s financial commitment was small; the international road-builder Transurban took on the risk by financing the projects through a combination of private capital and federal loans. Thus, Transurban received concessions from the state to collect almost all the toll revenue on I-495 and I-95 for the next 70 years.

Such an arrangement is known as a public-private partnership, or P3, and Layne would not rule out another P3 for I-66.

‘We didn’t get transit’

“We didn’t get transit,” Layne said. “We might have made a different decision or the public might have weighed in differently had they known the project would have been different.”
Although the two toll roads may be helping drive-alone commuters and carpoolers, Layne said the benefit is coming at the expense of something else.

Only a fraction of the thousands of vehicles in the I-495 and I-95 Express Lanes are commuter buses. Transurban has little incentive to increase their number because buses do not pay Express Lanes tolls.

The 95 Express Lanes averaged 304 bus trips per day and the 495 Express Lanes averaged 177 in the most recent quarter ending March 31, according to data released by Transurban. These figures include school buses and charter buses.

Ridership remains relatively low on the new bus routes on I-495. OmniRide’s route from Woodbridge to Tysons Corner started in Nov. 2012. Fairfax County Connector launched express bus service to Tysons from Burke in January 2013 and added routes from Lorton and Springfield added two months later.

Two and a half years after opening to the public, 11 percent of all traffic on the 495 Express Lanes was either HOV-3 or otherwise exempt from paying toll (buses or emergency vehicles) during the most recent quarter, up from 8 percent in the April 2013 quarter, according to Transurban.

The future of I-66: buses, trains?

The McAuliffe administration would like to see a larger public transit share on I-66, although it is unclear what shape it would take.

The internal analysis unveiled by Layne before the Commonwealth Transportation Board on Tuesday “demonstrated that of the several available options for procuring the project, a publicly-financed design-build project may save taxpayers between $300 million and $600 million and provide for up to $500 million to be used for future transportation improvements in Northern Virginia,” according to a VDOT statement.

Transit advocates favor public ownership of future tolls on I-66.

“Our community is not going to support any project that does not put transit upfront as a major investment that we need in the I-66 corridor. Public ownership of the tolls may allow us to do that,” said Stewart Schwartz, the executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth and critic of the prior Express Lanes concessions.

“We’ve been disappointed that they failed to look at a transit-first alternative, simply looking at transit, transit-oriented development, rural land conservation, measures to reduce the driving demand overall and to shape land use to encourage more transit use in the corridor,” he added.

State officials are expected to make a decision on the I-66 procurement process this summer.

Updated 8:30 a.m., May 20.

Read the original article here.

Transit advocate backs bus-only lane as traffic solution for D.C.’s busy 16th Street route

Posted on by Winstina Hughes

A prominent advocacy group for smart growth and transit challenges the views that a letter-writer and I expressed about the future of bus service on one of the District’s busiest commuter routes.

Sixteenth Street buses are squeezing out all the capacity they can under current conditions. There’s no more room to add additional capacity for cars to the road without harming neighborhoods adjacent to 16th Street NW (nor is driving an option for many residents along 16th Street anyway).

Yet our region continues to grow, and more people need to commute to downtown D.C. from D.C. and Silver Spring neighborhoods all along the corridor. What are we going to do to address that?

The 16th Street bus lanes proposal, in which the current reversible rush-hour lane from Arkansas Avenue NW to downtown would be transformed into a dedicated bus lane, is our best option. With the rush-hour bus lane, we would increase our capacity to move the greatest number of people through this important corridor and with the least disruption to commuters using different transportation modes.

A 2013 feasibility study for the District Department of Transportation showed that creating a bus lane in that stretch of 16th Street would still leave two lanes for cars and only slightly increase delays. Meanwhile, buses, which move half of rush-hour travelers on 16th Street, would move 30 percent faster with a dedicated lane and, most important, would increase capacity for [moving people through the corridor] by 10 percent.

All of this can be done without sacrificing any parking spaces or narrowing 16th Street to one lane for cars in the peak direction south of U Street NW, as the letter-writer in your column suggests.

The same 50-foot right-of-way along this corridor has sufficient room south of U Street to be restriped for three travel lanes in the peak direction during rush hour, and to allow the non-peak direction to remain as it is — with one parking lane and one travel lane. Traffic volume is not as high south of U Street as it is to the north, where street parking isn’t allowed during rush hour in either direction.

As to your other points about bringing signal prioritization to the corridor and increasing the number of Metro supervisors along 16th Street to improve the efficiency of bus spacing, we agree, but it’s not enough.

Buses get stuck in traffic and are thrown off their schedules for two big reasons: They are stopped at red lights, and they are held back from moving through intersections because there are a bunch of cars in front of them.

Dedicated bus lanes free up buses from being stuck behind a line of cars trying to get through an intersection, and signal priority gets the bus through the intersection. Together, bus lanes and signal priority do more than the benefits they offer individually to get buses moving.

When we can do this with a marginal effect on traffic congestion, but a real increase in overall capacity, it’s a win for everyone.

What should be our next move? Do the detailed evaluations, approvals and plans to assess and implement a bus lane. DDOT should also expedite implementation of transit-signal priority, which is scheduled to be operating in the next two years.

The current status of the bottled-up transit service on 16th Street leaves more than half of the corridor’s commuters with a substandard option that is not only unacceptable, but also fixable. Why would we be so biased against effective solutions to make a corridor work for a majority of its travelers?

Cheryl Cort, policy director, Coalition for Smarter Growth

DG: A woman who lived at 16th and U streets in the late 1980s told me the Metrobuses were referred to as the “Banana Bus Lines,” because they always arrived in bunches. Many of today’s riders who try to board in the Mount Pleasant/Columbia Heights neighborhoods and farther south say that’s the most predictable part of the rush-hour bus service.

But to really succeed, a transit service needs the schedules to be predictable, not the bus bunching and crowding.

Metro and the District Department of Transportation consider 16th Street part of a regional bus priority corridor network, but DDOT has not yet presented an official proposal for bus-only lanes on 16th Street.

Maryland-to-D.C. commuters and D.C. residents along the corridor need to see such a proposal to make a proper evaluation. DDOT’s abortive experience with reconfiguring Wisconsin Avenue NW highlights some of the difficulties in translating what looks good on a map into what works for commuters in rush-hour traffic.

Before bus lanes arrive on 16th Street, drivers and bus riders alike need to know the District will be committed to enforcing new rules on lane use, parking and turning.

Bus-only lanes in an urban core are a block-by-block experience in engineering and transportation politics. If 16th Street becomes an initial experience, it needs to be a good one. Otherwise it could poison the environment for other transit improvements.

Read the original article here.