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Off-Shore Attacks on Light Rail

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

“What’s going on here is a battle between commuters who want to get to work and a bunch of people who don’t want to look at trolley cars while they play golf.  If the public understands that’s what this fight is about, then the Purple Line will be built.”

—Ben Ross, president, Action Committee for Transit (Montgomery County, MD)

This quote, one of the more effective rebuttals to anti-transit advocacy that I’ve seen, appeared in a July 13 Washington Post article about a strange web site fighting the Purple Line.  The Post reported that “the site’s owner is listed as a company based in the Madeira Islands off the coast of Portugal that allows clients to register Web sites anonymously…State tax records shed a little more light: Its founder is a board member at Columbia Country Club in Montgomery, whose 100-year-old golf course would be bisected by the transit line.”

Perhaps the Columbia Country Clubbers should visit Newton Massachusetts, where the Woodland Golf Club, founded in 1896, has long coexisted first with steam and diesel-powered commuter trains and, since July 4, 1959, with the Riverside branch of MBTA’s Green Line.

Next to the above article, The Post ran a nice report on plans for streetcars in Washington, DC, with a map showing potential linkage (at Silver Spring) with the Purple Line. Some trolley cars could even enter service late next year, said the headline.

—Ross Capon

Posted by NARP

House Subcommittee Considers Expanding Passenger Train Service at Pittsburgh Hearing

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

NARP Council Member Kenneth Joseph reports on the hearing at which he testified.

The Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee held a field hearing in Pittsburgh on June 22. I was one of the witnesses, testifying on behalf of NARP. Click here for information about the hearing and copies of all witnesses’ testimony, including mine.

Alongside me at the witness table was Henry Posner III, Chairman, Railroad Development Corporation. RDC owns Iowa Interstate but also runs some passenger trains abroad. This caused Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA), the subcommittee’s top Republican to remark, “I’m glad to know someone can run passenger trains at a profit,” a subject that seemed important to him. Posner submitted as testimony his recent Pittsburgh Post-Gazette op-ed column arguing for public-private partnership to invest in expanding track capacity on the Norfolk Southern Harrisburg-Pittsburgh mainline to permit introduction of much faster, more frequent passenger train service.

I endorsed this in my statement, while also urging a more immediate action—reinstatement of the Three Rivers to give Pennsylvanians a second schedule choice across their state and direct, daily service between Philadelphia, other Pennsylvania points and Chicago.

Maglev got more attention in this hearing than it deserved. At least three times, Dr. Fred Gurney, PhD, President and CEO of Maglev, Inc. assured the Congressmen that the Maglev line in China is “what President Obama and Vice President Biden mean when they say ‘high speed rail.’ ” Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA), who chaired the hearing, was sympathetic and expressed hope that Maglev Inc. would soon receive $45,000,000 to prepare construction drawings for its Pittsburgh-Greensburg maglev line.

In response to questions, Lorenzo Simonelli, President and CEO of GE Transportation, suggested that GE’s new generation of clean, diesel-electric locomotives would be a better option than maglev. Simonelli’s excellent presentation elicited support, partly of course because the units would be built near Erie, PA.

The strangest testimony came from Patrick J. McMahon, president of Amalgamated Transportation Union Local 85, the local transit operator’s main labor union, who dismissed the whole idea of high speed rail and stated that we should build light rail instead. He suggested various specific extensions to the Pittsburgh light rail system that I—as a lifetime Pittsburgh resident—did not think were very well thought out. He also criticized the proposal to run commuter rail from New Kensington to Pittsburgh on the Allegheny Valley Railroad. Reasonable people can disagree about the merits of this concept, but it has many supporters, including Rep. Altmire.

Rep. Shuster provided a light moment when he asked Dr. Gurney, “I read somewhere that maglev could go straight up.” The maglev advocate replied, “You probably could, but you wouldn’t want to for passenger comfort reasons.”

Unfortunately, I was the only witness to address what could be done to improve service to Western Pennsylvania in the near future. Rep. Altmire was particularly interested in improving Pittsburgh to Cleveland, although it was not clear if he was looking for near term or long term improvments.

—Kenneth Joseph
Member, NARP Council of Representatives

Posted by NARP

Flag Stops: Doing the Math

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The latest news and views round-up.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Unleashed TIGER Forges a New Path

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Just three weeks after history-making intercity passenger train grants were announced, the Obama Administration unveiled $1.5 billion in Recovery Act grants under a revolutionary framework in which rail and transit figure prominently.  The program, dubbed Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER), marks the first time that the US Department of Transportation has awarded money across the institutional barriers that have historically held back funding for railroads and transit—and infrastructure that connects these with the rest of the transportation network.

As with the High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail “pot,” states’ applications greatly exceeded the available funds—$56 requested for every $1 awarded. Determining what percentage of TIGER funds went to each mode of travel is (happily) difficult since many of the projects benefit multiple modes. Grants benefitting passenger rail (including rail transit) total $574.1 million (about 38% of the total), while those aiding freight rail add up to $408.8 billion (about 27%). Transit improvement ventures (subway, light rail, streetcar and bus) got $699 million (about 47%), with highways getting almost 30%, and bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure about 10%.

TIGER’s innovative, merit-based funding mechanism should become the mold in which most future federal transportation financing is cut. Including more funding for TIGER or a similar program in the Jobs Bill (currently before the Senate) would be an ideal way for Congress to signal its commitment to meaningful reform that will give Americans better mobility choices. NARP and our partners in the OneRail Coalition [link to come] will continue to sound the call for strong, balanced transportation investments that put rail in its rightful place as a key component in how America moves.

Read on for an overview of how the awards are distributed, or go here for complete descriptions of each funded project.

—Malcolm Kenton

» read more...

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Southern Cities Discovering that Trains Mean Business

Friday, July 30, 2010

For the past few decades, city boosters in Charlotte, NC, have wanted the Queen City to become more like Atlanta—taking advantage of its location to become one of the Southeast’s premier business hubs. Now, when it comes to modern transportation, it’s Atlanta that is looking enviously towards Charlotte.

Both locales, like all medium- and large-sized US cities, had streetcar networks early in the 20th century. But while Atlanta does have the 30-year-old MARTA heavy rail transit system, it lacks modern streetcar or light rail lines. Charlotte, meanwhile, opened its first light rail line in 2007 and has plans to greatly expand the system. Just this week, Charlotte’s City Council agreed to accept a $25 million federal grant to build an east-west streetcar line to connect with the north-south LYNX light rail line. There are some plans afoot to build new rail transit lines in Atlanta, and a funding application was made in February for a streetcar on Peachtree Street, but Georgia has yet to receive any federal grants for transit.

And it’s not just transit—intercity passenger rail has a lot to do with it as well. Charlotte is connected to Greensboro and Raleigh by six daily Amtrak round-trips, with two daily round-trips linking it to the Northeast Corridor—a link that the Southeast High-Speed Rail Corridor aims to solidify. Credit for this can be given to the state of North Carolina’s decades of planning and investment, while Georgia has spent next to nothing on trains, the result being that Atlanta is served by only one daily Amtrak train in each direction and high(er)-speed rail is a much longer ways off.

This has Atlanta business leaders worried that the metro area, which is suffering from worsening traffic congestion and deteriorating transit service, may be losing jobs to cities like Charlotte. MARTA and its connecting suburban bus systems have the dubious distinction of being the only urban transit system not to receive state funds—they are funded primarily by a 1% sales tax levied only in the counties they serve. This left these systems particularly vulnerable to the effects of the recession on sales tax revenue, resulting major service cutbacks. Yet the Atlanta area remains far behind in the competition for federal transit dollars because its planning process is not as far along as those of Charlotte and other cities.

Hopefully the success of Charlotte’s rail transit investments in catalyzing smarter development—aided by better intercity train connections—will finally persuade Georgia’s political leaders to get serious about passenger rail. Not only are trains (and buses) an essential lifeline for those without access to cars, but they are the most proven way to combat crippling congestion while creating jobs and desirable places to live and work—places centered on people, not cars.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Can a lost rail connection be regained?

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The following was written for Greater Greater Washington, a blog focused on smart growth, transit, and enhancing livability in the national capital region—and is reprinted here. The original is here.

Have you ever wondered why the H Street/Benning Road NE corridor is wider, flatter and straighter than most surrounding streets? The answer lies in a little-known chapter of mid-Atlantic railroad history that may also point a way towards a better transportation future for our region.

The Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway (WB&A) provided passenger and freight service on an electrified route between its namesake cities from 1908 to 1935. The line provided a third rail route between Washington and Baltimore, complementing (and competing with) the Pennsylvania Railroad (which is now Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor) and the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O, now the MARC Camden Line).

Long-gone WB&A station at the “starburst” intersection in Northeast DC. Image from rockcreek on Flickr.

The WB&A entered Washington from Seat Pleasant, MD, via Benning Road NE, which was widened and graded to accommodate the trains. It originally terminated at its own station (misnamed “White House Station”) at the “starburst” intersection of Bladensburg, H & 15th Streets and Maryland and Florida Avenues. Hechinger Mall on Benning Rd. NE in Carver/Langston was built on the site of the WB&A’s rail yard and maintenance shop.

Eventually, the line was extended west on H Street all the way to 15th Street NW at the Treasury building, sharing infrastructure with Capital Transit streetcars. At one point, the current site of the Greyhound/Peter Pan bus depot in NoMa was also a WB&A station.

The WB&A also offered direct train service from Baltimore to Annapolis, and riders from DC could disembark at Naval Academy Junction, near Odenton, and connect to Annapolis-bound trains (which also connected with the Pennsylvania at Odenton, and with the B&O at Annapolis Junction, the station for which is now called Savage).

Despite that a trip from downtown DC to Baltimore took an hour and 20 minutes on the WB&A, versus 50 minutes on the B&O, the WB&A remained popular for its cleanliness, lower fares, half-hourly service and better downtown terminal locations than the other two railroads. Imagine being able to hop on an electrified train in the heart of downtown DC and ride directly into the heart of downtown Baltimore.

The former WB&A right-of-way northeast from Seat Pleasant is mostly intact. It roughly paralleled what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Highway through Glenadren. Electric Avenue and Railroad Avenue in Glenn Dale are named for the former rail line over which they were paved, as is WB&A Road in Severn, near BWI Airport. Parts have been retained as a bike trail, with plans to extend the trail along the entire right-of-way from Lanham to Odenton.

The federally-funded construction of Defense Highway (U.S. 50) in the early 1950s, combined with improved service on the competing railroads, doomed WB&A’s service to DC, though the Baltimore-Annapolis section continued passenger service up to 1950, and freight service into the 1970s, as the Baltimore & Annapolis Railway (B&A). This right-of-way is now used by Maryland MTA light-rail trains as far south as Glen Burnie, and exists as a bike trail from there to Arnold, across the Severn River from Annapolis.

Today, by contrast, downtown-to-downtown service between the capital city and Charm City is offered only at weekday rush hours, while faster, more frequent daily Amtrak trains serve Penn Station, a fair hike from Baltimore’s downtown core (though now connected to it by light rail). If you want to take a train from either city to Annapolis, you’re out of luck.

A southbound light rail train, using the B&A right-of-way, passes B&A’s former Linthicum Heights, MD station (Wikimedia Commons)

From Baltimore, you can take light rail as far as Glen Burnie, then change for the number 14 bus, running on a roughly half-hourly schedule, with hour-and-a-half headways on Sundays.

But Washington’s only connection to the Maryland capital’s walkable downtown, universities and state government buildings — aside from changing at Baltimore or BWI Airport — are rush hour-only Maryland MTA commuter buses 922 & 950, and two daily Greyhound round-trips (one direct, one via Baltimore) that continue to Ocean City.

The Odenton-Annapolis WB&A line, which passed through the middle of what is now Westfield Mall on its way into Annapolis, is mostly lost. Restoring light rail service along either this right-of-way, or the old B&A south of Glen Burnie, would be less expensive than building a new one, but is likely to encounter significant NIMBY opposition.

Other options are to put rail in the median of U.S. 50 (not so conducive to walkability, but less likely to face the ire of NIMBYs), or to extend the Blue Line east from Largo, paralleling Central Avenue and Riva Road or Solomons Island Road. Via this alignment, the rail distance from Metro Center to Annapolis is only 5 miles greater than the rail distance from Metro Center to Dulles Airport via the Orange and Silver Lines.

The Maryland DOT should seek federal assistance to study options for rail service roughly paralleling heavily-congested U.S. 50, which would better connect the Annapolis area with the job centers on the Washington-Baltimore corridor. Some form of rail transit serving these communities would be a wise investment in a future where rising travel demand and more expensive gasoline will lead people along this corridor to seek a better travel alternative — and the walkable communities that would come with it.

Special thanks to NARP Director Ken Briers for his research assistance.

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Making Tracks in the Old Dominion

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The Winter 2011 issue of the quarterly newsletter of the Virginia Association of Railway Patrons (VARP), On Track, is an encouraging read. On Track is a fine example of the product of dedicated and knowledgable volunteer labor. While it is not published as frequently as the newsletters of other state rail passengers’ associations, it is very thorough in covering developments in freight, intercity passenger, commuter and transit rail in Virginia.

Photo by the author.

The Winter issue reports that the opening of Norfolk’s light-rail line, The Tide, is being further delayed. It was slated to open this month, but operator Hampton Roads Transit is still waiting to receive new safety equipment that will then need to be installed. The first segment of the line is complete, light rail vehicles have been delivered, and test trains have already been running. New commercial and residential development has already begun to spring up along the line, like the apartment building in the photo to the right.

The Tide is poised to become a model for a local rail service that complements and extends the reach of intercity passenger rail service, as envisioned in the Regional Transit Plan for Hampton Roads. It will share a downtown Norfolk depot with Amtrak once the state of Virginia succeeds in its effort to extend a Northeast Regional train to Norfolk via Petersburg and Suffolk over Norfolk Southern (ex-Norfolk and Western) rails. The realization of planned extensions will more effectively bond the Tidewater region with greater Richmond and the Northeast Corridor, as well as the national rail network.

The Tide will be extended east to Virginia Beach and west to the Norfolk Naval Station by 2025. By 2035, The Tide is planned to connect with high-speed ferries to Hampton and Newport News from the Naval Station, with streetcars linking The Tide to Chesapeake and Portsmouth. Longer-term, a tunnel is envisioned to extend light rail to Newport News, which also plans to replace its existing Amtrak station (growing ridership often overcrowds it at train times) with two new stations—a fully-staffed, multimodal terminal off Bland Boulevard next to the Newport News-Williamsburg International Airport, and a small self-service station downtown off 30th Street.

» read more...

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

On Light Rail, Maryland Looks to Phoenix For What’s-to-Come

Monday, July 11, 2011

Updated: July 12, 10:30 am

In an effort to understand what residents along the Purple Line—a planned light rail system that will connect suburbs in Maryland—the Washington Post looked to the changes affected by a similar line in Phoenix, Arizona.

What Phoenix now offers — more reliable public transportation, another alternative to gas-guzzling vehicles, new development rejuvenating areas around stations — is what the Maryland Transit Administration envisions for a 16-mile Purple Line between Bethesda and New Carrollton. State planners have said they expect to be granted federal permission this summer to do more detailed engineering on the $1.93 billion project. It’s still unclear where construction money would come from.

The message of the July 9 story was clear: if the Purple Line is anything like Phoenix’s—and it should be, with Maryland officials employing the consulting firm used by the City of Phoenix, a firm that wowed with their attention to detail and passenger comfort—residents will love the train, but can expect significant growing pains.

Those pains include extended construction work that will inhibit movement along busy urban corridors, which will hurt businesses along the corridor.  There is also a safety issue, with light rail cars sharing road with automobiles unused to their presence.  Finally, there is the cost of the line itself; Maryland transportation officials estimate that in addition to the $1.93 billion construction and engineering costs, there will be an $18 million annual operating costs. 

Critics view these factors as reasons enough not to have built the line, pointing to buses as a cheaper alternative.

The public has a far different story to tell about the line, however, praising its efficiency and on time performance while voicing hopes for extension of the line.  That story is echoed in ridership figures, with the line averaging 39,000 per weekday—a figure which exceeds projections by 51 percent.  And businesses along the corridor that were able to weather the hassle of construction have seen their property values shoot up and residential development return to once economically desolate areas.  Phoenix transit officials have also been able to dramatically reduce fender-benders along the route through a coordinated public awareness campaign, cutting collisions from 52 in the first year of operation to 25 the following year.

Perhaps the most telling testimony comes from an official who was the biggest detractor of the Phoenix light rail line in the planning and construction phases.

Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman (R) said he initially objected to taxpayer subsidies for light rail. But he said he changed his mind after seeing the transformation of a dilapidated stretch between downtown Phoenix and Tempe. The city of Tempe had spent “tens of millions of dollars” over three decades trying to attract the kind of investment that the light rail line drew in just a few years, he said… “As a transportation investment,” Hallman said, “the payment back to the community pretty well takes care of the investment.”

Posted by NARP

Demonstrated Economic Benefits Draw Strong Backing for Rail Transit Expansion in North Carolina

Monday, October 31, 2011

Charlotte, NC’s growing LYNX light rail system—currently one operating line, with an extension in the pre-construction stages and two others proposed—has already drawn an additional $1.4 billion in private-sector business development in the city, Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx reported last week.

Photo by NARP member Matt Johnson (tracktwentynine on Flickr)

Rail transit’s success in the state’s largest metro area has bolstered the resolve of transit supporters in the state’s second largest metro—the Research Triangle area anchored by Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill—to press for an additional half-cent salex tax in Durham County (the heart of the Triangle) to fund an initial rail transit line there, as well as improvements to bus service. Durham County voters will decide next Tuesday, Nov. 8, whether to raise their own sales taxes for this purpose. Early voting there is already underway.

A voter-approved half-cent sales tax in Charlotte’s home county of Mecklenburg, in place since 1998, is what allowed the city’s light rail system to be built. It took until 2007 for the first line to open—which it did just 20 days after county voters flatly rejected an attempt to repeal the additional sales tax.

The identical Durham County ballot measure has one the backing of three influential community groups: the Durham People’s Alliance, the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, and the Friends of Durham (the latter has traditionally opposed tax increases). A host of statewide transportation, environmental and public interest groups have also backed a “For” vote on the measure.

The referendum’s passage would give momentum to similar efforts elsewhere in the state. The counties of Wake and Orange (both also in the Triangle, home to Raleigh and Chapel Hill, respectively) and Guilford and Forsyth (the heard of the Piedmont Triad, the state’s third largest metro area, and home to Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem) are also eligible to consider half-cent sales tax increase referenda for transit under a new state law enacted last year.

The development of rail transit networks in these three metros (re-creating ones that existed in the early 20th Century), in tandem with the intercity passenger rail service improvements and expansions the North Carolina DOT continues to pursue, would provide a major boost to job growth and allow the state to accommodate its growing population without resulting in gridlocked roads and the worsening maleffects of urban sprawl caused by new highway construction.

—Malcolm Kenton

Posted by Malcolm Kenton

Forces rally around stopping House’s transportation bill

Thursday, February 09, 2012

It’s been a hectic week for rail and transit advocates (along with organizations focused on smart growth, labor, environmental protection, domestic equipment manufacturing and supply, and so on and so forth), who have been fighting tooth-and-nail to oppose a House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee transportation reauthorization what would gut funding for public transportation and starve the intercity and high-speed rail program.

Within the next seven days, the U.S. House will vote on H.R. 7, the so-called “American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act.” NARP is joining our allies at Transportation for America and the Midwest High-Speed Rail Association (along with countless others) in opposing this bill.

Please call your Representative today and urge him or her to vote “no” on H.R. 7, mentioning specifically your opposition to the drastic transit cuts, the California high-speed rail prohibition, and the provision penalizing transit systems that operate rail lines.

Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your Representative’s office. Click here to find out who represents you (enter your 9-digit ZIP code in the top right corner of the page).

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Posted by NARP

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