Tag: Transit

Urban Street Transformation – Loop Link

On December 21, 2015

Washington Street. Loop Link station. Source: Metropolitan Planning Council

Washington Street at LaSalle Street. Loop Link station. Source: Metropolitan Planning Council

Loop Link, the new bus service with some bus rapid transit amenities, is already having a large impact on the urban streetscape in downtown Chicago in advance of its opening this past Sunday. Even if you don’t ultimately use the transit system part of Loop Link, as a cyclist and/or pedestrian, Loop Link already has a lot to offer.

For instance, the narrowing of the road has already been having an effect, making street crossing on foot easier with the narrower crossing and slowing down drivers on traditional one-way streets.

Another major transformation of downtown is the protected bike lane on Washington Street (picture at left) and the two-way bike lanes on Clinton Street (below). This is a simple reallocation of existing road space from cars to buses and bikes, which carry more than 30,000 passengers per day. The two-way bicycle lanes on Clinton do double duty. They provide a crucial north-south connection to two major commuter rail stations, Union Station and Ogilvie Transportation Center and connect with the CTA Blue Line at Clinton Street. Along the way are Divvy bike share stations at each of the stations, enabling commuters from the train to travel safely north and south and connecting to the east artery on Washington Street to get into the heart of the Loop. As the protected bike lane on Randolph is completed, it will be very safe and easy to get through the Loop from the train stations all the way to the lakefront.

Washington Street. Looking west from LaSalle Street. Source: Metropolitan Planning Council.

Loop Link has resulted in a major urban street transformation because it’s costs ($41 million) represent a relatively cheap infrastructure investment that can pay dividends for its users – the bus riders and pedestrians and bicyclists that make up the majority of traffic movement downtown.

Clinton Street 2-way bike lanes. Near Union Station. Source: Streetsblog Chicago.

Why mass transit is doomed

By Ryan Richter

On December 2, 2013

In Politics

Mass Transit in Chicago. Source: Steven Vance @flickr

I can’t recommend reading Alex Pareene’s article enough on why mass transit is doomed. Sure, it’s true that politicians don’t use it. Let’s put this into a Chicago context. How often do you think Rahm Emanuel rides the CTA, despite living a couple of blocks from the Montrose Brown Line? What about Pat Quinn, who could commute from his northwest side neighborhood in Galewood on the Metra? Before you answer – consider this fact. There exists, under the James Thompson Center (aka Illinois Capitol Building north), a non-public parking garage restricted to select public employees. A similar parking situation exists in the Daley Center, next to City Hall. When parking is free in places it shouldn’t be, what are the incentives for politicians to drive?

Another example. Several years ago, when I was an intern with the Chicago Transit Authority, the Board of the CTA took a tour of the Block 37 cavern. (Let’s neglect the fact that this behemoth was sprung from the brainchild of another politician known for never riding the CTA, Richard Daley. And let’s neglect for the moment that a $200 million basement makes a difference to precisely no one. Imagine a $200 million investment in trains and buses). How did they get there? Not by the Green Line Clinton Station, right outside CTA headquarters. No, there was vehicle transportation arranged for them. Keep in mind that this is the Board of the Chicago Transit Authority.

This is despite the fact that 27% of workers within the City of Chicago take public transportation to work. One in four.

And now, when the CTA is proposing a bus rapid transit solution along Ashland Avenue that speeds up travel times on one of the busiest bus routes in its system, it runs into vehement opposition because it makes driving a car slightly more cumbersome. Because, you know, driving is a god given right also enshrined in our constitution. And everyone drives (except for those 27%).

The problem is, Chicago’s mass transit system, combined, is the third largest in the country. It faces a significant capital shortfall of $18 billion to address state of good repair needs and needs an additional $12 billion over 10 years for normal capital reinvestment. Yet, the system’s sources of funding are not stable and subject to economic swings (sales tax receipts, real estate transfer tax, etc.).

You know when the State gets its way on a ridiculously flawed highway proposal that it cannot afford, and it steamrolled the transit agencies to vote in support of it, against their interests, that mass transit is doomed.

Transit Disinvestment

By Ryan Richter

On January 14, 2013

In Infrastructure

Rising up or falling down? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In my hometown, Chicago, the CTA raised fares today. Lots of people are upset, and for good reason. In many cases it’s easy to blame the low hanging fruit – mismanagement, corruption, government waste, high salaries and benefits, etc. Often, the 800 pound gorilla in the room is none of these things. Raising fares is a rational response to a systemic problem in this country – the poor state of good repair as it’s called in the business, or the lack of well maintained infrastructure. It is a lack of a commitment nationwide to maintaining our infrastructure – and the problem is that we’re overbuilt – causing these state of good repair issues. And I don’t mean that we’re overbuilt on transit – it’s the roads, our development pattern and our suburban experiment that is bankrupting us.

CTA, like transit properties nationwide and like Metra here in Chicago, is raising fares in part due to declining federal and state support for capital expenditures and a poor economy that has devastated the operating side of the budget. This is happening all across the country. Therefore, it’s easy to see how transit gets into a situation, a cycle of slow, but perpetual disinvestment on the capital side, not out of poor management, but rather choices in which one must choose the least bad option. Then, the economy goes down, bringing down sales taxes – the principal operating finance mechanism – and now transit is unable to make payroll. This is referred to as the transit “death spiral.”

Transit is in a pickle. In the vast majority of cities it carries just a fraction of the overall work commute. In the Chicago metropolitan statistical area, that number is 11.5%. We’re in fourth place behind New York (31.1%), Washington D.C. (14.8%), and San Francisco (14.4%). It’s difficult to marshall the political forces needed to support transit locally and nationally when only 11.5% of the region’s work trips are made by transit. These numbers are so low precisely because of the built environment we have created. And until the fundamentals of that growth mechanism known as our suburban experiment change, I think the cycle of disinvestment in our infrastructure is likely to continue.

Olympic Games and Transport Infrastructure: An Analysis

By Ryan Richter

On April 19, 2012

In Olympics, Urban Planning

This is the last in a four-part series on the Olympic Games as a catalyst for urban, and specifically transportation, development. In Part I, we explored the background of how the Games are administered at the local level. Part II examines the growth of the Olympic Games and how it became a catalyst for general urban development. And Part III examined transport infrastructure in relation to the Games, with a closer look at London’s preparation for the upcoming 2012 Summer Olympics. In this last post on the Olympic Games, we’ll analyze what this all means for the Olympic Games and for the host cities themselves.

Analysis

A London Underground train decorated to promote London's Olympic bid. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Transportation infrastructure has become essential component of successfully hosting a mega event such as the Olympic Games. Due to the large volume of spectators and athletes, logistics problems become complex as organizers seek to make the Games as efficient as possible in an urban transport network that is often inefficient. Because of each city’s unique history and urban form, the impacts of the Games on transport development differ.

Additionally, it becomes clear that when examining previous Olympic Games over the last few decades, many of the host cities have tried to choose sites which were underutilized or brownfield sites. Often these sites are the only large sites within the central city that is suitable for Olympic venues. Additional incentives for this seem to be a regeneration of central city areas like we have seen at Homebush Bay in Sydney, Helliniko Airport in Athens, and Stratford in London. In all cases, some transportation infrastructure may have been in place, yet it was underutilized or inefficiently serving the site.

In Sydney, host of the 2000 Summer Olympics, the Games were a significant catalyst for urban infrastructure development around the region. Beside the direct investments made for the Games, the indirect investments prior to or after the Olympic Games were expedited. These improvements included better transport connectivity and a major capacity expansion scheme to its airport, Kingsford Smith International, as well as capacity improvements at its main rail hub, Central Station. All together, direct investment in transport infrastructure as a result of the Olympic Games was A$370 million ($384 million), while indirect investment was approximately A$3 billion ($3.1 billion).

Athens, host of the 2004 Summer Olympics, had transport issues that were significantly different from Sydney’s. Athens is an ancient city with a dense urban form. It also did not have much of the tertiary structure that is necessary to handle the increased demands of an Olympic Games. Due to the city’s urban form and a lack of large parcels of available public land, Athens had to spread out its Olympic venues across the Attica Plain. This was problematic due to the notorious traffic congestion facing Athens and the little public transport infrastructure within the city. Thus, by agreeing to host the Olympic Games, Athens embarked on a scale of transport investment that had not been seen since Tokyo in 1964. The direct and indirect investments in transport infrastructure included a new international airport, two metro lines, a tram system, and a suburban railway. All of these infrastructure improvements were built with the goal of making transport more efficient during the Olympic Games. In total, direct investment as a result of the Olympic Games in transport infrastructure was over 2.86 billion euro ($4.5 billion).

London’s model for urban development was similar to Sydney. It has an area ripe for regeneration at Stratford. London also has transport connections near the site of the Olympic Park but needed significant investment in public transportation infrastructure to make the site accessible. The Olympic Village is also adjacent to the Olympic Park like in Sydney. However, the similarities between the two cities end here.

London has a much more complex set of existing transport infrastructure in place. The key for London is to arrange and maximize the efficiencies of the transport infrastructure to serve the Games and the regeneration afterward. For London is unique in the case studies to be simultaneously regenerating the area around the Olympic Park in Stratford.

It is difficult to estimate how much the London Olympic Games will eventually cost. Cost overruns have already plagued the Games and are further anticipated. Given what is now reported, however, direct investment by the Her Majesty’s Government in transport is anticipated to be approximately £900m ($1.8 billion). Indirect investments in transport, particularly at Stratford International and other public transport services, both public and private, are estimated at £1bn ($2 billion) annually from 2007 through 2012.

Legacy

A legacy of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. The Olympic Bridge over the River Han.Source: yarra 64 @ Wikimedia Commons.

Over the past several decades, almost all Olympic host cities have used the Games as a catalyst for massive urban regeneration. The legacy of hosting the Games includes physical and economic effects that are left following the Games that would otherwise not have occurred without the Games.

Structural change to the host city’s urban infrastructure can provide the host city with a once in a lifetime opportunity for massive urban development. The improvement in transport infrastructure and efficiency makes the city more efficient and competitive, drawing industry, income, and jobs to the Olympic host city. It can spur regeneration like it has in London (5,000 homes and a town center). Or it can open up new areas for development (new international airport in Athens). Either way, the trend is toward larger and more significant investment in infrastructure, using the Olympic Games as a catalyst toward infrastructure investment and regeneration.

House Plan Would End Dedicated Transit Funding, Overturn 30 Years of Transportation Policy

By Ryan Richter

On February 3, 2012

In Politics, Transportation Policy

Sorry to have to start this blog on a bad note, but our friends in the U.S. House of Representatives believe that transportation policy should go back to the 1970s.

You know, that era of gas shortages and rampant urban sprawl. Look, there is a reason why the Highway Trust Fund is used to fund transit. It has long been recognized that “if you build it they will come” when it comes to highway building. We’ll never build our way out of congestion and therefore, transit is a vital component of an urban area’s mobility. Forcing everyone to rely on the private automobile is unsustainable, not practical in most of our oldest cities and deeply un-conservative.