Ben Goldman - Greater Greater Washington

DC scores 4th in first Transit Score rankings

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:21:00 EDT

Yesterday, Walk Score—developer of the popular method for evaluating neighborhood walkability (and filling out NCAA tournament brackets)—announced its first ranking of cities by Transit Score, a measure of the "usefulness" of a city's transit system.

Transit Score map of San Francisco. Image from Walk Score.

On a 100-point scale, New York and San Francisco took the top two spots with scores of 81 and 80 respectively, while Boston (74), Washington DC (69), and Philadelphia (68) round out the top five (see the full rankings).

Walk Score CEO Josh Herst believes this is an important time to begin evaluating cities in terms of transit, and all the Americans who rode transit 10.4 billion times in 2011 would likely agree with him. "Heading to the gas pump this season is about as much fun as getting a root canal," Herst said in the official release (PDF).

"With gas prices expected to hit new highs, more people are riding transit, walking and biking to save money. And being able to leave your car at home more often is great for your wallet, your waistline and the environment," he said.

The company generates Transit Scores using data provided by transit agencies, and takes into account the number of nearby transit routes (weighted differently by mode), how often those routes run, and how far away the stations are from any given point. A city's score is based on a population-weighted average of all individual point scores. For an excellent discussion of the Transit Score methodology, check out this exchange between transit expert Jarrett Walker and Walk Score's Matt Lerner from early 2011.

Overall, it's fair to say that few American cities score well on the system. Of the 25 largest cities that make their transit data available to the public, only ten topped a Transit Score of 50, which is the lowest score qualifying as "good transit," described as "many transit options nearby." Most (14) fall into the "some transit" bracket, and the 25th-highest Transit Score among the cities evaluated—Raleigh, NC—is a 23, the upper end of "minimal transit."

The scale is non-linear; that is, raising a city's Transit Score from 70 to 80 would take much more work than raising it from 60 to 70. Because of the population weighting, the more people who live in a city, the harder it is to raise the score: As the Walk Score website explains, one additional bus route means a lot more for a small town than it would for a big city.

Furthermore, rail transit (including subways and light rail) is weighted at twice the value of a bus route, with ferries, cable cars, and other modes splitting the difference between the two. These numbers weren't pulled out of thin air—they reflect research that shows a range of effects of different transit modes on the value of surrounding land.

Because of this, Transit Scores will tend to be higher in the center of cities where multiple rail lines converge, but where residential population may not be at its densest. It's not hard to see how development near rail stations could make or break a city's Transit Score.

No doubt, Transit Score is a useful way to compare different neighborhoods within a city, and now entire cities as a whole. But it primarily reflects how easy it is to get to transit, rather than where you can go and what you can do with transit once you're on it.

Cross-posted at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

8 comments

WalkScore now includes Transit Score (Aug 16, 2010)
Which city's rail system has the best Walk Score? (Feb 29, 2012)
What parts of the Metro have the best Walk Score? (Mar 8, 2012)
Still the one (outlier) (Sep 29, 2008)
WalkScore heat maps (Jun 13, 2008)

House bill delayed, but transit, walking, biking aren't safe yet

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:35:00 EDT

by Ben Goldman

Congress is in recess, and the House's atrocious transportation bill has been dismembered and delayed, but if you want to preserve funding for transit and active transportation, don't let your guard down yet. There's still plenty to watch out for as the House and Senate attempt to reauthorize federal transportation programs.

Photo by jcolman on Flickr.

There are some stark differences between the House and Senate bills. But what is scariest may be their similarities.

When two companion pieces of legislation pass their respective chambers, a conference committee combines them. The committee is made up of members of both the House and the Senate, and it is their job to resolve differences between the two bills. (Most recently, a conference committee forged a compromise on extending payroll tax cuts and unemployment insurance.)

Committee members are limited in that for each provision, they must choose either one chamber's version or the other's—they generally do not have the power to come up with something new on the spot. Furthermore, if the two bills agree on something, the conference committee can't alter that provision.

There are already large chunks of the House and Senate bill that are the same. Both eliminate dedicated bike-ped funding, for instance. The House bill admittedly goes much further than the Senate's, but if the two bills were to be conferenced right now, Safe Routes to School, Transportation Enhancements and Recreational Trails would all be history.

The committee would then have to choose how to weaken those programs: eliminate them altogether, like the House bill, or keep them eligible under Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program but let states opt out of them. Another critical choice: fund CMAQ from the Highway Trust Fund, as in the Senate bill, or fund it from the the smoke-and-mirrors "alternative transportation account" envisioned in the House bill.

"We have to keep the bike-ped programs alive in the Senate to be able to fight for them in conference," David Burwell, director of the Energy and Climate Program at the Carnegie Endowment, told Streetsblog. "That's why Senate Amendments 1549 [Cardin/Cochran, making CMAQ city-friendly] and 1661 [Klobuchar, protecting Rec. Trails] are so important to the bicycling community. If they don't get added to the bill, the fight is over in conference."

There are other amendments pending in the Senate that would add some language already adopted by the House. The House's Keystone XL pipeline proposal has already passed as part of H.R. 3408, the "drill" part of "drill and drive." If a Keystone XL pipeline amendment succeeds in the Senate, it cannot be removed by the conference committee.

Both chambers have to vote on the committee's end product, the conference report, before they send it to the president. If the committee doesn't think it can reach a compromise that will pass both chambers, we're headed for an extension. If it passes both but President Obama vetoes it, as he has promised to do with the House bill, we're headed for an extension.

Cross-posted at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

5 comments

House GOP moves to decimate transit funding (Feb 2, 2012)
Stimulus compromise won't cut transit (Feb 7, 2009)
Oberstar bill includes more money for transit, complete streets (Jun 18, 2009)
Bipartisanship brings zilch for bike-ped in Senate outline (Jul 20, 2011)
House transportation bill is "a march of horribles" (Jan 30, 2012)

House GOP moves to decimate transit funding

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:17:00 EDT

by Ben Goldman

In a move that should dispel any remaining thoughts that the House transportation bill will ever be signed into law, the Ways and Means Committee announced today that they will try to forbid gas tax revenue from funding transit.

Photo by Jim Nix / Nomadic Pursuits on Flickr.

The Ways & Means bill (PDF) would funnel all gas tax revenue toward road programs, redirecting billions of dollars per year away from transit, which for decades has received about 20% of fuel tax receipts.

Instead, the House GOP wants transit funding to come entirely from the general fund, pitting transit against all other government spending. To offset that spending, $40 billion would have to be cut from the rest of the federal budget.

Essentially, the House GOP is holding transit hostage to achieve budget cuts elsewhere—and they don't seem to care if the hostage dies. They will also be tossing aside a precedent set during the Reagan administration, one that has enjoyed bipartisan support through several transportation bills, including the 2005 law, known as SAFETEA-LU, which was passed by a Republican president and Republican Congress.

Dan Smith of USPIRG put it like this:

The House Ways and Means Bill stops just short of defunding America's public transit system. Instead it says that the real money with a funding source will all go to highways, while the tooth fairy will pay for transit. For Big Oil and the highway lobby, this is a dream, but it's a nightmare for America's transportation future.

In keeping with the secretive nature of the current House's transportation reauthorization process, the announcement comes just one day before Ways and Means will mark up the bill. There is even less time to protect transit funding in the House bill than there was to protect bike/ped programs in today's T&I markup.

Cross-posted at Streetsblog DC.

16 comments

GOP transportation bill's new direction is the same old one (Jul 11, 2011)
House transportation bill is "a march of horribles" (Jan 30, 2012)
LaHood vows to avert federal transportation bankruptcy (Jun 4, 2009)
STAA tuned: Transportation bill leaves funding question hanging (Jun 23, 2009)
Transportation in Congress roundup: Leaders agree on extension, GOP would kill Amtrak, & Obama proposal (Sep 12, 2011)

House transportation bill is "a march of horribles"

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:16:00 EDT

by Ben Goldman

The House's five-year transportation bill is slated for release on Tuesday. Based on an early summary, the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act looks like a return to 1950s-style transportation policy. It is particularly unkind to transit and bike/ped programs, and to cities in general.

Highways 'n' pipelines: The cover page to the House transportation bill brochure. Image from Politico.

The bill's overarching themes, again in the absence of official language, seem to be:

Funneling as much money as possible to highways
Giving even more power to spend that money to state DOTs, not cities and metro regions
Shortening the environmental review process
Eliminating programs "that do not have a federal interest," which apparently includes all dedicated funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs
Doing away with discretionary transit programs, which would spell the end for the very successful TIGER
Augmenting gas tax revenue with a yet-unspecified revenue stream from oil and gas drilling

One example the summary gives of a project not in the federal interest is the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program, which distributed four $25 million grants "to demonstrate how improved walking and bicycling networks can increase rates of walking and bicycling." One of those grants went to Minneapolis, which is making great strides in promoting biking and walking. If reauthorized at current levels, NTPP would account for 0.04 percent of the bill's total appropriations.

The "flexibility" afforded states to minimize spending on bike/ped and transit, as well as the bill's reliance on oil drilling, have advocates outraged. The Sierra Club's Jesse Prentice-Dunn told Streetsblog that the bill represents "a significant step backwards for safe biking and walking."

"Americans are looking for transportation choices that can conveniently get them where they need to go without polluting the planet," Prentice-Dunn said. "Today more than 12 percent of trips are made by foot or bike, yet less than 2 percent of our nation's transportation funding goes towards biking and pedestrian infrastructure.

According to the Alliance for Biking and Walking, bike commuting increased 57 percent between 2000 and 2009. Instead of increasing investment in transportation options that Americans want, the House bill appears to funnel more dollars towards roads, further deepening our addiction to oil."

The bill would also cut Amtrak's operating subsidy by 25 percent in fiscal years 2012 and 2013, would keep existing lanes on the interstate highway system toll-free, and would allow states to use up to 15 percent of their total highway funds to capitalize state infrastructure banks (currently the maximum is 10 percent).

Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Streetsblog that the bill "looks uninspiring at best, giving states a lot of authority without a lot of accountability."

"The language about curtailing environmental reviews is alarming, but it's probably the tip of the iceberg compared to what we'd see in the bill itself. It's a march of horribles... and they'll go much further than the Senate in eliminating environmentally beneficial programs," Lovaas said. "I can't help but conclude that the house Republican leadership has hijacked the transportation bill and shattered the idea of bipartisanship in transportation policy making."

The new date for the full bill's unveiling is Tuesday, January 31.

Cross-posted at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

28 comments

Oberstar bill includes more money for transit, complete streets (Jun 18, 2009)
Bipartisanship brings zilch for bike-ped in Senate outline (Jul 20, 2011)
Oberstar to release transportation outline on Wednesday (Jun 15, 2009)
GOP transportation bill's new direction is the same old one (Jul 11, 2011)
When will Oberstar's transportation bill drop? Place your bets now (Jun 10, 2009)