Posts by Matt Johnson

Before the roundabout was built on Cherrywood Lane, there wasn't even a stop sign, so anyone leaving the Metro had to wait for an opening in traffic. This led to significant backups of almost a half-mile, especially in the evening rush hour. Since the roundabout opened, I've never experienced a backup of more than 5 cars.

One of the tradeoffs, though, is that the roundabout required losing a section of the bike lanes on Cherrywood Lane, a key part of Greenbelt's bike network. Westbound cyclists are headed downhill, so it's fairly easy to merge into traffic. But eastbound cyclists are climbing a hill, and it can be daunting to merge into the faster traffic.

That's where one of Greenbelt's innovations comes in: a bypass. Where the bike lane ends before the roundabout, cyclists ascend a ramp to a widened sidewalk, then return to the bike lane on the other side.

Unfortunately, the bypass isn't well marked and is easy to miss. Cyclists headed to the Metro should merge into traffic instead, but that's not clear when the bypass begins due to a lack of signage at the decision point.

As the bike lane narrows, a sign directs cyclists to move onto the sidewalk, though it seems like it's really meant for drivers. A pavement marking or even a sign that says "use path" with an upward right arrow, like this one in Atlanta, would be clearer.

Another problem is that pedestrians don't realize that the sidewalk here doubles as a bikeway. Not expecting to see cyclists passing them, they walk in the middle, creating an opportunity for collisions.

Some paint could help this situation as well. In Atlanta, the city striped a bikeway on a short segment of sidewalk to direct bicyclists away from a short gap in the 5th Street bike lane.

For westbound cyclists, there is no bypass. The bike lane abruptly ends at a concrete splitter island, and riders are expected to merge into the car lane to go through the roundabout. The city did install an orange flexpost to improve visibility, but there's no direction for cyclists or drivers, creating a safety hazard.

While there are raised crosswalks on the western and northern sides of the roundabout, improving pedestrian safety and slowing traffic, the city didn't build one on the eastern leg. Drivers won't slow down, making it harder for cyclists to merge into traffic. On top of that, the lack of a crosswalk means cyclists using the bypass have one fewer crossing to the Metro.

Even without the changes I'm suggesting, the roundabout is a huge improvement over the previous intersection. Greenbelt's staff should be commended for designing fixes for the intersection. But this great project could be even better.

The Planning Department says that they will study the roundabout to determine whether further changes are necessary. Hopefully, some of these improvements will make the cut.

Where can you get to in the region on Sunday? More importantly, where can't you get?

I've often joked that the reason WMATA won't create a Sunday transit map is because it would tip over to the left—because all the ink would be on one side. That's not quite true, of course. There is some bus service in Prince George's on Sundays.

I decided to take matters into my own hands. I spent several hours modifying WMATA's transit maps for Montgomery and Prince George's counties to show only the service that is available on Sunday.

In Prince George's, large swaths of the county are left without transit service on Sundays. None of the Prince George's County Transit (TheBus) routes operate on Saturdays or Sundays, and Metrobus service is severely curtailed on Sunday.

Only one frequent transit route operates in Prince George's on Sundays: the C4, which runs between Prince George's Plaza and Langley Park before entering Montgomery County and continuing to Wheaton and Twinbrook. The frequent K line along New Hampshire Avenue does run right on the county line in Langley Park.

In Montgomery, on the other hand, Ride On does operate 7 days a week. And transit service stretches to many parts of the county, though admittedly, some areas are without buses on weekends.

Still, even low-density parts of the county, like Potomac, have service. And several frequent service lines crisscross the central and southern parts of the county.

If WMATA were to publish Sunday bus maps, it would help riders know where they could go, without going back and forth between map and bus schedules. It could also show where gaps in service exist, and to push the jurisdictions into improving transit service on weekends.

In Montgomery and Prince George's counties, the state of Maryland is responsible for funding Metrobus service. It's up to the state to determine whether to fund Sunday bus service through WMATA. However, the counties each control their own transit service. While Prince George's TheBus does not operate on weekends, Montgomery has made the conscious choice to operate Ride On on weekends.

We cannot expect people to give up their cars if it means being stuck at home one or two days a week. How would people feel if we closed the Beltway on Sundays? What if driving were made illegal on the Lord's day?

For those of us living in the suburbs without a car, or even car-lite, the lack of Sunday bus service is like that. The state and county tell many residents that they don't need to go anywhere on Sundays, unless, of course, they have a car.

It's not practical, of course, to run buses everywhere on Sundays that they run on weekdays. But it is unacceptable to leave so many residents, especially in Prince George's, so far from transit, even one day a week.

WMATA can't solve the problem of Sunday bus service overnight. But they could easily publish a Sunday-only bus map to help riders get around where there is service.

The agency chose to give both weekday commuters and weekend riders a lot of pain over a short time, rather than stretch it out over a long time. When finished, the reconstruction project will reduce travel times between 95th Street and Roosevelt by 20 minutes and will make the Red Line more reliable. By closing the entire line at once, riders will get to see those benefits sooner.

In the meantime, riders will have many alternatives to the Red Line, including several shuttle bus options to other L stations. Because of the increased volume of riders changing from shuttles to rail, CTA has also made temporary capacity improvements to the Garfield station on the nearby Green Line, including new staircases, faregates, and bus bays.

Additionally, the Red Line itself will be rerouted over part of the Green Line, and will operate 24 hours during the closure. To prepare for this, the CTA undertook an aggressive maintenance regimen on the Green Line track and structure, since trains will be running all the time, preventing any overnight maintenance.

However, there can be trade-offs. The Baltimore Light Rail was built as a single-track system with sidings where trains could pass one another. In 2004 and 2005, the Maryland Transit Administration closed each end of the line for about 6 months to reconstruct the line with two tracks. Before the project, train headways were limited to 17 minutes. Now, trains can run much more frequently.

During that time, MTA ran local and express shuttle buses to get riders around the closure, but ridership fell by 20% due to the inconvenience and took 3 years to recover, according to a source at MTA. When riders don't have transit options for long periods of time, they make alternate arrangements, like moving or purchasing a car.

If WMATA were to close a line for a long time, the agency could help to mitigate the inconvenience to riders by working with local jurisdictions to set up temporary bus lanes, signal priority, and other transit improvements. Adding additional buses to parallel routes, routing buses to different terminals, and discounting fares are all approaches that could help keep riders on board during the work.

Metro Forward is a big undertaking, and even when it's done, weekend work may still be necessary for future repairs. But for large projects, like Metro's years-long Red Line rehab, closures might get the work done sooner. However, it would cause significant disruption and a potential drop in ridership.

Here is the full list.

Transit projects:

• $100 million for MARC enhancements, including Penn Line weekend service, 2 new Camden Line weekday roundtrips, and new locomotives.
• $280 million for final design for the Purple Line.
• $170 million for final design for the Red Line in Baltimore.
• $100 million for final design for the Corridor Cities Transitway in Montgomery County.

Road projects:

• $125 million for construction of an interchange between I-270 and Watkins Mill Road in Montgomery County.
• $100 million for construction of an interchange at Kerby Hill Road and Indian Head Highway in Prince George's.
• $49 million for widening US 29 to three lanes from Seneca Drive to MD 175 in Howard County.
• $82 million for construction of an interchange on US 15 at Monocacy Boulevard in Frederick.
• $20 million for design of a new Thomas Johnson Bridge between Calvert and St. Mary's counties.
• $60 million for reconstruction of in interchange at I-695 and Leeds Avenue in Baltimore County.
• $44 million for BRAC-related construction near Aberdeen Proving Ground.
• $54 million for construction of a new interchage on US 301 at MD 304 on the Eastern Shore.

Spirited argument is important in public policy, but it should not cross into insults. When it does, that has a chilling effect on open discourse. Fostering an inclusive conversation about the shape of our region is the purpose of this site, but discourse must be civil to be truly open. That's why our comment policy here on Greater Greater Washington prohibits invective like this. In our articles, we try hard to avoid crossing this line, and are disappointed when we or others do, intentionally or inadvertently.

The "war on cars" frame unnecessarily pits drivers against cyclists and pedestrians instead of working together for positive solutions. The City Paper article, by Aaron Wiener, does a good job of debunking that, and is worth reading for much more than the insults it quotes.

When pressed, Townsend told Wiener he wants to back away from the "war on cars."

"I regret the rhetoric sometimes," he says. "Because I think that when you use that type of language, it shuts down communication with people who disagree."

We hope Townsend, his colleagues, and their superiors also regret the things he said about David and Greater Greater Washington. We look forward to the day when AAA ceases using antagonistic language and begins working toward safety, mobility, and harmony among all road users.

In the meantime, residents do have a choice when purchasing towing, insurance, and travel discounts. Better World Club is one company that offers many of the same benefits as AAA, but without the disdain.

You can make your own videos, too using their software. What areas would you be interested in animating to create an awesome video?

Right now the system doesn't let you link to an animation or export it to video, nor can you select a specific route, but if you could do these things then something like Hyperlapse could be a great way to graphically show people driving, biking, or walking directions, or create video tours, or otherwise show people about places online.

Ivy Lane is a short street between Kenilworth Avenue and Cherrywood Lane, near the Greenbelt Metro station. It passes through a suburban office park, but because it connects Old Greenbelt with the Metro and Greenbelt West, it is very popular with cyclists.

As I crested the hill on Ivy, I began to pick up speed. About this time, a platoon of cars released by the light at Kenilworth Avenue began to pass me. Most gave me a wide berth, moving into the left-turn lane to pass me, even though I was in the bike lane.

The first of the cars in this platoon was a silver sedan, and as we approached the entrance to 6404/6406 Ivy Lane, the car signaled and turned right without first moving into the bike lane. That car was about 2 car-lengths ahead of me when the driver turned. The second car continued straight ahead.

Then the third car, a maroon Ford Explorer, began to pass me. As the rear wheel was even with my handlebars, the driver initiated her right turn into 6404/6406. I jammed on the brakes, and swerved toward the curb. I missed colliding with her vehicle by less than 6 inches.

As it happened, the security guard who patrols this office park was waiting to turn out of the same driveway. As I was avoiding the collision, I yelled loudly, and having witnessed the near miss and hearing me yell, the guard quickly turned around and went after the motorist. I followed.

When I caught up to the guard, he had flagged down the driver and was talking to her. As I biked up, I heard her say, "I didn't hit him." I responded, "You only missed me by about 6 inches."

Her response stunned me, and probably goes a long way to describing the plight of cyclists in this country. She said to the guard and me:

I had my signal on. You were supposed to stop for me.

In the first place, this is completely inaccurate. When driving on a street with bike lanes, the bike lane is considered a regular lane. You always have to yield to cyclists in the bike lane if you need to turn across it.

And the appropriate maneuver is to first merge into the bike lane before turning right. In this case, she should have merged behind me, since she did not have room to pass first.

In the second place, because she initiated the turn before she passed me, I really had no way of knowing that her signal was on anyway. Yes, cars have signals on the front, too. But as the front of her car passed me, I was focused on watching the car in front of her, because I did want to be right hooked by that driver either.

The woman told the security guard, "I really need to go. I don't have time for this." And I said, "I'm happy to let you go, but first I want to make sure you understand what you did wrong. You could have seriously injured me or killed me."

I explained that she should have moved into the bike lane first. I also said that if she didn't believe me, that she should look up the law for herself.

She said "sorry." (By her tone, she clearly wasn't).

I told her that I didn't want her to be sorry. I wanted her to not do this again.

At this point, we both went on our ways. But I thought about the experience for the rest of my ride.

I wondered whether I should have acted differently following the near-miss. I did not call the police. I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that since there was no contact, they wouldn't consider it worthy of followup. But a friend of mine who has had experiences like this in Greenbelt says that the GPD will follow up to educate a driver if a cyclist or pedestrian reports a tag number after an infraction.

It's clear that the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration doesn't do enough to educate new drivers about how to interact with cyclists.

But the State Highway Administration and local jurisdictions could also do more. The woman who almost hit me was probably in her late-40s. No amount of improvement to the driving test would have captured her.

In my experience biking in this section of Greenbelt, the right hook is probably the most common issue.

It seems that drivers need to be better educated about how they're supposed to behave around cyclists. The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices does include sign R4-4, which applies when a right turn lane is present to the right of the bike lane.

But the MUTCD does not seem to include any signage for when there is no right turn lane. I created a modified version of the R4-4, which could serve in situations like this. But it will likely take a while for anything new to make it into the MUTCD.

Local jurisdictions, though, could have a freer hand in situations like this. Ivy Lane, after all, is a Greenbelt city street.

The Greenbelt Police Department does have a history of doing targeted driver education and enforcement, so that's another way the city could work toward resolving the issue.

Without long-distance trains, Amtrak is profitable? Not really

The report crunches the numbers on how many riders each route carries, how much it costs to run the trains, and how much revenue they generate. A number of people read the numbers to conclude that if Amtrak cut its 15 longest routes, Amtrak would operate in the black.

But this depends on how you define "in the black" or "operating profit." Cutting those trains would eliminate the need for a federal subsidy, but the states also contribute money for short-distance trains, and Brookings counts that as "revenue," not "subsidy."

The Adirondack, for example, runs between New York City and Montreal, via Albany. The report says that this train has a positive balance of $1.3 million. Amtrak makes a profit on it!

Not really. It costs $13.3 million to operate, and the train earns $7.0 million in revenue. That equals a loss of $6.3 million, but New York state pays Amtrak $7.6 million a year to operate the train. Add that in, and the "balance" ends up being a positive $1.3 million.

All told, the states fund Amtrak to the tune of $190.5 million a year. Counting that but no federal payment, Amtrak would have ended up with a surplus $30.9 million without the long-haul trains.

Even this doesn't mean the short-distance trains can be profitable. The report doesn't include the major cost of capital maintenance on the Amtrak-owned Northeast Corridor, which passenger revenues will never be sufficient to cover. Projects like the Gateway Tunnel, which will add capacity into Penn Station and new rolling stock to replace aging cars are also capital costs that can't be covered by the operating profit alone.

Coverage or ridership?

One of the biggest problems with Amtrak from a political perspective is that people don't agree about the goal of the railroad. Is Amtrak supposed to make a profit, as conservatives tend to insist? Or is Amtrak supposed to provide a transportation service to much of the nation, as liberals tend to claim?

The Brookings report makes it clear that there really are two Amtraks.

One of the Amtraks is efficiently providing frequent short-haul service within or between metropolitan regions, such as on the Washington-Boston Northeast Corridor, Los Angeles-San Diego Surfliner, and Chicago-St. Louis Lincoln Service. A few services like these can run operating profits, but most still don't even if they're successful.

The other Amtrak provides basic service to other parts of the country. This service was never meant to make money. It was meant to include more states in the system and provide another (or in some cases the only inter-city) transportation alternative to rural communities.

Lawmakers did intend for the company to be profitable, despite evidence that it would not be, but that was changed in 1978 when it became clear that was unlikely to happen.

In this respect, Amtrak is like many transit systems. When Congress created Metro, they assumed it would run self-sufficiently without government support, too, but that didn't happen either. No transportation system, not roads, rails, or aviation, actually makes a profit when you incorporate all of the infrastructure.

Amtrak is a basic system plus extra short-distance services

The way Amtrak was set up is an important part of understanding the current situation.

In 1971, as Amtrak was coming together, a basic system was drawn on a map. This base would provide some minimum level of service across the nation, and be funded initially through federal subsidies and ticket revenue.

The Pacific Surfliner is a good example of a state partnership that grew out of the base system. In 1971, there were 3 roundtrips between Los Angeles and San Diego. These 3 roundtrips were part of the Amtrak basic system.

By 1976, California wanted more service, so it paid to add a 4th roundtrip. This train was specifically a California-subsidized train, while the other 3 were Amtrak-subsidized trains. Over the next 2 decades, California continued to add trains to the corridor, and Amtrak added 2 more to the basic system.

In 1995, California and Amtrak agreed to end having some individual trains be part of the basic system and others state-subsidized. Instead, California and Amtrak would split the cost of the San Diego-LA service proportionally. At the time, California covered 64% and Amtrak covered 26% 36%. It's now 70%/30%.

This seems like the best approach. Amtrak, in consultation with the US Department of Transportation and the states, and input from stakeholders, including organizations representing passengers, should determine what the basic federal system should look like. If the states want additional service beyond that amount, they can pay for it, perhaps with federal assistance in the form of competitive, merit-based grants.

Several successful services have grown out of arrangements like that, including the Surfliner, the Charlotte-Raleigh Piedmont Service, and the Cascades between Eugene, Oregon and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Congress is shifting costs to the states

However, the funding environment is changing.

Under Section 5 of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement (PRIIA) Act of 2008, starting in October, California will have to cover 100% of the cost operating deficit of running the LA-San Diego service. That's because all Amtrak routes less than 750 miles in length must become state-supported or be terminated.

The Brookings report supports shifting almost all costs deficits to the states for long-distance Amtrak trains as well.

That's the wrong approach, and would likely mean the end of most of the long-distance trains.

It is difficult to expect all the states served by each of the long-distance trains to support their own routes consistently, much less to agree on schedules, service amenities, and cost allocations. Many states are already facing a huge challenge in coming up with the funding to keep existing short-distance service running under the PRIIA mandate.

Just as governors in Ohio and Wisconsin blocked high-speed rail funding, some states will refuse to pay. Many have no history of supporting train travel at all in the modern era, and have conservative or divided legislatures. Long-distance routes would either have to stop at the state line or run through without stopping within it, neither of which makes for a useful transportation service.

Other states have no history of supporting Amtrak routes financially, and conservative or divided legislatures would make it unlikely that those states would step up to the plate to fund what has so far been a federal commitment.

Right now, several states are having the discussion about whether to keep their short-haul trains. While New York, California and several other states have budgeted the required funds to keep their short-distance trains running in fiscal 2014 (starting October 1, 2013), Pennsylvania could cut its Pittsburgh-Philadelphia/New York train and Indiana could lose the Indianapolis-Chicago Hoosier State unless their citizens convince state lawmakers to appropriate the needed funds

We need a national network

It's important to keep Amtrak's long-distance trains, even though they're not profitable. A recent white paper from the National Association of Railroad Passengers elaborates on many points.

One major reason is that the long-distance trains and shorter ones fit together into a system. They're not completely isolated.

The Southwest Chief might run over 2200 miles across the nation. But many riders are not going all the way from Los Angeles to Chicago. Some are only going between Los Angeles and Flagstaff. Others ride between Albuquerque and Trinidad. And Kansas City to Chicago is a very popular pair of stations on the route.

Brookings seems to think that 400 miles is where passenger rail stops being competitive. And that may be the case. But just because the train goes more than 400 miles doesn't mean that the passenger has to.

For example, the report lists the Bay Area to Sacramento Capitol Corridor as one of the examples of a good corridor. The same corridor is also covered by the Coast Starlight, which continues north of Sacramento and south of the Bay Area.

Further north, the Coast Starlight overlaps with another success story from the report: the Cascades, which runs between Eugene, OR and Vancouver, BC. It provides an additional frequency on both corridors, and connects them with each other and points in between.

Having long-distance trains also creates a market and proves the demand for short-haul trains. One of the 3 profitable routes in the system, informally dubbed the "Lynchburger," only exists because of the longer New Orleans-New York Crescent. People wanting to take that train between Lynchburg and Charlottesville and Washington were having trouble getting a ticket because the Crescent would sell out frequently.

As a result, Virginia decided to pay for a new train to run between Lynchburg and New York/Massachusetts. It's proven to be so popular that it actually covers its costs with ticket sales. And Governor McDonnell has proposed funds to extend the train to Roanoke.

But the Lynchburger probably wouldn't exist if the Crescent hadn't demonstrated the demand. It's also very difficult (though not impossible) to get the host railroads to agree to passenger trains where they don't already run.

There are many other reasons as well. Having a national network also makes possible many operating efficiencies, such as the ability to move equipment to other parts of the system to meet demand, which would otherwise be lost.

Besides, ridership on state-supported short-distance routes has only grown so much because state investment has translated into increased capacity. If a similar investment were made in long-distance trains—meaning additional frequencies or longer trains—their ridership would soar as well.

Report is useful for its data, but reaches the wrong conclusions

The Brookings report provides a wealth of insight into Amtrak's operating costs and revenues. But the report is misguided in its suggestion to turn the primary responsibility for the basic national system over to the states.

Passenger rail is an essential component of our transportation network. The 55% increase in ridership since 1997 is an indication that more federal and state investment is needed, not less.

Improving service on the long-distance trains will lead to ridership increases just as improvements to the short-haul trains did. Now is not the time for the federal government to waver in its commitment to passenger rail.

A mix of at-large and districts has many benefits

Districts do have an advantage. If all councilmembers were elected at large, they could easily all be from one part of the county. There would be no guarantee of diversity or adequate representation for all parts of the county.

DC also has a mixed system, with 8 wards, 4 at-large members and one chairman at large as well.

All 5 of Arlington's members are at large, and despite this they end up representing many parts of the county. However, Arlington is a much smaller county in land area—the "geographically smallest self-governing county in the United States," in fact.

Districts ensure that each part of the county will have a representative on the Council. But it also tends to make a council more parochial. Each member has his or her own little fiefdom that the others leave alone. Districts also give each councilmember less incentive to worry about things that affect only other districts.

Does this system hold Prince George's back on growth?

Prince George's County has lagged behind the rest of the region in building transit-oriented development and fostering economic development.

It's become clear that while Prince George's has learned to talk about TOD with the right terms, it hasn't learned that it has to make choices in order to make TOD work.

The Greenbelt Sector Plan, which was just adopted by the Council, is a perfect example. The plan seeks to lay the groundwork for building transit-oriented development at Greenbelt station and transforming the shopping centers at Beltway Plaza and Greenway Center into walkable, mixed-use nodes.

But the plan also calls for widening the roads that go through the middle of those nodes. Widening the roads is not necessary because of traffic that comes from the planned development; rather, they allow for continued development in the suburban and rural parts of the county east of Greenbelt.

Furthermore, the county continues to approve projects like Konterra and Westphalia in the suburbs, which take retail demand away from the urban parts of the county inside the Beltway. One reason that TOD at Greenbelt station has been so difficult to get going is because Konterra has sucked up a lot of the retail demand.

As long as the Council is more interested in making sure that development comes to each district rather than making sure it goes where the infrastructure exists to handle it, the county will not get the TOD it so desperately needs. And any economic development that comes along will be spread inefficiently and unsustainably across the county.

Restructuring the council to include several at-large members would give the council a greater stake at making all of Prince George's better, rather than just their district.

And it would make each citizen a constituent of a majority of the council. That should make government more responsive, something sorely needed in Prince George's.