Posts from February 2010

Now, the names of the neighborhoods today are not any better than the ones lost to time. Just for example, here's how Wikipedia divides the area, based on real estate convention:

Neighborhoods according to Wikipedia.

Here, neighborhood divisions pass right through the centers of activity, such as on Wisconsin Ave. By this map, the vast majority of what people regard as Tenleytown is not in Tenleytown, such as the Janney School, Cityline at Tenley, and the Tenley-Friendship Library hole. It is as though the places where most neighborhood activity occurs have no bearing on the official geography. With that in mind, I asked some friends where neighborhoods begin and end. Here's what I came up with:

Neighborhoods designated by residents.

In my opinion, this map reflects the general image of neighborhoods better, especially in the way it characterizes Tenleytown, but it's still somewhat imperfect. For example, the Comet Corner node at Connecticut and Nebraska is still stuck between Chevy Chase, Forest Hills, and Tobago. Or, take the Van Ness hub, which is technically split between Forest Hills and North Cleveland Park. And, good lord, parts of AU park are a mile from American's main campus.

Now, crumby names may not actually harm the businesses at these locations, but I have found it strangely hard to explain to outsiders how to get to Politics & Prose. It just does not exist on the mental maps of most inhabitants of the region. The lack of landmarks or a transportation node might be one reason it's unremarkable, but the fact that people have spontaneously named the area suggests that area is not so much lacking as the naming system is itself insufficient.

Although a line is drawn down the middle of Wisconsin Avenue, a person will not feel that the neighborhood changed when he or she crosses the street. Both sides of the street sit in the same space – and one perceives them as the same place. So, from an urbanist standpoint, it makes more sense to approach neighborhood names through the experience of space and human activity.

In the next post, I explore an alternative.

The fare increases proposed are some of the largest ever on the WMATA system. Fare increases and service reductions proposed would likely be even higher if an additional $40 million from an unidentified source were not included in the FY11 budget.

During the FY 10 budget gap hearings earlier this year, riders overwelmingly supported a fare increase over service reductions but the fare increase was much lower than the one proposed now. Two years ago the WMATA board adopted a policy of semi-annual fare increases tied to the rate of inflation rounded up to the nearest nickel. Unfortunately, applying this formula would only raise around $35 million, or a little more than a third of the fare increase now proposed.

If fares increases drive down ridership too much, as with service reductions, they could trigger a downward spiral of reduced revenues that creates more budget gaps in the future resulting in more fare increases and service reductions.

This seems to be a danger particularly with the proposed Metrobus fare increases. The biggest components in ridership loss are the the bus base fare increase at 3.5 million riders lost and the reduction of the bus to bus transfer period reduction from 3 hours to 2 hours which projects to lose 3.4 million riders. Combined, these make up over half the total ridership loss.

One aspect of the Metrorail fare increase that needs to be re-evaluated in terms of its impact on passengers is the increase in off-peak fares. WMATA has experienced an increase in short-trips—primarily in off-peak hours. It may be wise to encourage these short trips by not increasing the fare as much. A reduction in the proposed off-peak Metrorail fare from $0.20 to $0.15 would cost about $2 million and would save about 400,000 passenger trips.

Next: Some ways to soften the blow of fare increases.

Recently, MPD stopped providing these signs and started referring people to the new online system. Currently, users have to pick up the signs using kiosks at the North Capitol Street permit center, but the site says they will soon add kiosks at the police stations as well. The site now automatically knows if there are parking meters on the block you are requesting.

Permits cost $34. If someone is moving and needs two separate locations, they have to pay twice, As they refine the system, DDOT might want to consider letting people reserve two spots each for half a day for a similar price as one spot for a whole day.

It also restricts people to reserving four parking spaces. When I moved, I needed more spaces as there were two trucks, one very long; I also was denied more by the permit center, but could easily reserve more using the police station's signs. Since few people used the old regulations, DDOT may need to tweak the rules as everyone starts following them to ensure they don't restrict people unnecessarily.

This station would lie about halfway between Takoma and Fort Totten, which are just under two miles apart. It would directly serve the Blair Road retail corridor, and if placed on the southeast side of Kansas Avenue, the New Hampshire Avenue corridor would be directly served as well.

What makes this site particularly amenable to a transit station is the plethora of suitable approaches. Peabody Street heads west and in less than a mile hits Georgia Avenue in the Vinegar Hill/Fort Stevens area. New Hampshire and Kansas Avenues head southwest into the heart of Petworth, an important neighborhood in the heart of northwest, densely populated and undergoing a true renaissance. New Hampshire Avenue also heads north through Takoma Park towards Langley Park, and this new station could serve as a hub for bus lines along New Hampshire.

Blair Road already connects this area to the Takoma station area, and linking transit-oriented developments can have a synergistic effect on the areas, like along the Orange Line in Arlington or the downtown areas in DC. To the south, Blair Road becomes North Capitol Street and crosses Riggs Road/Missouri Avenue near Fort Totten, another area which is rapidly growing.

As Takoma and Fort Totten grow with more walkable, transit accessible developments, a station placed in between them could induce a string-of-pearls transit-oriented development environment that could become the focus of the northern part of the District, improving transit accessibility and the potential for growth and development. And it could be done without spending a single dime laying more track.

I imagine the first criticism of this station would be that it increases the time it takes to get downtown. For some, yes. However, there is an express train from Silver Spring to Union Station known as the MARC Brunswick Line. For many residents in Lamond Riggs, Manor Park, Takoma, Brightwood, and Petworth, it will most certainly shorten the amount of time it takes for them to get downtown.

However, considering the benefits of added growth and increased economic viability, adding one or two minutes to get downtown might be worth it. It certainly was at the New York Avenue station, which opened just six years ago and has induced billions in economic investment, even during troubled economic times.

What would this station be called? Track Twenty-Nine suggested "Kansas Avenue" some time ago, however I am partial to naming it after the neighborhood, Lamond-Riggs, or perhaps Fort Slocum after the nearby park and Civil War fortification. Though perhaps not well known right now, Lamond-Riggs has the potential to become a keystone for development along the northern edge of the District.

Crossposted on Imagine, DC.

Group 1: Service reductions that do not impact span of service or service area and have minimal impact on ridership but may inconvenience passengers.

These would include increasing bus stop spacing, replacing weekday service on four holidays (Presidents Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day & Martin Luther King Day) with supplemented Saturday service and running this same service on four other seasonal days such as the day after Thanksgiving. WMATA estimates a loss of fare revenue of $0.6 million with net "subsidy savings" of $3.7 million.

This category would also include service reductions that impact headways (waiting time) and targeted trips without significant loss of ridership. Those reductions would lose a projected $93,000 in fare revenue with "subsidy savings" of $0.5 million.

The total subsidy savings from this group of service reductions total about $4.2 million.

WMATA may be overestimating the ridership loss in this group since they include revenue loss from spacing out bus stops on some bus lines to 1 every 0.2 miles (from the current 1 per 0.13 miles). Such a move will not likely affect ridership, has not done so in other cities and may actually increase ridership due to higher average bus speed.

They also apply a standard formula to estimate the loss of ridership by the reduction in revenue hours that likely overestimates the ridership loss from a reduction in service on the "minor" holidays and holiday-related days. Since WMATA currently runs weekday service on these days, there is an overabundance of service with many buses running near empty in the peak periods—a factor which will skew ridership loss in a revenue hours formula.

Group 2: Headway widening, route segment elimination, elimination of segments that overlap with local service, route consolidations, route eliminations and late night service elimination that has a significant impact on ridership or span of service. This group also includes some minor service improvements that would increase costs.

Examples of bus cuts in this group are eliminating the 18E/F, truncating the 42 at McPherson Square instead of 9th & G Streetss and headway widening on lines like the L1/2 and the H8. It also includes discontinuing Friday and Saturday late night service in Maryland & Virginia, among other proposals.

If these proposals were implemented, they would result in a revenue loss of about $0.8 million and a "subsidy savings" of $4.7 million. These proposals would generally force more transfers and make trips longer to complete. They also include some shrinking of the system geographic coverage. The elimination of late night service will impact both service workers and trips generated by night destinations.

Group 3 involves major impact to ridership and economic activity. It includes complete route elimination on 14 different lines.

These cuts include ending late night bus service on Friday and Saturday in the District, terminating the 38B at Washington Circle instead of Farragut, eliminating off-peak service on the C8, cutting back the P17/18/19 at Southern Ave instead of continuing to downtown DC, widening the 16G headways to 15 minutes in peak period and 30 minutes off-peak, and widening peak period headways on the 70 line, among others.

If these proposals were implemented, they would result in a revenue loss of about $3.1 million and a "subsidy savings" of about $17.5 million. The impacts are widespread and affect commuters to the District, blue collar service workers, college students and activity generated by night destinations. These create major service degradations.

If all proposed bus service cutbacks outlined in the public document were implemented, WMATA estimates it would lose 5.8 million passenger trips on an annual basis.

A great percentage of these losses in passenger trips will impact citizens that can least afford it. The 2007 WMATA survey showed that Metrobus riders are more minority, female, lower income and without automobiles than Metrorail riders.

We can't underestimate the magnitude and impact of the cuts in groups 2 and 3. They considerably reduce the service area, operating hours and headways of the Metrobus system. Coupled with proposed rail reductions and fare increases, they will substantially diminish public transportation in the Washington metropolitan area, if implemented. I'll look at alternatives in future posts.

Next up: fares.

Hans began his speech by unabashedly endorsing clustering jobs and housing around Montgomery County's Metro stations. While that idea is not new, Hans has the credentials in urban planning advocacy to have the vision to implement the idea in a Bethesda-like arrangement rather than as a misguided car-dependent edge city.

It was very bold to begin his speech connecting vibrant centers of place with economic development. In the past, many elected officials presented transit-oriented development as some sort of charity. Even with all the successes of breathing new economic vitality in our region's legacy and retrofitted walkable urban places in the 2000's, few elected officials from any jurisdiction ever explicitly made the connection that human-scale places are an excellent way foster economic growth due to their inherent agglomeration effects.

Hans emphasized the need to take a second look at East County instead of focusing all development in non-Metro accessible places like Gaithersburg West, especially to keep Montgomery County competitive regionally. Since Fairfax County is planning on using the Silver Line to retrofit Tysons Corner into a series of urban neighborhoods, they are poised to attract more jobs as more people are able to take transit and live closer to where they work.

Hans ended his speech with a very powerful declaration that he wants to "unstuck Montgomery County politics." He recognized the importance of engaging new people into the ongoing policy dialogue, rather than the "same 200 people" who seem to run in the same circles and show up at county policy forums all the time.

The county has added many new residents in the past decade. As one of those newer residents, Hans' message on that topic appeals to me. He emphasized engaging young and newer residents. Hans' experience mobilizing young people to vote during the last presidential election cycle has engendered his belief in the ongoing explosion of grass-roots policy engagement.

The upcoming county-wide elections represent a cross-roads for Montgomery County. The first decade of the 21st century saw profound changes in the kinds of challenges we face and the tools we have in our toolbox to address them. The sustained success in Bethesda and the dramatic revitalization in Silver Spring and Rockville proved that we can build and improve sustainable, human-scale, traditional towns rather than only building car-dependent places like in the second half of the 20th century. Hans Riemer understands that we need to address 21st century challenges with 21st century tools.

The first partial sighting of Train 214 was 1,121.5 feet. At this position and time of day, the stopped train is in shadow and is screened by the chain-link fence running alongside the Shady Grove-bound track. It is also obscured by the vegetation on the west bank of the railroad cut.

First partial sighting, from NTSB sight-distance test.

The report also shows braking based on first full sighting of the stopped train. This is 471 feet from the point of impact, a little more than the length of a 6-car train. Even an emergency brake application at this point would not have averted the collision, but would have slowed the train to about 24 mph. A three second-delay in response time would have resulted in a crash speed of 44 mph.

First full sighting, from NTSB sight-distance test.

Based on the steel bluing (skid marks) on the rails, the operator of Train 112, Jeanice McMillan, probably applied the brakes less than three seconds after the point of first full view, but not in time to stop the collision from occurring at at least 33 mph.

The NTSB identified a "last point" to stop after which a collision was inevitable. That point is about 400' after the first partial sighting, and about half the distance to the full sighting.

The collision happened around 15 seconds after the first partial sighting of the stopped train, or around 5 seconds after the first full sighting.

It is important to note that even when the stopped train came into view, it might not have been clear to the operator of Train 112 that the visible train was stopped on the Shady Grove track (Track 2). This was reported to be a factor when a Metro train struck wayside workers at Eisenhower Avenue in November 2006 (page 5).

These tests show the importance of the ATC system. Line-of-sight often does not present enough time or distance to stop trains, which is why railroads and transit systems use signal systems. It is absolutely vital that fixes for the ATP train detection system be found.

In past discussions, some commenters have wondered about color-light signals as a solution. It appears that in this case, they would not have made much difference. The track circuit where Train 214 was stopped failed to detect Train 214. If color-light signals had been present, they would have displayed a "clear" aspect in the same manner that the ATC system sent "clear" to the cab speed signals on Train 112.

If WMATA and its passengers cannot be confident in the train detection system, there can be no true confidence in passenger safety. That's why it is so important to design and implement at least one backup system. San Francisco's BART did so in the early 1970s, and WMATA tells us that they are working on a system now. WMATA hopes that such a system can be in place by the end of this calendar year. For riders, that system cannot come soon enough.