Regional plan recommends regional bike sharing but disjointed bus improvements

Transit

Regional plan recommends regional bike sharing but disjointed bus improvements

by David Alpert • July 13, 2009 1:38 pm

The K Street Transitway, a network of priority bus corridors, regional bike sharing, a few Metro station improvements, and two freeway bus lines in Virginia will make up the DC region's application for the competitive "TIGER" grants that USDOT will award from the federal stimulus.

The regional Transportation Planning Board will review the entire package on Wednesday, to allow regional staff to complete the application by the September deadline. Regional bike sharing is very exciting. The rest of the package contains many great improvements, but like many of TPB's products, is more a compilation of individual jurisdictions' uncoordinated priorities than a true regional system.

TPB, part of the regional Council of Governments (COG or MWCOG), is often called a "stapler" because most of their reports end up assembling submissions from the various jurisdictions, rather than providing an actual regional vision. The team started with a concept of creating regional, high-quality bus lines to really demonstrate the potential of rapid buses, and ended up with a series of lines many of which don't even connect to one another. Instead of improving a few lines to very high quality, the plan is a patchwork of incremental changes, with some signal priority here, a queue jumper lane there, and some improved fare payment technology over there.

Left: March proposed bus network. Right: July proposal. Images from TPB.

Virginia, in particular, has chosen to put most of its eggs in two freeway baskets, asking for $170 million to build a few freeway ramps to get buses on and off of I-66 and I-95 HOT lanes. Meanwhile, the entire package of bus corridor improvements in the rest of the region totals only $93 million. The region would do better allocating its money to more significant improvements on existing commercial corridors. The plan notes that these freeway projects might not be "shovel-ready" enough for the TIGER grant, and therefore might be dropped after August 1st.

The one truly regional element of the plan is the bike sharing system, which asks for $10 million to build a 1,600 bicycle system "at 160 bike stations in core urban areas of DC, Alexandria, Arlington, Silver Spring and Bethesda." We discussed this idea in March, and it's good to see it in the program. At least regional officials could agree on that much.

There are also three station improvements in the proposal. A pedestrian tunnel under Rockville Pike at the Medical Center Metro would enhance access. Rosslyn, one of the busiest stations, would get a new entrance with three "high-capacity elevators," a new mezzaning, and emergency stairs. And a new Takoma-Langley transit center would consolidate bus stops into a new, indoor facility, simplifying transfers.

13 comments — Share	— tags: bike sharing, buses, freeway bus, K Street Transitway, MWCOG, stimulus, TIGER, transit

TIGER funds bus corridors, not K Street or bike sharing (Feb 17, 2010)
"Priority bus" a valuable part of the transit mix when done right (Jun 19, 2009)
TPB creates more extensive yet sprawlier BRT map (Apr 16, 2009)
Planners propose regional BRT system (Apr 15, 2009)
Let's stimulate with a major bike sharing program (Mar 6, 2009)

Comments

What is the Medical Center proposal? Is it elevators from the east side of Rockville Pike down to the mezzanine, which would be extremely useful? Or is it a pedestrian underpass?

The underpass is not a pedestrian improvement at all. Preliminary study showed that it will take longer for pedestrians to cross Rockville Pike with the underpass than without. The added time for two grade changes exceeds the average waiting time at traffic lights to cross at grade. The underpass is purely a means of moving more motor vehicles.

by Ben Ross on Jul 13, 2009 2:09 pm

Boehner and Cantor are chomping at the bit to scuttle any sort of bike share anything. If this goes through, I'd be prepared to see it skewered by GOP attack dogs as an example of wasteful stimulus spending. For as wonderful as bike share is, it is simply too cheap, too innocent looking, and too culturally vulnerable ("Why are we spending stimulus dollars to buy toys?! No taxpayer wants to see congress pay for toys in our cities!") for it to not make excellent cannon fodder for the sunday talk shows. I'd place my money on the region getting the grant, then becoming notorious for asking for it. My pre-emptive strike: The GOP are a bunch of ingorant dbags!

by JTS on Jul 13, 2009 2:58 pm

This is still not final. It is looking much closer to what the actual application will show, but there is still work to be done. The unfinished application has to be approved in concept by the TPB now because TPB doesn't meet again until after the application deadline.

by BeyondDC on Jul 13, 2009 3:29 pm

Ben Ross: Last time I was looking at the BRAC data, there was going to be an additional entrance with elevator bank on the opposite side of Rockville Pike.

by Daniel M. Laenker on Jul 13, 2009 3:44 pm

Daniel: If that's the case, shouldn't this grant application reflect that? We don't want to get a grant for something other than what we want to build.

by Ben Ross on Jul 13, 2009 7:09 pm

I hate to sound like I'm beating the same drum. This is slapdash effort, rushed to get a pot of "stimulus" money.

Specific criticisms:

1. The DC part of the plan should be focused on the K St. Transitway and making the greatest use of it.

2. Corridor D (H St.) duplicates K St. service. It's only 2 blocks away. It looks like someone is trying to entrench the X1-3 line without looking at it in a greater context. It's more efficient to use Mass. Ave. between Union Station and Mt. Vernon Sq. Buses can always use Washington Circle as a turnaround.

3. Corridor N (East Falls Church to DC via I-66) confirms the obvious about the Silver Line: the core cannot support it.

4. There is no connection between King St. and Maryland via the Wilson Bridge. Has anyone studied the numbers here?

Sometimes I wish I lived in a country like Canada or India where jurisdictional boundaries can be adjusted to reflect ground realities. By merging DC with NoVa and suburban MD into a new state, coordination problems are greatly reduced.

by Chuck Coleman on Jul 13, 2009 7:37 pm

@Chuck: Corridor N isn't via I-66. It's a semi-urbanized section of Lee Highway with a lot of residents catching the bus on foot. It currently has bus headways of 15-30 minutes most of the day (with 12-minute headways for about an hour a day, and 60-minute headways late at night).

The stops are also too close together, sometimes every 2 blocks.

I'm assuming this proposal would call for (1) adding buses to decrease 3A/B/E headways to 7-15 minutes throughout the day; and (2) adding all-day service to the heavily ridden 3Y, which goes from about Glebe Road to McPherson Square, but only at peak periods in the peak direction.

County staff have discussed both in the past, and it would make sense if they were implementing this here.

by Joey on Jul 13, 2009 7:55 pm

>This is slapdash effort, rushed to get a pot of "stimulus" money.

Yes that's right, because the alternative is "no" money.

Them's the shakes.

by BeyondDC on Jul 13, 2009 9:06 pm

I thought the Rosslyn station improvements were part of building a new skyscraper either next to or across the current station. The problem with Rosslyn has never seemed to me the station is too crowded, so I'm not sure what the improvements will accomplish.

Running more buses down 66 is much needed; and you need to have a few more buses use the Roosevelt bridge to get people out of the district. Right now only the 3y does that for north arlington in rush hour. An easy way to help orange line overcrowding.

by charlie on Jul 14, 2009 8:52 am

The Rosslyn improvements are tied to development, but the developer is only paying part of it.

by BeyondDC on Jul 14, 2009 10:43 am

To those who haven't ventured that way lately -- there are now honest-to-god streetcar tracks laid in the road on H Street NE. (from 3rd to 6th or so thus far).

I really wish this proposal reflected that reality and took the streetcar all the way to the K Street transitway.

I'm not an expert on this stuff, but it seems like the stimulus bill is a good opportunity to accomplish a bigger project like this. Any known reason not to?

by Nate on Jul 14, 2009 5:32 pm

Presumably because it's not shovel-ready, unless DC changed its anti-wire laws tomorrow. Also because the way funding was allocated in the bill was cockamamie.

by цarьchitect on Jul 14, 2009 5:38 pm

I hate to sound like I'm beating the same drum. This is slapdash effort, rushed to get a pot of "stimulus" money.
Specific criticisms:

1. The DC part of the plan should be focused on the K St. Transitway and making the greatest use of it.

How is it not?

by Jazzy on Jul 15, 2009 7:47 am