Posts about Arlington

3. Purple Line: Bethesda, Silver Spring, Langley Park, College Park, New Carrollton. That's a serious string of transit-friendly pearls. The Purple Line will be one of America's best light rail lines on the day it opens.

4. Baltimore Red Line: Baltimore has a subway line and a light rail line, but they don't work together very well as a system. The Red Line will greatly improve the reach of Baltimore's rail system.

5. Silver Line Phase 2: The Silver Line extension from Reston to Dulles Airport and Loudoun County is one of the few projects that was earmarked in Virginia's bill, to the tune of $300 million.

6. Arlington streetcars: The Columbia Pike and Crystal City streetcars both have funding plans already, but could potentially be accelerated.

7. Route 7 transit. Leesburg Pike is the next Rosslyn-Ballston corridor waiting to happen. Virginia is just beginning to study either a light rail or BRT line along it.

8. Corridor Cities Transitway: Gaithersburg has been waiting decades for a quality transit line to build around. BRT will finally connect the many New Urbanist communities there, which are internally walkable but rely on cars for long-range connections.

Corridor Cities Transitway, no. 8. Image from Maryland MTA.

9. MARC enhancements: MARC is a decent commuter rail, but it could be so much more. Some day it could be more like New York's Metro North or Philadelphia's SEPTA regional rail, with hourly trains all day long, even on weekends.

10. Alexandria BRT network: This will make nearly all of Alexandria accessible via high-quality transit.

Honorable mentions: Montgomery County BRT network, Potomac Yard Metro station, Virginia Beach light rail, Southern Maryland light rail, and VRE platform extensions.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

Peter Rousselot, the leader of the anti-streetcar group Arlingtonians for Sensible Transit, promised last October that extra-long buses on Columbia Pike (which he calls Bus Rapid Transit, although it lacks many features that BRT advocates usually promise) "could have the same type of permanent stations as the streetcar, same look and amenities in the same locations as the streetcar."

Other Arlington streetcar opponents agree. County board member Libby Garvey says BRT could accomplish all the goals of a streetcar line, and the Taxpayers Association insists that BRT "will perform virtually identical" to the streetcar.

But what happens when a rail station-like bus stop actually gets built on Columbia Pike? Rousselot calls the $1 million dollar bus stop "superexpensive." Garvey is similarly unimpressed and uses the bus stop as an argument against the streetcar. The Taxpayers Association is, of course, outraged.

Actually, there is little extravagance on the Columbia Pike super stop in the context of rail-like transportation. Brad McKee talks to people who have actually designed stations to better understand that project. Building a full-scale transit station requires underground utility work, lighting, new curbs, and materials strong enough to stand up to heavy outdoor use for decades. The million dollars Arlington spent is a bare minimum; costs can run up to $5 million or even more.

McKee points out that the Washington Post reporter asked random people on the street if a million dollars was too much for "a bus stop." Rousselot, Garvey, and the Taxpayers Association had just been pushing for a "rail-like" station for buses. They then turned around and argued that "a bus stop" shouldn't cost so much. Which is it?

It's hardly uncommon to see transit opponents, in search of political cover, promote Bus Rapid Transit—or some kind of bus that they can call BRT. Up to now, the prime example in our area was former Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich's proposal to replace the Purple Line with a bus bypassing Columbia Country Club. But Arlington's let's-call-it-BRT claque set a new standard last week. It takes nerve to issue loud denunciations when you're given exactly what you claim to want.

This is great for the neighborhood, but it is tempered by the fact that this section of Glebe also has some Arlington's biggest and busiest car intersections.

In response, Arlington is proposing a number of changes for pedestrian safety at the intersections with Wilson Boulevard, Fairfax Drive, and Carlin Springs Road.

These changes are definitely an improvement to the current conditions, but ultimately Arlington needs to more completely rethink Glebe, from its intersections to how many lanes the road really needs.

Northbound on Glebe Road at Wilson Boulevard. Image from Google.

The picture above is what a driver sees while waiting to proceed north Glebe at Wilson Boulevard. Several cars could fit in the space between the crosswalk and the white line.

The intersection itself is very large and it is difficult for drivers to see what is ahead of them, not to mention those trying to cross on foot before the light changes. Even despite this large distance, a driver trying to left onto Wilson Boulevard does not have to wait for a green arrow if they think the way is clear.

Current (top) and plan (bottom) for Glebe and Wilson. Images from Arlington County and Bing.

The plans move the crosswalks to align with the white stop line. This would reduce the amount of pavement that pedestrians need to cross. The county will also eliminate a slip lane on the southwest corner.

However, the new design still leaves two slip lanes which encourage speeding and create potential conflict points between drivers and pedestrians.

Northbound on Glebe Road at Fairfax Drive. Image from Google.

Plan for Glebe and Fairfax. Image from Arlington County.

At Glebe Road and Fairfax Boulevard, two slip lanes are being removed but one slip lane will remain. This is unfortunate, since pedestrians already face the task of crossing 8 lanes of traffic at this intersection.

Other corners will get rebuilt and become sharper. This will extend the sidewalk and slow down cars negotiating a turn, reducing the amount of roadway that pedestrians need to cross and make pedestrians more visible at the intersection.

Concrete will replace some of the brick sidewalks at the intersection with Wakefield Street, closer to the ramp to I-66, and provide a smoother surface for pedestrians and cyclists connecting to the Custis Trail and the Arlington Loop.

At the intersection at Carlin Springs Drive, Arlington will move a stop light pole to be less intrusive on the sidewalk, replace brick crosswalks with the more traditional zebra-style painted crosswalk, and replace the concrete on the sidewalk itself.

There are no slip lanes at this intersection, but pedestrians face challenges from crossing another 8 lanes of traffic while cars are negotiating unprotected left turns and avoiding traffic that is entering and exiting from the Ballston Mall Garage.

But turning Glebe Road into a safer street cannot just focus on the intersections. Planners must consider if Glebe Road is wider than necessary. The section through Ballston is 6 lanes compared to the usual 4 along the rest of the route.

These extra lanes are less than a mile long, and allow parking in some sections but not others. Passing Ballston Mall, there is not any parking. Drivers speed up into that third lane for about ¼ mile before having to turn onto Wilson or merge back into the travel lane.

This means that in an area with increasing numbers of pedestrians and cyclists, drivers have to make confusing lane changes that can distract them from seeing other road users or encourage them to be reckless.

The intent of these lanes is to serve drivers coming on and off I-66. But Glebe doesn't have similar extra lanes around exits onto US 50 and I-395. It would be better to simplify the road so that drivers can focus their attention on what is going on around them rather than trying to negotiate a confusing right-of-way.

Glebe Road is Virginia State Route 120, meaning the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) controls the road. Thus far, VDOT has been unwilling to consider changes to roads that reduce the amount of space for vehicles, which ties Arlington's hands.

The pedestrian improvements for Glebe Road are welcome, but as more development comes to Ballston, Glebe Road needs to become a street that better balances the needs of all users and keeps them safe.

The program will slightly resemble the very successful BRT in Eugene, Oregon, which runs in dedicated lanes and highway medians. However, Arlington's system cannot run in a dedicated lane, as an agreement with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) prohibits Arlington from reducing the number of general traffic lanes.

"I never realized the picture of a Eugene bus, prominently plastered across websites, wasn't what we could get here in Arlington if we built BRT," said ArlNow commenter "Piker," who opposed the streetcar plan. "I don't like this new BRT plan either. Everyone who came up with it should be fired."

Group forms to oppose new BRT plan, says it's too expensive

Following the news, the group Arlingtonians for Sensible Transit changed its name to Arlingtonians for Sensibler Transit (ASerT) and immediately blasted the new bus plan, saying that it would be "too expensive," had not undergone enough analysis, and that a regular bus would be more cost-effective.

"The so-called 'modern BRT' alternative that Arlington County is now considering is a waste of taxpayer dollars," said Paul Rousselittle of ASerT. "The low-floor buses, off-board fare payment, and signal priority which AST recommended are unnecessary as they do not add capacity along the Columbia Pike corridor."

Board member Harvey Glibbey also criticized the BRT plan as unrealistic. "A number of these [BRT] lines are not performing as advertised," said Glibbey. "In many cases, ridership is much lower than anticipated, costs are much higher."

In response to the pushback, officials promised to conduct a fourth study to determine whether rapid buses are the most cost-effective mode. That study will analyze whether to scrap the BRT plan and replace it with a set of regular buses along Columbia Pike with their own branding, tentatively dubbed "Pike Ride."

Artist's rendering of the bus alternative by cliff1066™ on Flickr.

"That is a good start," said Glibbey, "but I question whether we need the separate branding, as that brings extra marketing and painting cost. This new study is a good step, but needs another alternative where the buses have no names or identifying marks at all and riders simply ask the driver which bus it is when the bus arrives at a stop."

Glibbey also recommended the county save on costs by not printing any maps.

The neighborhood plan covers much more than affordable housing. It deals with zoning, transportation, open space, schools, parking, preservation, and more. The plan is comprehensive and ambitious because it is a plan by the county to preserve 100% of the "Committed Affordable Units" (CAFs) currently in the planning area of the Neighborhood Plan. This is much higher than the county-wide requirement to retain 50% of CAFs in any redevelopment project.

Committed Affordable Units (CAFs) in Arlington. Image from the plan.

We're talking about two types of affordable housing

There are two types of affordable housing in the plan. CAFs are housing owned by a non-profit organization or subsidized at some level of government.

"Market Rate Affordable Units" (MARKs) are housing units that are not subsidized in any way, but whose market price is low enough to be affordable to families or individuals making below the Area Median Income (AMI). For MARKs, there is no obligation for the landlord to keep the price below the market rate.

Critics of the Columbia Pike Streetcar usually contend that the streetcar is meant as a tool to gentrify the corridor and eliminate affordable housing on Columbia Pike. This ignores the county's commitment to preserve and expand CAF's throughout the corridor. Moreover, when critics speak of the loss of affordable housing, they mean the loss of MARK's that the private sector isn't obligated to provide.

Actually, absent the fixes prescribed in the Neighborhood Plan, all of the MARKs located in the corridor will disappear regardless of whether the streetcar is built or not. That's because, due to Arlington's location just outside of Washington, DC, Arlington is a very popular place to live.

Photo by cliff1066â„¢ on Flickr.

The staff report on the Neighborhoods Plan has a table that lays out what county officials expect to happen. By 2040, Columbia Pike will not be able to retain MARK's affordable at a level of 60% AMI. Apartments at 80% AMI will likely increase with the number of overall units.

To counter this, the county aims to triple the number of CAFs at 60% AMI from the current (as of 2010) 1,120 units to 4,730 by 2040. This is a huge part of the projected 14,000 new units by 2040.

So while the number of apartments today compared to 2040 is expected to grow three times its current size, the number of affordable apartments will also grow to twice its current number. Arlington County believes it will be able to achieve that growth through both financing incentives to developers to keep and add CAF's and through the adoption of a Form-Based Code that will allow for greater and mixed-use density along Columbia Pike and its commercial areas.

Moreover, proposed buildings can get density bonuses if they provide more housing that meets the target of 80% AMI. Projects that share land with historic properties can also get density bonuses to preserve the older buildings.

Currently, the area defined in the Columbia Pike Neighborhood Plan only has 19% percent of the county's total number of CAF's. Meanwhile the county is planning on increasing the number of CAF's in the area more than other areas of the county. This includes providing housing that is priced at 40% of AMI where no units in the planning area currently exist.

The county is also redeveloping its own facilities as the Arlington Mill Recreation Center which will provide 122 new housing units for families making below 60% AMI.

Photo by Brett VA on Flickr.

Affordable housing concerns go beyond the streetcar or other development issues

Arlington County is a geographically small county located in the middle of a fast-growing area. Many other jurisdictions effectively provide affordable housing by allowing development farther from the core, but that is not an option for Arlington. This has forced the county to look at new ways of providing affordability. It wants to do so to preserve the county's diversity.

Critics of the streetcar plan contend that the streetcar will eliminate MARKs along Columbia Pike, but that fails to recognize that much of that housing would be lost regardless, even with no streetcar, because of the overall market pressures on the entire region and the desire to live both closer to work and in more urban settings.

Trying to prevent any and all development would not help the area's affordability either. Instead, it would eventually work against affordability by restricting the number of places for people to live. This is why it is important to lay out strategies to preserve the existing affordable housing and provide opportunities to plan for more. The Neighborhood Plan is a good start toward this goal.

The pro-streetcar group, Arlington Streetcar Now, wants to see the proposed streetcar become a reality on Columbia Pike between Pentagon City and Bailey's Crossroads in Fairfax County (and potentially beyond), as well as a future streetcar from Pentagon City to Crystal City and then Potomac Yard in Alexandria.

It counters another new group, Arlingtonians for Sensible Transit, which launched in January. Its supporters say they want Arlington to study a "modern Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system" along the Pike. But that group's platform is deeply misleading.

Prominently plastered across its home page is a concept sketch of such a "modern BRT" system from Eugene, Oregon, which runs in a dedicated lane. But transit on Columbia Pike won't get a dedicated lane. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) won't allow it. That's a travesty, but Arlington has been trying to make the best of the situation with the streetcar design.

You can build a very high-quality bus transit system, with a dedicated paved transitway, enclosed and sheltered stations, off-board fare payment, real-time information, and more. You can also build a cheap bus line that's scarcely better than a classic bus.

A number of true BRT advocates really want to see "gold standard" bus-based transit lines, like those that have been very successful in Latin America. But in the United States, this often gets drowned out by people who just want to see cheaper projects, even if they're less effective. We see campaigns with pictures of fancy, gold standard BRT paired with cost estimates more in line with not-really-BRT. It's snake oil.

AST claims a "BRT" system would be far cheaper than a streetcar, but they are using estimates for alternatives in earlier studies that aren't really BRT at all. Building something like the Eugene transitway would cost far more, perhaps more even than the streetcar.

Stop using "BRT" to talk about not-really-BRT

Streetcar isn't always the right mode. Nor is rail in general. In many of the corridors where Montgomery County is considering BRT, assuming the county executive goes along with planners' recommendations to repurpose existing lanes for BRT, this can be the right form of transit. It's probably even right for the Corridor Cities Transitway.

But in Arlington, since a dedicated lane is not even on the table, it's disingenuous from the start to use the term "BRT." The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), the leading group of genuine BRT supporters, calls dedicated lanes a "vital" part of any BRT system in a BRT rating system they devised. Like LEED, ITDP's system gives points for different elements; systems with a certain number of points are "gold," then "silver" and "bronze."

ITDP's system tries to help define what really is "BRT" and what is just an overhyped regular bus line, and to differentiate higher-quality BRT lines from ones that have made more compromises. The US has not yet built a single gold-standard BRT system, or even silver, and most projects dubbed "BRT" aren't at all.

Rendering from Pike Transit Initiative.

Arlington has already studied not-really-BRT and chose streetcar

On its website, AST doesn't claim any particular cost savings or push any specific plan, but just asks for "a study." The problem is, Arlington has done 2 studies already. Both looked at bus alternatives.

A 2005 study considered what it called a "BRT" option, with frequent, new buses, special stations, some off-board payment, but ultimately just a bus running in mixed traffic.

I went through the ITDP rating system and tried to match each category to the description in that study. Assuming the most optimistic choice each time, this would yield a score of about 61, or just barely enough to rate as Bronze BRT. Compromise on even the tiniest element, like only some off-board payment or lower off-peak frequency, and that proposal wouldn't qualify as BRT at all.

The 2012 Alternatives Analysis considered an articulated bus option. Streetcar supporters Mary Hynes and Walter Tejada told the Arlington Mercury the capacity of articulated buses is just not high enough compared to streetcar.

Arlington Streetcar Now also cites studies showing that many riders will take a streetcar over a bus. They say Tacoma saw a bus line's ridership jump 500% when it transformed it into a streetcar. 59% of residents along Columbia Pike said they would use a streetcar, while only 36% use the bus today.

It might be that those respondents think the streetcar will be faster than in reality, but other cities' experiences have been that ridership on new streetcar lines outstrips predictions while bus ridership does not.

Argue facts, not fiction

There are surely valid arguments for a bus project over a streetcar, just as no transportation choice is ever unequivocal, but there are many arguments for the streetcar over buses as well. What isn't on the table, however, is "modern BRT." Should Arlington not build the streetcar because it could just use a Star Trek transporter instead?

There's nothing wrong with a group advocating for a different transportation choice, though we might disagree; it's disingenuous, though, to promote an impossible and expensive nice-looking option and assert it's cheaper. Can the case against the streetcar really be strong, if opponents need to dangle a completely unrealistic hypothetical in front of residents?

Arlingtonians who want to see the streetcar built can declare their support and get on the email list for Arlington Streetcar Now.

By selecting streetcar rather than some variety of enhanced bus service, Arlington is reinforcing its past planning efforts by providing investors and developers along the two corridors with the certainty that only a commitment to a fixed alignment can give.

Arlington and Fairfax counties worked together on plans for high-capacity transit along Columbia Pike for several years, and in July 2012 voted to select streetcar as the preferred option for Columbia Pike and apply for federal funding. Arlington also plans a streetcar line for Crystal City to connect with the Columbia Pike line.

The 5 mile long Columbia Pike line, as currently planned, will cross into Fairfax County, terminating at Skyline. The 2½ mile long Crystal City line, on the other hand, will terminate at Four Mile Run, the boundary between Arlington and Alexandria.

Proposed streetcar alignments in Arlington. Image from Arlington County.

Meanwhile, Alexandria has been studying transit for Route 1 and the Beauregard/Van Dorn transit corridors. NVSC wants to ensure no decisions would preclude using streetcars in those areas.

NVSC also will encourage Fairfax County to expand its streetcar lines beyond Skyline, going either toward Falls Church along Route 7, toward Northern Virginia Community College and the Mark Center east of Skyline, or along Route 1 south of Alexandria. Finally, ongoing studies in various jurisdictions could identify additional corridors suitable for streetcars.

Leaders emphasize need for transit, desire to coordinate

In November, the Northern Virginia Streetcar Coalition hosted a public meeting where leaders from Arlington, Fairfax County, Alexandria, and Falls Church discussed, in a spirited but positive manner, regional cooperation in planning high-capacity transit.

They saw Northern Virginia's future as multimodal, with mixed uses around transit stations. Then-Arlington Board Chair Mary Hynes noted that Virginia commuters to DC must cross Arlington. Without its multi-modal strategy, she said, the county would "become a parking lot."

All of the officials emphasized that the jurisdictions want work together, and have coordinated in many ways. However, due to differences in funds available for transit and each jurisdiction's priorities, it has not always been possible to think regionally in spite of best intentions.

Arlington has been more successful at raising funds for transportation capital projects than its neighbors, partially due to its more balanced ratio of commercial to residential property and its commercial add-on tax for transportation.

Paul Smedberg, a member of the Alexandria City Council, spoke of the need for a streetcar connection to the BRAC-133 building at Mark Center. Fairfax Supervisor Penny Gross said that although extensions to the Columbia Pike line are desirable, it was important to get the first segment built rather than bogging down the whole process by considering alternatives.

Former Falls Church City Council member Dan Maller, standing in for Vice-Mayor David Snyder, noted that he was eager to work with Fairfax on a Route 7 extension to Falls Church. Somewhat reassuringly, Alexandrians learned that they would have continuous transit options to get from their city to Arlington without transferring at Four Mile Run—although presently these are bus options rather than streetcar options.

As local and regional plans for high-capacity transit develop, decision-makers must think long-term and regionally. Not every transit route is suitable for streetcars, but where cities and counties want environmentally-sound, reliable, clean transportation that also contributes to local economic development, they should consider streetcar lines and ensure they can interoperate across jurisdictional boundaries now and in the future.