Posts about Florida

Quality beats quantity in transit: Broward County, Florida has rather low density but rather high transit usage thanks to a system that tries to give the county high-quality service where it can, rather than low-quality service everywhere. (Atlantic Cities) (Comment)

The cul-de-sac tower: Miami has the densest neighborhoods south of New York, but everyone drives between towers and neighbors hardly know each other. Are these just vertical cul-de-sacs? Density doesn't always make good communities. (Transit Miami) (Comment)

Parks from parking lots: Miami-Dade wants a park within "strollable distance" for everyone in the county. To help, they're considering making worn-down strip malls into parks and paying for it with future development on the rest of the site. (MiamiHerald) (Comment)

Did sidewalks add to Trayvon tragedy?: The design of Sanford, Florida, makes anyone who is walking seem like a suspicious character. With good sidewalks and places to walk, there might have been "eyes on the street" that would have prevented Trayvon Martin's death. (Boston Globe, Ben Ross) (Comment)

And...: Mayor Vince Gray gave his State of the District speech last night. (Post) ... Prince George's County is closer to a 5¢ bag fee. (Post) ... A form-based zoning code is slowly transforming Miami. (Architect's Newspaper) (Comment)

Florida HSR would have been profitable: Governor Rick Scott canceled Florida's high-speed rail a year ago and refused $2 billion in federal funds. But, a new analysis shows, if he had accepted the money the line would have run a surplus. (TBO) (Comment)

When sprawl isn't sprawl: Development of 23,000 homes outside of any city and with no infrastructure is not legally sprawl in Florida, ruled a judge. Under Gov. Rick Scott, most controls on sprawl have been weakened to meaninglessness. (Orlando Sentinel) (Comment)

Florida's almost-rail: Florida Governor Rick Scott nearly took federal high-speed rail funding but rejected it because the feds were unwilling to also pay for dredging Florida's ports. The money ultimately was distributed elsewhere. (The Hill) (Comment)

And... : The 30-year-old New Urbanism showpiece, Seaside, Florida, shapes many communities today. (The Straight Line) ... Cars are now less likely to get booted in DC. (WTOP) ... New York debates implementing residential parking permits, despite objections from the city DOT. (Streetsblog) ... The feds try to avoid gridlock from sending people home in a snowstorm. (Post) (Comment)

Miami Park(ing) Day organizer arrested: A Park(ing) Day event in Miami, with the support of the local parking authority, went well... until a police officer arrested one of the organizers for not cleaning up fast enough after. (Transit Miami via Streetsblog) (Comment)

Floridians run for their lives: With its wide arterial roads and shortage of sidewalks, walking in Florida can be a harrowing experience. Bus riders are especially vulnerable when they disembark at stops lacking sidewalks and crosswalks. (NYT) (Comment)

Judge tosses charges for cyclist-assaulting driver: A Miami driver intentionally swerved into a cyclist, who caught the incident on video. Prosecutors brought felony assault charges, but a judge threw them out, saying the cyclist should have ridden in a different spot that's actually illegal. (Miami New Times) (Comment)

Mica's district hates his plan: House Transportation Chair John Mica has proposed eliminating dedicated funding for bike and ped projects, but counties and cities in his own northeastern Florida district have condemned the idea. (Streetsblog) (Comment)

Metro areas ranked by pedestrian safety: The DC area is 34th most dangerous for pedestrians, 2 spots better than Baltimore but far worse than Boston, Cleveland, New York, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis. The 4 worst are all in Florida. That's not just because of its many seniors, but pedestrian safety will become even more important as the numbers of seniors and people with disabilities grows. (T4America, NPR) (Comment)

Transit

Northeast, California win big in high speed rail grants

by Dan Malouff • May 9, 2011 2:14 pm

The federal government today announced $2 billion in new grants for high-speed passenger rail projects around the country. $800 million will go to rail improvements along the Northeast Corridor, and $300 million for high-speed rail in California.

Photo by jpmueller99 on Flickr.

The funds are left over from $2.4 billion which had been originally allocated to Florida, but which governor Rick Scott returned to the Federal government. Congress rescinded $400 million as part of the recent budget deal, leaving $2 billion to allocate to new recipients.

Despite ideological opposition from a number of Republican governors, there was no shortage of states interested in using the money. USDOT received 98 applications for the funds from 24 states plus the District of Columbia, totaling approximately $10 billion. Clearly there continues to be more demand for passenger rail funding than Congress can keep up with.

As expected, the big winners are the Northeast Corridor and the California high-speed rail project, each of which were given hundreds of millions of dollars. In a little bit of surprise, the Midwest Chicago-hub was also a big winner, with major improvements funded on several corridors.

The Washington region didn't receive any funds directly, although we will benefit from some of the projects to the north and south. The District applied for but did not receive money. Maryland applied for $415 million and received $22 million that will go to planning for a new Susquehanna River bridge.

Ironically, Virginia didn't apply for any money but received some anyway, as part of a North Carolina-led application to perform environmental planning work on proposed upgrades to the Richmond-Raleigh corridor.

The Northeast Corridor will benefit from the $450 million devoted to catenary and signal improvements in central New Jersey. This funding will pay for installation of constant-tension catenary over a 24-mile section of track, raising the top speed from 135 to 160 miles per hour. Other Corridor improvements will result in minor trip time improvements and reduction in bottlenecks.

The complete breakdown of grant recipients is shown in the table below. The acronym "NEPA", which appears a number of times, refers to the National Environmental Policy Act requirement for environmental planning approval of federally-funded projects.

Location	Amount	Purpose
NORTHEAST CORRIDOR
New Jersey	$450m	Power, signal, track, catenary improvements supporting 160mph service.
New York	$295m	Bypass tracks for high-speed trains in NYC area.
Rhode Island	$25m	Bypass tracks for high-speed trains in Kingston area.
Maryland	$22m	Planning & NEPA to replace Susquehanna River bridge.
Rhode Island	$3m	Planning & NEPA for renovations for Providence station.
NORTHEAST (NON-NEC)
New York	$58m	Track, station, signal upgrades to Empire corridor, including replacement of Schenectady station and 4th track at Albany-Rennsselaer station bottleneck.
Pennsylvania	$40m	Track & signal upgrades to Harrisburg-Philadelphia line.
Connecticut	$30m	Double track New Haven-Springfield line.
Mass.-Maine	$21m	Double track Wilmington-Andover line.
New York	$1m	Planning & NEPA for new Rochester station.
MIDWEST
Non-specific	$268m	48 railcars and 7 locomotives for 8 Amtrak corridors in the Midwest.
Michigan	$197m	Track & signal upgrades on Chicagao-Detroit line between Kalamazoo and Dearborn, allowing 110 mph service for 235 miles of corridor.
Illinois	$186m	Track upgrades on Chicago-Saint Louis line between Joliet and Dwight, IL allowing 110 mph service for 220 miles of corridor.
Missouri	$14m	Design for new Mississippi River bridge on Chicago-Saint Louis corridor.
Minnesota	$5m	Planning & NEPA for new 110mph service from Minneapolis to Duluth.
Michigan	$3m	Planning & NEPA for new Ann Arbor station.
SOUTH
Texas	$15m	Planning & NEPA for new Dallas-Houston corridor.
N.C.-Virginia	$4m	NEPA for 110mph upgrades to Richmond-Raleigh corridor.
WEST COAST
California	$300m	20 miles of track construction near Fresno for the 220mph California high speed rail project.
California	$68m	15 railcars and 4 locomotives for existing California Amtrak routes.
Washington	$15m	Track grade separation at the Port of Vancouver, near Portland, OR.
Oregon	$2m	Study of service and capacity needs near Eugene.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

65 comments

Tags: Amtrak, California, Florida, high-speed rail, USDOT

Bikesharing hot in hot places: Tel Aviv, Israel and Doha, Qatar have recently added bike sharing programs. (The Bike-sharing Blog) ... Miami Beach opened its new DecoBike system, which is priced in a conspicuously different fashion from CaBi. (The Independent) (Comment)

Senators ask for Florida HSR money: Senators from states on the Northeast Corridor, including both of Maryland's, have asked USDOT Secretary LaHood to reallocate Florida's high-speed rail money toward improving service in the northeast. But 2 Florida state senators have filed a lawsuit to force Governor Rick Scott not to reject the money. (Transportation Nation) (Comment)

Take transit or bikeshare to visit Miami Beach's new parking garage: Miami Beach has a $65 million parking garage that's so architecturally distinctive that people are visiting it just to see it and someone had a wedding there. The main complaints? Some people gripe about the price of parking. (NYT) (Comment)

Bicycling

Weekend video: The bike bus

by David Alpert • October 23, 2010 12:47 pm

A group of high school students in Orlando started riding to school in a big caravan, making the ride to school fun, healthy and sustainable.

Tip: Jeff.

6 comments

Tags: bicycling, Florida, Orlando, routes to school, youth

Looking down on the suburbs: 26 overhead images, artfully and analytically juxtaposed, provide a visual critique of suburban development and the housing bust in Southwest Florida. One area once planned as the largest subdivision in the U.S. became a state forest instead when the development failed. (Boston Globe, Pinkshirt) (Comment)

Development

Weekend reading: "Taking my talents to South Beach"

by Alex Block • July 18, 2010 9:45 am

The inescapable news in the sports world last week was LeBron James' decision on where to play professional basketball. James spurned his current (and hometown) team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, in favor of joining forces with multiple, talented free agent players in Miami.

"We are all witnesses." Photo by partie traumatic on Flickr.

The hoopla, as well as James' decision to leave his hometown for greener pastures raises several interesting points about sports, place, labor mobility, and the economic benefits from professional sports and athletes.

Talent migration: Richard Florida takes note of how LeBron and his compatriots took control of their situation in picking a new location to showcase their talents, framing the decision as an entrepreneurial coup in the controlled world of professional sports. The decision, he argues, isn't all that different than the ones that many talented and skilled workers go through—minus the media circus.

Most people attempt to optimize their interests within the constraints imposed by their existing environment—what the great economist Joseph Schumpeter dubbed the typical "adaptive response." But at critical junctures, certain kinds of entrepreneurs step outside the bounds of what is given and undertake to shape and actively construct an new environment of their own—what Schumpeter called the "creative response."
Miami offered the best place where these three savvy, talented, and surpassingly entrepreneurial young men could create their own kind of space—a more open-ended space, where they could realize their ambitions and dreams.

Teams tied to place: Florida's argument, however, doesn't do much to dispute the common criticisms of LeBron's decision (including one from the Cavaliers owner) that it was selfish and about ego more than anything else. While professional athletes may be individuals free to chose between teams, the teams themselves are rooted in place. Teams profit from their connection and emotional bonds with local fans. It's no surprise that fans see this as a direct insult to their sense of place. In Richard Florida's context, they are the ones attempting to optimize their interests within given constraints.

The narrative that ties teams and cities together is extraordinarily strong. The recent passing of New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner offered a chance to reflect on that complex connection between city, fans, team, and players:

The life of George Steinbrenner is a ramp across modern New York, a bridge that spans the whirlpool of one man's spinning psyche and the transformation of America's biggest, baddest city... He championed ordinary New Yorkers, then took them for every last penny...
He remembered the elation of the city when the Yankees won the World Series in 1978, a troubled time. "We put the trophy in the rotunda at City Hall," [former Mayor Ed] Koch said. "I knew, as the Romans knew, that the people require circuses and theatrics."

Economic impacts: Perhaps George Steinbrenner's crowning achievement as owner of the Yankees has been the creation of New Yankee Stadium, on the backs of substantial public subsidy. Plenty of economists consistently argue that stadium subsidies are not wise investments, but the emotional connection between team and city is difficult to quantify.

Likewise, there is a question of geography. Sports teams might not have an impact at the metropolitan scale, but many in Cleveland have seen a direct impact from LeBron James in the area immediately adjacent to the arena. A similar narrative exists for DC's Verizon Center and the subsequent revitalization of Chinatown.

However, accurately calculating all the costs and benefits of the intangible, emotional connection between a city and their team might be next to impossible.

There is no 'Next Big Thing': Aaron Renn uses LeBron's departure from the Midwest to take a long, hard look at the strategic decisions behind the move and the reaction:

In a sense though, Cleveland's disappointment was inevitable. LeBron James was never going to turn around the city. No one person or one thing can. Unfortunately, Cleveland has continually pinned its hopes on a never-ending cycle of "next big things" to reverse decline. This will never work. As local economic development guru Ed Morrison put it, "Overwhelmingly, the strategy is now driven by individual projects....This leads to the 'Big Thing Theory' of economic development: Prosperity results from building one more big thing."

The 'Big Thing' theory has usually been applied to things like sports stadiums and arenas, not the individual players that use them. Nevertheless, the comparison is illustrative. The push to keep a team or even a player by giving them a new stadium might not make economic sense, but losing that player can be painful. And even though a new stadium might not make economic sense for a metropolitan region, that doesn't mean the team itself—despite being deeply rooted in a single place—can't also migrate to greener pastures and better opportunities. Unfortunately for Cleveland, that's something they also know far too well.

There are a few other items of note, only semi sports-related:

LeBron likes bikes: One thing LeBron does like is bikes. He's a partial owner of Cannondale and hosts a bike-a-thon for kids in his hometown of Akron, OH. Given the negative reaction in Cleveland to his professional decision to play basketball in Miami, it's unclear what will happen to events like this.

New York and Barcelona are boring: Mayor Bloomberg and others were on hand to see the final push of the tunnel boring machine for New York's 7 line extension. Second Avenue Sagas notes the challenges of urban tunneling, even with the advanced technology available today. A few weeks ago, The Transport Politic took an in-depth look at Barcelona's massive subway expansion, also making extensive use of tunnel boring machines operating in dense urban environments.

Paris, automated: Jarret Walker, of the Human Transit blog, offers some observations from Line 1 of the Paris Metro. The line is in the midst of an upgrade to fully automatic, driverless operation. That's no small feat for a line initially built in 1900.

Cross-posted at City Block.

24 comments

Tags: Florida, France, Miami, New York, Paris, stadiums, Yankee Stadium

Banned for life for following the law: Miami Metro security officers accosted and then banned "for life" two photographers trying to take pictures. They had a printout of an email from Miami-Dade Transit assuring them photography was legal on the Metro. (Photography Is Not a Crime, Matt') (Comment)

Posting stats boosts safe driving: Gainesville has a novel approach to getting drivers to yield to pedestrians: Posting performance statistics. Each week, observers measure compliance at select locations and the city posts the percentages on large signs. The program increased the rate to 52%; the article doesn't say what the rate was before. (Gainesville Sun via RPUS) (Comment)

$8 billion, high-speed: The Obama administration awarded $8 billion for high speed rail, primarily to California, Tampa-Orlando, and the Midwest.

The Washington region got some smaller grants, like $75 million for a third track in Prince William and Stafford Counties and various small projects on the Northeast Corridor. (The Transport Politic, Fredericksburg.com, Scott, Gavin Baker, mcs) (Comment)

Don't walk in Florida: A new report by Transportation for America ranks metropolitan areas by pedestrian safety, weighing both the fatality rate and the numbers of people walking. The Post article has good quotes from local groups and notes that the Washington area comes in around the middle of large metros, the four worst of which are in Florida. Generally, post-WWII auto-centric areas especially in the Southeast rank worst, while older cities do better by pedestrians. (merarch) (Comment)

Valet park for class?: Florida Atlantic University is instituting a valet parking service, which costs $5 per hour or $20 per day. Is this a way to "extract surplus" from the students who are late to class? Soak richer students? Ideally, they's use the money to improve transit access to the campus. (Marginal Revolution) (Comment)

Roads

Weekend reading: taxes, fees, and the effect of bad planning

by David Alpert • November 9, 2008 10:03 am

Port Huron, Mich. Photo by k.l.macke on Flickr.

Gas tax comeback? Congressman-elect Gerry Connolly (D-Fairfax) suggested raising the gax tax to close huge budget gaps. With Mary Peters and her seemingly-irrational opposition to the gax tax in all forms on the way out, gas prices low, and budget deficits high, this makes some sense. (WTOP)

Not going to help: Port Huron, Michigan and Hollywood, Florida are both removing all parking meters to boost flagging. Parking Today thinks that's a mistake: employees will take up most of the spaces, parking still won't be more attractive than at the mall, and the cities won't even have money to use to improve downtown.

Greening our "unnecessary garages": Today's Post prints an op-ed by Ingrid Specht endorsing lower parking minimums for DC. "In fact, employees should receive benefits for not driving to work." Specht suggests the Columbia Heights garage could be better utilized if it stayed open later for restaurant goers, filled in some of the empty space with bicycle parking, or added Zipcar spaces, "rather than hoping they are someday filled with personal vehicles, promoting pollution." Tip: Michael P.

Paleolithic road planners: Dr. Gridlock considers a right-turn lane on Georgia Avenue at Spring Street (probably not a good diea) and reveals some ongoing old-fashioned traffic thinking at the Maryland State Highway Administration: "Their goal, [SHA traffic planners] say, is to get the most vehicles through the area in the most predictable way possible." Even pedestrians aside, the goal should be to get the most people through the area, not the most vehicles. It's an important distinction, since one bus carries as many people as a whole lane of cars.

And... The NOAA headquarters in College Park is indeed transit-unfriendly; Great Streets and the 11th Street Bridges may be on the budgetary chopping block; a Welsh translation attempt leads to a hilarious result.

13 comments

Tags: 11th Street bridges, car dependence, College Park, Columbia Heights, DC USA, Florida, free parking, gas taxes, Gerry Connolly, links, Maryland, Michigan, parking minimums, traffic

Parking

Breakfast links: Special interests edition

by David Alpert • August 22, 2008 8:42 am

Cleveland Park's Park and Shop. Photo by Mr. T in DC.

Roger Lewis on the Park and Shop: In his latest appearance on Kojo, architect Roger Lewis talks about the role of politics in historic preservation, including the loss of historic neighborhoods in Southwest in the 1960s, the Park and Shop at the Cleveland Park Metro, the MLK Library, and the closing of G Street to build the Verizon Center.

Congestion pricing is the equitable alternative: Opponents of congestion pricing have used "regressive tax" demagoguery to scare politicians away from supporting the policy. Not only is this misleading (since the same politicians' constituents would benefit from the improved transit), but it's not even regressive compared to the alternatives.

Handicap parking abuse rampant in Florida: So many seniors have handicapped parking permits in Florida that those truly in need can't park. One major problem is that anyone with a permit can park for four hours for free at meters, and the limit is rarely enforced. Parking Today recommends disabled advocacy groups stop fighting for free parking and embrace their slogan of "access, not charity".

HOT lane builders padding VA campaign coffers: Companies building Virginia's beltway-expanding HOT lanes (which won't pay for themselves) have donated large sums of money to elected officials supporting the project.

Ward Court resolved (for now): After last week's spectacle at the Dupont ANC with five officials from four government departments disagreeing about Ward Court, DDOT went back and measured, and decided it was right the first time to allow parking on one side. But this time, DPW says they will stop writing tickets. (Current)

Comment

Tags: bureaucracy, Cleveland Park, congestion pricing, DC, Dupont Circle, Florida, historic preservation, HOT lanes, links, pedestrian safety, placards, politics, Southwest Waterfront

Roads

Breakfast links: transportation across the nation edition

by David Alpert • June 23, 2008 10:11 am

Only in Portland? Hundreds of people gathered to tear up an underutilized parking lot and replace it with a community garden. Streetfilms created a video of the festivities. My favorite part is the dancers on stilts wielding giant jackhammers.

Image from Streetfilms.

Sunshine State Smarts: South Florida is about as mally and sprawly as it gets, but some of the waterfront cities are exprimenting with narrowing their downtown roads, reports the Sun-Sentinel. West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale both took away lanes a few years ago, and now the smaller cities want in on the action. Even some drivers like it. No word on whether they put in bike lanes on the narrowed roadways.

Arlingtonian exceptionalism: If only Oakland had pushed for BART under major corridors, like Arlington did, instead of along the freeway median, BART might have 110,000 more daily riders and Oakland might have gotten billions in new development, argues The Overhead Wire. Maybe it's not too late for the Rockville Pike corridor?

Transit a political winner in the Sun Belt: Georgia's governor has reversed his position and endorsed commuter rail in Atlanta. Houston's mayor, meanwhile, already owns a Prius, bikes to work, and supports mixed-use development and mass transit. Via Planetizen.

Comment