Posts about Transit

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.

The BRT line will run south from Pentagon City through Crystal City and then into Alexandria. It will have dedicated lanes, with large rail-like stations. The line will run every 6 minutes during rush hour and every 12-15 minutes at other times.

In a few years it will be upgraded to a streetcar line. But in the meantime, it's the DC region's first bona fide BRT.

WMATA selected the Metro Way brand and livery following a survey this past March that considered several options. The blue livery, although clearly unique, reflects the blue Metro uses for its MetroExtra express buses.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

In addition to Broad Street BRT, the plan calls for 4 other priority bus lines, including one on the important Main Street/Cary Street corridor.

Richmond transit plan. Image from City of Richmond.

The draft plan also identifies bike improvements. Richmond is a natural biking city. It's dense and walkable, and the urban areas are small enough that it's easy to get to them all with a bike. Among proposed improvements, the plan calls for a bike sharing network, and identifies locations for cycle tracks.

Richmond bike/ped plan. Image from City of Richmond.

Right now Richmond doesn't have enough non-car transportation options. Even though the land use is already there to support multimodalism, most people rely on cars for most trips. Hopefully these proposals become reality, and transportation choice becomes more practical.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

DMUs, and their electric cousin EMUs, are used in Philadelphia, New Jersey, Portland, San Diego, Dallas, and Austin. They're proposed in even more cities.

One big advantage of DMUs over traditional commuter trains is that DMUs can operate on-street, like light rail. That makes integrating them with downtown areas much easier, because it frees DMUs to go anywhere, rather than only to a city's main rail hub.

Austin DMU on-street. Photo by paulkimo90 on flickr.

All MARC and VRE trains to DC must go to Union Station, because all the long distance tracks through DC go to Union Station. Not only does that constrain route planning, it's also a limit on capacity, because there are only so many platforms at Union Station. But a DMU could go anywhere.

There are not currently any plans for DMU lines in the DC region, but there could be. DMU would be a great solution for Maryland's proposed Charles County corridor or Fairfax's Route 28. Officials are looking at light rail for those corridors, but they're far out in the suburbs and wouldn't have very frequent stops, so DMU might be more appropriate.

In the long term it might also make sense to convert some of MARC and VRE's existing lines to DMU, or to supplement them with more DMU trains. That would give them more operational flexibility, and could increase service. But MARC and VRE are established as traditional commuter rail, and may be uncomfortable with anything else.

MARC and VRE also have to use tracks owned by freight companies. DMUs can be used in mixed company with freight, although that requires federal approval. But if the freight lines are already using their tracks to capacity, which is common in the DC area, then there's no room for more trains no matter what they look like.

DMU isn't Metro, and it isn't light rail. DMU trains can't do all the things those modes can do. It's not an appropriate mode where frequent stops are necessary. But for long corridors with infrequent stops and moderate capacity needs, it's ideal. We should keep in mind as we continue to advocate for new transit lines.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

It improves upon the earlier one with some clever linkages and in-jokes, like an extension beyond Huntington to a "graveyard for passengers killed by closing doors." (He actually probably meant doors that failed to close, but good enough.) Boston's Cleveland Circle connects to Cleveland, and the Ashmont-Mattapan "high-speed [light rail] line" becomes the Ashmont-Manhattan and the NYC #1 train.

The Orange Line at New Carrollton meets Philadelphia's Broad Street line, which is orange on the SEPTA maps, while the Red Line at Glenmont connects to PATCO (also colored red) via a "covertly-reurposed Amtrak line." The Blue Line at Largo extends to the Staten Island Ferry as the "Robert Moses High-Speed Lne."

The Green Line at Greenbelt attaches to the also-green Baltimore Metro with a little loop-the-loop, and the Shady Grove end of the Red Line attaches to MARTA via the Morgantown, WV automated line; Morgantown does indeed have an automated Personal Rapid Transit system.

What else do you see?

Still, streetcars aren't going to be especially fast. They will often be slower than buses. And in many parts of DC, where economic development isn't the goal and capacity isn't the problem, building a streetcar isn't always the answer. What we can, and must, do is make buses a more appealing mode of transit.

We need a great "frequent bus network" as well

Imagine if you could walk to certain spots in any neighborhood, wait in a comfortable location with real-time screens, and know that within a short time, a vehicle would come take you along one of several high-capacity routes that lead to other adjacent neighborhoods and across the city.

Metrorail does that now. Some of the limited-stop Circulators and Metrobus Express routes do as well. We can gain a lot of mobility for residents by adding to the number of high-frequency routes, making them even more frequent, and helping residents know about the routes by publishing "frequent network" maps that cover both the Circulator and certain Metrobus routes.

These routes all would come often enough, including nights and weekends, and run late enough that people who live nearby could choose not to own cars, use the routes (or bike or walk) for most trips, and have backup options like Zipcar, car2go, Uber, and taxis when necessary.

Where should DC invest in bus?

DC can expand and improve its frequent bus network in two ways: create new frequent routes, and make existing frequent routes faster.

New routes can be Metrobus routes or Circulator as long as they run frequently, 7 days a week, and late into the evening. Last year, a panel of residents, business leaders, and officials created a Circulator plan which lays out places for several of these routes.

Proposed Circulator expansion.   Phase 1   Phase 2 Phase 3

Most immediately, the plan suggests extending the Dupont-Rosslyn Circulator to U Street. There's no good, direct transit right now between U Street and Dupont, and it also would create a direct link between U Street and Georgetown.

Beyond adding routes, DC can speed up existing routes. There are many spots where buses spend a lot of time in traffic. In places, buses are frequent enough that they could get their own lane, at least at peak times. WMATA and DDOT have been collaborating on a study of bus lanes on H and I Streets past the White House.

">
Buses using H and I (and K), plus traffic counts. Image from WMATA.

Elsewhere, maybe a short "queue jumper" lane would help buses bypass a tough spot. Or retiming signals could help buses spend less time waiting for a turn. Or buses could get signal priority to hold yellow lights long enough for them to pass.

When the Circulator turns left from Connecticut onto Calvert after leaving the Woodley Park Metro, it has to make a tough left turn, and WMATA bus planners have said this is a reason they don't send the 90s buses to Woodley Park. Could this intersection give buses a short, special phase to go right from the curb to Calvert?

We don't have a lot of studies or analyses of where the buses get most delayed. This hasn't received a lot of attention from DDOT in recent years. Mary Cheh tried to put money in the budget for DDOT to work on bus projects or have staff focusing on bus priority, but nothing has really happened yet.

It's long past time to get moving on buses. Mayor Gray has set an ambitious goal that 50% of trips take transit by 2032. Building streetcars will help DC get there, but streetcars are one piece of the transit puzzle. Buses are the other biggest piece. For many neighborhoods and many corridors, they are the right piece, as long as we work hard to make them desirable options, as they can be.

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.

Instead of escalators, people used rotating spiral "spinners" to get down to the stations. But trains entering the station blew off people's hats, which made people stop riding and the system was ultimately abandoned.

Rendering by Capital Pixel via UrbanTurf.

UrbanTurf broke the news of Donald Trump's planned design for the Old Post Office. New Columbia Heights reported that DC USA would place a curling rink in the underutilized parking garage. (Hey, maybe not a bad idea!)

Kaid Benfield announced that sprawl will no longer happen, Southwest TLQTC posted plans to redevelop Greenleaf Gardens, a public housing complex, and Alan Suderman discovered Marion Barry is running for mayor.

Finally, DC's elections board sent out a postcard telling residents they can only vote on April 23 at One Judiciary Square, nowhere else. Oh, wait, that last one wasn't a joke; it was just a really poorly-written note that conflated early voting and regular voting and will confuse residents.

What other local and regional April Fool posts did you especially like?