Faith-based Transportation Policy

Washington Post, George F. Will, A Golden State train wreck, August 8, 2012.

• In faith-based transportation policy, rail worshipers think people will park their cars in Tampa and then rent cars in Orlando.
• California Governor Brown’s reverence for his rail bauble is fanaticism.

How will people in Honolulu

• go to their second job ...
  
• manage their school and job ...
• take kids to school ...
  
• go surfing ...
  
• go eating ...
  
• go to their doctor, hospital, blood test lab, dialysis location ...
  
• do their groceries and run other errands ...
  
• have a diverse and fulfilling life ...
  

... without the independent transportation on roads with cars and buses that serve all neighborhoods?

Railigion is the affliction or belief that most "other people" will be able to use the rail regularly to make the trips that take them to the activities above. This is faith, affliction or outright stupidity. Whatever you call it, professional and responsible transportation planning is not.

HOT Lanes and Tunnels are Hot and Free to the Taxpayer

$52 Billion Chicago Plan. Carefully targeted investment to modernize the greater Chicago region's highway system would reduce projected 2040 congestion by 10% overall and by 20% within Chicago itself, according to a major report from the Reason Foundation's Galvin Mobility Project. The plan includes a 275-mile HOT lanes network, a new Outer Beltway, and several urban highway tunnels. All the new capacity would be variably priced, and projected revenues of $58 billion would exceed the $52 billion construction cost, according to detailed modeling carried out for the study.

Steps Toward DC-Region Express Toll Network. On August 1st, Virginia DOT and the Fluor/Transurban joint venture that is nearing completion of the Capital Beltway (I-495) Express Lanes, reached commercial and financial close on the $940 million I-95 project. It will convert the existing two reversible HOV lanes to three reversible Express Toll lanes along 28 miles of I-95. Across the river in Maryland, the Maryland State Highway Administration is studying potential express toll lanes for the I-270 corridor, which heads northwest from the Beltway.

Largest Infrastructure Fund Exceeds $7 Billion. Infrastructure Investor reported on July 31st that the world's largest infrastructure investment fund, Global Infrastructure Partners II, has amassed $7.02 billion in capital, towards its target of $8 billion. Overall, such funds have raised an estimated $200 billion over the past decade.

Port of Miami Tunnel at Half-Way Mark. The massive tunnel boring machine that is creating the tunnel between the Miami area's expressway system and the Port of Miami on Watson Island has completed the first of two 4,200-foot tunnels under Government Cut. The next step is for the TBM to be turned around to dig the parallel tube over a six-month period. The $607 million tunnel is being procured under a 30-year concession.

Dutch Pension Fund Buys Stake in Texas Managed Lanes. Pension fund APG from the Netherlands has invested $300 million to acquire a 12.3% equity stake in the North Tarrant Express and a 13.3% stake in the LBJ managed lanes project. Both are being developed by a Cintra/Meridiam concession company. Both concessions are for 52 years.

Source of the summaries: Robert Poole, the Reason Foundation.

Take the Rail to Watch a Rainbow Warriors Game?

It's 2023. The rail hui won and got rail running.

The Rainbow Warriors of the University of Hawaii are having their homecoming game. Two families of four, one from Makiki and another from Kapolei are getting ready to attend the game. Both of them will go by rail.

How much will each family pay in fares? Thirty four dollars for eight adult tickets at $4.25 each. Not a bargain. (The $4.25 is based on city estimates. Actual fare will likely be higher. For example today’s adult fare on the BART from the Fruitvale TOD to Embarcadero is $3.55.)

The rail does not go to Makiki or Kapolei as it does not go to over 90% of places and neighborhoods on Oahu.

Walking to the nearest station is too far and they are thinking that by the time they’re back it'll be too late to wait for a bus. Both decide to drive to the nearest station. So both families spend 10 to 15 minutes and gas to get to the station by car.

The Makiki family cheated and parked at Ala Moana Center, but the lots were quite full so it took them a while to find a spot. The shopping center is working on a plan to curb rail freeloaders. The Kapolei family drove to the park-and-ride facility but the lot was full so, like many others, they parked on the grass and hoped to avoid a ticket.

It's Saturday and instead of the weekend schedule the City is paying heavy overtime to run trains at a fast schedule to accommodate the Aloha Stadium ridership. The Rainbow Express and other bus routes to the stadium have been cut. All transit users have to take a feeder bus to a rail station. The glory days of TheBus are over. It’s been “restructured.”

Trains run every 5 minutes. Trains run full with 300 passengers and half of them are standings all the way. In two hours, full trains manage to get 12,000 people to Aloha Stadium. But this fills only 24% of Aloha Stadium’s seats. The other three quarters must arrive by car, taxi, limo or bus.

So far the two families spent about 45 minutes to reach the crowded Aloha Stadium rail station. After a long walk and a couple road crossings they are at their seats.

UH wins. Go Warriors!

Now 12,000 people start walking to the station. They are tired and would like to go home. Many have an early church service or other early to dos on Sunday. (They'll need a car for those activities.)

The trains are running like mad. People pack in like sardines. Each train picks up 300 people at a time…. 300 eastbound and 300 westbound. But there are 12,000 people who need to go home.

How long do they have to wait? The very first 600 people got lucky and had no wait. The very last 600 had to wait for 76 minutes!

The average waiting time to board a train for all the folks who went to Aloha Stadium by rail was 38 minutes.

Tempers flare, BO and beer smells. Pushes, shoves. Some groping and pickpocketing too. The Kapolei and Makiki families are tired, frustrated and very late.

Thirty four bucks for this? Never again!

Rail wins? We lose!

It's a lose-lose. Here is why:

If rail is a success and people use it in large numbers, then it'll be overcrowded, smelly, and expensive. Most people will travel as standees and a lot of time will be wasted in waiting and transferring. Why is this better than using a bus or being in bumper to bumper traffic? Why did the average family of four have to pay $20,000 to build this rail?

If rail is a failure and only ex-bus riders, carpool passengers and a few others use it (these are the usual riders of modern rail systems) then why did we spend six billion dollars for an underutilized system that did nothing to relieve traffic congestion?

If we install a 19th century "solution" for our 21st century problem of traffic congestion, then there’s no win.

Today’s population has a complex and diverse demand for mobility that stems from our independent, multi-purpose life-style. Only unscrupulous transit professionals and misinformed politicians would claim that a single line of rail with 20 stations is a mobility and congestion solution for our island.

Free Bus?

That's a question that comes up often in public forums I attend. Why don't we make public transit like Honolulu's TheBus free?

The Transportation Research Board, a unit of the National Academy of Engineering has just released a report titled Implementation and Outcomes of Fare-Free Transit Systems.

The quotes below help us conclude that tiny systems like the one on the Big Island are better of being free because it costs more to collect money than the money that will be actually collected. Large systems like Honolulu's can't be run for free. They will run out of funds quickly and they'll likely become movable homeless shelters. Recall that TheBus is cutting routes because it cannot afford its fuel bill. Actual ridership of free bus systems also showed that free bus does not translate into less traffic congestion because even at zero cost, too few motorists switch to the bus.

Here are the main findings of the report:

1. No public transit system in the United States with more than 100 buses currently offers fare-free service. (Honolulu TheBus has over 550 buses.)
2. The largest jurisdictions currently providing fare-free service are Indian River County, Florida, and the island of Hawaii, both with populations of approximately 175,000. (The free bus on the Big Island basically transports workers from Hilo to resorts in Kailua-Kona.)
   
3. Fare-free public transit makes the most internal business sense for systems in which the percentage of farebox revenue to operating expenses is quite low. In such cases, the cost associated with collecting and accounting for fares and producing fare media is often close to, or exceeds, the amount of revenue that would be collected from passengers.
4. Providing fare-free public transit service is virtually certain to result in significant ridership increases no matter where it is implemented. Ridership will usually increase from 20% to 60% in a matter of just a few months. (Note: It's worth exploring a low cost bus fare between the Waianae coast communities and the Kapolei transit center.)
   
5. Some public transit systems that have experimented with or implemented a fare-free policy have been overwhelmed by the number of new passengers or been challenged by the presence of disruptive passengers, including loud teenagers and vagrants.
6. Systems offering fare-free service in areas of higher potential demand for public transit need to be aware that increased ridership might also result in the need for additional maintenance, security, and possibly additional equipment to provide sufficient capacity and/or maintain schedules.
7. A relatively small percentage of the additional trips (from 5% to 30%) were made by people switching from other motorized modes. Most new trips were made by people who would have otherwise walked or used a bicycle, or would not have made the trip if there was a fare to pay.

New Lane on EB H-1 Freeway!

Bravo Hawaii DOT. Now the Koko Head bound (east-bound, or EB) direction at Makiki has four through lanes between Ward Ave. and Punahou St. With a simple re-stripping, the freeway viaduct over Piikoi St. changed from a total of 6 lanes to 8. That's a 30% improvement for "peanuts."

Before the EB Vineyard Boulevard on-ramp the freeway has its the typical 3-lane configuration, like so:


The new lane is the continuation of the fourth lane that comes from the Vineyard Boulevard on-ramp like so:


The Ward Avenue on-ramp adds a fifth lane but this lane merges onto the fourth lane. Now next to the Piikoi Street on-ramp the freeway is 4 lanes wide!


This location was a perennial midday bottleneck. Now outside the peak hours, flow should be much smoother on both directions. Recall that the west-bound direction was modified from 3 to 4 lanes a couple weeks earlier, as presented here.

BUS RAPID TRANSIT: Projects Improve Transit Service and Can Contribute to Economic Development

I am pleased to present the summary findings of this hot-off-the-press report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office report to the U.S. Senate.

U.S. bus rapid transit (BRT) projects we reviewed include features that distinguished BRT from standard bus service and improved riders’ experience. However, few of the projects (5 of 20) used dedicated or semi-dedicated lanes— a feature commonly associated with BRT and included in international systems to reduce travel time and attract riders. Project sponsors and planners explained that decisions on which features to incorporate into BRT projects were influenced by costs, community needs, and the ability to phase in additional features. For example, one project sponsor explained that well-lighted shelters with security cameras and real-time information displays were included to increase passengers’ sense of safety in the evening. Project sponsors told us they plan to incorporate additional features such as off-board fare collection over time.

The BRT projects we reviewed generally increased ridership and improved service over the previous transit service. Specifically, 13 of the 15 project sponsors that provided ridership data reported increases in ridership after 1 year of service and reduced average travel times of 10 to 35% over previous bus services. However, even with increases in ridership, U.S. BRT projects usually carry fewer total riders than rail transit projects and international BRT systems. Project sponsors and other stakeholders attribute this to higher population densities internationally and riders who prefer rail transit. However, some projects—such as the M15 BRT line in New York City—carry more than 55,000 riders per day.

Capital costs for BRT projects were generally lower than for rail transit projects and accounted for a small percent of the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) New, Small, and Very Small Starts’ funding although they accounted for over 50% of projects with grant agreements since fiscal year 2005. Project sponsors also told us that BRT projects can provide rail-like benefits at lower capital costs. However, differences in capital costs are due in part to elements needed for rail transit that are not required for BRT and can be considered in context of total riders, costs for operations, and other long-term costs such as vehicle replacement.

We found that although many factors contribute to economic development, most local officials we visited believe that BRT projects are contributing to localized economic development. For instance, officials in Cleveland told us that between $4 and $5 billion was invested near the Healthline BRT project—associated with major hospitals and universities in the corridor. Project sponsors in other cities told us that there is potential for development near BRT projects; however, development to date has been limited by broader economic conditions—most notably the recent recession.

While most local officials believe that rail transit has a greater economic development potential than BRT, they agreed that certain factors can enhance BRT’s ability to contribute to economic development, including physical BRT features that relay a sense of permanence to developers; key employment and activity centers located along the corridor; and local policies and incentives that encourage transit-oriented development. Our analysis of land value changes near BRT lends support to these themes. In addition to economic development, BRT project sponsors highlighted other community benefits including quick construction and implementation and operational flexibility.

New Lane on WB H-1 Freeway!

Quietly, quickly and effectively the Hawaii State Department of Transportation (HDOT) has added a full lane of traffic on the west-bound H-1 Freeway from Punahou Street to Pali Highway.

The new lane starts as an extension to the existing auxiliary freeway lane between the Punahou Street on-ramp and the Lunalilo Street off-ramp like so:


The added lane continues onto the viaduct than now has four instead of three lanes! This is a whopping 25% to 30% capacity addition. Numerically it is a 33.3% gain but when a lane addition is effected by narrowing lanes and shoulders, some capacity loss does occur. As you see in these pictures, vehicles fit well on the narrower lanes and after multiple passes, I did not notice any slow downs because of the tighter lanes.

Now the critical Lunalilo Street on-ramp and Vineyard Boulevard off-ramp has five lanes instead of four, like so:

The fourth lane terminates smoothly as the Pali Highway off-ramp.

This lane addition is the result of many months of work at my University of Hawaii Traffic and Transportation Lab, the R. M. Towill Corporation, the Planning, Traffic and Design section of HDOT and others.

Cudos to HDOT for doing it! I look forward to the similar lane addition on the east-bound side.