I’ve done some traveling in recent days, and when it comes to travel, these days are not ordinary. The federal government is closely watching many of us, wherever we might go. Our whereabouts are often tracked by private firms that are “just trying to protect us.”

The most obvious example of the tentacles of security impacting the way we travel is the work of the Transportation Security Administrations (T.S.A.). Long-gone are the days when someone could rush into an airport, buy a ticket and then beat a speed record going from the ticket counter to the actual doorway of the plane. Also gone are the exciting days of being able to go to the gate in advance to wait for a close relative or friend to arrive on the next inbound flight.

I took the Capitol Limited Amtrak train from Washington, DC to Chicago. The journey was most relaxing, and so was the transition from land to rail. We arrived at the refurbished Union Station in Washington, checked in at the ticket window with no wait, and were directed to seats in a special waiting room for passengers with sleeping car arrangements. I must confess that this was a special privilege; a convenience that I was willing to and able to pay extra for.

Twenty-five minutes before the train was scheduled to depart, we were escorted through a door that took us right to the train. Climbing the steps to the car with luggage was more challenging than boarding a plane, but we made it. What we would otherwise have checked  on an airplane, we simply put on a luggage rack on Amtrak. It stayed there for nearly 18 hours, and as has always been the case on previous journeys, it remained undisturbed the entire trip, even though anyone could have grabbed the suitcases and absconded with them. We went to our room, enjoyed watching the bustle around the train until we left at our appointed hour. A few minutes later, the conductor scanned our tickets. No muss; no fuss; no quizzical looks; no disrobing; no x-rays.

Beside having terrific sleeping accommodations, we had food that was second to none. The journey went through Appalachia, which was both beautiful and haunting, because the landscape was dotted with pockets of poverty and environmental scars.

We arrived at Chicago, although late, and could easily unload our luggage and walk to the station. Only at that point were we confronted with the inconvenience of security. Taxis could no longer drive into the tunnel by baggage claim to pick up passengers. We had to lug our belongings some distance to the street. Not fun, but acceptable.

Like most passengers on the train, I would like to see Amtrak greatly expanded and equipped with more modern technology. However, I hesitate to push too hard for this change, because I feel as if train travel is a hidden American secret. It’s possible that if terrorists targeted trains, they would have much more success than they have with planes. So I enjoyed the trip, was pleased that it was entirely the work of a government agency rather than a private corporation, and hoped that these glory days would continue as long as possible.

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Bogotá, Colombia, has been celebrated and emulated worldwide these past 10 years for its innovative Transmilenio system of articulated buses. Reports regularly appear in print that cities far afield, including New York City, are interested in replicating Bogotá’s Transmilenio system. Here at home the system has done well in imposing order on a chaotic urban environment. Transmilenio buses run along designated lanes separated from daily traffic, and generally offer speedy, if at times very crowded, massive ubran public transportation.

All has been well and good for over 10 years. New Transmilenio lines have been successfully added to the system, most recently arriving almost, but not quite, to Bogotá’s airport. The system works efficiently, daily and consistently. Not quite a subway, not a streetcar exactly, not simply a bus, the Transmilineo initiative in Bogotá is a great urban compromise in transportation, an attempt to offer a speedier and lower cost alternative to a 20 or 50 year investment in subway construction. The citizenry of Bogotá, a city of no small size, has given the Transmilenio system a major thumbs up. The system is used by millions daily.

We were doing good.

We are accustomed in the United States somehow to believing that, anywhere other than here, radical changes in urban planning are happening daily, and that those changes are more citizen-friendly, more well thought-out and more successfully implemented than those here at home. Urban planners elsewhere are so much more adept in planning than we are in the US – so goes the thinking. Somehow, in the general mindset, we think that we are behind, less capable of initatiating change for the better than those anywhere other than here. These innovative changes, we believe may be happening in Spain, or in Canada or just possibly in an emergent economy such as Colombia.

Well maybe. Perhaps not. Do we lack perspective?

Back to Bogotá, to where we were doing so well. Here in Bogotá, Colombia, we have decided that we need to unify our non-Transmilenio bus system, our chaotic, broadly diverse, urban, antiquated, daily- polluting patchwork of buses into our very successful Transmilenio network. This sounds very good. Why not marry success to further success. Let’s have an integrated public transportation system unified under the already established Transmilenio brand.

What a great idea!

We could call this integration something unifying, something like Transmilenio Bus, for example. But no, no, no. no. Too simple. No.

Let’s complicate things. Hey, what the hell, let’s change the whole endeavor to something hard to pronounce like SITP. No, not the whole system, just the new bus part. SITP has such a ring to it! Try saying SITP fast three times in a row, in Spanish or in English. But wait. Why don’t we add the word Urbano to that!  Why not? Let’s call this new associated Transmilenio bus system the SITP Urbano. Okay, we’re good. We have come up with a name that is really hard to pronounce and without reference to what we were looking for, the already established Transmilenio brand. But what the hell, we have a new bus system, the SITP Urbano.

Let’s build the buses, give them their SITP (I am never sure if it is SITP or SIPT) logos, add their unifying blue color, and give them a sophisticated new electonic access system, and get them onto the streets of the city as fast as we can. But wait, shouldn’t we have a public education plan in place first, tell people what we are doing, build up to an official launching?  Nah. Shouldn’t we have vending machines that issue the new sophisticated bus passes at designated bus stops?  Nah. Where will people purchase these passes needed for bus entry? People will figure it out on their own. They really don’t need us to tell them what we are doing. Our citizens are very smart!

Guess what. We have had SITP Urbano buses roaming the streets of Bogotá for over a year now and almost nobody knows how to access these buses. We add new routes regularly, monthly it seems. We now have quite a lot of blue SITP buses plying our streets, adding to our urban congestion, traveling their routes generally empty of passengers.

It does not help matters that the designers of the system forgot to provide an easily identifiable means of recognizing where these buses are going, an electronic destination or bus number easily visible at night, for example. No, a non-descript placard, impossible to read, propped up on the interior bus windshield proports to tell you, if you have hawk vision, where the bus in question might be going.

But never mind where the bus is going, how do you pay to get on one of these buses. No, you cannot use cash as you can on the buses being replaced. Nope, you cannot use a Transmilenio electronic card, used throughtout the Transmilenio system. And so?

I have tried more than once to figure out how to get on one of these buses. One of these empty buses passes right by the intersection adjacent to my building. Coming home, it would work out great if I could use it. It turns out I have to apply for a boarding pass on line.   You have to have a fixed address and telephone number to apply. And you have the option of supplying your blood type, sex, occupation, and place of work. Apparently, the system wants to know my life in great detail before issuing me a pass. If you are a casual tourist or visitor to the city, you are going to be out of luck!  You want to go from here to there, sorry, no can do unless you have a couple of weeks available to apply for a transit pass. Funny, this system doesn’t ring a bell in any other major metropolitan center. Up to now, I have been able to get on a bus in London or New York without being vetted first.

So, I can apply for a pass on line. Can they mail or deliver that pass to me electronically?  No. To pick up my boarding pass once approved, I will need to go as far as the airport or to a few very specific out of the way other Transmilenio stations. This of course is not a Transmilenio pass. It will not allow me to board a Transmmilenio bus, simply the convenience of retrieving my pass at one of their stations. This pass is issued by a completely different company from the one that issues the pass that I need to get on a Tranmilenio bus. The Tranmileno authorities are up-beat, saying that a million passengers have already gotten their SITP transit passes. Well, perhaps those first million passengers went through the arduous process of getting a bus pass just for the fun of it, because one thing is for sure they are not riding these buses daily.

Is your head spinning yet?  I decided, as apparently have millions of other Bogotanos, that it was not worth the effort to figure out how to get on one of these new SITP Urbano buses. Nobody seems to have thought it worthwhile to offer a transitional way to board a bus already operating on the streets of the city, proferring cash say, or a widely available Transmilenio bus pass. Nope. Better to have these new SITP Urbano buses ride the streets of the city empty, taunting, like some kind of mirage ghost bus line of the future, than to encourage the citizenry to board!

“Bogotá Humana,” the Human City, is the motto of the present administration in the city of Bogotá, the same administration responsible for crowding the streets with a spanking new urban transporation system of SITP Urbano buses, unavailable to what appears to be about 99% of the citizenry.

Come on guys. There must be a better way to do this!

The post How not to upgrade a public bus system: Bogotá, Colombia appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Florida’s Governor Rick Scott has slammed on the brakes, turning down $2 billion in federal funds for an 84-mile high-speed train between Tampa and Orlando. A lawsuit by a group including several Florida lawmakers failed last week [March 4, 2011], as the Florida Supreme Court ruled  that Gov. Scott’s rejection was legal, and that he was within his rights to turn away the federal funds. In the meantime, the Florida ruling sparked a financial feeding frenzy among other states who would LOVE to have that money and have no problem with the idea of high-speed rail in their territory.

What’s up with that? To contractors who would build it, businesses who would benefit from it,  intercity commuters who would ride on it and  city planners and boosters who would develop around it, high-speed rail sounds like a dream come true.

But apparently, there’s trouble on the line. If you listen to Florida’s Rick Scott, high-speed rail is a risky boondoggle, doomed to failure. Others see high-speed rail as a national necessity and an unstoppable economic engine.  America’s number one high-speed-railroad enthusiast is none other than President Obama. His administration’s 2009 Recovery Act included an $8 billion down-payment toward a 17,000-mile, nationwide high-speed rail network.  Who’s got it right? Here’s a look at some facets of a story that alternates between fast-forward and total derailment:

Positive potential

For a rosy picture of  what, ideally, high-speed trains could mean for the US, look at the extensive list of pluses cited by the US High-Speed Rail Association. [USHSR]. “Faster, more efficient mobility, enormous energy savings, reduced environmental damage – a train system solves many problems,” says USHSR.

According to a 2010 report issued by the US Conference of Mayors,  high-speed rail could be an economic game-changer for cities connected by the 13 corridors envisioned in the nationwide plan:

“The benefits of traveling between 110 and 220 miles per hour will mean better connectivity, shorter travel times and new development around train stations…The changes will create 150,000 new jobs and some $19 billion in new businesses by 2035.”

To see the plan for the proposed high-speed rail network, check out this animated map, courtesy of USHSR.

Lessons from China

The fastest of the [conventional] fast trains are in China. And the whole world is watching to see how China’s mind-bogglingly ambitious, $300 billion move into high-speed rail is progressing.

But the news from China is both good and bad. By 2012, just four years after it began its first high-speed passenger service, China is projected have more high-speed train tracks than the rest of the world combined. It’s pulling ahead in high-speed train production, too, and may soon become the leading exporter of bullet-trains and bullet-train technology.

Recently, though, charges of corruption in the Chinese Rail Ministry have raised concerns about the project. And news reports have focused on safety issues in China’s high-speed rail system. In February, Caixin, a Chinese news service, reported that:

Rapid construction has raised worries among many safety experts. A source working for a foreign company that supplies construction materials for China’s high-speed railways told Caixin that building 300 kilometers of railway usually takes 10 years overseas, but only two years in China. He said tight delivery deadlines were sometimes met with lower quality control measures.

A railway engineer expressed concern over the structural stability of railways lines from land subsidence issues. Foreign builders typically leave a four to five year buffer time for land settlement before construction is completed. But in China, the Ministry of Railways has used elevated bridges to address changes in land elevation.

Another development to watch, as America attempts to catch up in the high-speed train race, is ridership. It turns out that, in China, the notion that “if you build it, they will come,” may not be a slam-dunk. Economist and China specialist Patrick Choavec observes that, while China’s conventional rail system is completely overloaded with passengers and coal, the high-speed system may not be a viable answer:

China’s high-speed rail is “expensive both to build and to operate, requiring high ticket prices to break even. The bulk of the long-distance passenger traffic, especially during the peak holiday periods, is migrant workers for whom the opportunity cost of time is relatively low. Even if they could afford a high-speed train ticket — which is doubtful given their limited incomes — they would probably prefer to conserve their cash and take a slower, cheaper train. If that proves true, the new high-speed lines will only incur losses while providing little or no relief to the existing transportation network.”

Derailment in Florida

In an NPR interview, Florida’s newly elected Gov. Scott  explained his rationale for turning down federal funds for high-speed rail.  He said,”The …data shows capital cost overruns are pervasive in nine of 10 high-risk, high-speed rail projects, and that two-thirds of those projects inflated revenue projections by an average of 65 percent of actual patronage.”

The federal funds would have paid for 90 percent of the construction costs, but Scott called the expenditure “too risky” for Florida taxpayers.

The Florida project would have been the first in the US. Some speculate that Gov. Scott’s rejection of federal money was an ideological move—paralleled in other states, where conservative lawmakers characterize any money from Washington, and especially from the Obama administration, as tainted. 

But even if, in the short term, Gov. Scott’s decision has financial merit for Florida, rejecting high-speed rail technology for the US in the 21^st Century is like saying no to automobiles in the early 20^th century or nixing the interstate highway system in the 1950s. When new technologies emerge—advances that can improve quality of life and the nation’s economic health—they’re going to be adopted. So, high-speed rail is probably going to happen—eventually. The only questions seem to be when, where, how much and what we will learn from the journey.

The post High-speed rail: fast-track or slow-down? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Police officers can’t pull you over for eating, reading, putting on makeup, or shaving while driving. But in a growing number of states, you can get a ticket for talking or texting on a cell phone. Because the laws are rarely enforced, many do it anyway. The Department of Transportation, however, has decided something has to be done about the growing problem of distracted driving.

On April, 8, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the first enforcement crackdown campaign on distracted driving. 
He said, “It’s time for drivers to act responsibly, put their hands on the wheel and focus on the road.” USDOT is funding pilot programs in Hartford, CT and Syracuse, NY to test whether increased law enforcement efforts and increased public advertising can make drivers stop talking or texting on hand-held cell phones. This is the first federally funded effort to curb distracted driving and is modeled on other DOT efforts to curb drunk driving and increase seat belt use. The Department has launched a new website for the effort, www.distraction.gov. The simple message is “Phone in One Hand. Ticket in the Other.”

According to the DOT press release, the first high visibility enforcement was conducted in the Syracuse metropolitan area from April 8 through 17, and the crackdown in the Hartford metropolitan area took place from April 10 through 16. There will be additional enforcement waves in both states throughout the course of the yearlong program.

Each pilot program is supported by $200,000 in federal funds and matched by $100,000 from the state. Researchers will study changes in attitudes and behavior throughout the next year in both locations and apply what is learned to other cities and states across the country.

“There is no question that high-visibility enforcement combined with effective public advertising works. We’ve seen the results first-hand with national campaigns like Click It or Ticket and Drunk Driving. Over The Limit. Under Arrest,” said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland. “Distracted driving is a growing problem—the numbers tell the story of these preventable tragedies.”

Research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that in 2008 alone, nearly 6,000 people were killed and more than a half million people were injured in crashes involving a distracted driver nationwide. Almost 20 percent of all crashes that same year involved some type of distraction.

On April 12, a local news outlet in Syracuse reported that 1000 tickets were issued since April 8. Captain Shannon Trice, commanding officer of the traffic division in Syracuse told the reporter that the only legal way to talk on a phone in the car is with a Bluetooth or other similar device and that putting a phone on speaker does not make it legal.

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In March, Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood announced that the government is going to give bicycling and walking the same importance as automobiles in transportation planning and the selection of projects for federal money.

“This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized,” LaHood wrote in his government blog. LaHood feels that “bike projects are relatively fast and inexpensive to build and are environmentally sustainable; they reduce travel costs, dramatically improve safety and public health, and reconnect citizens with their communities.”

Bicyclists around the country cheered the announcement on bike blogs,Twitter and Facebook. But the outpouring of enthusiasm is not only from hardcore bicyclists. The general public is behind the idea of giving more attention to providing alternatives to driving. http://t4america.org/resources/2010survey/

In a new poll conducted by Transportation for America:

More than four-in-five voters (82 percent) say that “the United States would benefit from an expanded and improved transportation system,” including modes of transportation like rail and buses. An overwhelming majority of voters agree with this statement — no matter where they live. Even in rural America, 79 percent of voters agreed with the statement, despite much lower use of public transportation compared to urban Americans.

When asked about reducing traffic congestion, three-in-five voters choose improving public transportation and making it easier to walk and bike over building more roads and expanding existing roads (59% to 38%).

You can read the new DOT policy statement here: Basically, it encourages states and local governments to adopt a similar policy in their own communities by:

• Considering walking and bicycling as equals with other transportation modes.
• Ensuring that there are transportation choices for people of all ages and abilities, especially children.
• Going beyond minimum design standards and anticipate future demand for bicycling and walking paths.
• Integrating bicycle and pedestrian accommodation on new, rehabilitated, and limited access bridges.
• Collecting data on walking and biking trips.
• Setting mode share targets for walking and bicycling and tracking them over time.
• Removing snow from sidewalks and shared-use paths.
• Improving nonmotorized facilities during maintenance projects.

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One of the thousands of apps for the iPhone is “Ambiance.”  It provides lots of sounds; ones that are soothing and help one fall asleep.

Among my favorites are the train and subway sounds.  They’re great to listen to while reading or sleeping.  Is anyone surprised that only recently “Ambiance” has  included a couple of muted bus sounds?  There’s nothing romantic about a bus ride as there is traveling on the “City of New Orleans” train or the Chicago el from the movie “Risky Business.”

Does this have anything to do with public policy?  Yes.  Because as we think about urban mass transit, most of us think of either the grittified sound of screeching wheels on the New York subway or the sleek (though not always safe) movement of the Metro in Washington DC, or BART in the San Francisco bay area.

The latter is what we’d like in St. Louis; a gleaming train running down the middle of Highway 40 or an express train from O’Fallon, MO to O’Fallon, IL.  Well, guess what:  it’s not going to happen.  We’re not a megalopolis like New York, Chicago, or Toronto.  We’re a very livable mid-sized community that has less traffic than the Atlantas or Houstons of the world but still enough to aggravate us considerably.

A recent article in The St. Louis Beacon by Harry Levins tells us what we’ll get once we (hopefully) pass a half-cent sales tax increase for Metro on April 6.  About half of what we’ll get is restoration of what we lost last summer when voters cut back on Metro funding, and the other half will lead to system improvements and the beginnings of expansion.  Check out the article for informative maps of proposed new routes.

The administration of Metro has not always been sound and wise, and literally millions of dollars have been frittered away.  But Metro is now under new management with a more clear and realistic vision of what we can expect in the future.  Key to the plans is inclusion of real express bus routes.  This is smart, because the cost of building the bus lines is half the cost of the rail line and takes half as much time to plan.  Fundamental to this strategy is the reality, however distressing, that St. Louis is a city of concrete and asphalt roads rather than steel rails.  The marvelous streetcar system that we had prior to World War II ended with the last run of the Hodiamont line on May 21, 1966.  Those particular tracks were replaced with an asphalt alley, which now is the surface of one of St. Louis’ most rapid bus routes.

The benefits of mass transit are numerous and obvious.  But they’re not the same for all communities.  I’d love to go to sleep one night and wake up the next morning with 1,000 miles of light rail and subway tracks in St. Louis.  But the response to this dream is a common one: “ain’t going to happen.”

So as we approach the April 6 vote, let’s remember that the leaders of Metro are thinking in terms of a system that will work for St. Louis as it is; not as we sometimes would like it to be.  Hopefully, in 50 or 100 years we’ll have a yet-to-be-invented transportation system that will make both buses and subways obsolete.  But we’re not there yet.  We can get limited satisfaction now by riding the 50 or so miles of Metro or listening to rail sounds on an iPhone, but if you want new transit in St. Louis that is mass, think of the soft purring of a clean and efficient bus engine.

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