Dumb dumb dumb

1. Sam Raker, in an op-ed in the Gazette last week, writes in "What planners don't tell us about Metro-centered development," that transit oriented development is really really really really bad because if you have a car you have access to many more jobs.

He ignores the Pareto principle, also known as the 80-20 rule, which finds that for many behaviors and events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Whether or not I have a car so I can work in a Starbucks in Burtonsville or Haymarket doesn't really help me. What matters is how quick people can get to a relatively fair number of quality jobs, ideally without a car. Transit oriented development is about "jobs-housing balance" and efficient transit. But yes, my maximum mobility is restricted somewhat so I am not likely to attend parties in Centreville, etc.

TOD does favor higher income households with high quality jobs. But you can work to provide a diversity of housing types and with incentives and subsidies, provide affordable housing within TOD also.

It's really bad that someone with this limited set of processing skills was "co-chair of the Transportation Policy Report Task Force (TPR-2) in Montgomery County (2000-02) and was a special assistant to the Maryland transportation secretary (2003-07)." Of course that was under anti-transit Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich.

2. One of the things that "bugs" me is when people weigh in on DC area transit issues in a "negative" fashion, quoting national averages about how few people--3%--take transit to work. We aren't talking about national averages here, we are talking about the experience in the Washington DC Metropolitan Area, and more specifically the core of the region served by the subway (heavy rail). Anyone who quotes national averages when discussing DC regional transit issues is a fool, and not worth our time.

3. Relatedly, what's up with Marc Elrich, the Montgomery County Councilmember? I talked to him during the campaign a couple times at the Takoma Park Farmers Market. He seemed pretty good. Now he seems to be an overly enamored with bus rapid transit. See "‘Progressive' panel debates Purple Line options: Councilman rips forum as lopsided in favor of light-rail," from the Gazette.

We have discussed bus rapid transit here many times. It works great in South America and Asia where there are many people who are transit dependent and automobility isn't supreme. It's assisted by low wages for bus drivers and passenger willingness to put up with bus loads 2x greater than are typical in North America.

It's definitely cheaper to open up initially than fixed rail (although buses last about 1/4 of the useful life of a subway car, and you have high maintenance costs, and electricity is cheaper than the sources used to fuel buses, etc.), but BRT isn't likely to have significant long term positive impact on land use, jobs-housing balance, and substantive increases in transit ridership.

In short, to suggest BRT as a real transit option (and in North America only a couple bus rapid transit lines come close to the ridership figures on new light rail lines--which are transit lines not transit systems and there is a difference!) _in the DC region_ _ignores the reality of the fixed rail transit experience here_.

We know that 600,000 to 800,000 people ride the subway system each day Monday through Friday.

We can't make decisions about extending the transit infrastructure in our region that ignore the real experience and awareness that people have about transit, how it works, and their preferences.

There is every reason to believe that the Purple Line light rail system in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties can have massive ridership, perhaps far beyond the almost 70,000 daily riders projected in the high cost/high quality light rail option.

Buses will never move that many people. And in North America, where they have to compete with privately owned automobiles, you won't get many people to give up moving around in their cars in favor of buses.

And BRT won't have the transformational impacts on land use and transportation behavior that we see in Washington, DC in the core, and in Arlington County along the Rosslyn-Wilson Boulevard corridor, from fixed rail transit (the subway).

You'd think that politicians would see this, rather than close their eyes to it.

Marc Elrich is turning out to be a disappointment. Fortunately, the Montgomery County Planning Department did come out in favor of light rail. See "Planning staff recommends light rail for Purple Line" from the Gazette, although it's tough for planners to buck the politicians.

4. Personal rapid transit, monobeam transit systems, etc. I get emails from time to time from proponents of monobeam transit systems, usually extolling personal rapid transit--which makes no sense from the standpoint of moving many people, which is the major point about optimal mobility. And proponents of this technology fail to take into account that even if up in the air, it needs just as much ground space for the pylons that hold it up, as well as for stations.

Anyway, there was a letter in the Gazette pushing this kind of transit instead of light rail. See "Beware new, better ideas."

PRT moves even fewer people than "BRT."