South Shore Line Interurban extension in Indiana

SSL en route in Michigan City on local surface streets.

This is notable because the South Shore Line, powered by electricity, is the only still functioning interurban train line in revenue service in the entire United States..  

As a mode, interurban was between heavy rail and train, with dedicated and mixed tracks and reasonably frequent cities operating within and between cities.  They carried passengers and local freight (not unlike todays package delivery services).

It was said transferring from one system to another you could get from Chicago to New England on interurbans.  Or from San Diego to Portland or Seattle.

Unlike heavy rail or railroad freight and passenger services, interurban lines could be street running within cities, like streetcars, and today's South Shore Line is distinguished in some places by still running on the street network in various communities along the line.  

Once owned by Samuel Insull, who owned many electricity generation and streetcar companies, like the CTA and London Underground, which he also controlled at one time, they were known for their poster marketing of sites on the line ("Moonlight in Duneland: Marketing the South Shore Line in the 1920s").

The DC area had such a system operating between Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis.

Today the South Shore Line operates between Downtown Chicago and South Bend, Indiana's Airport (originally the line went to downtown). Some trains go all the way from South Bend, while others start at either Michigan City or Gary. Like other similar services, for a time it had access to the Elevated track system of the Chicago Transit Authority.

These days it mostly serves Indiana, with 20 stations, and has a minute number of riders, less than 7,000 per day. But a goodly number of trains--26/27 go to or are from Chicago.

Starting today, the new "Monon Corridor" adds four stations with a terminus in Dyer, Indiana ("All Aboard! South Shore Line announces opening of new Monon Corridor expansion service," WSBT-TV).

But wow, what can they do to increase ridership? 

Certainly, an Indiana based Chicago Bears football team could generate some weekend ridership but only a few times per year.  

The South Bend Station no longer is in the center city, but on the outskirts.  While inconvenient, the location is probably not a deal breaker in terms of willingness to ride transit.  

What changes in marketing or otherwise would make a significant difference in ridership?

Suburban Virginia's Silver Line Metrorail after 10 years

There's a piece in GGW, "How the Silver Line has shaped transit-oriented development in Northern Virginia," about the impact of the Silver Line on transit oriented development in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties.

The author points out development has occurred in Tysons and Reston, but less so in other areas.  

That shouldn't be surprising.  The Silver Line is very much a polycentric extension of the system, and the stations are very spread out.  

Blots of development along the line are unlikely because residents don't want to live in pods, and the distance to the core is so significant--for example the Loudoun Gateway station is about 30 miles from DC.

Plus, the supra block nature of suburban development--massive sites, massive buildings--makes the walkability element of a benefit from transit development somewhat remote.

Herndon station.

It reminds me of my 2011 piece, making the point that developers wanted that transit line in order to keep their properties relevant in the 21st century development and land use paradigm ("Short term vs. long term thinking: transit, the Washington Examiner, Fairfax/Loudoun Counties vs. DC").

And that like with DC proper, it would take 20-40 years to fully reap the impact, which Bisnow didn't take into consideration ("Much Was Planned, But Little Is Built As Final Piece Of Metro's Silver Line Approaches Its Debut" Bisnow).  

Related posts over the years include:

-- "Silver line reshaping commercial office market in Fairfax County," 2015
-- "Tysons (Corner) 10 Years after the plan to make it more walkable: the necessity of implementation mechanisms," 2020
-- "Brief follow up to intra-district transit proposal for Tysons: Toyama City Compact City initiative (Japan)," 2020
-- "A thought about an intra-district transit network for Tysons," 2020

And ideally some lessons:

-- "Metro sees the opportunity to continue the Silver Line into DC (the former separated blue line proposal)," 2011
-- "Tysons, White Flint and the continued "maturation" of the suburbs," 2013
-- "Ultimately, WMATA blue line riders have been dissed by the State of Virginia, not WMATA...," 2013
-- "Transit, stations, and placemaking: stations as entrypoints into neighborhoods," 2013
-- "Silver Line delays: maybe the real lesson is that contracting out construction to the private sector doesn't always work so well," 2014
-- "The Silver Line WMATA story that WJLA-TV missed," 2014
-- "Using the Silver Line as the priming event, what would a transit network improvement program look like for NoVA?," 2017
-- "To and from origin stations can be difficult: More on the Silver Line and intra-neighborhood transit (tertiary network)," 2022
-- "Transit oriented development station typology revisited," 2024

One where I was wrong, opining that not tunneling the Silver Line in the Tysons area was a big mistake.  

Now, I don't think it matters, given the scale of the super blocks there, above-ground transit isn't the issue.  

The size of the blocks and distance between stations is the issue.  That's the reason for the proposal of an above-ground tram..

-- "Blinking on urban design means you limit your chance for success," 2006

Salt Lake City TRAX light rail is kind of both "monocentric" and "polycentric"

In Cities in Full, Steve Belmont argues for center city centralization and in his discussion about transit, he contrasts the SF MUNI system, which is completely within the city, but complemented by the subway-commuter rail BART, which serves the Greater Bay Area, and the WMATA Metrorail system in Greater DC.

What I figured out that he didn't is that the Metrorail system functions as two different systems, a polycentric commuter rail system reaching out as far as 32 miles into the suburbs (Metro Center to Ashburn on the Silver Line), and a monocentric heavy rail subway system in the core of DC proper.  

WMATA/Metrorail core system in DC.

Full system graphic.

The smallest circle is the core of DC.  From Cities in Full.

Most every station catchment area in the DC core has revitalized, while many out-city station areas remain poorly developed ("Transit oriented development station typology revisited," "Welcome to the loneliest Metro stop," Washington Post).

I was arguing with New Urbanists about a "new urban development" in the Daybreak community of South Jordan ("Downtown Daybreak opens, a mixed-use city core," CNU), stating that an itty bit of urbanism, 200 acres, in the midst of hundreds of miles of sprawl is but a wee bit forward.

One of the counter points was that Daybreak "has light rail."  It will, but at 20 miles from the core of Salt Lake City, it's almost exurban ("Transit oriented development station typology revisited"), and research finds that the best ROI from transit is within the first 10 miles of the system.

TRAX came about because of the 2002 Winter Olympics and I think it functions pretty well within its transit shed ("Updating the mobilityshed / mobility shed concept" and "Manhattan Institute misses the point about the value of light rail transit connections to airports | Utility and the network effect: the transit network as a platform").  It's just that the State Legislature has been more focused on far suburban extensions of the system, rather than more intensive additions in the core of the system.

I wouldn't say TRAX in the core is exactly monocentric, but complemented by a decent enough bus system, if you live within one half mile to one mile of a station, it works pretty well.  The main core line, on 400 South in Salt Lake, hasn't seen the kind of more intense development and urban re-design that is necessary to adequately leverage the transit infrastructure, but for a city of its size--210,000 people--it does reasonably well.

I was skeptical of the proposal for the new Orange Line ("Utah Agency Picks Preferred Route for $400M Salt Lake City Light Rail Expansion," Engineering News-Record), because it is mostly duplicative of the existing transit shed, but it does add some stations in the Central Business-Residential District as well as a couple on or near the University of Utah campus, and proposes TOD at one of the stations on the campus also.

The favored route would include 2.8 miles of new track. Map courtesy Utah Transit Authority

Interestingly, this would move TRAX a couple stations towards Foothill Avenue, which is the main arterial in my neighborhood, leading to I-215.  

The new stadium station would provide a different route from the current station at 1300 East, which is at the bottom of the stadium/park and ride lot.

The blue line on the map is I-215.  On the northeast end, it runs into Foothill Drive, about two miles from the University of Utah campus.

To my way of thinking, the best intensification effort would be to have a line on I-215, either light rail or commuter rail to the University campus and research park (the Frontrunner train is also decent, a single line though, within its catchment area).  

And then separately with a light rail along Foothill and down to Sugar House to connect to the S-Line streetcar and back to the light rail, in an orbital route.

Of course, such line extensions could happen but beyond my life time.

Disneyland doesn't have transportation demand management planning requirements

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned Robert Niles, the "amusement parks" columnist for the Orange County Register.  I always learn from him.

And a few weeks ago I wrote about how at the metropolitan scale, most communities don't have transportation demand management requirements for stadiums, arenas, concert facilities, etc.

-- "To shift away some trips from the car, we need super robust transportation demand management processes"

Niles writes ("Here’s what’s missing from DisneylandForward")about Disney's long range plan for Disneyland in Anaheim, making the point that transit is missing from the plan.  From the article:

The Disneyland Resort has been putting out an impressive case for new rules to govern its development through its DisneylandForward proposal. Disneyland President Ken Potrock detailed the resort’s plan to OC Forum last week, highlighting the economic benefit to Anaheim and the region if Disneyland gets the OK to build hotel and attractions on space that has been reserved for parking lots. 

But watching Disneyland’s presentations and talking with resort representatives over the past year, I can’t shake the thought that something is missing from DisneylandForward. ... as a Southern California native, resident and advocate, there is an element that I wish that Disneyland would have been able to include in at least its top-level vision for the resort. 

Rail and bus transit service to Tokyo Disneyland. 

Disney’s theme park resorts in Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Paris all feature train connections to their local mass transit networks, including local airports. On the best of these, Disneyland Paris lies just 10 minutes from Charles de Gaulle airport via France’s high-speed TGV network. Even Florida is developing a high-speed rail system, though Walt Disney World declined to have a station on its property after developers included a stop at the Universal Orlando Resort. There is no regional transit train station envisioned in DisneylandForward, however. 

Blame for that must spread beyond Disney. Where is the robust mass transit system to which a Disneyland station would connect? Despite continued development on many important components of such a system, including Metrolink and Los Angeles’ Metro, there is no route on the drawing board that would get a Disneyland visitor to the resort from any local airport faster than driving a car.

Addressing that should have been an element of the 2028 Olympics planning for Los Angeles, irrespective of Disney's long range planning.

But overall, this is the failure of the "metropolitan planning organization" system in the US, which coordinates transportation across a region--and in Southern California the counties are so big they each comprise separate MPOs--because they often don't have the most basic requirements for coordinating uses with transportation and transit capacity.

There are public bus lines that serve Disneyland, but the trips are not direct.  And private shuttles from the airports, but not necessarily top branded nor coordinated with the Disney Resort reservation system.  

Interestingly, Disney is the world leader in the management of customer experience, and you would think they would make this a priority.  Same with the Visit Anaheim tourism promotion organization.

=====

Note that in Florida, Disney used to have the Disney Express shuttle service from airports to the campus.  

But ride hailing led to significant drop off in ridership, so they eliminated the service, which was built into ticket and hotel reservations, although it was operated privately.  Although private sector options have replaced the cancelled service, but it isn't built into the reservation system.

-- "Transportation demand management requirements as a part of campus planning for large sites: Disney World bus services," 2022

A similar service could be operated to serve Anaheim Disneyland in the interim.

To shift away some trips from the car, we need super robust transportation demand management processes

Before moving to Salt Lake, I believed all the puffery in the planning press about how advanced the region is due to forward planning processes like the environmentally focused "Envision Utah" initiative.  Then I moved here and learned that the region is the epitome of the sprawl land use paradigm.

Salt Lake County.  Photo: Rick Bowmer, Associated Press.

Although I will say that it has a decent if nascent light rail system, complemented by a single line commuter rail, and decent bus service.  If you live within that transit footprint, it works decently.  But there isn't a rush to expand it, or to create conditions where sustainable modes are first choice for getting around.

The State Department of Transportation, which probably should be called the Utah Department of Cars and Trucks, has a proposal to widen I-15 through Salt Lake City to Farmington in Davis County to 6 lanes in each direction--it's four lanes now.  

I-15 in Davis County. Rick Egan, Salt Lake Tribune.

Note that in Southern California, where I was a couple weeks ago, most freeways are 6 lanes on each side--but the population of Los Angeles County is 5x greater than Metropolitan Salt Lake.

A recent article on the proposal ("UDOT admits I-15 widening will cut into parks and school ball fields, while demolishing scores of homes and businesses," Building Salt Lake) lists a bunch of the comments of alternatives and UDOT's rejection of the suggestions.  

It happens that Salt Lake proper mostly has enough right of way within the current configuration for widening, but some properties--residences and commercial buildings, would be taken as part of the construction project.  There's no question there would be a diminishment of quality of life for the neighborhoods abutting the freeway.

I was talking with Suzanne about this and 

1.  Corridor management.  For the most park, transportation agencies don't do corridor management, where they coordinate all modes within a mobilty corridor, like I-15, which is paralleled by the Frontrunner commuter rail line, and has light rail transit too.  I wrote about this wrt DC and Maryland and I-270/DC arterials ("Washington Post letter to the editor on repair-related closure of Rockville and Shady Grove Stations and corridor management," 2021").

Although UDOT says they took the Frontrunner and current expansion plans into account.

2.  Transportation demand management as a priority.  How the field of transportation demand management was created in Melbourne, when David Engwicht, working with people fighting the widening of a freeway, realized that if they could reduce the number of vehicle trips, the need for road widening would be diminished.  

He wrote about this in the book Reclaiming Our Cities And Towns: Better Living Through Less Traffic, and Victoria State in Australia is the world leader in TDM.

3.  Transportation Management Districts as an implementation mechanism for trip shift.  Places like Montgomery County Maryland have created Transportation Management Districts for certain high congestion densified areas of the county and employers of a certain size have to survey employees about how they get to work and employers are supposed to work with them to shift trips to transit and sustainable modes.

However, it's a pretty half-a**** program without a lot of meat.  In those areas, a lot of people use transit because parking is expensive and they have (or at least had) decent public transit options between Metrorail, MARC commuter rail, and bus service--plus Montgomery County is adding east-west light rail through the Purple Line.

Note that Victoria State, Arlington County, Virginia, and Whatcom County, Washington have much more robust trip shifting programs.

4.  Matching land use to transporation capacity.  The Netherlands is not hal-a**** about this in terms of land use planning.  They have a planning model where uses are rated for their transportation demand, and places are rated for their ability to respond to demand, with an emphasis on trips being conducted by sustainable modes (transit, walking, biking).  High transportation demand uses can't be located in areas with weak transit--such a requirement is pretty much devoid across the US.

-- "The ABC location policy in the Netherlands: ‘The right business at the right place’," 

5.  Accommodating Trucks.  As charlie points out, the Interstate highway system is designed to facilitate truck movement.  I-15 is a corridor with a lot of truck traffic.

One of the comments suggested undergrounding the expansion.  FWIW, I believe undergrounding can be good when it comes to train service, but what about long distance trucking.  Although I've also suggested shifting longer distance truck trips to night time, but that it is a different kind of problem.

Basically, for all the talk of Envision Utah, the Salt Lake region doesn't do corridor management (yes, it has commuter support programs comparable to those in every other metropolitan area), transportation management districts, or coordinate transportation demand with land use decision making.  And no one is really thinking about the truck issue in innovative ways.

Transportation demand management also comes up in DC.  There is a letter to the editor ("The real world of parking without minimum requirements") in the Washington Post about how reducing parking requirements for multiunit buildings merely shifts cars to street parking.  The writer discussed one particular example, and likely is wrong anyway, since mostly, multiunit building residents aren't eligible for street parking permits.

But the basic questions were unasked.

The reality is that at least when proximate to Metrorail, trips by car and car ownership is significant reduced in multiunit buildings.  But that has been by the choice of the tenants, and was facilitated by a transit system that once operated much more reliably than it does at present.  In short it's trickle down.

DC needs to be much more active when it comes to TDM (it does have some requirements), including the creation of Transportation Demand Management Districts (I suggested this for DC starting in 2005!!!!!!!!) and protocols for shifting trips and reducing car ownership--for example, car sharing systems are a great way to support not owning a car.

In short, determine why best practice buildings work the way they do--e.g., near Takoma Metrorail Station, at least before covid, the multiunit buildings only generated 25% of rush trips by car, and many fewer households owned cars--and work to duplicate these characteristics across the city.

Nishi Kyushu Shinkansen, Japan, as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning | Planning and executing complementary improvements across the transit network + advances in transit marketing

I watch NHK's "Japan Railway Journal" quite regularly.  It's a show about Japan's railway network, and learning about how rail transit is set up in Japan has significantly influenced my thinking about how railroad passenger planning and service should be organized in the US.

Creating multi-state regional transportation districts. Based on Japan's organization of rail service, anchored by high speed rail and "limited express" service in six districts of the country, complemented by regional rail services run as for profit separate companies, and "third sector" rail services that are usually subsidized by local governments to ensure transit access, I propose creating six regional transit districts across the Continental United States, with national (cross district) and regional Amtrak services as the foundation, complemented by the creation and extension of railroad services within and across the states, further complemented by inter city bus services, but also water-based ferry transit where appropriate (e.g., in parts of New England, Washington State, California, Maryland, etc.).

-- "Two train/regional transit ideas: Part 1 | Amtrak should acquire Greyhound," 2021

Transformational Projects Action Planning.  I have a bunch of articles on what I call Transformational Projects Action Planning, TPAS aims to leverage projects to drive the realization of master plans and to deliver innovative programs at the scale of individual projects ("A wrinkle in thinking about the Transformational Projects Action Planning approach: Great public buildings aren't just about design, but what they do").

TPAS and transit.  A number apply this to transit, using the examples of the Suburban Maryland Purple Line light rail ("Codifying the complementary transit network improvements and planning initiatives recommended in the Purple Line writings"), maglev between Washington and Baltimore ("DC, Transformational Projects Action Planning, and the Baltimore-Washington Maglev project"), Northern Virginia's Silver Line subway ("Using the Silver Line as the priming event, what would a transit network improvement program look like for Northern Virginia?"), the Blue Line Metrorail ("A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for the Metrorail Blue Line,"), and Maryland's passenger rail system ("A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for a statewide passenger railroad program in Maryland") in showing how new transit infrastructure can be leveraged to drive a simultaneous program of improvement across the transit network, with the aim of improving the success of the new infrastructure alongside the existing network.

Transit oriented development is economic development.  It presupposes the opportunity to coordinate economic development and revitalization programs alongside the transit program, as laid out in such entries as:

-- "Creating a transportation development authority in Montgomery and Prince George's County to effectuate placemaking, retail development, and housing programs in association with the Purple Line," 2017

-- "Prince George's County's newly announced transit oriented development program for the Blue Line," 2022

-- "Revisiting New Carrollton and the opportunity of transit oriented development: New train hall to be built at transit hub," 2022

-- PL #5: Creating a Silver Spring "Sustainable Mobility District," 2017
- Part 1: Setting the stage
- Part 2: Program items 1- 9
- Part 3: Program items 10-18
- Part 4: Conclusion
- Map for the Silver Spring Sustainable Mobility District
- (Big Hairy) Projects Action Plan(s) as an element of Comprehensive/Master Plans
- Creating the Silver Spring/Montgomery County Arena and Recreation Center

Shinkansen.  The Shinkansen are high speed rail services operating at a speed of 150-200 mph.  The trains are the backbone of the railroad passenger system and a symbol of Japan's capacity for innovation.

Unlike the US, where a lot of intra-national travel is captured by airplane, the high speed of Shinkansen, the compactness of the country, convenience, and highly populated cities means that the majority of longer distance intra-Japan travel is by train.

Because of the high cost of construction, and the importance to national transportation policy goals, the national government has created an agency to handle construction, and it provides a majority of funding for construction, although prefectures also provide significant funding as well.

The Nishi Kyushu Shinkansen, marketed as the Kamome, or "Seagull," is a new high speed service in the JR Kyushu district.  For various reasons it is disconnected from the national Shinkansen network, although the intent is that it be connected.  

The full line is intended to speed up, but duplicate existing service, and Saga Prefecture believes that this comes at a higher cost, and less frequent service overall, so creating the service has been difficult because of that prefecture's resistance.

The Shinkansen + limited express connection between Fukuoka Hakata Station and Nagasaki will take 90 minutes, cutting 30 minutes off the trip.

The line, 66km, between Nagasaki and Takeo-Onsen, opened in September, although the intent is to connect to Fukuoka where it would connect to the national network of Shinkansen trains.

Japan Railway Journal recently featured a new episode on it, "Nishi Kyushu Shinkansen: Half a Century since its inception.

Complementary improvements for the transit network and economic development. Watching the program was seeing TPAS in action.  

Shin Omura Station serving Nagasaki Airport.  Wkipedia photo.

Last year, in advance of the line's opening, Nagasaki opened a new convention center.  And various phases of a new central station complex --station, retail, office, hotel--are opening between now and 2024.  

There are multiple new stations along the line, including a new station providing connection to Nagasaki International Airport--whereas many US airports lack long distance rail access. Among the retail amenities are a travel bookstore in the station serving the airport.

Significant investments in tourism promotion are being made, including the creation of a new tourist train service, to provide additional ways to travel the region by rail, at a slower pace.

Bus wrapped in a promotion for the Nishi Kyushu Shinkansen.

Systematic marketing of new transit services needs to be an element of improving the transit network in association with new infratructure. The show showed the various efforts by Nagasaki Prefecture to promote tourism development and transit marketing in association with the new Shinkansen.

It made me realize I that I missed this as an element of network improvement planning in association with the launch of new services. 

It's not that I haven't written about transit marketing, both good and bad, but in the writings about creating a "program of complementary improvements across the transit network" in association with the launch of new infrastructure, I didn't directly acknowledge the importance of marketing the new services.

Many agencies do launch day activities, but it occurs to me that those are more about "celebrating the infrastructure" rather than marketing new transit services in a long term sense.  

In fact Sound Transit was criticized for its marketing activities in association with the Capitol Hill extension a few years ago, even though that extension doubled ridership ("Sound Transit to spend $1.8M on Seattle Times, TV/radio, CHS advertising," Capitol Hill Seattle blog).  

I had chalked that up to government agencies being criticized for spending on marketing, even though it's a natural element of exchange, in this case communicating about the availability of public services.

But I think it's another example of what the book Strategic Marketing for Not For Profit Organizations calls publics. The author says all organizations have three publics: the input public that gives you resources; the throughput public that does that work; and the output public to whom your efforts are addressed.

Celebratory marketing efforts are more about reaching the input and throughput publics.  Ongoing marketing is about reaching the output public, who in the case of transit, are the riders.

Complementary marketing efforts in Nagasaki go a step beyond.  Featured on the JRJ program were various Nagasaki Prefecture promotional efforts, which include bus and taxi wraps promoting the new Kamome Shinkansen trains.  

I can't say I've seen substantive promotion for new transit services in bus wraps and definitely not taxis in the US.

Photo provided by Discover Nagasaki tourism office.

Many years ago I wrote about a tourism promotion program in Greater Detroit, teaching residents on how to help visitors.

There definitely needs to be that kind of training on new transit infrastructure and marketing for transit workers--eg while riding buses I've listened to how DC Circulator bus drivers don't provide information in response to queries about Metrobus and vice versa--as well as tourism and hospitality professionals.

Imagine transit promotions in local restaurants and hotels, the convention center, area airports, obviously the rail stations. Subway stations do provide some of this, but not usually enough.

Transit marketing for tourism.  Especially because with cities, it's possible to visit and tour without a car, but instead by sustainable mobility--transit especially and sometimes biking.  See "City Break Tourism, the rental car shortage, and transit/sustainable mobility as a way to get around: Part 1."

I've been remiss in writing follow up pieces.  I did collect a number of vintage transit tourism marketing pieces, in preparation.  For example, a brochure from Chicago Transit Authority dating to 1958.

Although to CTA's credit, they continue to produce tourism marketing brochures.  For a time Transport for London and its predecessors produced great tourism guidebooks.  

While there are many other good examples, they are often from the past. Hudson and Manhattan Railroad, now PATH, used to produce great shopping promotions, encouraging people to ride the train into Manhattan to shop.

But in the present, most transit agencies don't do a good job of tourism marketing.

A more comprehensive program would include:

• tourism centers, especially at key entrypoints like railroad stations and airports ("2019 (US) National Travel and Tourism Week: A visitor centers agenda for DC")
• Liverpool and Tokyo Metro (1, 2) and other rail operations in Japan provide this, London too, although I didn't think their transit tourism centers were particularly noteworthy
• marketing materials like brochures for tourists linking transit access to popular destinations
• advertising materials including posters, ads, bus and taxi wraps
• transit wayfinding and interpretation systems (Ride Newcastle, Alexandria Virginia)
• training programs for transit workers
• training programs for workers in tourism and hospitality
• marketing promotions in hotels, convention centers, restaurants, etc.

Metrorail Silver Line phase two opening this week

It's tradition for WMATA to hand out pennants to early riders on the day stations/lines open.

Advance coverage ("Silver Line extension to Dulles Airport opens at tough time,"WJLA-TV; "Silver Line’s second phase was to be different. It fell into the same trap," Washington Post), reminds me that some of my earliest substantive blog writings concern WMATA and the Silver Line.  

First, Virginia's focus on privatization, which is why the Silver Line was not built by Metro ("Silver Line delays: maybe the real lesson is that contracting out construction to the private sector doesn't always work so well," 2014).  

This led WMATA to get rid of its long range engineering and construction unit, and losing decades of experience in building and running the system ("Metro Construction Projects Creak to Halt; Economic, Political Changes Cancel Expansion Plans, Spur Job Cuts, Early Retirements," Lyndsey Layton. Washington Post, July 13, 2003. pg. C.01).

Second, how DC never seized leadership to leverage the Silver Line as the way to create "the separated blue line" in DC which would have added service to Georgetown, a more eastern line in DC, another line to Union Station, and service out H Street ("Blinking on urban design means you limit your chance for success," 2006, "If DC had visionary elected officials and planners it could use the new WMATA "BOS" study to push through the development of a separated Silver Line in DC (and Northern Virginia)," 2019). 

DC does not understand its "unique selling proposition" or "core competency" is being transit- and sustainable mobility-centric.

But the failures in planning extend beyond DC ("Silver Line Metro expansion a classic example of the need to have true regional transportation planning," 2011).

Intriguingly, the proposal was for a double stacked tunnel, which would have allowed for express service too.

Third, was the pro-tunnel effort, which failed, and the desire to have a better connection to the Dulles Airport Terminal, more comparable to National Airport ("Winners and losers with the Dulles subway project," 2007).

Fourth, that average pundits didn't understand the point of the Silver Line, which was to repattern land use in its transit shed for the 21st century ("Short term vs. long term thinking: transit, the Washington Examiner, Fairfax/Loudoun Counties vs. DC," 2011, "Silver line reshaping commercial office market in Fairfax County," 2015,  and "Without the right planning "controls" you can't stop change: Loudoun County and rail service in Northern Virginia," 2012).

Fifth, that activists and elected officials sure didn't understand how to be proactive ("The Silver Line WMATA story that WJLA-TV missed," 2014).  You don't complain about system problems when it opens, but before.

Sixth, and belatedly, that the Silver Line taxed the system's infrastructure in ways that have made degradation of service quality standard practice ("More on Redundancy, engineered resilience, and subway systems: Metrorail failures will increase without adding capacity in the core," 2016).

Complementary transit network improvement program for NoVA.  A few years ago, in line with the writings about how to leverage the Purple Line as a way to drive complementary improvements across the transit network ("Codifying the complementary transit network improvements and planning initiatives recommended in the Purple Line writings"), I wrote a similar piece on the Silver Line, "Using the Silver Line as the priming event, what would a transit network improvement program look like for NoVA?," which listed 2 system planning and 27 network improvements, for a total of 29. 

But it's really a broader program than could be accomplished in the time frame of constructing the Silver Line.

More network improvements. After that post was written in 2017, I continued to have related ideas: (1) a Tysons surface rail streetcar system, (2) extending the Blue Line further south (spurred by a conversation I had with a guy who lives near North Capitol Street and the Washington Hospital Center, who had lived in Virginia previously), and (3) dealing with ferry services, would make a total of 32 items.  

Plus, somehow I missed extending the Purple Line from New Carrollton to Alexandria and Springfield in Virginia.  So that's 33 items.

Yet another, but more from the standpoint of thinking of Metrorail as a commuter railroad, at least in the distant suburbs, would be extending it to Leesburg.  That would be 34 items.  Paul and I talked about it, but I never wrote anything about it.

Fantasy planning and the Paul Meissner maps.  The concept of "complementary transit network improvement planning" was triggered in part by work I was doing with Paul Meissner, in creating a map showing the various rail services as an integrated system and a separate map with ideas about expansion beyond existing services.

It was a mutual process.  I wanted elements he didn't and vice versa.  But a key organizing principle was including items that had been officially recommended at some point.  

Unfortunately, we weren't in a position to improve the map(s) iteratively as I expanded on some of the principles.

Adding a Tysons tram system to that list.  Later, I realized that along the lines of thinking about transit as a network operating at different scales

I propose a metropolitan scale as the foundation, usually heavy rail and railroad, and then center city and suburban (sub)networks within it.  But the concept of primary, secondary, and tertiary networks applies at multiple scales

that Tysons needs a surface level streetcar/tram/light rail system to really be able to create "a city." 

-- "A thought about an intra-district transit network for Tysons," 2020 
-- "Tysons (Corner) 10 Years after the plan to make it more walkable: the necessity of implementation mechanisms," 2020
-- "Making the case for intra-city versus inter-city transit planning, 2011
-- "Intra-neighborhood (tertiary) transit revisited because of new San Diego service," 2016

Models would be how Bilbao added a surface tram network, complementing the subway, to provide better service to major attractions like the Guggenheim Museum between subway stations ("Return to the Rails: The Motivations for Building a Modern Tramway in Bilbao Spain"), surface transit in Toyama City, Japan ("Brief follow up to intra-district transit proposal for Tysons: Toyama City Compact City initiative (Japan)"), and a proposal to extend transit service to a part of Ottawa, Ontario by extending the proposed light rail for Gatineau, Quebec, across the river.

Proposed Gatineau-Ottawa transit loop.

Flickr photo by Clagmaster of the Bilbao Tram leaving the Guggenheim Museum.

I feel even more strongly about that now, especially in response to the Post article, "After Silver Line, Tysons makes progress in becoming less car-centric," because Metrorail in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties doesn't operate at the right spatial and service scale necessary to drive on-the-ground urban design, sustainable mobility, and placemaking improvements in a substantive way ("Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning").

The Silver Line has station spacing more like commuter railroad--4 miles or more between stations,.  By contrast, DC and Arlington have strings of stations--3 to 4--over a 2 to 2.5 mile distance.  At the larger scale, urban design and placemaking benefits from transit are minimal.

Blue Line to Potomac Mills/Quantico.  Something we missed in the Meissner/Layman transit expansion map was an extension of the Blue Line south in Virginia.   Although we did send the Yellow Line down that way, but not as far, to Fort Belvoir.

-- "A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for the Metrorail Blue Line," 2020 

To deal with this planning wise, it's important to think about intra-district versus inter-county transit service.  To plan both for connection to the center city, but also how can the benefits be captured within Prince William County (the same conversation as for why I suggest a Tysons tram).

-- "Making the case for intra-city versus inter-city transit planning," 2011

Ferry service.  Another element that could be included, in terms of comprehensiveness, is ferry and water taxi services, even though they are pretty niche ("Metrorail shutdown south of AlexandriaNational Airport would have been a good opportunity to promote ferry service," 2017).   

There's been some use of ferries in response to the recent Yellow Line shutdown south of National Airport ("Alexandria looks to bicycles and boats to help replace Metro during shutdown," AlexNow).

But the Potomac River "isn't well situated" vis a vis activity centers to make ferry services foundational in the way that they can be in more port cities like Seattle, Sydney, or San Francisco, or when rivers are well situated in places like New York City and London (in other words those cities developed around their rivers while DC did not).

Purple Line to Virginia.  I first read about the PL concept in December 1987.  Almost 40 years later, a segment will open between Bethesda and New Carrollton.  There is zero planning to extend beyond that segment.  

If it takes 40 years for each segment, then any expansion that happens will be long after I die. 

But there should be planning for it now, especially from New Carrollton to Virginia ("Backwardness of transportation and land use planning: National Harbor, Prince George's County, Maryland | Why isn't high capacity transit access required from the outset?," "Prince George's County's newly announced transit oriented development program for the Blue Line," 2022). 

Extending the Silver Line to Leesburg.  It's about 8 miles from Ashburn, the end of the line of the Silver Line to Leesburg, the county seat for Loudoun County.  From the standpoint of "heavy rail" transit service, it makes no sense, but after Reston Town Center, the Silver Line Metrorail is more of a commuter railroad, so it's reasonable to consider, the same way it can be reasonable to extend the Blue Line to Quantico.

Note: these writings are all pre-covid.  The centrality of the center city as the foundation of the transit network is changing.

===========
Improvements recommended in the original Silver Line program blog entry

 Overarching recommendations:

1.  Create the DMV Transport Association ("The answer is: Create a single multi-state/regional multi-modal transit planning, management, and operations authority association ")
2.  Create regularized transportation funding mechanisms for the metropolitan area and region that transcend individual operators like WMATA ("DC area transit commission board member thinks he has a brilliant idea on how to fund Metrorail: sales taxes," 2022)

Network improvement program

1. Separating the Silver Line from the Orange Line by extending the line south to Rte. 50 and then east along the street to Rosslyn. That would provide six new stations: West Street; Falls Church; Seven Corners; Arlington Forest; Ashton Heights; and Fort Myer. Continuing the Silver Line from its endpoint at Ashburn to Leesburg should be considered also, which isn't depicted on the above map.

(There would be plenty of benefits for DC, discussed here, ""If DC had visionary elected officials and planners it could use the new WMATA "BOS" study to push through the development of a separated Silver Line in DC (and Northern Virginia)," 2019).

2. Extending the Orange Line west, adding four stations: Fairfax City/GMU; Fair Oaks; Fair Lakes; and Centreville.

3. Extending the Yellow Line south on Rte. 1 to Fort Belvoir, adding four stations: Beacon Hill; Hybla Valley; Mount Vernon; and Fort Belvoir.  (This should have been done as part of BRAC planning, something I first suggested in 2005.)

4. The map also acknowledges the planned infill Potomac Yard station on the Blue and Yellow Lines, and proposes an infill station, called East Potomac Park, serving the west side of the National Mall near Jefferson Memorial, within DC.

5. A new Pink Line rapid transit line (subway) is proposed serving Northern Virginia in the Columbia Pike corridor, with service to DC, adding eight stations in Northern Virginia.

6. Integration of various Bus Rapid Transit improvements into a unified network (shown on the map as green lines).

7. Set the opening of the Purple Line as the deadline for the integration of the MARC Penn Line and VRE Fredericksburg Line into one combined railroad passenger service line ("A new backbone for the regional transit system: merging the MARC Penn and VRE Fredericksburg Lines").

8.  Introduce bi-directional railroad service between DC and Fredericksburg in association with the combination of the MARC Penn and VRE Fredericksburg Lines into one integrated service.

9. Integrate the Crystal City railroad station into the ground transportation system of National Airport ("A brief comment on ground transportation at National Airport vis a vis VRE rail service").

10. Integrate VRE/MARC fares into the SmarTrip/ CharmCard fare media system.

11. Extend the Purple Line light rail from Bethesda to Tysons, using dedicated right of way, including on the American Legion Bridge.

12. Consider a redesign and rebranding of the the metropolitan area's bus systems into an integrated family of transit agencies linked by a common graphic design treatment, comparable to that of GoTransit in the Raleigh-Durham area.

13. Implementation of a full-fledged integrated Night Owl bus network for the DC metropolitan area.

14. Provide integrated train arrival information screens at Metrorail, Light Rail, and VRE/MARC stations.

15. Provide integrated bus arrival and departure information screens at Metrorail, Light Rail, and VRE/MARC stations and bus-only transit stations.

16. Incorporate quantum improvements in bicycle facilities across the mobility network in association with the launch of the Silver Line and Purple Line  ("Bike to Work Day as an opportunity to assess the state of bicycle planning: Part 2, building a network of bike facilities at the regional scale")

17. Rearticulate transportation demand management programming and services including a unified network of "customer information centers"

18. WMATA should upgrade its Metrorail station bus shelters (I know this happened at Springfield).

19. Create sustainable mobility districts and corridors as appropriate, complementing the transit network improvements, especially in the Tysons area, which is planned, but far behind in implementation. (See the writings on Silver Spring in the Purple Line series.)

20.  Railroad improvements are dependent on reconstruction and expansion of the Long Bridge (which is happening, "An early look at plans for new rail, pedestrian bridges over the Potomac," Washington Post).

21.  I would add a heritage streetcar service for the National Mall including service to Arlington Cemetery and Rosslyn ("A National Mall-focused heritage (replica) streetcar service to serve visitors is way bigger idea than a parking garage under the Mall" and "New DC Circulator route serving National Mall reminds us that we are neglecting connections from west to east and fail to adequately connect Georgetown to the National Mall").

22.  Georgetown BID's gondola proposal connecting Georgetown DC with Rosslyn in Arlington County, Virginia (Although I'd rather focus on a separated silver line)

23. Adoption of the City of Alexandria wayfinding signage system as a regional best practice, and porting the system to other jurisdictions.

24.  Incorporate the proposed VRE system improvements plan into this program.

25. Incorporate transit services associated with the I-66 project, Transform 66, into this program.

-- Transform 66 in Northern Virginia - Outside the Beltway: FAQs
-- Transform 66 in Northern Virginia - Inside the Beltway 

26. Improve funding for local transit in Prince William County ("With sustained reduction in gasoline prices, will suburban transit systems lose ridership and revenue?")

27. Integrate the long distance commuter bus network into a unified system.

Missing obvious opportunities to strengthen rail-based transit systems: Philadelphia Navy Yard and improvements to the transit "network"/platform

I have a piece about why the Manhattan Institute is wrong in saying that light rail systems shouldn't prioritize connections to airports ("Manhattan Institute misses the point about the value of light rail transit connections to airports | Utility and the network effect: the transit network as a platform"), making the point that the more key nodes within a metropolitan area are served by transit, the more useful is the system.

Similarly, the success of the NoMA Metrorail infill station on the Red Line in DC, which has triggered billions of dollars in new investment, and a sixfold rise in residential property values in one of the four districts served by the station (NoMA business district; Union Market; Eckington neighborhood; neighborhood north of H Street and south of Florida Avenue) demonstrates that strengthening the transit network in ways that open up latent value by improving mobility access is one of the best public investments you can make in urban revitalization.

-- "Transportation infrastructure as a key element of civic architecture/economic revitalization #1: the NoMA Metrorail Station ," 2016

In fact, witnessing the impact of that station is what led me to so significantly focus on transit in my writings and thinking about these issues.

Union Station railyard with MARC commuter train in the foreground.  The NoMA subway station is in the right top of the photo, and a section of the office district is shown to the west of the railyard.

So I am just floored that only now is the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation and SEPTA, the regional transit agency, looking at the provision of better transit connections--more bus services--to the Philadelphia Navy Yard, which is a major and growing employment center in the city ("SEPTA may add bus service to Navy Yard to ease traffic jams," Philadelphia Inquirer).

The reason it's surprising is that the redevelopment of the Yard has been underway since 1996 ("New Life for Philadelphia Shipyard," Washington Post), when the federal government announced its closure and then Mayor Ed Rendell began a process of revivification (screwed up by the state's Republican Governor, but eventually the process was positively redirected).

Proposed routes as of 2019

While the current transit planning efforts are focused on new bus services, long before now, SEPTA should have been moving forward on extending the Broad Street subway line by 1.5 miles from its current terminus. 

There's been discussion for many years, but no substantive movement. And as one of the early citizen directors of BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, used to say about planning for transit expansion--don't put it off, because construction costs only go up.  Apparently, studies have been underway since 2008.

-- "PIDC charts a course for BSL extension to Navy Yard," WHYY/NPR, 2015
-- "Price tag on Navy Yard subway extension could double original estimate," WHYY/NPR, 2018
-- "Here’s what a Broad Street Line extension to the Navy Yard could look like," PI, 2019 
-- Broad Street Line Extension to the Philadelphia Navy Yard – Phase 2 Feasibility Study, Penn DOT

By contrast the NoMA infill station process was about 7 years from conceptualization to the opening of the station--one of the fastest projects ever! 

It's been 14 years for the Broad Street Extension to the Navy Yard, with no real date for construction or opening reasonably predicted.

From a PI blog entry in 2015:

The Navy Yard development is home to GlaxoSmithKline, Urban Outfitters, a Marriott and about 140 other companies. About 13,000 people work there. Another two million square feet is slated to be developed and the previous feasibility study estimated about 8,000 people would use rail service by 2045.

Extending the line 1.5 miles past the sports complex would relieve traffic, improve commutes and encourage more development at the site.

Current plans expect to double the number of employees working there, although with the post-covid rise in work from home, those estimates will have to be recalculated.

 

HafenCity University Station, Hamburg.  Another example of a similar line extension was for the HafenCity redevelopment in Hamburg, Germany.  

HafenCity--port city--involves the redevelopment of about 2/3 of a square mile of land along the Elbe River, which was no longer needed for maritime industrial use.

As part of the redevelopment plan, the U4 line was extended by about 4/10 miles with the addition of the HafenCity University station (the line has since been further extended).  The project took six years to complete, and the station opened in 2012, with full service in 2013.

Conclusion.  Why wasn't extension of the subway one of the first agenda items for redevelopment planning for the Philadelphia Navy Yard?  It's been 26 years.  As much as I complain about the Purple Line and how long it's taking ("Sometimes you have to wonder if transit/transit projects are being deliberately screwed up to make transit expansion almost impossible"), at least that's 16 miles and 21 stations, not one mile and two stations.

Second, extending the Broad Street Line to the Philadelphia Navy Yard would be an example of my "Transformational Projects Action Planning" process and the idea that expansion and extensions to the transit network should be utilized to drive complementary improvements across the network to make the new infrastructure more successful and to increase overall ridership across the system.

I first laid this idea out in speculating what could be done in association with the development of the Purple Line light rail line in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties, Maryland, which will be integrated with the Metrorail system.

-- "Codifying the complementary transit network improvements and planning initiatives recommended in the Purple Line writings,"

The bus improvements SEPTA and PIDC are considering now should have been part of the planning process long ago, but also complementary to the subway extension, instead of a standalone process.

Third, fwiw, the Metrorail system and Prince George's County have failed similarly in terms of planning for high frequency transit service to the National Harbor development ("Backwardness of transportation and land use planning: National Harbor, Prince George's County, Maryland | Why isn't high capacity transit access required from the outset?").  That's been a process about as long as the one for the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

Or for redevelopment along the Blue Line ("Change is frustratingly slow, rarely visionary: Prince George's County, Maryland," "Prince George's County's newly announced transit oriented development program for the Blue Line").