Economic benefits of new light rail systems

[renf]

This essay suggests that the new light rail system in the District may stimulate economic activity in a once dormant neighborhood.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/bu...cars.html?_r=0

[iheartthed]

The street car in the photo is running curbside on a two-way street. I still think the M1 should operate in the median, but I guess curbside isn't the worst thing in the world...

[animatedmartian]

What I find more concerning is that it doesn't have it's own ROW. It pretty much can get slowed down by car traffic. Though I imagine it wouldn't be that hard to convert if they needed to.

[professorscott]

What I find more concerning is that it doesn't have it's own ROW. It pretty much can get slowed down by car traffic. Though I imagine it wouldn't be that hard to convert if they needed to.

Technically, nothing could be simpler. Politically, hmm. There are two steps:

1. Get MDOT [[for most of the route) and the City [[which owns a tiny sliver of Woodward at the south end of the route) to agree to prohibit non streetcar vehicles in the track lanes. That's the hard part.

2. Put up signs and perhaps tint the pavement along the tracks so cars and trucks know not to use the lane, and perhaps put a transit-only phase in the signals along Woodward. Easy and not expensive.

The difficulty, of course, is step 1. In the initial negotiations which led to where we are today, MDOT was pretty cold on the idea. If the streetcar becomes very popular, perhaps that will move the needle.

[DetroitPlanner]

What I find more concerning is that it doesn't have it's own ROW. It pretty much can get slowed down by car traffic. Though I imagine it wouldn't be that hard to convert if they needed to.

Run it down the Dequindre Cut instead? Not too convenient. Considering the people paying for most of it are Compuware, Quicken, the Medical Center, Wayne State, Olympia Arenas/Little Caesers and Kresge I am pretty sure it is on Woodward for their own interests. M-1 is for local trips and needs to be near traffic generators. Dequindre Cut gives you one: Eastern Market.

[Hermod]

Go for that economic development:

Attachment 23240

[dtowncitylover]

Go for that economic development:

Attachment 23240

It's sad you continue to deny the economic benfits of public transportation and promote the economic stagnation of freeway development, when the proof is all around you. I know you want to keep living like it's 1955, but dellusion is no way to live.

[iheartthed]

It's sad you continue to deny the economic benfits of public transportation and promote the economic stagnation of freeway development, when the proof is all around you. I know you want to keep living like it's 1955, but dellusion is no way to live.

Because he doesn't know any better. It's not his fault, he just hasn't ever lived in a real city.

[dtowncitylover]

Because he doesn't know any better. It's not his fault, he just hasn't ever lived in a real city.

And the one time he did live in a real city, it was basically destroyed because of ideas like his. Hermod, I'm not saying YOU destroyed the city, but working for the freeway department didn't help either [[though I do find it fascinating you worked there).

[animatedmartian]

Run it down the Dequindre Cut instead? Not too convenient. Considering the people paying for most of it are Compuware, Quicken, the Medical Center, Wayne State, Olympia Arenas/Little Caesers and Kresge I am pretty sure it is on Woodward for their own interests. M-1 is for local trips and needs to be near traffic generators. Dequindre Cut gives you one: Eastern Market.

I mean something like this:

http://goo.gl/maps/R68Ag

Though I can't find any curbside examples of it other than when the rail splits into single tracks on one-way roads or have double tracks on one side of a two-way street.

[nain rouge]

Buck up, Hermod! The troglodyte pro-transit fiends and their nefarious schemes are of little consequence! We'll entomb their puny streetcar tracks under cement faster than you can say "32 Mile", just like the corner of Vernor & Stotten!

Everywhere you look in Metro Detroit, the progress of high Western civilization continues unabated! Why, every day we see...

MCMANSIONS!



FREEWAYS!



STRIP MALLS IN THE HEART OF THE CITY!



Why worry about the rabble? So they'll blow some Obama money. Big deal. We all are. When the dust settles, we shall stand triumphant!

[DetroitPlanner]

I mean something like this:

http://goo.gl/maps/R68Ag

Though I can't find any curbside examples of it other than when the rail splits into single tracks on one-way roads or have double tracks on one side of a two-way street.

That won't get you much. In order for it not to be slown down you need to take into consideration of the biggest obstacle, traffic lights. It is not its own ROW, it is considered dedicated lanes. The ROW is still MDOT's.

[Eber Brock Ward]

M1 is supposed to have signal prioritization, right? Is this not true?

[Hermod]

It's sad you continue to deny the economic benfits of public transportation and promote the economic stagnation of freeway development, when the proof is all around you. I know you want to keep living like it's 1955, but dellusion is no way to live.

In the Washington DC area, they have an decent [[but very expensive) Metro system which is part subway and part surface lines. There has been a lot of office, retail, and condo development at the Metro station stops. This is very impressive until you compare it to the much more massive development which has occured at most of the exits to the Washington Beltway [[I-95/I-495) which rings Washington and has become known as "Washington's Main Street". The beltway which was supposed to be a bypass around Washington has become so congested by major developments that they are proposing an "outer beltway" thirty or so miles out to get the through traffic around Washington.

[animatedmartian]

That won't get you much. In order for it not to be slown down you need to take into consideration of the biggest obstacle, traffic lights. It is not its own ROW, it is considered dedicated lanes. The ROW is still MDOT's.

Traffic lights are to be expected. But if the train is mingling with traffic and traffic is congested and moving at a snail's pace [[for Detroit this likely would just be an issue on event days) then the train isn't really going to move any faster than the congestion. If it has it's own ROW, it can at least still maintain an average of 25 MPH or whatever between stations/traffic lights.

[Hermod]

High speed rail on Woodward Avenue. Note the development.

Attachment 23249

[dtowncitylover]

DC is the capitol of the most powerful nation on earth, of course everything everywhere is going to be developed. It also has a major case of urban sprawl, as well as a major case of urbanity. But at least one complements the other. Here one doesn't do anything for the other which is why we have been stagnant for the past 35 years. Suburbs haven't gotten any stronger, if only a little for the influx of Detroiters while Detroit has depopulated. We live in stagnation because the world needs strong urban centers, not haphazardly strung together suburban cores [[Southfield, Troy, Royal Oak, Dearborn) around a suffering urban wastleland.

And your photo is ridiclous. Woodward would be developed within 30 years and the streetcar would still be there. Then what? 1956. Take a drive down Woodward in the city today, pretty pathetic. I hate to envision what would have happened if we just kept and upgraded the streetcar line, probably a functional urban main street.

[downtownguy]

Technically, nothing could be simpler. Politically, hmm. There are two steps:

1. Get MDOT [[for most of the route) and the City [[which owns a tiny sliver of Woodward at the south end of the route) to agree to prohibit non streetcar vehicles in the track lanes. That's the hard part.

2. Put up signs and perhaps tint the pavement along the tracks so cars and trucks know not to use the lane, and perhaps put a transit-only phase in the signals along Woodward. Easy and not expensive.

The difficulty, of course, is step 1. In the initial negotiations which led to where we are today, MDOT was pretty cold on the idea. If the streetcar becomes very popular, perhaps that will move the needle.

Professor, what rationale did MDOT give for it's opposition to prohibiting vehicles in the track lanes?

[professorscott]

Professor, what rationale did MDOT give for it's opposition to prohibiting vehicles in the track lanes?

The difficulty with Woodward in the project area is that it is wider in some areas than in others, and in the narrower parts, taking away a travel lane in each direction would put the LOS at unacceptable levels. It would be possible to do it in the wider places, but it didn't seem like a good idea to essentially having the streetcar darting in and out of traffic.

To forestall an argument which will now come up: the DTOGS study simply assumed that whatever they wanted to do, whoever owned the right of way would allow. It wasn't true and still isn't. Even if the money had been there, the line couldn't have been built the way it was described to people.

It is possible, in the future, to move traffic off the streetcar track lanes if conditions warrant it. The essential condition is popularity [[use) of the streetcar coupled with concerns about its capacity. Speed increases capacity, inherently. More trains also increase capacity and improve the argument for separating the trains from cars and trucks. It would have to be combined with a plan for reallocating the traffic onto other roads, and there are various ways to do that, but M1 doesn't have enough money to solve the overall problem, and MDOT didn't have any budget for it either. So in the future, this is worth keeping our eyes on.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

I support M1 rail, BRT and some other improvements to bus service in SE Michigan, and possibly the rail link to AA [[I have more reservations about that than the others, though). That said, I don't think that for a moment that Freeways are either our enemy as a city, or the cause of most of our problems. I also wouldn't include transit in the definition of a "real city."

Freeways might have made commuting with the suburbs easier, but that is a convenience, not a motivation. Suburbs offered lower taxes, less crime, and better schools than Detroit. As the gap on those fronts widened, people would have moved to the suburbs even if they had had to crawl through a tunnel filled with razor wire and shards of glass. As we all know, it got very difficult and scary to run a business or raise a family in the city. Race was a factor for some, and the first half million residents to leave were largely white. But the second half million that followed was of decidedly mixed races. Freeways didn't cause any of that. Better transit wouldn't have stopped it. We accomplish nothing by creating phantom explanations for real problems.

The real damage freeways did do was to break up some neighborhoods [[although certainly not all areas in which a freeway was constructed were healthy and thriving).

As for M1 Rail, there are pros and cons with every detail, but it will lead to a much better, reliable and attractive commute along the center spine of the city. I prefer curbside stations fr the length of it, running in dedicated lanes. But I can live with it in whatever form it takes. I think it will lead to the current growth along Woodward turning into a boom, and a few years after starting service many people will be using it to move up and down a solid, unbroken downtown stretching from Jefferson to Grand Boulevard.

[ghettopalmetto]

In the Washington DC area, they have an decent [[but very expensive) Metro system which is part subway and part surface lines. There has been a lot of office, retail, and condo development at the Metro station stops. This is very impressive until you compare it to the much more massive development which has occured at most of the exits to the Washington Beltway [[I-95/I-495) which rings Washington and has become known as "Washington's Main Street". The beltway which was supposed to be a bypass around Washington has become so congested by major developments that they are proposing an "outer beltway" thirty or so miles out to get the through traffic around Washington.

The Outer Beltway was put on planning maps by your folks [[the highway engineers) in the 1950s. Maryland's InterCounty Connector [[ICC) is a segment of that proposed road. The $3 billion ICC tied-up Maryland's federal highway money for the next twenty years or so. The bonds were supposed to be repaid with tolls. Toll collections are less than expected, and the promised congestion relief has yet to materialize. Sound familiar?

Most of the sprawling development ringing the Beltway--Springfield, Greenbelt, Tysons Corner--was constructed before the Metro system reached those areas in the 1980s. Still, you can't fault Metro for short-sighted zoning in Virginia and Maryland. It *is* worth nothing, however, that Montgomery County, Maryland is tearing down the White Flint Mall [[near the White Flint Metro station) and replacing it with a more densely constructed, mixed-use, walkable environment. If someone proposed such density in Detroit, there'd be six more buildings bulldozed for surface parking lots.

[Hermod]

The Outer Beltway was put on planning maps by your folks [[the highway engineers) in the 1950s. Maryland's InterCounty Connector [[ICC) is a segment of that proposed road. The $3 billion ICC tied-up Maryland's federal highway money for the next twenty years or so. The bonds were supposed to be repaid with tolls. Toll collections are less than expected, and the promised congestion relief has yet to materialize. Sound familiar?

Most of the sprawling development ringing the Beltway--Springfield, Greenbelt, Tysons Corner--was constructed before the Metro system reached those areas in the 1980s. Still, you can't fault Metro for short-sighted zoning in Virginia and Maryland. It *is* worth nothing, however, that Montgomery County, Maryland is tearing down the White Flint Mall [[near the White Flint Metro station) and replacing it with a more densely constructed, mixed-use, walkable environment. If someone proposed such density in Detroit, there'd be six more buildings bulldozed for surface parking lots.

I used to drive from Petersburg, VA [[Ft Lee) to Aberdeen, MD [[Aberdeen Proving Ground) and back a lot in the 1973-1985 timeframe. To stay oput of the Washington mess, I would take US 301 and cross the Potomac River Bridge and go up through MD. Hitting the DC beltway at the wrong time of day was a disaster.

Then in 1985, I moved up to the DC area [[amazing what we will do for money) and had the long slog up Shirley Highway everyday from Backlick Road to King Street [[including the infamous Springfield-Franconia "mixing bowl".

[Pickford-Bentler]

The Outer Beltway was put on planning maps by your folks [[the highway engineers) in the 1950s. Maryland's InterCounty Connector [[ICC) is a segment of that proposed road. The $3 billion ICC tied-up Maryland's federal highway money for the next twenty years or so. The bonds were supposed to be repaid with tolls. Toll collections are less than expected, and the promised congestion relief has yet to materialize. Sound familiar?

Most of the sprawling development ringing the Beltway--Springfield, Greenbelt, Tysons Corner--was constructed before the Metro system reached those areas in the 1980s. Still, you can't fault Metro for short-sighted zoning in Virginia and Maryland. It *is* worth nothing, however, that Montgomery County, Maryland is tearing down the White Flint Mall [[near the White Flint Metro station) and replacing it with a more densely constructed, mixed-use, walkable environment. If someone proposed such density in Detroit, there'd be six more buildings bulldozed for surface parking lots.

That area around White Flint Mall is/was an unmitigated disaster for any pedestrian or bike rider.

A mixed-use, walkable environment is also rising around the Wheaton Mall.

[DetroitPlanner]

And your photo is ridiclous. Woodward would be developed within 30 years and the streetcar would still be there. Then what? 1956. Take a drive down Woodward in the city today, pretty pathetic. I hate to envision what would have happened if we just kept and upgraded the streetcar line, probably a functional urban main street.

If you think it [[Wodward) is bad now, you should have drove down it 15 years ago. You really need to assess things in terms of where they were and what they are now. If you did you will see things are much better in the M-1 area.

[professorscott]

Woodward would be developed within 30 years and the streetcar would still be there. Then what? 1956. Take a drive down Woodward in the city today, pretty pathetic. I hate to envision what would have happened if we just kept and upgraded the streetcar line, probably a functional urban main street.

To be fair, disestablishing transit in the post-WWII era was hardly unique to Detroit. Almost every city threw away its streetcar system, with a couple of scattered exceptions: Pittsburgh, New Orleans.

If we want to blame ourselves for where we are, I think it's better to look at the 1970s through the 1990s, when Uncle Sugar was ponying up money for transit and city after city was taking advantage of it. Since dtown mentioned the DC metro, this was the era of the design and construction of nearly all of it. We pooh-poohed the Federal money that could have built the DTOGS system, and more, about thirty years ago, ostensibly because our local "leaders" couldn't agree on details of the project, but really because nobody gave a damn; we were still pumping out expressways at a furious pace and that was going to solve all our problems.