|
Publications and Reports
CONGESTION RELIEF ANALYSIS For the Central Puget Sound, Spokane & Vancouver Urban Areas Prepared by: Washington State Department of Transportation
With the assistance of: Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, Inc.
This most interesting report has PB saying that Transit will do little for congestion relief but that HOT lanes (aka Managed Lanes) will.
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/F36F8FD8-2CF6-4A87-962C-10BAA412ADFA/0/1ExecutiveSummary.PDF
New UC Berkeley study rates vehicle energy use per passenger km:
A new study from researchers at UC-Berkeley looks at the total energy and emissions from various transportation modes taking into account all the energy used including construction and maintenance and occupancy. It is another explanation of why we cannot just assume that trains are more energy efficient than cars or vans or buses. As we have consistently pointed out in these pages,
a train that is highly directional — full into town in the morning and out of town in the evening — and is fairly empty outside of rush hours is not very efficient.
On the
other hand, those systems such as the New York and London subways, which carry heavy traffic in both directions, and at all hours, are highly efficient. It is another case of the devil being in the details.
The following is from a review of the study by Probe International:
"Taking the train to work is better for the environment than driving an SUV—right? Well, that depends.
"For example, if an SUV—one of the worst energy performers—is carrying two passengers, it suddenly becomes just as (in)efficient as a bus carrying eight people. If the car is carrying 3 or 4 passengers, then it’s actually BETTER than a low-occupancy bus. Or, a commuter train about 1/3 full emits as much NO as a bus with 13 passengers or a sedan with one.
"These are some of the findings from a recent study by researchers at the University of California. As part of the study, the researchers analyzed occupancy rates and the amount of emissions based on all factors—including construction, manufacturing, operation and maintenance—to determine the environmental impact of transportation.
"Typically, when politicians and advocacy groups examine the environmental effects of a particular mode of transportation they consider only operational emissions—known more commonly as tailpipe emissions. But this cuts out a number of other factors that should be considered when looking at the environmental impact on the various methods of transportation.
"While the CO2 emissions per person from an SUV are far greater than from trains and buses, they are even higher when the construction and maintenance of the highway, the manufacturing of the car and the mining of materials used to build the car are also included. But these factors also alter the emission levels when applied to train systems and airplanes."
U.S. Dept. of Transportation defines transportation subsidies by mode:
Somehow this study, Federal Subsidies to Passenger Transportation produced by the USDOT and the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics in 2004, has not surfaced before. But we are very grateful that it finally did as it is most important.
It is fascinating in that it finally defines for us the subsidies per 1,000 passenger-miles for each mode and we find that automobiles and vans make a net contribution (a minus subsidy) and every other mode is subsidized.
This is totally the opposite of what we normally hear from the anti-automobile crowd.
While this table is produced by the Heritage Foundation it uses the exact same data from Table 3 in the study for 2002. The full study is linked above.
The Heritage review, Federal Transportation Programs Shortchange Motorists is also available.
 May 27, 2009.
We have just noticed that the Hawaii Department of Health now stores online all kinds of Environmental Impact Statements going back to the 1970s. Click here.
Below are the main transportation FEISs from the past which may be compared to the current Draft EIS available on our tab to the left, "NEPA process docs."
FEIS 1982 Rail transit program
FEIS 1982 Rail transit program — Comments and Responses
FEIS 1992
Rail transit program
FEIS 1992
Rail transit program Appendix B
FEIS 1992
Rail transit program Appendix C.
May 11, 2009.
U.S. DOT finds the top 7 rail lines need $50 billion in repairs:
More than one-third of the trains, equipment and facilities of the nation's seven largest rail transit agencies are near the end of their useful life or past that point, the government says. Many have components that are defective or may be critically damaged.
A report by the Federal Transit Administration estimates it will cost $50 billion to bring the rail systems in Chicago, Boston, New York, New Jersey, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington DC, into good repair and $5.9 billion a year thereafter to maintain them.
Those seven systems carry 80 percent of the nation's urban rail transit passengers, or more than 3 billion passenger trips a year. They also include some of the oldest subways and commuter railroads. Some of their facilities date back more than a century.
"In a period of rising congestion and fuel prices, these services and the infrastructure and rolling stock that support them, are critical to the transportation needs and quality of life of the communities they serve," the report said.
"At the same time, this infrastructure is aging and the level of reinvestment appears insufficient to address a growing backlog of deferred investment needs," the report said.
Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., one of 11 senators who requested the report, said older transit systems have received a declining share of federal rail transit aid as newer systems have come online. In 1993, the seven largest rail transit systems received 90 percent of federal modernization funds, compared with 70 percent today.
OUR COMMENT: Notice that Dick Durbin is requesting the report; he, and the other ten senators, will use it to press for a greater share of transit funds for the seven largest system and especially Chicago. It means there will be even more heated competition for the small amount of funds allocated to rail transit and that means less chance of Honolulu getting all of the $1.4 billion in rail funding that it is counting on for its financial plan.
A guide to Honolulutraffic.com’s comments on the Draft EIS
Our comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for rail transit was sent to Federal Transit Administration and the City and ran to 67 pages in seven parts. This guide briefly summarizes each of the seven parts and then links to each one.
Commuting in America III
Alan Pisarski's decennial publication analysing the latest results from each Census focused on the journey-to-work data.
2007 DOE Energy Data Book.
The U.S. Department of Energy's Transportation Data Book is an essential reference for finding the energy use of various modes of travel.
Dale Evans: Rail rider safety not addressed in rail plans:
Rarely addressed is the issue of crime on rail transit especially in operator-less vehicles. For example, the British Columbia government survey of passenger attitudes found that SkyTrain riders were fare more worried about their personal safety than were Vancouver's bus riders.
Dale Evans, Chair of the Hawaii Highway Users Alliance and CEO of Charley's Taxi, has written an excellent op/ed on transit crime complete with footnoted sources. Read "Rider and Protection are not Addressed in Rail Plans.
Wachs: "When Planners Lie with Numbers":
Dr. Martin Wachs, Emeritus Professor of Urban Planning at UCLA and presently head of Rand Corporation's transportation practice, wrote, When Planners Lie with Numbers for the American Planning Association Journal in 1989. The article
is only three pages and the following excerpts will hopefully whet your appetite for it:
"The most effective planner is sometimes the one who can cloak advocacy in the guise of scientific or technical rationality. Rather than stating that we favor a particular highway project or renewal program for ideological reasons or because our clients stand to gain more from that project than from alternatives, we adjust data and assumptions until we can say that the data clearly
show that the preferred option is best."
"Our profession does little to discipline planners who fudge data or deliberately misrepresent the truth through technical manipulation of data or models. Such abuses arise because we live at a time when it is necessary to support one's position with facts and figures in order to be convincing. A professional judgment unsubstantiated by facts or modeling results is not as valid as one
that is. Yet, in some situations the facts are not readily at hand, and the cost and time
required for gathering them are prohibitive." (original emphasis)
Wachs: "Ethics and Advocacy in Forecasting for Public Policy":
Dr. Martin Wachs, whose "When Planners Lie with Numbers" was featured yesterday, also wrote in a similar vein for the Business and Professional Ethics Journal on, Ethics and Advocacy in Forecasting for Public Policy.
To again try to entice you into reading the whole article, here are some excerpts:
"The complex mathematical models and large data bases
characteristic of modern forecasts thus obfuscate the fact that they are all
elaborations of relatively simple assumptions about the future, and they hide
from the public the fact that the assumptions included in the forecast can be
selected to help advocate certain courses of action for political purposes." pp. 149-50
"A forecaster might be in the employ of an engineering
firm which received a small contract to estimate the need for a bridge. If the
bridge is shown to be justified, additional consulting fees for design and
engineering might produce much more income than that derived from preparing the
forecast itself. If the bridge is shown to be unnecessary, no further contracts
may be awarded. In such settings, it is obvious that forecasters are under
pressure to adjust their predictions for self serving purposes." p. 153
"It is indeed difficult to
withstand pressures to produce self serving forecasts which are cloaked in the
guise of technical objectivity." p. 153.
In, Does Rail Transit Save Energy or Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Randal
O’Toole writes:
"Far from protecting the environment, most rail transit lines use more energy per passenger mile, and many generate more greenhouse gases, than the average passenger automobile. Rail transit provides no guarantee that a city will save energy or meet greenhouse gas targets.
"While most rail transit uses less energy than buses, rail transit does not operate in a vacuum: transit agencies supplement it with extensive feeder bus operations. Those feeder buses tend to have low ridership, so they have high energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile. The result is that, when new rail transit lines open, the transit systems as a whole can end
up consuming more energy, per passenger
mile, than they did before.
"Even where rail transit operations save a little energy, the construction of rail transit lines consumes huge amounts of energy and emits large volumes of greenhouse gases. In most cases, many decades of energy savings would be needed to repay the energy cost of construction.
"Rail transit attempts to improve the environment by changing people's behavior so that they drive less. Such behavioral efforts have been far less successful than technical solutions to toxic air pollution and other environmental problems associated with automobiles."
It is well worth the time to read this study as it debunks the idea that rail transit in Honolulu will save energy and reduce gas emissions.
OMPO says great public support for HOT lanes: An interesting general result of the survey is that it shows great public support for new highway facilities, such as HOT lanes and widening highways, particularly H-1 from Pearl City to Kahala. There is no support for bikeways. Clearly, our elected officials are out of sync with their constituents
because the officials keep opting for bikeways and rejecting building highways whereas the voters think exactly the opposite. READ MORE
Skytrain noise unacceptable said BC Ombudsman: The Ombudsman for British Columbia wrote three years after SkyTrain began running that, "The negative external effects of Skytrain currently include in some areas unacceptable noise levels, a harsh and forbidding presence, loss of privacy reduced property values and a depreciated enjoyment of individual and community lifestyle. The
impact over time of these effects will include a gradual deterioration of the neighbourhoods with associated social and economic costs, a less desirable
transportation system, and a loss of public regard for the Skytrain concept." The Ombudsman's 28-page report is on the BC government website and should be read in full READ MORE
The Politics of Gridlock by Robert Atkinson, Vice President of the Progressive Policy Institute. Some excerpts from this 14-page article together with a link to the publication.
This links to a list of 21 publications dealing with errors in forecasting for rail transit projects.
Federal Transit Administrations's Contractor Performance Assessment Report 2007. Reveals the extent of cost overruns in recently built transit systems through 2003.
Listing of Managed Lanes now available:
This listing officially called "U.S. Managed Lane Projects with Pricing Component" was produced by the Transportation Research Board's Joint Subcommittee on Managed Lanes and was accurate through February 2007. It lists seven existing projects, two under construction and 30 under development. We will maintain this list under both the "Publications"
and "HOT lanes" tabs. DOWNLOAD LIST
Why we use Census data rather than
"boardings":
We were recently asked why we use Census
journey-to-work data rather than the
"boardings" data typically used by transit
agencies and certainly by rail proponents.
It's quite simple. The "boardings" data can
lead to large increases in apparent ridership
when there may have been none.
READ
MORE
- The
Dantata report: Northeastern
University scholars presented a new study at this year’s
Transportation Research Board’s Annual Conference. (Dantata, Nasiru A., Ali
Touran & Donald C. Schneck. Trends
in U.S. Rail Transit Project Cost Overrun. TRB Annual Meeting 2006).
This study uses the Pickrell methodology to compare projected versus actual
costs for post-1990 rail projects. They found that cost overruns in the 16
projects studied averaged 28.8 percent. This study has been criticized for not including some
of the worst culprits that were over budget.
- Parsons Brinckerhoff says transit won't
cut it:
Recently
Washington State DOT released a Congestion
Relief Analysis report prepared at the request
of the Washington State legislature with a
team led by Parsons
Brinckerhoff.
The
report says that "transit expansion alone is
not shown to be effective in reducing total
delay." It goes on to say that, "[Congestion]
pricing in the form of High Occupancy Toll
(HOT) lanes is found to reduce corridor delay
and make the corridor operate more
efficiently. HOT lanes make corridor travel
time more reliable, which benefits everyone,
including occasional users."
The
Report is another nail in the coffin of the
idea that transit of any kind can reduce
traffic congestion. Obviously, the reports
coming in from all over the country that no
one reduces traffic congestion using rail
transit has had an impact on US DOT and
resulted in the new federal congestion
policies spelled out below.
READ
MORE
- Excerpts
from “An Evaluation of the Honolulu Rapid Transit Development
Project's Alternative Analysis and Draft Environmental Impact
Statement.” Hawaii Office of State Planning and University of
Hawaii. May 1990.
READ MORE
This very interesting study of the last attempt to build
a Honolulu rail transit line was conducted by a number of academic
transportation experts from Mainland universities. They detail
the shortcomings of that plan. Things have not changed.
- "A
Desire Named Streetcar: How Federal Subsidies Encourage Wasteful
Local Transit Systems," by Randal O’Toole, also of the Thoreau Institute, gives an historical overview
of "how federal subsidies have encouraged wasteful local
transit systems." He says, "To pay for high-cost suburban
rail transit routes, transit agencies often raise fares or cut
back on services to inner-city areas. The result is that taxpayers
often end up paying heavy subsidies for projects that reduce
overall transit ridership and often harm transit-dependent families."
READ MORE
O'Toole: "Debunking Portland
— the city that doesn't work":
If you have any tendency
to believe the planners' hype about Portland's light rail and Transit Oriented
Developments (TODs), you should visit Portland with O'Toole's latest Cato study
in hand. For example, fewer people use transit in Portland today than did before
Portland started its billions of dollars of rail binge. READ MORE
- The University of Aalborg in Denmark has just
finished a 58 nation study of public
transportation ridership forecasts, which is
published this month in
Transport
Reviews
. It
"
presents results from the
first statistically significant study of
traffic forecasts in transportation
infrastructure projects. The sample used is
the largest of its kind, covering 210 projects
in 14 nations worth US$58 billion ...
Forecasts have not become more accurate over
the 30-year period studied ... For nine out of
ten rail projects, passenger forecasts are
overestimated; average overestimation is 106%
... Highly inaccurate traffic forecasts …
translate into large financial and economic
risks. But such risks are typically ignored or
downplayed by planners and decision-makers, to
the detriment of social and economic
welfare."
READ MORE
- Our
comments on the city's Scoping Meeting held December 13/14,
2005. COMMENTS
- Underestimating Costs in Public Works Projects Error
or Lie?By Bent Flyvbjerg, Mette Skamris Holm,
and Søren Buhl.
"Based on a
sample of 258 transportation
infrastructure projects worth US$90
billion and representing different project types, geographical regions, and
historical periods, it is found with
overwhelming statistical significance that the cost estimates used to decide
whether such projects should be built are highly and systematically misleading.
Underestimation cannot be explained by error
and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying. The
policy implications are clear: legislators,
administrators, investors, media representatives, and members of the
public who value honest numbers should not trust cost estimates and
cost-benefit analyses produced by project promoters and their analysts.""
- TRIP's study, "Paying the Price for Inadequate
Roads in Hawaii: The Cost to Motorists in Reduced
Safety, Lost Time and Increased Vehicle Wear,"
found that Hawaii's major roads and its bridges
have significant deficiencies. In addition, 125
people, on average, die each year in motor vehicle
accidents statewide.
READ MORE
- City's
Rail Development Schedule.
- BART's
2004 Annual
Report
- American Planning Association Journal spells out how and why transit planners
lie about projections. FULL STUDY
- TRIP, a national transportation nonprofit research organization based in
Washington, D.C., "Paying the Price for Inadequate Roads in
Hawaii: The Cost to Motorists in Reduced Safety, Lost Time and Increased Vehicle
Wear," READ MORE
- The
Campaign Spending Commission added up the contributions given to
former Mayor Harris's campaign by the consultants that produced
the BRT Final Environmental Impact Statement and it came to exactly
$435,400. SEE DETAILS
- Sir Peter Hall, author of Cities of Tomorrow and Cities and Civilization
and a world
authority on the development of great cities, tells us that great cities were,
and are, "economic leaders, cities at the heart of vast trading
empires, places in frenzied transition, magnets for talented people seeking fame
and fortune. Outsiders made these places what they were: Athens's version of
green-card holders, the noncitizen Metics; the Jews in 1900 Vienna; foreign
artists in Paris around the same time." Ah, don't we wish. READ MORE
- HOT lanes are Lexus lanes and for the rich. Answer: Surprisingly, low-income
drivers support "Lexus lanes." Read the Federal Highways Department's (FHWA)
studies of this issue. READ MORE
- The Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA) shows that Honolulu has the fewest 'Miles of Roadway Per
Person' than any of the 401 Urbanized Areas that the FHWA tracks, which is
basically anywhere with a population greater than 50,000. Only Honolulu has just
1.5 miles of road per 1,000 persons. See FHWA rankings
- The Progressive Policy
Institute, proponents of the ‘third way,’ have
just released a 14-page critique of:
“the congestion coalition (a
small, but extremely influential anti-highway,
anti-car, and anti-suburban coalition) has changed
the focus of transportation policy from one
expanding supply to one of restraining demand and
getting people out of cars.” It also says,
“Progressives should define congestion as a
problem of inadequate infrastructure. They should
support an array of policies designed to give
Americans the world-class transportation
infrastructures they deserve, including public
transit, biking and walking trails, and expanded
and less congested roads.” Here are some excerpts
from
"Politics of
Gridlock"
- Rail's operating subsidy $52 million
annually:
That was the City's estimate from the 1992 plan. READ MORE
- We also said that, like the Emperor in the fable, this train has no clothes.
The original
story has elected officials totally
persuaded that the con men's new cloth "had the strange quality of being
invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office or unforgivably stupid.” In
other words, if you can’t see that trains will reduce traffic congestion, you
are unfit for office. Thus, predictably, the bill passed. READ THE
STORY
- Public Roads Magazine
discusses "Managed Lanes":
The November/December
issue of the FHWA's bi-monthly magazine had a great article, "Managed Lanes:
Combining access control, vehicle eligibility, and
pricing strategies can help mitigate congestion and improve mobility on the
Nation's busiest roadways." READ THE ARTICLE.
- The New York Times favors
automobiles? The Times, which normally prints only all the news that fits,
prints a long piece in favor of the automobile and points out the fallacies of trying
to solve congestion problems with public transportation. Astonishing! Read
it. FULL STORY
- Nationally recognized transportation consultant, Wendell Cox
writes, "Where
rail transit works, and why."
- August 3,
2003. Privatization study ignored. We are shocked — absolutely shocked —
that the City failed to disclose the 30-40 percent potential savings from privatization that PB Consult had
provided it as part of the new FEIS
- Final Environmental Impact
Statement,
For BRT date August 2003.
- October 7, 2003. It's 12th anniversary of the publication of "The
Sensible Transit Alternative," which was our suggestion at the time
for alternatives to the rail transit proposal being offered then. It included
modifying the center of H-1 for HOV lanes (we're getting there), studying a
reversible highway between downtown and Waikele (we're looking at it now),
supplementing TheBus during rush hour with private sector alternatives to
increase ridership and reduce bus subsidies (one of these days). We still
believe that such options are the best way to reduce traffic congestion. Download "The
Sensible Transit Alternative." (Note: very large 16 meg file; allow a 5
minute download on cable and it needs Acrobat Reader)
- Professor Prevedouros has given us an overview of congestion
nationally in, "Thoughts and Facts on
Traffic Congestion and Fixed Mass Transit," and it is essential
reading.
-
|