'What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate'

[AaroniusLives]

This bundling helped kill a similar bill in Atlanta a few years ago.  So many people poured their hearts over it, but at the end of the day, neither the car folks nor the transit folks were happy, and people on all sides were displeased at the messaging, which was that "traffic would be relieved", when it was clear that it was more of a jobs/stimulus bill than a true traffic reliever.

Simms3, my whole point on this is that THIS is the discussion we should be having regarding transit investments in the country. I just don't like the distortion of the issue. In this article's case, I find it disingenuous to present streetcar successes, like Tucson's, alongside streetcar failures, like DC's (which has become something of a poster child for streetcar poor planning in transit circles,) alongside streetcars that have been voted down, like Austin's and Arlington's, bunched in with streetcars that arguably don't exist, like the 'made on my 1999 iMac Bondi Blue' Sarasota Streetcar page.

There's no doubt that a streetcar or streetcars in the right location and context would be fantastic in Jacksonville, just like any other transit node. And there's no doubt that by presenting a deep dive into this issue would generate new ideas and ways of approaching the streetcar dream, and turning that into an initiative, and hopefully, a reality. No doubt in my mind. None.

For example, without my combing over the list presented, I'd have never seen that Grand Rapids is actually reviving a streetcar plan, is using it to complement a BRT system, and is considering finding ways to finance the line without federal funding. That's flat-out fascinating, and it opens the debate in Metro Jacksonville into places where you can see a streetcar initiative going it alone without the feds, perhaps without JTA, and with the support of the communities and businesses that would be grouping together to finance the line. That's fascinating stuff, inspiring stuff. Worth a debate or even a visit to Grand Rapids to see what they're doing right.

But to put together a jpeg/power point mood poem, where every city that's ever considered a modern streetcar and some that haven't (ahem...Sarasota...ahem,) where "success," "failure," "pipe-dream" and "voted down" are all considered and presented as having the same pro-streetcar weight, with the implication being that everyone is doing it, when that's plainly not the case, is not fostering productive transit debate. It's distortion. Propaganda. It's exactly what bought Jax the SkyWay, Miami the MetroFail, and so on.

[simms3]

^That's what a good chunk of transportation projects are these days. Jobs/stimulus projects. SR 9B and the First Coast Expressway aren't needed to "relieve" local streets. Both are examples of projects needed to trigger land development on on the properties surrounding them.

^^^Right, but not pitching it as such was a political misstep for the bill in Atlanta (among many missteps).  Congestion is a real and growing problem in Atlanta, so people were upset and felt lied to that a stimulus bill was wrongly labeled as a traffic reliever, or they felt it wasn't what was needed to solve the traffic issue (and transit advocates had their own set of grievances).

Pretty comprehensive, high level take:

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/voters-reject-transportation-tax/nQXfq/

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/after-t-splost-defeat-business-groups-retool-messa/nQXg8/

[AaroniusLives]

^^^Right, but not pitching it as such was a political misstep for the bill in Atlanta (among many missteps).  Congestion is a real and growing problem in Atlanta, so people were upset and felt lied to that a stimulus bill was wrongly labeled as a traffic reliever, or they felt it wasn't what was needed to solve the traffic issue (and transit advocates had their own set of grievances).

To be fair, T-SPLOST's failure to pass is almost emblematic of Metro Atlanta's issues, where a refusal to work together paired with a deep distrust of government (and unspoken, yet obvious imbedded racism,) all work or don't work together to not promote transit.

"They're not proposing anything that will benefit me," Pollard said. "We're not getting anything out of this. People in the north — they're going to benefit big-time."

It's opinions like that, true or not, that leave out the obvious: that T-SPLOST would have benefited Metro Atlanta as a whole, that helped killed the bill.

[simms3]

^^^Right, but not pitching it as such was a political misstep for the bill in Atlanta (among many missteps).  Congestion is a real and growing problem in Atlanta, so people were upset and felt lied to that a stimulus bill was wrongly labeled as a traffic reliever, or they felt it wasn't what was needed to solve the traffic issue (and transit advocates had their own set of grievances).

To be fair, T-SPLOST's failure to pass is almost emblematic of Metro Atlanta's issues, where a refusal to work together paired with a deep distrust of government (and unspoken, yet obvious imbedded racism,) all work or don't work together to not promote transit.

"They're not proposing anything that will benefit me," Pollard said. "We're not getting anything out of this. People in the north — they're going to benefit big-time."

It's opinions like that, true or not, that leave out the obvious: that T-SPLOST would have benefited Metro Atlanta as a whole, that helped killed the bill.

All even bigger issues in Jax.  Jax will have to learn from a city like Atlanta on how to tackle transit/tax PR.

[AaroniusLives]

All even bigger issues in Jax.  Jax will have to learn from a city like Atlanta on how to tackle transit/tax PR.

I think the primary issue with places like Atlanta and Houston, or Dallas, for that matter, is that they want to be all things to all people, at least as it pertains to the urban fabric. I don't think Atlanta, for example, either as an individual city or as an insanely not dense metropolitan statistical area, has any clue as to how to get to a definition of what they are to become; everything there is "lifestyle" versus actuality. One lives an "urban lifestyle," defined by driving pretty much everyplace. And one lives a "country manor" lifestyle, defined by look-a-like, massive houses in absurdly low densities.

It will be interesting to see how Atlanta (or others) will actualize urbanity on a large scale, if they, in fact, can.

One of the things I've actually come to appreciate about DC is the idea that they know what kind of city/metro region they want to be, which is to say a brain magnet with a strong transit backbone. The growing pains of getting from dense core with suburban/exurban donuts is proving to be quite painful to overcome, but...at least...there's a plan, a vision...an idea of where we are trying to go, in general. I certainly don't think that's in place in ATL, Houston, Dallas or the rest.   

[AaroniusLives]

http://www.communitiesfortransit.org/master_plan

Lake, MoCo's BRT Master Plan.

[simms3]

All even bigger issues in Jax.  Jax will have to learn from a city like Atlanta on how to tackle transit/tax PR.

I think the primary issue with places like Atlanta and Houston, or Dallas, for that matter, is that they want to be all things to all people, at least as it pertains to the urban fabric. I don't think Atlanta, for example, either as an individual city or as an insanely not dense metropolitan statistical area, has any clue as to how to get to a definition of what they are to become; everything there is "lifestyle" versus actuality. One lives an "urban lifestyle," defined by driving pretty much everyplace. And one lives a "country manor" lifestyle, defined by look-a-like, massive houses in absurdly low densities.

It will be interesting to see how Atlanta (or others) will actualize urbanity on a large scale, if they, in fact, can.

One of the things I've actually come to appreciate about DC is the idea that they know what kind of city/metro region they want to be, which is to say a brain magnet with a strong transit backbone. The growing pains of getting from dense core with suburban/exurban donuts is proving to be quite painful to overcome, but...at least...there's a plan, a vision...an idea of where we are trying to go, in general. I certainly don't think that's in place in ATL, Houston, Dallas or the rest.   

The irony is that though DC is a successful model of suburban [true] TOD implementation and has a pretty urban core and excellent heavy rail system serving both city and metro, its metro area is no more dense than Atlanta's true core metro area.  Take Atlanta's 5 dominant counties, and they are not only the vast bulk of the population, they are often slightly denser than metro DC's counties (Montgomery Cty MD, for instance, or NoVA counties).

The two metros as a whole are quite alike, both demographically and in general development.  Atlanta doesn't have nearly as strong a core and it's a decade or two behind in terms of regional planning progress, but the two metros are far more similar to each other than different.  There is more of a tea party element in Atlanta's burbs than DC's, but that would be one of the only key differences producing different obstacles.  I would guess Atlanta has a bit more poverty (and sadly still crime), as well (which only helps fuel any racial/economic disparities it may have).

[AaroniusLives]

I've lived in both places. I actually find DC to be closer to Miami's frame of mind than Atlanta's, although, you're right about the core counties to a degree.

I don't dislike Atlanta, but it drops off from urban to suburban, even in the core, insanely quick. And when you go OTP, man, there's a whole lotta middle class people living their plantation dreams! It's no wonder it's one of the least densely populated MSAs in the country.

I think the issue is that the model for development and success there has been those super low density burbs, and that there's political and personal resistance to a rework of said burbs. DC has them as well, but they're not nearly as "acreaged" and not nearly as tea partied, so the reinvention continues apace.

I will say this: I miss Atlanta. Beautiful place with great food and superb cheap living. It certainly has the best weather by far, and of the sprawling sunbelt cities, I think it probably has the most potential to last, especially if they keep on keeping with the trees as they urbanize. For the right job, I'd miss DC but I'd move back.

[thelakelander]

http://www.communitiesfortransit.org/master_plan

Lake, MoCo's BRT Master Plan.

Thanks. It looks pretty comprehensive and complements the existing transit network pretty well.  A few questions:

1. How is it being funded, what's the total capital costs/mile and timeline for implementation?

2. To accommodate dedicated lanes, is the plan to take advantage of lane reductions on existing corridors or widen them?

3. If the dedicated lanes are coming at the expense of existing travel lanes, are these facilities maintained by DOT?

[simms3]

I've lived in both places. I actually find DC to be closer to Miami's frame of mind than Atlanta's, although, you're right about the core counties to a degree.

I don't dislike Atlanta, but it drops off from urban to suburban, even in the core, insanely quick. And when you go OTP, man, there's a whole lotta middle class people living their plantation dreams! It's no wonder it's one of the least densely populated MSAs in the country.

I think the issue is that the model for development and success there has been those super low density burbs, and that there's political and personal resistance to a rework of said burbs. DC has them as well, but they're not nearly as "acreaged" and not nearly as tea partied, so the reinvention continues apace.

I will say this: I miss Atlanta. Beautiful place with great food and superb cheap living. It certainly has the best weather by far, and of the sprawling sunbelt cities, I think it probably has the most potential to last, especially if they keep on keeping with the trees as they urbanize. For the right job, I'd miss DC but I'd move back.

I can't think of any city that reminds me in almost any way of Miami.  Superficially, perhaps LA.  But even then, LA and Miami are vastly vastly different.  And quite frankly, Atlanta has more of that superficial "celebrity vibe" and "keeping up with the Joneses" vibe that SoFla has in abundance than I've experienced in most places.  But not similar - I can't imagine DC is all that similar to Miami, and I think that in many ways is a compliment.

I agree that Atlanta drops off in urbanity really quickly - in fact I'd go so far as to argue that Atlanta doesn't really have all that much urbanity to begin with, even in its densest pockets.  I think that is the biggest difference between DC and Atlanta, due to DC's core and a few of its more well thought out non-core cities (Rosslyn/Ballston/Bethesda/Silver Spring, etc).

But to be fair, DC's core is a little tweener in that it's "newer" and substantially less dense than Boston's, Philly's, Chicago's, or San Francisco's, even parts of LA's.  And the famed Rosslyn, VA doesn't look all that different from Buckhead in Atlanta (shorter buildings, less linear, slightly better - relatively - planning):

Rosslyn:

source

Buckhead:

source

Relative densities:

3) Metro Atlanta truly does sprawl 8400 sq mi and people (oddly) make those commutes.  BUT, to put things in perspective:

Atlanta

County / Population / Area / Density

Fulton   984,293   527   1,868
Cobb   717,190   340   2,109
Dekalb   713,340   268   2,662
Gwinnett   859,304   430   1,998
Clayton   259,424   142   1,827

Total     3,533,551   1,707   2,070
Metro  5,522,942 8,376   659
64% of metro Atlantans live in 20% of the land area.

Houston

County / Population / Area / Density

Harris   4,336,853   1,704   2,545

Total   4,336,853   1,704   2,545
Metro   6,313,158   10,062   627
69% of metro Houstonians live in the central county (17% of metro land area)

DC

County / Population / Area / Density

DC   646,449   61   10,598
Montgomery   1,016,677   491   2,071
Prince George's   890,081   483   1,843
Arlington   227,146   26   8,736
Fairfax   1,116,897   391   2,857
Prince William   431,258   336   1,284
         
Total    4,328,508   1,788   2,421
Metro   5,949,859   5,564   1,069
73% of metro DC'ers live in 32% of the metro area land


My point about DC blending new urbanist/Sunbelt style development with that of an older, traditional city still stands.  It's literally the point between the North and the South and metro DC suburbs are essentially the same style/density as metro Atlanta suburbs.

DC and Atlanta are much more alike than you're giving credit.  Their heavy rail systems are also similar (similar age/vintage, similar program, similar mix of inner city rapid rail and heavy rail commuter style to the burbs).

[tufsu1]

^ when comparing densities, it is important to note that Montgomery County, MD has a large greenbelt.  The northern half of the county has purposefully been kept largely rural.  It should be subtracted from the urban density calculations.

[Redbaron616]

There should be objective reporting on the advantages/disadvantages of rail in Jacksonville rather than showing subjective websites of other rail lines' websites claims. Naturally, one should take all such claims and numbers with a huge grain of salt as government always inflates things to look wonderful. Any development along a rail line is automatically assumed to be caused by the rail line, no doubt. Costs are also always projected about 30 - 50% lower than what the actual costs end up being. When was the last time you ever saw any government project that even came within 15% of the projected cost? Government has every reason to sell the cost as lower in order to get a project going. Only then does the taxpayer realize that government plays this game each and every time.

[thelakelander]

And the famed Rosslyn, VA doesn't look all that different from Buckhead in Atlanta (shorter buildings, less linear, slightly better - relatively - planning):

Rosslyn:

source

Buckhead:

source

Rosslyn is definitely denser than Buckhead. That area of Northern Virginia started to densify a bit earlier than Buckhead, so it's further along.  It's also a lot more pedestrian friendly and urban at street level.  The population density of its census tracts are 20k residents per square mile and above. Buckhead's densest tract is less than 8k residents per square mile, according the the US Census Bureau.

http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/map

[AaroniusLives]

I'm also not sure what we're looking at here...subjective selections of counties? Just go with the MSA or the continuous urbanized area. Metro Atlanta is known for, and is frequently the poster child for non-dense urban sprawl. Which isn't to say that DC doesn't have its own absurdities of scale as they compare to "dense, urban development," where people in Martinsburg, WV MARC Train into work everyday. But, c'mon. Atlanta is less dense than Tampa, not exactly a packed in metro...and by a looooooooottttttttt. I also have two sisters living in Houston; one in Montrose and one in the burbs, and Houston is by no means remotely dense, nor would anyone view it as such from any experience of being there.

We're also absurdly keeping DC and Baltimore's MSA's apart, as if there's not a massive cross-commuting pattern there. That CSA, I believe, still has less land area that Metro Atlanta and certainly less than the insanity that is Houston... and is in the 9.5 million people range or so.

I meant that Miami and DC feel more global and cosmopolitan than Atlanta did to me. And that both DC and Miami represent flip sides to pretense in people. There was/is just more of a feeling of cultural alignment in ways that the ATL seemed to mimic but didn't necessarily practice. But, that's just an opinion and a personal feeling, and thus, isn't quantifiable.

Nothing against Atlanta at all, really. Just different strokes for different folks. Everything against Houston because Texas is a wretched hole of backwards science and politics.

[simms3]

^ when comparing densities, it is important to note that Montgomery County, MD has a large greenbelt.  The northern half of the county has purposefully been kept largely rural.  It should be subtracted from the urban density calculations.

^^^That's a good point - weighted average density is going to impact DC more.  I just ran calcs on counties in metro Atl and metro DC.  Inner metro DC counties are in the 4,000-6,000 ppsm (eg Fairfield County is 5,356 ppsm and houses 1,116,897 people) while inner Atlanta counties are in the 3,000-4,000 ppsm range (eg Decatur County at 3,508 and houses 713,340 ppsm).

For reference, Duval County is at 2,792 ppsm.

But it doesn't change the fact that Metro DC is quite close to Metro Atlanta in many ways, not the least of which is demographics, age, layout of metro system, and overall built form.  Both cities have dense tree canopies, wild swings in building variation/density (which you can see in aerials of each, with large swaths of single family homes on large lots concealed by trees with clusters or strings of mid/high-rise buildings dotting the landscape).

The only few substantive differences DC has are its status (propped up by being nation's capital), its core density, its superior planning, and perhaps a couple decades of proper TOD development.

And the famed Rosslyn, VA doesn't look all that different from Buckhead in Atlanta (shorter buildings, less linear, slightly better - relatively - planning):

Rosslyn:

source

Buckhead:

source

Rosslyn is definitely denser than Buckhead. That area of Northern Virginia started to densify a bit earlier than Buckhead, so it's further along.  It's also a lot more pedestrian friendly and urban at street level.  The population density of its census tracts are 20k residents per square mile and above. Buckhead's densest tract is less than 8k residents per square mile, according the the US Census Bureau.

http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010

No argument from me there.  However, I'd argue that neither Buckhead nor Rosslyn/Ballston are "urban", but rather new urbanist visions that fit a certain mold of a late 20th/21st century idea of what urban is.  They look rather similar to me.

Here is a comprehensive recent photo tour of the Rosslyn/Ballston corridor.  You can't tell me that's substantively different from the Peachtree corridor between Midtown and Buckhead.

In fact, looking at the density maps by tract, both areas are defined by "strings" of exceeding density (and Buckhead exceeds 10,000 ppsm whereas the Rosslyn/Ballston corridor achieves 40,000 ppsm in parts) with drastic dropoffs to obvious single family residential density.  One tract could be max density and an adjacent tract could drop off immediately to Jax density.  That just doesn't happen in a lot of cities, not to mention the physical landscape is quite similar.

I'd offer up the site below as more useful/entertaining (you can export data to Excel):

http://www.socialexplorer.com/89AACD3A4F1E4E1/explore

Recently discovered.

I'm also not sure what we're looking at here...subjective selections of counties? Just go with the MSA or the continuous urbanized area. Metro Atlanta is known for, and is frequently the poster child for non-dense urban sprawl. Which isn't to say that DC doesn't have its own absurdities of scale as they compare to "dense, urban development," where people in Martinsburg, WV MARC Train into work everyday. But, c'mon. Atlanta is less dense than Tampa, not exactly a packed in metro...and by a looooooooottttttttt. I also have two sisters living in Houston; one in Montrose and one in the burbs, and Houston is by no means remotely dense, nor would anyone view it as such from any experience of being there.

We're also absurdly keeping DC and Baltimore's MSA's apart, as if there's not a massive cross-commuting pattern there. That CSA, I believe, still has less land area that Metro Atlanta and certainly less than the insanity that is Houston... and is in the 9.5 million people range or so.

I meant that Miami and DC feel more global and cosmopolitan than Atlanta did to me. And that both DC and Miami represent flip sides to pretense in people. There was/is just more of a feeling of cultural alignment in ways that the ATL seemed to mimic but didn't necessarily practice. But, that's just an opinion and a personal feeling, and thus, isn't quantifiable.

Nothing against Atlanta at all, really. Just different strokes for different folks. Everything against Houston because Texas is a wretched hole of backwards science and politics.

I see your points and I'm not disagreeing that Atlanta and Houston are worthy poster childs for sprawl, but so are SoFla and LA, both of which are structurally considerably more dense than the DC area.  Parts of LA are as dense as SF, though not built in a way where you "feel it" as much.  Houston has a Census Tract of 55,000 ppsm, and surrounded by an area of Census Tracts of 20-40,000 ppsm.  That's the same density as the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, a density not difficult to achieve with non-descript decidedly unurban mid/high-rise apartment buildings not even built to the curb, necessarily.  Midtown Atlanta will achieve this density in the next Census, as will the built up parts of Buckhead, potentially.  All it takes is about 2,000-3,000 more units per tract, which means about 10 average 200-300 unit buildings.  Over a decade, not hard to do in a larger growing city.

And Atlanta's "metro area" is such a misnomer.  Atlanta's more like a 4-4.5 million person metro that oddly "annexed" about 15 additional counties simply because those people 3-4 counties out commute 1 county in for work, creating some sort of commuting pattern that allows them to be part of the Atlanta metro.  Its core 5 counties are 3.5 million people at an average ~2,000 ppsm (obviously still not dense, but WAYYY larger than Tampa's, of which that whole metro is far less people at half the density).

Atlanta and DC share a similar metro system, similar demographics, similar history in many ways, similar weather for crying out loud, similar flora/fauna, similar "size", similar overall built form, and the list could go on.  DC is just a better, more advanced version with a more traditional core and better land planning around its transit spines.

Going back to:

It will be interesting to see how Atlanta (or others) will actualize urbanity on a large scale, if they, in fact, can.

One of the things I've actually come to appreciate about DC is the idea that they know what kind of city/metro region they want to be, which is to say a brain magnet with a strong transit backbone. The growing pains of getting from dense core with suburban/exurban donuts is proving to be quite painful to overcome, but...at least...there's a plan, a vision...an idea of where we are trying to go, in general. I certainly don't think that's in place in ATL, Houston, Dallas or the rest.

I do agree.  Though I see lots of progress in all 3 cities, and I do see lots of interest in Atlanta's in particular to follow the DC model, because it's already part of the way there, and because it can.  That's the bottom line.  MARTA is finally taking an interest in developing its stations.  Comprehensive plans are being drawn up and implemented.  Both cities have mucked up streetcars (I don't think Atlanta's will be a success at all and it was always a Plan B version anyway, Plan A having failed at receiving federal stimulus funding).



For anyone's off topic interest because I played around with the link I listed above, I looked at a few counties around American cities...lol


NYC (select random sampling):

Bergen County, NJ - pop. 925,328 - 7,808 ppsm
Essex County, NJ - 789,565 - 14,163
Hudson County, NJ - 660,282 - 33,595
Westchester County, NY - 968,802 - 9,767
Nassau County, NY - 1,352,146 - 7,743
Fairfield County, CT - 939,904 - 5,125

SF/SJ (select random samplings):

San Mateo County - 747,373 - 8,927
Santa Clara County - 1,862,041 - 8,577
Alameda County - 1,578,891 - 10,109
Contra Costa - 1,094,205 - 4,821

LA:

Orange County - 3,114,363 - 8,681

Boston:

Middlesex County - 1,552,802 - 7,685
Norfolk County - 687,802 - 4,408

South FL:

Palm Beach County - 1,372,171 - 3,922
Broward County - 1,838,844 - 5,903
Miami-Dade - 2,617,176 - 10,239


In terms of cities:

NYC - 64,025

SF - 30,005
Boston - 24,535
Philly - 20,283
Chicago - 19,826
DC - 17,442
LA - 16,964

Atlanta - 4,743

Jacksonville - 2,793