'What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate'

[thelakelander]

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.

Nice site. It's something I'm going to have to play around with more. Thanks for sharing.

This is off topic but i didn't realize how the construction of I-95 negatively impacted Jax's urban core density. All of Jax's densest neighborhoods have virtually disappeared.

1960 - population density by census tract

26,000/sq mi - Hansontown
18,000/sq mi - Sugar Hill
15,000/sq mi - Springfield (south of 8th)
12,000/sq mi - LaVilla
12,000/sq mi - Springfield (north of 8th)
11,000/sq mi - Durkeeville
9,000/sq mi - Brentwood
7,000/sq mi - Murray Hill
6,000/sq mi - Riverside
3,000/sq mi - San Marco
3,000/sq mi - DT Northbank

2012 - population density by census tract

3,000/sq mi - Sugar Hill
4,000/sq mi - Springfield (south of 8th)
4,000/sq mi - Springfield (north of 8th)
6,000/sq mi - Durkeeville
5,000/sq mi - Brentwood
5,000/sq mi - Murray Hill
4,000/sq mi - Riverside
3,000/sq mi - San Marco
3,000/sq mi - DT Northbank/Hansontown/LaVilla

No wonder DT Jax has fallen apart. So much focus has been placed on the Northbank, but the dense population pockets (north and west of DT) that provided significant support to it have virtually disappeared.

[AaroniusLives]

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?

Well, you can look at the adopted plan here. It's pretty comprehensive.
http://www6.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/council/pdf/res/2013/20131126_17-952.pdf

1. How is it being funded, what's the total capital costs/mile and timeline for implementation?
As it is in the study phase, that's not been determined yet (and it may very well go by the way of the Arlington Streetcar and not get built at all...although if you sit in suburban traffic up here, you'd see why they'd actually vote for it.)

From http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/RTS/:

Montgomery County is working with the State of Maryland to study four corridors for possibly BRT implementation. This is a community process and the planning studies are anticipated to be completed in 2016.

In the resolution, it looks as though they are benchmarking the Cleveland Healthline and Eugene EmX line, so I'd expect similar costs...but remember that this is not only an insanely wealthy and educated county, but also a very liberal county as well, so they may spend more to get more premium to the transit.

Also, a great op-ed regarding the plan:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-montgomery-county-is-getting-on-board-the-bus-rapid-transit-bandwagon/2013/12/13/1ba24398-61ed-11e3-94ad-004fefa61ee6_story.html

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


If you look through the documentation, it seems to be a little of both.

There are many areas where the county has sufficient right of way to add dedicated transit lanes. However, there are some places, particularly the closer you get to the Beltway, where adding an additional lane will not be possible. In those situations, the county's plan envisions "repurposing" general-purpose lanes used by cars into transit-only lanes.

However, what sets it apart is that they are most certainly implementing exclusive transit lanes: the focus is on exclusive ROW and that language is all over the document.

3. If the dedicated lanes are coming at the expense of existing travel lanes, are these facilities maintained by DOT?
Hmmmm...that's a good question. I'd expect a little of both there.

The state will be an integral partner in this effort, given that the approved network is almost exclusively on state roads.

Maryland is also a little bizarre when it comes to their quite comprehensive transit options, in that a lot of the transit is operated by the MTA, and that includes municipal options like the Baltimore Light Rail and Cracktacular Subway (and the forthcoming Purple Line, which will probably be branded as Metro but will be owned and operated by the MTA,) but then you have Ride On in Montgomery County which is not operated by the MTA. If I were to guess, I'd say the system will be owned and operated by Montgomery County, who will work out an arrangement with the state to 'lease' the corridors for the system, which will seamlessly integrate with MTA's MARC trains, MTA's Purple Line trains, and WMATA's Metrobus and Metrorail.

Remember, at the end of the day, Maryland isn't really a large state, and in many ways it functions as a city-state, so I'd expect a reasonable degree of cooperation between the entities. Also, remember that this is brain country, so MoCo may very well position their system as "a model" for the state to get both buy-in and additional resources. Maryland is, after all, the place where they built Suburban Utopian Epcot (Columbia,) under that same ideal.

And if they look at MoCo's BRT as the model in order to adequately transit-up the Howard County/Laurel/Columbia suburban chunk currently split commuting between Baltimore and DC, the state may very well view the project as essential in the long term, and offer a lot of help, resources and the rest. [Columbia is the missing "Fort Lauderdale" in the Baltimore-DC-95 corridor. It's kind of like if South Florida were Miami-Fort Myers-West Palm Beach.] Plus, it fits into the statewide plan for ecological preservation and massive increases in density.

Two places where I think they're really doing this right.
The first is in the stated purpose and the "why" of BRT:

Why has bus rapid transit — or BRT for short — become the option of first resort for communities from Cleveland to Bogota? Because it is the least costly, most flexible and fastest solution to implement.

For years, Montgomery County held firm to the notion that the Corridor Cities Transitway, a critical transit project for the county's economic future, would be a light-rail project. But as the advantages of BRT began to sink in, including that we could bring about high-quality transit options 10 years faster at a fraction of the cost, we shifted gears and embraced BRT.

The next is in the public involvement, so that nobody feels swindled or blindsided:

"...councilmembers added language to the plan that would create more opportunities for public input. Each BRT corridor will have its own Citizens Advisory Committee of local stakeholders. And the council approved an amendment from Councilmember Valerie Ervin to not allow funding for BRT projects unless there's a public hearing first.

"We've taken almost unprecedented steps in this plan to make sure our communities are engaged," said Councilmember Roger Berliner, chair of the council's transportation committee.

[AaroniusLives]

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.

Agreed, to a point. I think the primary difference is in starting "string" density and degree of drop off. Just playing with your social explorer tool (and, of course, recalling my time spent in the ATL and, ironically enough, living in Buckhead and also Perimeter Center,) the density never quite gets as high and the drop offs to McMansions are pretty huge.

Don't get me wrong: Arlington also has the drop-offs, it's just to a more densely populated version of suburbia. Remember, a lot of the "garden apartments" and "adorable A Christmas Story" houses there were built during the New Deal era as government worker housing, on an existing street grid, versus Atlanta's pop in the post-war period (especially in the northern part of the core,) using existing farm to train paths as connector roads to unconnected, cul-de-sac-ed suburbia. It's not just a visual difference; there's actual form that Atlanta will have to address as it moves forward, or it will be "suburbs in the sky." 

If you click out once on the map, you can see exactly how different the two areas are, where even in the core of Atlanta, the street form is suburban and the density is concentrated into pockets. Which is to say that dendentric insanity isn't really prevalent in the core of DC (unlike what one would see in Atlanta.) And the strings are fatter: there's a lot more areas of high density joined together in a consistent, ongoing manner than one would find in Atlanta. To put this another way, it's a lot darker for a larger, more consistent area than Atlanta's core is...although you're certainly correct in the idea that with the Beltline and renewed interest in the core, Atlanta very well look like DC in 20 years.

It also benefits the DC region that there were existing and preserved towns like Frederick in the MSA landscape, to encourage those bullseyes of density. (And, of course, there's the MoCo agricultural preserve, which really has no antecedent in ATL.)

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.

Agreed. Following the LA model of development is why we have MSAs to define the "cities" to begin with. LA, to give it some props, is attempting to reinvent itself about 20 years after it probably should have begun that effort. Hopefully places like Atlanta will succeed in their efforts at reinvention. 

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.

Well, one could argue that for every "metro area" in that case. Does the dude who lives in Frederick and commutes to Fairfax not live in "DC?" Does the woman who lives in Gwinnett and commutes to Cobb not live in "Atlanta?" Does the person who gets on the MARC in West Virginia for their job by the National Airport somehow not "live" in the DC MSA? Here's another one: my cousins live in Aventura and commute into Fort Lauderdale...but they really live in "Miami."

Using your misnomer argument, one could easily make the claim for splitting up the South Florida MSA into three different ones, because nobody in Coral Springs is setting foot in Miami and nobody in Miami is shopping at Boca Town Center. I totally agree with you on density: how South Florida figured out how to build a zero-lot lined version of suburbia that dense I'll never know.

I'd actually argue that we're not accurately describing the DC area by splitting up the Baltimore MSA from the DC MSA, which, in the context of this discussion, is absurd. The level of cross-commuting from one MSA to the next is quite significant, with many people, for example, living in Howard and working in MoCo. Or Anne Arundel to Fairfax and so on. Which gets the physical area up to Atlantean and Houstonian proportions...with 9.5 million people. 


Wow, we've gone far off topic.

[simms3]

I'll just have to agree to disagree on a few things with you.  The core of DC is a good bit smaller and/or less dense than the core of its peers (SF, Boston, Philly, Chicago, even LA).  Conversely, the metro area itself, while statistically denser than Atlanta's, is molded out of the same pattern (denser transit spines surrounded by 70s/80s era cul de sacs, low-rise apartments, housing communities), and is nowhere near as dense as a comparable area of metro Chicago, South FL, the Bay Area, LA/SoCal all the way down to San Diego, or New York/Tri-State area.

I personally don't see too much of a difference between a Peachtree corridor and a Rosslyn/Ballston corridor, except that Rosslyn/Ballston is 1-2 decades ahead in "growing up".  Density wise, since each corridor is comprised of office/apartment high-rises of similar overall size, all it would take is the addition of a few more now for Buckhead (and Midtown) to equal, more or less, Rosslyn/Ballston today, and Atlanta's planning/development patterns of the past few years has really caught up.

None of these areas will resemble in any way, shape, or form Hoboken, Jersey City, Oakland, etc, but they will resemble each other.  Buckhead will always drop off to Atlanta's wealthiest single family neighborhood housing areas where estates sit on more than an acre, while Rosslyn/Ballston will only drop off to slightly smaller single family lots/more low-rise apartments (and thus drop off to "higher" density).  But the drop off for both will always be stark and sudden, not gradual.  Both metros have a "beltway" and traffic choke points due to poor overall connectivity.  It's just the nature of both metros.

Atlanta will never equal DC's core, and DC's core will never equal San Francisco's, and San Francisco's will never equal New York's.  It's just the nature of these cities and where they are now in relation to each other.

I think Jax has a lot it can take away both transit wise and planning wise from Atlanta and metro DC.  Less so from cities it will never even come close to resembling anywhere, anyhow (NYC, SF, core of Chicago, Philly, etc).

[AaroniusLives]

I think Jax has a lot it can take away both transit wise and planning wise from Atlanta and metro DC.  Less so from cities it will never even come close to resembling anywhere, anyhow (NYC, SF, core of Chicago, Philly, etc).

Respectfully to Jacksonville, I think it's highly unlikely that it will come close to resembling Atlanta and DC anytime soon. As different or similar as DC and Atlanta are, they've both moved past a people/education/globalization critical mass index that Jacksonville has yet to begin to curate in a meaningful manner.

As sprawling as it is (and I think it's the #2 sprawl 'large' metro after the ATL,) Jacksonville should really look at Charlotte and the steps they took to get from "where?" to where they are now. I just think that Atlanta is too far ahead in metropolitan development, and that if anything, Jacksonville should look at the Atlanta region of that past for lessons in what to do and not to do. (And again, DC, until quite recently, was/is a government town with a significant tourist and capitol boost, making it something of a special case.)

...and I don't mean "Atlanta built a huge airport, so we should build a huge airport," but rather "when Atlanta was figuring out where to grow and what to do in order to enter the modern age, what steps did they take to tie their horse to a different carriage? What might Jacksonville do?"

It's because they're two different animals, and arguably, two different places with dramatically different visions of what they want to be. If nothing else, Atlanta wanted for a loooooong time to be "great," "big," "decoupled from the South," "global," "connected," whatever. To say that they've succeeded is an understatement. The challenge for Atlanta's MSA now is how to transform both their physical geography while building every tighter, ever more international connections and collusions. Because as much as I pick on Atlanta, it's no longer the poster child for a "New South" city. It's in the American Top Ten Metros, and they have much more in common with one another than they do to their geographic constraints. They're also in competition with one another, all growing towards this global interconnection ideal. The trick is to not become Detroit, right? :p

Seriously, though...I think Atlanta itself is having trouble surrendering to the idea of this, as well...that they launched themselves right out of the New South into a whole new place of competition, uncertainty and potential. This might actually be the most striking difference between DC and Atlanta, where DC has thought that they were competing on another level for a long time now and Atlanta is waking up to that realization.

I don't think Jacksonville is really 'there,' either by design or choice (although nobody from Jacksonville will ever let you forget that they're the #1 city in Florida by virtue of consolidation.) And I'm not sure if Jacksonville really wants to go to the place where Atlanta went, as for all that Atlanta gained, quite a bit was lost in the transformation, yes? A lot of people like the smaller cities like Jacksonville, and so perhaps you could forge your own path towards a more intimate greatness.

I'll just have to agree to disagree on a few things with you.

No, I agree that you're wrong!

Kidding.

[Ocklawaha]

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.

Actually Redbaron, the article did a good job of kicking that conversation onto the front page. My objective was not to report the advantages or disadvantages of each of these projects or coalitions, but simply to put them out there and state, why are we not in on this discussion while JTA 'educates' the city with 34 years of bull shit.

By the way, the Tucson Sun Link Streetcar was on or slightly below budget.
Kenosha Streetcar was nearly 50% under budget.
Tacoma Link Streetcar, under budget and ahead of schedule.
Salt Lake City TRAX has expanded twice and twice under budget and ahead of schedule
Sacramento LRT SOUTH line expansion was, under budget and ahead of schedule

There are actually many others. Part of the reason why rail is more exacting is it is priced complete and turn-key ready to operate. BRT is often priced in chunks and seldom includes the actual buses themselves in the ticket.

[AaroniusLives]

Actually Redbaron, the article did a good job of kicking that conversation onto the front page. My objective was not to report the advantages or disadvantages of each of these projects or coalitions, but simply to put them out there and state, why are we not in on this discussion while JTA 'educates' the city with 34 years of bull shit.

That may have well been your intention, but it certainly read as if "all these places are going forward with the streetcar while Jacksonville doesn't." And some of the examples were successful and should have been enough to carry your thesis. Some are not, are curtailed or cancelled, and if presented should have been honestly explored (such as the DC/Arlington combo of suck,) and some are "places where some citizens would really like a streetcar but there's no traction for said streetcar," like the Sarasota example.

You could have easily listed this:
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2012-aug-the-electric-7-a-streetcar-proposal-on-a-shoestring#.VH9MX75UGS0

...which would, at least under these loose definitions, presented Jacksonville as a place where streetcar initiatives are taking place, when really, it's a good idea from you with no public traction.

Again, you could have made your point with either more transparency or a more edited selection of streetcar projects. To present Sarasota (at best, private citizens wanting one,) Miami (on hold for BRT, light rail and GONDOLAS,) DC (still to open, expansion cut back, citizens pissed,) and Arlington (outright cancelled, period,) on the same level as successful projects (Tucson, anything Oregon,) controversial fighting tooth and nail projects (Cincinnati,) and in progress projects (Charlotte,) is disingenuous, at best, distortion, at worst.

[Ocklawaha]

Actually Redbaron, the article did a good job of kicking that conversation onto the front page. My objective was not to report the advantages or disadvantages of each of these projects or coalitions, but simply to put them out there and state, why are we not in on this discussion while JTA 'educates' the city with 34 years of bull shit.

You could have easily listed this:
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2012-aug-the-electric-7-a-streetcar-proposal-on-a-shoestring#.VH9MX75UGS0

I did, that was my story too! LOL!

...which would, at least under these loose definitions, presented Jacksonville as a place where streetcar initiatives are taking place, when really, it's a good idea from you with no public traction.

Public traction is coming soon to a city near you.

Again, you could have made your point with either more transparency or a more edited selection of streetcar projects. To present Sarasota (at best, private citizens wanting one,) Miami (on hold for BRT, light rail and GONDOLAS,) DC (still to open, expansion cut back, citizens pissed,) and Arlington (outright cancelled, period,) on the same level as successful projects (Tucson, anything Oregon,) controversial fighting tooth and nail projects (Cincinnati,) and in progress projects (Charlotte,) is disingenuous, at best, distortion, at worst.

Again, you miss the point, it is merely a post of streetcar projects, public, private, funded, unfunded, coalitions, studied and everything in between. Meanwhile in Jacksonville, the very first city with this concept... chirp!  A chirp that is going to change.

[AaroniusLives]

You could have easily listed this:
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2012-aug-the-electric-7-a-streetcar-proposal-on-a-shoestring#.VH9MX75UGS0

I did, that was my story too! LOL!

I listed it as being illustrative of a point: is your proposal anywhere close to being a reality? No? Then should it be listed as a "project?" Nope.

Again, you miss the point, it is merely a post of streetcar projects, public, private, funded, unfunded, coalitions, studied and everything in between. Meanwhile in Jacksonville, the very first city with this concept... chirp!  A chirp that is going to change.

No, I got the point. I simply don't agree with the "merely a post" aspect of it, as I wasn't born yesterday and have an IQ above 3.