Property or Recipient?

Skyway image from Wikipedia A recent post about the soon-to-be constructed Atlanta Streetcar/downtown circulator prompted a reader to forward an article from Jacksonville about their downtown circulator, which happens to be an automated guideway, or people mover, JTA calls the Skyway.  Ridership is low, 30% of their pre-construction estimates, and the service is very expensive to the tune of a $4...

The De Facto Sidewalks

Transit agencies serving populations of 200,000 or greater “will expend not less than one percent of the amount the recipient receives each fiscal year under Section 5307 for transit enhancements . . . and will submit an annual report listing projects carried out in the preceding fiscal year with those funds,” according to Section 5307(d)(1)(K).  That’s clear enough: you will spend 1% of your...

Frankly MARTA, I don’t Give a Tram

So let me guess: it’s gonna run in a circle, right?  A July 2011 press release from FTA gives a succinct overview of what are some ill-conceived notions about streetcar in America.  The document is the public go-ahead to build a streetcar system for Atlanta with a $47.6 million TIGER II grant awarded in October 2010.  “The electric streetcar will run 2.6 miles through the heart of Atlanta’s...

They Say: Half Fare

What’s the difference between a courtesy and an obligation?  A dollar sign and a bunch of zeros as far as the Federal How much to pay and when? Half fare is only required during off-peak. Transit Administration is concerned.  Extending a reduced fare to certain patrons may seem like a courtesy to those not working in transit but it is in fact an FTA—and not an ADA—requirement.  With this rule...

They Say: Printed Schedules

They say transit agencies must have printed schedules, but a colleague at work asked, “Where does it actually say we have to have printed schedules?”  Not that we don’t want to print them, but hey, the budget office wants to know and so did I.  So . . . As far as I can tell, under FTA regulations (49 CFR 601-665) there is not an explicit requirement to publish route schedules as an end to itself,...

The Old Stick in the Mud

Should rural road segments not get service just because there are no sidewalks? ADA does not prevent it. If there is one unrelenting question that comes up when a transit agency is discussing the Americans with Disabilities Act and transit stops it is “Can we put up a bus stop sign in the grass/dirt/sand where there is no sidewalk without violating ADA?”  TPM has dealt with this at length elsewhere,...

Understanding the 53s

There are a number of different funding mechanisms provided by the Federal Transit Administration that all start with the number 53, taken from 49 U.S.C. Chapter 53, but the two most important ones, financially speaking, are 5307 and 5309.  FTA Section 5307 funds are non-discretionary funds, meaning they go out every year to eligible recipients and are distributed to regions on an urbanized area formula...

The High Cost of “Major Service Change”

The headline on Phillip Matier’s and Andrew Ross’s story just sounded bad:  “BART spending $800K to define three words.”  It is easy to imagine the public saying “That’s more than 250,000 per word,” or “I’d have done it for half that.”  In fact, commenters on the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle story had lots of other three-word proposals like “Clean the Trains,”...

Charter Rules

The breathtaking view from the sky of Husky Stadium, a multimodal place on gameday. That could be a problem. Photo by Mary Levin.         Husky Stadium is a point of convergence.  From its lofty seats sky, mountains, verdant land, and water are layered in undulating shades of blue and green; the built and the natural environments blend as multi-story towers wave through the trees; and here...