The Occasional Thought About Planning From Someone Who Lives in Albuquerque

New Name, Marginally Different Additude

2010-11-20T10:08:00.000-08:00

In case you're wondering what the heck happened to the name of the blog, I've switched it to something I think is a little more fitting: The Occasional Thought About Planning From Someone Who Lives in Albuquerque.

Let's face it, I didn't really hold up to the whole "Carfree in Burque" idea - this blog has turned out to be mostly about other cities, about places I've been to which are very specifically not Albuquerque. Recently I attended the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, D.C. and I thought I'd put up a post about transit in D.C., like I did for the Pacific Northwest cities. But then I realized I hadn't written anything about Albuquerque in ages, and it seemed somewhat hypocritical to have that in a blog that was supposed to be about living a carless existence in Albuquerque.

Maybe now I'll get around to posting that bit about D.C. And then again, maybe not. I'm feeling kinda bored. Frankly, this isn't the greatest time to be an novice urban planner in Albuquerque - the economy is at a stand-still, few new projects are rolling out, and any significant improvements in mass transit are going to be a ways off. Some of my fellows use this as a segway into bashing Mayor Berry for doing things like holding off on the arena project. Frankly, I think the guy's doing a pretty good job. I may not have voted for him, but we did elect him on a platform of fiscal responsibility, and he has kept that campaign promise. He has managed to balance the budget without cutting services, and all you have to do is look oh, say, anywhere else in the country to see what a rare thing that is. He's managed to make the best of what we have, and in these times that's what we need. I'll gratefully accept a little boredom when the alternative could be much worse. Maybe it's the sanity from Jon Stewart's speech, but I'll gladly cut the partisan crap and extend my hand in graditude.

That said, I am still bored. And while I'm fine with that in other aspects of my life, it's not very good news for my blog. My posting here has been pretty irregular (hence the "occasional" in the title) and that's not going to stop anytime soon. I apologize for that, but frankly I can't bring myself to be that apologetic - this is my current reality. My enthusiasm has dropped below the point where I feel like posting here that often, and I'm just going to accept that.

The GM Streetcar Conspiracy - and Why I've Stopped Caring

2010-09-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

Anyone who enters the world of transit advocacy has likely heard of the GM Streetcar Conspiracy; it's a familiar tale that those who study transit will hear multiple times, and I'm sure most of my readers are familiar with it. In case you haven't heard it however (in which case I ask, how the heck did you pull that off?), here's the basic gist of it:

In the 1930s and 40s, several auto and gas companies (General Motors, Standard Oil, and Firestone Tires, among others) got together and acquired local streetcar systems (remember, back then mass transportation was largely a privately-run endeavor) in order to tear them out and replace them with buses.

That so much is the facts, but transit advocates often take it the larger levels. Many of them point to this event as the moment in which we became overly dependent on automobiles; that the dismantling of streetcar systems was part of a larger plan to reduce the overall quality of mass transit in the United States, forcing everyone to take up driving.

It's a compelling tale and one I've heard all too often, to the point that now I've gotten rather sick of hearing it. Every once in a while it'll pop up, just to remind us who's really at fault for all our current transit ills.

Firstly, let me say that I do not deny this event had a significant impact on mass transportation in the country, and an understanding of this event is recommended if you want to know the history of urban transportation systems in this nation. But I think too many people overblow its importance.

Let me start with the idea that a switch to buses was part of a grander scheme to get everyone in cars. The main problem I have with this idea is that it assumes buses have always had the stigma people place on them today (at least in the United States). I have trouble with this one; in the 30s and 40s buses were still very much a new technology, and there was a lot of excitement surrounding them - they were sleek, they were fast, and they were cheaper to install. I don't think the general public at the time had the romantic notions of streetcars that we have today - mainly because they the streetcars hadn't been removed yet. The stigma that many people attach with buses today would come later.

And the idea that GM had this stigma in mind when they replaced streetcar systems with buses is a far reach for me. Somehow the following scenario doesn't quite sound right...

(In the top floor of an Art Deco skyscraper in Detroit...)

CEO: Gentlemen, I have a most brilliant idea! You know all those streetcars out there, on our streets? Well imagine if you will, buses instead of streetcars! Yes, stinky, slow, filthy buses! We'll destroy the nation's public transportation system, and force everyone to buy GM cars! Muhuhawhawhawhaw!!!

Board members: Muhuhawhawhawhaw!!!

Come on, people are rarely that good at predicting the future - I think the GM of today serves as a fine example of that. Now certainly there was profit motivation involved in dismantling the nation's streetcar systems, but I don't think it was part of some larger overall plan - I think GM and these other companies simply wanted to get in to a market they had been excluded from.

Then there's this notion that this event is somehow responsible for our over dependence on automobiles today. As cars became more affordable and more attractive with new suburban development through the 40s, 50s, and onward, mass transportation systems began a long decline, and I think this is the moment when mass transit began to have a stigma placed on it. Now, to blame this on GM's actions is to suggest that if only we had kept our streetcars, everything would have been fine and our mass transit system would still be hunky-dory. But can we honestly believe that streetcars would not have been subject to the same decline as buses in such a scenario? It might be easy to believe that streetcars would have survived based on our current romantic notions of them, but then we make the mistake of looking at the past through the lens of the present.

Recently, I saw a public screening of Beyond the Motor City at the UNM Architecture building, which was followed by a discussion. The movie deals with the history of Detroit transit and its plans to build a light rail system and the impact of such a system. But to my surprise (and thankfulness) it didn't mention the GM Streetcar Conspiracy. But of course, during the discussion someone from the audience had to bring it up. Here's what she said:

Now, I want to remind everyone that GM destroyed our mass transit system. And now we've just given them a huge bailout. So I have to ask, does it really make sense to build a light rail system in Detroit?

For those of you whose heads are exploding and whose first reaction is "WTF?", yes it's an incredibly illogical statement on several levels. But I ask you to ignore that last sentence (GM and the City of Detroit are not the same thing, I think we're all clear on that) and direct your attention to the first two sentences. Here she attempts to connect the GM Streetcar Conspiracy with the recent auto bailout, two things that have nothing to do with each other. And here I come to my final point regarding the GM Streetcar Conspiracy: its continued use as a tool for laying blame.

The above example shows how the GM Streetcar Conspiracy is often used to point the finger at GM, even when the players involved have long since died and the entity no longer exists in its same form. The GM that destroyed our streetcar systems and the GM that went bankrupt last year are two completely different entities, living in different eras and under different circumstances. And yet, people keep bringing up the GM Streetcar Conspiracy, as if the players responsible are still out there, having yet to face justice.

And this, I think, is why people love talking about the GM Streetcar Conspiracy. It's convenient to have someone to blame, to tell this story of corporate greed, then sigh and say "if only..."

Perhaps the real lesson behind this whole story is that you don't know what you have until it's gone. It's certainly easier to lay the blame at someone else's feet than to accept all the complex circumstances, and it's certainly easier than looking oneself in the mirror and asking if we as a people had something to do with this.

Frequency Mapping

2010-08-08T17:28:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Dan M., who commented below, has updated the ABQ Ride system map which addresses many of my concerns. I give my full thoughts at the bottom of the post.

Human Transit recently did a fantastic post making the case for frequency mapping. If you're not familiar with the concept of frequency mapping, it involves highlighting the frequent routes of your transit system on the map of the transit system. It's a great post, with plenty of graphics and some great writing.

So after reading it and seeing the directions for creating a frequency map, I thought I'd give it a shot. So here's my frequency map for ABQ Ride.
I used three categories for the routes - highly frequent routes which don't require consulting a schedule to use - the Rapid Rides and the #66. Then there's the all-day routes in green, which vary in frequency from 25 minutes (#5 and #11) to once an hour (#97 and #36), but all are similar in that you need to consult a schedule to use them, or you're likely in for a long wait. And then there are the orange dotted routes, which are the ones that run mainly during rush hour.

While I wouldn't want ABQ Ride to adopt this exact map (the labeling is a bit wonky), something like it would be nice - it really shows where the good routes are, which is the whole point of frequency mapping.

UPDATE:

So, ABQ Ride has released a new system map, which can be viewed here.

Firstly, let me say that this map is a HUGE improvement over the last one. It conveys information much better than the previous one, thanks to the fact that it marks the routes much more clearly, the legend is simpler, and the color scheme makes it easier to follow a line. I also like the different shapes used to mark different kinds of routes. The use of the gray for the roads is also nice; much better than that black which mucked it up on the old map.

There are a couple of minor things that I would have done differently with the map. The first thing is that I would have made the 66 line thicker, to reflect its frequency. However, the fact that the 66 line is black on the new map mostly makes up for it.

The other is that I'm not sure why ABQ Ride insists on referring to the 151, 222, and 350 lines as local/all-day routes, given they run almost entirely during the rush hour. I wouldn't be giving them the same status as other local/all-day routes. It's a minor concern of mine, but it would be more reflective of its frequency.

Lesson from Pittsburgh: How NOT To Color-Code Your System

2010-07-29T19:04:00.000-07:00

Recently I was in Pittsburgh to see my family for a few weeks. Now, my family is currently living in the neighborhood of Beechview, which lies just within the southern reaches of the Pittsburgh city limits and is served by the regional light rail system called the "T".

As modern light rail systems go, the T is pretty old. These are gray vehicles from the late 80s, running on less-than-stellar track (the train often squeaks loudly). The in-traffic operation is similar to San Francisco's Muni Metro: the trains operate in a subway in downtown, then emerge and run in a mix of dedicated track way or mixed traffic with cars, with low platform stops in the middle of the street. Also similar to the Muni Metro, the entire system (save for the subway tunnel) is running on the remnants of a much older streetcar network.

Now in terms of operation, the trains operate basically like a very big bus - the fares and the fare collection system is pretty much the same as the local buses (save for a few "raised platform stops", which have fare booth attendants - NOT machines) and it serves mostly the same clientele as the bus system. And until recently, it had numbered routes, like the bus system:

(Ignore the "44L" line - the one in lime green. This is an old map and that one was disbanded long ago.)

Basically, the light rail system is two main lines which head south from Downtown - one which goes through Beechview, the other through Overbrook. From these, there are a few branch lines - the 52 line (marked in orange on the map above) which goes through a neighborhood near Downtown (this one only runs during rush hour), a branch to the South Hills Village mall, and the line south to the suburb of Library. The 42C and 42S lines cover the same ground, with the 42S going further because of the limited demand at the southern end of the line. The 47L and 47S lines cover mostly the same ground, with one line going to Library (again, limited demand) and the other going to South Hills Village with the 42S, to connect the area to the residents of Overbrook.

It's not the simplest system in the world, but once you understand it you know where each route goes.

Then, as part of a recent "restructuring" of the system, spurred due to budget cuts, Pittsburgh adopted a color-coded system for their light rail network. I don't have an image of it, so I'll link to the PDF route map they have on the website.

Take a look at that map. The 42C and 42S has been replaced by one line, the "Red Line". The 47L and 47S are now the "Blue Line". The 52 is now the "Brown Line". Simple, right?

But now scroll to the bottom of the map. The Red Line apparently has limited service to South Hills Village. So some of the trains go to South Hills Village...but not all of them. And the Blue Line inexplainably splits, with some trains going to South Hills Village and some to Library...but which ones go where? Whereas before we had a numbered route and I knew where that route went, because it went there every single time, now we have a line which doesn't always wind up in the same place every time.

Obviously, there was no "restructuring" of the system. These are the exact same routes we had before, but now in harder to understand form. And that's what irks me about this so much - the whole point of color-coding a system is to make it EASIER to understand. Not harder.

Carfree in... 'Couver?

2010-07-22T18:35:00.000-07:00

And to complete my trip chronicle here, I give you...Vancouver.

And wow, what a town! The sheer concentration of such high densities is astounding, especially when you realize Vancouver's population is less than 600,000 (the metro area is over 2,000,000, but the density is still pretty crazy). I guess what's astounding is how Vancouver maintains a pretty consistent level of really high density over a fairly large area - even New York City and San Francisco, though overall denser, tend to concentrate their highest densities in certain neighborhoods.

Vancouver's place as a multi-cultural city shouldn't be underestimated. As demonstrated by the large number of cargo ships in the bay, Vancouver's port is a bustling place, which makes sense: if you're shipping stuff from Asia to Canada, where else would you have a more ideal port? This probably also has something to do with the large number of Asians (and those of Asian decent) I saw in Vancouver, just as it did in San Francisco and Seattle.

The sheer number of parks on the Downtown peninsula is pretty crazy as well. In addition to the huge Stanley Park (which you likely saw in those aerial shots of Vancouver if you were watching the Olympics), the entire waterfront on both sides of downtown is essentially one large park, punctuated by the occasional very attractive park reaching in from the waterfront. Then there was the occasional park or square within the urbanized area...and that's just Downtown. I'm not even counting all those big parks in south Vancouver.

And while I'm on the subject of open space, can I just mention how awesome it is that the waterfront path is broken down between pedestrians and cyclists? And it's marked very clearly, so there's little confusion where people belong. This was particularly helpful around the tip of the peninsula within Stanley Park, where there's narrow space to work with and a lot of people, so keeping such a rigid framework really allowed the traffic to flow well. Bicyclists can try to share the road with cars, but anyone who's walked around UNM knows they don't mix well with pedestrians. What isn't this model more frequently adopted? Are we afraid that delegating sidewalk space breeds resentment?

Now when it comes to mass transit, Vancouver's big player is SkyTrain, their subway/elevated rapid transit system. Jarrett at Human Transit has often raved around SkyTrain - it's an automated (meaning driverless) rapid transit system, which Jarrett describes as like those "that shuttle between airport terminals. SkyTrain is the same principle, at a citywide scale." In that post I just linked to, Jarrett goes into detail about the benefits of driverless transit systems, so what I'll add here is that the lack of a human being driving the vehicle went completely unnoticed. The operation was so smooth that the question of who's in control never crossed my mind. SkyTrain is really a terrific system, though beyond it's age, the fact that it's driverless, and the city it's set in, there didn't seem to be anything particularly extraordinary about it compared to other metro systems. I feel like the truly extraordinary elements about it are those behind the scenes; those we don't necessarily notice just by riding it.

Then there's the bus network, which is lovely. Although I only got on one bus line - the 99, which connects the SkyTrain system to the University of British Columbia campus. This is a limited bus line which uses articulated buses, much like our Rapid Ride system. Though the 99 didn't run on electricity, many Vancouver buses do.

Even the buses are polite up here!

Now, something I noticed about the 99 line was their interesting boarding system. This sign explains it well:

This is a very popular line, and a LOT of people get on these buses. What this boarding system does for the time is nothing short of a god-send - it combines quick boarding without investing too much money into infrastructure, by which I mean the fare machines, of which I saw none - tickets could be acquired from SkyTrain or any other bus, so anyone transferring is already set. It's an honor system, which means once in a blue moon someone will come by to check if you paid your fare. It's so efficient, I think ABQ Ride should seriously consider it for Rapid Ride. Currently, there are two things that really hold up the speed for Rapid Ride buses - one is getting stuck in traffic, which would require dedicated lanes to get around, which are a major infrastructural investment in this town. The second is loading. This could go a long way towards solving that second issue...

I hope you enjoyed these last few posts - I know I did!

Carfree in Seattle

2010-07-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: My huge thanks to BusBoy for reporting this post to the Seattle Bus Chick. I highly recommend both blogs.

My next stop after Portland was Seattle, the center of business in the Pacific Northwest.

Now, I had always heard that Seattle had a lot going for it - Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, etc. - but I had never realized just how big it was. I found myself thinking of Chicago when I was approaching it and immediately after exiting the train; the buildings, the crowds, all quite a shock after being in laid-back, moderately sized Portland.

Now I suppose it's natural that Seattle and Portland, being the two largest cities in the Pacific Northwest, would be frequently compared. Indeed, on the way up to Portland I heard someone describe Portland as a "smaller Seattle." Immediately a woman sitting next to him, who until that moment had stayed out of the conversation, starting piping up about how Portland was much more progressive than Seattle, that they have a larger light rail system (how much do you want to bet that she's from Portland?). For people who live elsewhere (including here in New Mexico), I've heard the same comparisons.

But what I realized pretty quickly after arriving is that Portland and Seattle are nothing alike. Seattle has water everywhere; Portland has just the river. Seattle has hills, and the street form which has to conform to that or battle it. Portland doesn't. Seattle has a large port and industry (and the remnants of industry) all around, Portland has virtually none. Seattle has business - lots of business. And it has the skyscrapers and development that comes with that. Portland has little major business - the major businesses in Portland are the Oregon-based ones, not national ones. In short Seattle's natural setting, it's port, it's urban form, all this made it ideal to become the economic powerhouse of the northwestern part of the nation.

I say all this not to harp on Portland. I say this to show the danger of comparisons - those who go to other cities and come back to Albuquerque and say "Oh, why don't we have a (insert urban amenity) here? They have it, we should have it too!" are often failing to understand the differences in history, culture, urban environment, and the role those two different cities play in the world economy. It's one thing to say we should have something because it will improve this city; it will do this, this, and this. It's quite another to say we should have something because someone else has it, which essentially became Martin Chavez's go-to line when it came to defending the modern streetcar and the downtown arena, and it's become a habit for quite a few other people (skyscrapercity forum members - I'm looking at you).

Anyway, I'm done moralizing. To the actual transit...

Seattle's new star for public transit is the recently opened Central Link, a light rail line which operates in a subway through downtown before emerging south of the stadiums and running out to the airport. And to be honest, as a visitor the only real use I got out of it was to go the airport (and the neighborhoods along the way didn't seem that dense, so I can't say how many commuters it serves). But it's just one line; when other lines are built (and my understanding is that they're already under way), it will be a very valuable addition to Seattle's transit system.

But for now, the real movers and shakers of Seattle's transit system are its buses. Its insane number of buses - an incredibly complex network of routes that provide very thorough coverage of the city. And the buses are actually quite nice - fairly comfortable, pretty clean, with many running on electricity. But here's the thing I found difficult about Seattle's bus network - it's not very intuitive to people who don't know it. As I said, the network is very complex, and no route really stands above the others to tell you "Take this one!"

To make matters worse, the transit system is really a combination of several transit systems - Sound Transit operates the light rail along with some buses. King County Transit operates the Seattle buses. Other counties operates their own buses into Seattle. The state operates the ferries. I don't even know who operates the South Lake Union streetcar. And neither Sound Transit nor King County Transit offers a day pass, or a multi-day pass, which is really the saving grace of a carless tourist. What's a poor guy who knows next to nothing about the city to do? In my case, I found myself walking a lot more often, because I trusted my feet and my eyes over the sixteen bus routes at the stop which lacks a proper map of the system. That plus the fear of making a mistake and not having enough exact change to remedy it.

So I've gone over the Link and the buses, which leaves one mode of transportation missing: the streetcar.

The South Lake Union streetcar is basically a copy of Portland's streetcar, with a couple of differences. The first is that the Seattle line is much shorter than Portland's - short enough that I really didn't bother getting on because walking wouldn't be much longer. The second is that Seattle's streetcar is actually slightly faster than Portland's, because the stops are spaced a little further apart and the street the streetcar operates on is a major thoroughfare, so it needs to go a little faster to keep up with the traffic. Again, the impact on private development seemed pretty clear. South Lake Union was a booming neighborhood, albeit a little inactive at the northern end, probably due to the recession slowing development activity down.

But here's something I noticed - the picture above shows a streetcar and a delivery truck. What the picture doesn't show, from this angle, is that the truck is actually in the streetcar's way. I had heard of this happening in Portland, but this is the first time I got to observe it. The delivery truck parked just a little too far out into the street for the streetcar, and the streetcar was stuck. Fortunately, the driver of the delivery truck was still there, and was able to move his truck out of the way in under a minute, but I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the streetcar operator got out and the driver had already gone inside and was nowhere around. How long would it take for a tow truck to show up?

In summary...it's hard to summarize Seattle. It's an awfully big city, and two days barely gave me enough time to start absorbing it. I wouldn't mind having a little more time to dig deeper into Seattle. But as any anthropologist will tell you, initial impressions are very crucial and that's what I've offered here.

Two Days in Portland

2010-06-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, I took a 10-day trip up the West Coast, visiting the Bay Area, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC. It was a pretty awesome trip, and I got to see an entire side of this country (and another country) that I hadn't before. So I wanted to share some thoughts on some of the places I went to; the things I learned about these vanguards of urban planning.

So I thought I'd start with Portland, the city often cited as the gold standard of city planning...

Being an urban planning student, I had heard a lot about Portland. Being an urban planning student interested in transportation, I had heard even more about Portland. After all, the proposed modern streetcar for Albuquerque a few years back was directly influenced by Portland's system. So, it was exciting to finally see this city I had heard so much about.

Firstly, let me say that I thoroughly enjoyed Portland. The atmosphere was delightful and the people incredibly friendly and laid-back. Indeed, I found myself eagerly chatting locals up. This is when I discovered that, in spite of their friendliness, Portlanders are a proud people. Several people I spoke to said things about Portland that would make the convention & visitors bureau grin - they were so obviously pleased to be Portlanders, to the point that a couple of people I spoke to barely seemed to be able to comprehend a world beyond Oregon.

And yes, one of Portland's points of pride - true pride, you could see it in their faces - was their public transit system, which they were quick to boast about. In the visitor's center at Pioneer Courthouse Square, I overheard a man take the local pride in TriMet to the next step: mocking the public transit system of other cities. Namely, Seattle. He said to a fellow visitor, and I quote:

Here in Portland we have four light rail lines, a streetcar, an aerial tram, and a fantastic bus system! But in Seattle they've only just opened their first light rail line!

Somehow he seemed to have forgotten Seattle's new streetcar line, it's ferry system, and it's insanely extensive bus system which, no offense to TriMet, seemed far more extensive than Portland's bus system.

At this point I was starting to wonder how much of the hype about Portland was due to Portlanders themselves. However, I was still impressed with much of what I saw in Portland. I loved the water fountains in Downtown, the fact that there were a number of public restrooms scattered around Downtown, the large amount of park space in the center of an urban area, and the pedestrian-friendliness of the whole area. Another thing that struck me was the sheer number of bicyclists in Portland - a walk along the waterfront afforded me a view of the city's many casual cyclists, as well as a number of bicycle vendors - a new concept to me - who were taking advantage of the Rose Festival crowds to sell things like ice cream sandwiches and snacks.

But what of the public transit system? What of the MAX light rail, or the very influential Portland Streetcar?

Let me start with the Streetcar. Firstly, let me say that it's impact on development seemed pretty clear. If you're in Downtown, you can see the buildings generally get taller around 10th & 11th Avenues, where the streetcar runs, as the residential density gets higher. That, not to mention to huge amount of new development in the Pearl District and South Waterfront (although judging from the amount of vacant land surrounding the South Waterfront, it looks like the recession has slowed the excitement down here) looked like clear signs of the impact the streetcar had on private development.

But as a mode of transportation, as an actual means to get around, I found the streetcar surprisingly frustrating to use. There were a few separate times during my stay there where I'd be walking in Downtown and I'd plan to head south or north, and I'd think "Hey, the streetcar goes there and the stop is nearby, I'll just take the streetcar!" Then I'd walk to the stop and the LED arrival sign would tell me that the next streetcar wouldn't come for another 10 minutes. 10 minutes? Screw that, I'm walking. And sure enough, I would get to my destination faster just by walking than if I had waiting around for the streetcar to come. Portland's downtown is decently sized, but it's not that big.

When I finally did get on the streetcar (I had walked down to South Waterfront and now wanted to get up to the Pearl district) I found the cars wonderfully comfortable and spacious, but the ride felt at times ridiculously slow. It's true: buses, even local buses, are faster than these things. It must have taken a good 25-30 minutes to take the streetcar from the South Waterfront to the 12th Ave/Northrup stop (just a couple blocks from the "Go by Streetcar" sign) in the Pearl. It's not that far.
Comparatively, I found the MAX light rail system a delight to use, even just for getting around downtown (which is exactly what I used it for on several occasions). You see, though the stops are further apart, the lines overlap in downtown, so two lines with service every 15 minutes means you get service about every 7-8 minutes (the trains are in their own lane of traffic, so this overlap principle works for them where it doesn't for Albuquerque's Rapid Ride). This was one of the things that held the MAX above the Streetcar, even when the Streetcar should have been ideally suited for the task of just getting around downtown: the higher frequency meant it wasn't as much of a commitment to stand and wait for the next train. It was faster, and because of it's dedicated right-of-way there was greater expectation from riders that it would arrive on-time, as illustrated when an alert was sent out over the train's intercom system that, due to river traffic which raised the bridge, the trains were unfortunately running 5 minutes late.

I found many things to enjoy in Portland and I think it's a model for urban planners for good reasons, although there were certain things I found to be much overhyped. The Streetcar, though obviously an effective development tool, didn't convincingly prove me it was such a great transportation mode.

An Unfriendly Welcome

2010-05-30T20:45:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I take the Rail Runner up to Santa Fe for a little sightseeing, and each time I do I always marvel at how good their bus system, Santa Fe Trails, is for a city of its size.

The main thing that strikes me about it is that, unlike ABQ Ride, Santa Fe Trails can get me just about anywhere I want to go in the city it serves. This is probably thanks to the fact that most of Santa Fe's major destinations (tourist and commuter wise) are fairly centrally located, and even those few that aren't (Museum Hill, the hospital, the malls, the community college) are still served by a decent bus route.

Another thing is that the system is relatively easy to understand. It's not just that the system itself is smaller, it's also that Santa Fe Trails produces a booklet with maps and schedules of all the routes in its system, which is readily available all over the city. Here in Albuquerque, a transit advocacy group I work with at UNM created a "How to Ride the Bus" guide for ABQ Ride because many people found the bus system here too bewildering to start using. Up in Santa Fe, they were way ahead of us.

There also seems to be more thought put into the structure of the routes. As discussed over on this fantastic blog, it is important for transit lines to "anchor" to major destinations, and it's even better if it anchors on both ends so as to make the most of the investment you're putting in to run those vehicles. If you look at the overall Santa Fe Trails map, you'll see that almost every single one of its routes (the exception being Route 24) anchor to a major destination on both ends.

In trying to figure out why Santa Fe seems to get it (at least more than ABQ), I've started to think that the cultural difference between these two cities plays a role. Santa Fe is, afterall, the main tourist destination of the state. Having worked at a museum here in town, I can tell you that many international visitors don't expect requiring a car to travel around a major city.

Santa Fe also has extremely expensive real estate, and thus doesn't have nearly as large a population of "transit-dependent" (a term which, though very flawed, unfortunately still plays a big role in transportation politics) as Albuquerque does. This is when I realized that Santa Fe has built a system that appeals more to visitors and commuters coming in from outside town than to local residents. It would explain why the system has taken so many steps to help people understand the system, and why I as an outsider marvels at it. While I'm sure there are many residents who can use the system and find it very useful, there are vast residential areas of Santa Fe that have no routes and I'm guessing the average resident has little use for the system.

Still, I think ABQ Ride could take some major pointers from Santa Fe Trails about how to create a bus system that is more useful to visitors. Firstly, make the system easier to understand. The only printed materials ABQ Ride provides are individual route schedules, and those are remarkably hard to find. Get some flashier, more useful printed stuff out there, and be a whole lot more aggressive about getting it out there. And improve the stuff you already have, like that meager destinations page (seriously, who in their right mind would recommend the #36?!?).

When ABQ Ride has finished that, then it should expand the service to benefit visitors. The airport is currently a huge flaw in the system - on Sunday, there is no way to get to the airport as the #50 doesn't run, and the #350 doesn't run on Saturdays or Sundays, even though the Rail Runner now does. Many major attractions in Albuquerque are lacking decent service (the zoo, the Hispanic Cultural Center, and the stadiums come to mind here) and some have no service whatsoever (read: the tramway). Additionally, many hotels lack service, particularly those along the freeway (which unfortunately represents the majority of hotels in Albuquerque).

To its credit, ABQ Ride has recently been doing a lot of work improving the service it already provides, such as buying nice new buses and installing a whole lot of bus stop shelters. But we have a long way to go before we have a system I can recommend to a visitor without feeling guilty.

Albuquerque's first "transit oriented development"?

2010-05-22T14:29:00.000-07:00

This week, the Silver Gardens apartment complex opened in Downtown Albuquerque, as reviewed in loving detail by lisa gill on Duke City Fix. I definitely view Silver Gardens as a very positive development; although it's a sign of our times that the only construction going on in Downtown is something subsidized by the government, it's good to see new affordable housing after a period of developers coming in promoting "luxury" lofts and "prime" retail space in order to try to make a killing, which in the wake of the recession turned out to be a very poor long-term investment.

But there's something else that's caught my eye about Silver Gardens, and that is that I think it's Albuquerque's first self-proclaimed "transit oriented development".

Of course, at a certain level almost all development is "transit-oriented" (cars are a mode of transportation, after all), but in planner-speak transit-oriented refers to mass transit. Now, I've seen developments here and there in Albuquerque that mention their proximity to mass transit (100 Gold next door being one of them), but "transit oriented development" implies that the presence of mass transit played a large role in the location of the development than just an extra benefit of being in the neighborhood, which is what makes Silver Gardens unusual here.

Not only are Silver Gardens merely stating that they're a transit oriented development, it's actually an active part of their campaign. Their website boasts about the project's environmental-friendly and affordable nature, and they use their proximity to the Alvarado Transit Center as a key point for both of those claims. It's as if they really took the location of mass transportation as a key component when locating their development site (imagine that!).

This kind of message seems incredibly obvious but it also seems totally alien to Albuquerque. When it comes to the relationship between mass transit and development in Albuquerque, transit follows development, not the other way around.

Can someone pinch me, please?

Great Streets Facility Plan Hearing

2010-04-10T14:30:00.001-07:00

Someone who reads this blog sent me the following info; some of you might be very interested:

Great Streets Facility Plan:

CIty Council, Land Use Planning and Zoning Committee Hearing

Date: Wednesday, April 14, 5 pm

Place: Council Committee Room — 9th Floor Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Government Center

Councilors Isaac Benton and Debbie O'Malley are sponsoring the resolution to approve the Great Streets Facility Plan.

The Plan was developed a couple years ago by the City Planning Department and its consultant, with much input and support from residents and 'Active Living' advocates. After a long pause, it is active again.
"The Facility Plan is a citywide Rank Two plan that provides a framework for the planning, design and construction of segments of existing and new streets to become “Great Streets” and requires coordination among various public and private agencies and the public. A Great Street is typically ¼ to ½ mile long." (See attached resolution for more.)
The last version of the plan document is on the Planning Dept. website.

For more info on the Great Streets plan, go here.

I-40 Pedestrian/Bicycle Bridge

2010-03-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

Continuing with the bicycle news, another big ongoing project which has a lot of people excited is the new pedestrian and bicycle bridge adjacent to I-40.

Someone at BikeABQ posted this killer photo of the construction as viewed from atop the mesa above I-40. After seeing it, I decided I’d check it out for myself. Going there on a Sunday a couple weeks back, I wandered into the empty construction site and got a few shots from below the new bridge.

It’s a very beautiful bridge; slender, graceful, yet simple. Recent visits to San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and New York have revealed that I have a love of pretty bridges, so it’s nifty to get one here in Albuquerque.

Aesthetics aside, this bridge will actually serve a very useful purpose – filling in a major gap for pedestrians and bicyclists across the Rio Grande. At the moment, I-40 is the only bridge across the river which doesn’t have some kind of pedestrian/bicycle access attached, effectively stranding bicyclists in several neighborhoods in the Coors/I-40 area, which happen to be some of the densest neighborhoods in the Westside (which probably isn’t saying much, but still).

More than that, this bridge fills in a gap in the overall east-west chain of bike trails. Currently, Albuquerque has four really good north-south bike routes: a trail along Unser, the Bosque, the North Diversion Channel, and the trail along Tramway. But Albuquerque is lacking in a decent east-west route. There are a couple of good contenders, Paseo del Norte and I-40, but both have major gaps.

This bridge fills in one of the gaps in a potential I-40 trail, and it’s probably the most costly of all the remaining gaps. That new bicycle bridge near Carlisle and I-40 was another gap recently filled. There are still a few more gaps remaining: between 6^th Street and University, between Carlisle and Uptown, and between Jerry Cline Park and Los Altos Golf Course. Filling these in with new trails will give us an almost uninterrupted bicycle and pedestrian corridor all the way from Unser to Tramway, connecting to the four aforementioned north-south routes and the Paseo de las Montanas trail. Now that would have quite the impact.

So here’s to our newest bridge. May it brighten the future of cycling in Albuquerque!

Isotopes to Charge for Parking

2010-03-09T15:53:00.000-08:00

The Isotopes recently announced on their Facebook page that, in order to keep their parking regulations consistent with UNM (who I think actually owns the lots surrounding Isotopes Park), they are going to charge 5 bucks a car with fewer than four people.

Seeing that it does cost a lot of money to maintain a large parking lot, I'm glad that the Isotopes are asking those who drive to cough up a little money. It's also really smart to base the charge on how many people are in the car - that will encourage people to carpool.

But it'd be nice if transit could step in to take advantage of the newly found demand for an alternative to driving to the ballgame. Maybe ABQ Ride could offer some kind of better service to the stadium? Could the Isotopes organization help out? Come on, guys! Get it together!!!

Bicycle Boulevard Thoughts

2010-02-28T20:17:00.000-08:00

I must admit, I’m not exactly an avid cyclist. Normally I only ride my bike when I’m running late for class and I need to get somewhere faster than I can just by walking. As such, I’m not a very firm supporter of the “Share the Road” concept. I never ride defensively and I never really assert my place on the road. If that car coming up behind me wants to pass, it is more than welcome to. Take all the room you need you need pal, I’ll just scoot over to the right here. You’re bigger and faster than me; I know my place in the food chain.

Despite this (or perhaps because of it), I love the concept of the Bicycle Boulevard. It’s an excellent way to get a nice, bicycle-friendly route into a neighborhood without having to build some kind of separate trail and without banishing automobiles, avoiding the angry reactions that come with that kind of stuff.

It’s been almost a year since our Bicycle Boulevard system was first implemented, with new signage and street stencils on Silver Avenue, and the reactions have been mixed. While no one seems to think giving cyclists a priority street was a bad idea, the efficacy of the Boulevard system has been called into question. That Duke City Fix post by Johnny Mango shows the result of a near-fatal accident at Silver and Tulane, where apparently a cyclist on the Bicycle Boulevard blew through a stop sign, hitting a car coming up Tulane that did not have a stop sign.

What follows the story is some comments and suggestions made by Duke City Fix members about how to improve the Bicycle Boulevard. Nearly all of them run along the lines of putting in stop signs for cross streets to Silver (Tulane being the main example here) and a couple of infrastructural improvements like roundabouts and traffic diverters. So I thought I’d give some thoughts on the Bicycle Boulevard.

It’s not just Silver, you know.

First off, I think the Bicycle Boulevard has been a little more of a success than some on Duke City Fix seem to think, based on the whole system, which includes not only Silver near UNM and Nob Hill, but Silver, 14th, and Mountain from Downtown past Old Town to the Bosque. However, it’s the stretch of Silver between Yale and Carlisle that is the most visible segment of the Bicycle Boulevard because in the beginning, the concept only covered Silver Avenue between University and Carlisle; not to mention that its place near UNM and in Nob Hill means more Duke City Fix members experience this part most often.

Perhaps the main success of the Bicycle Boulevard thus far is that it is a sign of hope for many Albuquerque cyclists that the city genuinely cares about them, enough to at least put up some signs and make some nifty street markings. But the segment from Downtown to the Bosque also shows some real care in which streets were selected. With the exception of Mountain east of Rio Grande Boulevard, traffic is quite light on the whole stretch, even on Silver within Downtown. And while I had originally doubted that Mountain would do well as a bicycle route without some major infrastructural changes, what I actually found shocked me – drivers were doing a good job following the 18 MPH Bicycle Boulevard speed limit. A stroll down Mountain revealed that no one seemed to be driving above 25 MPH, and at first I thought I was imaging it until I got to Mountain and 14th and saw one of those “YOUR SPEED” signs:

As I watched some cars past, the same thing happened each time: they started at around 25 MPH and, catching sight of what their speed was, slowed down almost all the way to 18, some even going past that. It was rather shocking seeing how effective the sign was (although I may have helped by standing there and taking pictures of it as people passed) and I can’t help but wonder what would happen if a couple of these babies were installed on Silver.

Let’s talk traffic.

But we need to get to brass tacks here. Even if the rest of the Bicycle Boulevard system is looking fine, the fact remains that the most visible stretch of it is still not much safer than it was before, and may in fact be a little worse. Adding yet more signage, even if it’s one of these “YOUR SPEED” signs, won’t do much good.

The basic solution to the matter brought up in the Duke City Fix post is to install stop signs at all the cross streets to Silver between Yale and Carlisle (except for Girard). This would certainly be a huge improvement, but a few people want to take it a little further – to make it so that there would be no stop signs for Silver between Yale and Carlisle (again, except for Girard), basically make Silver into a bicycle expressway. There are three reasons why I like this idea: Firstly, stopping and starting up again takes a lot of energy on a bicycle, so making it so that you do that as little as possible would be quite ideal. Secondly, that kind of scenario would send a strong message: in this neighborhood, we value our cyclists as much as our automobiles (music to my ears). Thirdly, and most importantly, many Albuquerque cyclists seem to be oblivious to large red octagons, so accepting that fact and giving them a street where they can zoom through to their heart’s desire might have the bizarre effect of actually making the street safer overall.

However, one of the main problems with this stretch of Silver is that there’s too much through traffic on it, and removing the stop signs without putting in some major traffic diverters would make that situation even worse. Now, a bunch of people have voiced a desire for some roundabouts along Silver, but I don’t think that would do much good. I say this because there’s a roundabout near my apartment (the one at Santa Clara and Columbia) and while it does slow traffic down at the intersection, the traffic just speeds way up again once they’ve passed the roundabout, similar to how some drivers treat speed bumps. No, slowing down the traffic isn’t enough; we need to get it OFF Silver.

Diversion tactics.

Now what’s ironic is that Silver probably has more traffic diverters than any other street in the city, it’s just that none of them are on the stretch between Yale and Carlisle. Since we’re trying to get traffic off of the street, let’s start by saying hello to the bad boy of them all – the Terminator of Traffic. The Big One of ‘Get-Your-Car-Off-The-F***ing-Street’. The Ultimate Diversion Tactic. Meet…the traffic diverter at Silver and Sycamore:

As you can see, it stops auto traffic in both directions, allowing only bicycles to pass through. However, the obvious drawback to it is that a driver who heads up to it from the west is forced to turn around and drive back all the way down the block. What would be more ideal is something that allows drivers to get out, and then force them off the street.

And Silver’s got a couple of those too. How about a simple “Do Not Enter”, like the one at Silver and Yale?

Or Silver and Morningside?

The real beauty to these is that they don’t have to be nearly as elaborate as the two shown here; a couple of concrete barrels (or planters, if you prefer) in the inbound lane and a “DO NOT ENTER” sign is all you really need.

And then you can also slice up the intersection into two, pushing traffic either right or left onto the cross street, like at Silver and Montclaire:

The drawback with this option is that it also forces traffic on the cross street onto Silver, so perhaps not the ideal solution.

The point is there are options out there, they are extremely effective, and they can get pretty dang affordable.

Room to go.

We’ve got the cross traffic to stop at Silver and we’ve gotten cars off of Silver. One last suggestion I’d like to make regards the amount of space on the street itself. The stretch of Silver between Girard and Tulane is quite narrow, yet allows parking on both sides. When you have cars on both curbs there’s barely enough space for two cars to pass each other, a scenario which plays out a lot on this stretch of Silver. Throw a bicycle or two into this mess and you’ve got a disaster waiting to happen.

So what I want to suggest is to reduce the amount of parking on Silver. Eliminating it on one side of the street would really free up some space, as can be seen on Silver west of Girard, where parking is prohibited on the south side of the street and allowed only by permit on the north side.

I still hold a great amount of faith in the Bicycle Boulevard concept and retain confidence it can improve cycling in Albuquerque, if the proper steps are taken.

(I’m still trying to figure out what CYC wants with our cyclists. What do you AI people want? The public has the right to know!) [/tinhat]

West Side BRT study

2010-02-26T21:18:00.000-08:00

For those of you haven't already heard, MRCOG is conducting a study on Bus Rapid Transit along the Paseo del Norte corridor, from the West Side to the Journal Center area. A kick off meeting for the study was held this week.

Now, I am a big supporter of light rail, and find the benefits of Bus Rapid Transit (that is, the capital costs for the system) to be short-lived when you factor in operating costs, maintenance costs for roadway, fuel economy, attractiveness of the system to new riders, spin-off benefits on development caused by a rail system, etc.

However, given the fiasco that was the modern streetcar proposal. For better or for worse, many citizens looked at this and asked "What the heck is this supposed to do for me?" Right now, any rail system proposals is going to raise too many eyebrows and given the current budget crisis, our local leaders aren't going to have the will to propose it.

So it's really nice to see at least some kind of serious attention being paid to a dedicated mass transit corridor project. The presentation MRCOG has posted clearly shows that the traffic congestion across the Rio Grande is getting worse and there's no room for more road capacity, so something has to be done immediately.

Although it'd be nice to see a slightly bigger scope for Bus Rapid Transit in Albuquerque. The BRT corridor MRCOG is proposing looks like an excellent link between the West Side and the Jefferson/North I-25 area, which is a major job center and probably the fastest growing job center in the city, but the combined UNM/Downtown area is the largest job center in the city - so where's the BRT corridor to Downtown and UNM? There's plenty of road capacity to turn the Rapid Ride Blue Line into a dedicated bus corridor; it'd be nice to see MRCOG looking into this as well, and I hope they do. And who knows? Getting a dedicated mass transit corridor might give us a little taste for some future light rail system in Albuquerque.

Fairgrounds Opportunities

2010-01-23T12:53:00.000-08:00

Alright, I know it's been a while since I last posted, and I'm sorry. Life caught up with me and I lost interest in this blog for a while. But I thought I'd post something here again...

The talk about a Downtown Arena seems to have died down recently, and I'm fine with that, having stated my thoughts on that proposal before. However, I would agree that Albuquerque could do with a nice civic arena (not that anything could ever replace our wonderful Pit, now newly refurbished) tied to some sort of entertainment complex. That's when it struck me: we already have an arena: it's called Tingley Coliseum.

Of course, Tingley is a rather small arena and is something of fixer-upper. But it does have quite a bit going for it: being in the lower reaches of the Heights it is centrally located to a large population (why do you think they keep building new grocery stores out there?) and the Fairgrounds, being a large entertainment complex, is already home to a wide variety of events both large and small. The State Fair is the big one, but there's also the Flea Market and the occasional concert or small convention, like the Home and Garden ones. While a Downtown Arena was touted in part as a means to expand convention space, we forgot that we already have a large area for major events just a few miles east. It just needs a little refurbishing...

This is a rough sketch of the layout of the Fairgrounds today. The red area is the public area of the Fairgrounds, where the exhibit buildings are; the brown area at the north end is the service area; the large gray area on the east side is the racetrack; and the blue area at the bottom is parking, with the bluish-green area being the part of the parking lot taken up by the midway when the State Fair rolls around.

Recently, the racetrack/casino complex closed up shop with plans to move elsewhere, leaving a gaping area of the Fairgrounds that is now unused. There is an incredible opportunity here.

Here's another rough sketch, this one of what could be. The public areas of the Fairgrounds has been mostly left alone due to their historic nature (I find the main street that's there today quite charming, myself), but everything else has been rather dramatically altered. The service area has been pushed south, so that it has about the same amount of space as it does today but with new space facing Lomas Boulevard. That space, along with the space along Louisiana and Central has been filled with private development - I'm thinking midrise office and retail buildings here myself, something that's a higher density than what's across the street today and situated next to the sidewalk with parking behind, so as to create a decent pedestrian environment on the street.

The dark green lines extending out from the center are meant to be large sidewalks, to improve the pedestrian connection from the street to the fairgrounds. The large green squares in the middle are park space; desperately needed in this part of town. There's enough room here for soccer fields and large lawns, which can also be closed off and used for the State Fair two weeks out of the year.

And then of course, you'll notice the large round structure in the very heart of it all - a new civic arena, much larger than the current Tingley Coliseum. Whereas a Downtown Arena would have a limited size, all the space vacated by the racetrack here means a new arena here can be as big as desired.

Downtown already has plenty of entertainment options - there's plenty of bars and theaters there; adding yet one more venue, one for which there's limited room in Downtown, isn't necessary. What Downtown really needs is more residential and more retail, to accomplish the goal of a truly mixed-use area and make it more vibrant and livable. Why build yet one more major entertainment complex when we have a perfectly good one just to the east that's also well-served by mass transit?

Not to mention that this neighborhood could use it; a massive influx of public dollars into this area could really spruce things up here. Developments like Talin are already helping out, but more is needed. Plus, it's an area that tourists are already seeing - think of everyone who gets off I-40 and drives down Central (or for that matter, goes to the State Fair). Wouldn't it make a greater impression on our visitors if we improved a part of town that really needed it, rather than pour yet more money into a neighborhood that's already seen a lot of gentrification?

Our Relationship With Water

2009-11-02T13:42:00.000-08:00

Every now and then I see a post on Duke City Fox suggesting that some sort of riverfront promenade by built along the Rio Grande. Usually the San Antonio Riverwalk is cited in these discussions as a case example, another "wouldn't it be cool to have what they have?" Features like restaurants and shops perched on the river often pop up as possibilities in these discussions.

I've been formulating an opinion on this matter for quite a while now, and yesterday yet another post along these lines appeared on DCF, so I jumped into action. Although here the example used was Central Park in New York City, but the basic concept was the same.

Now, there are two main issues with this concept; one is environmental, while the other is more, I'll say "historical". First, the environmental:

The important thing to realize is that Bosque isn't really designed to serve as an urban park (although it does serve that function), it's designed more as a wildlife preserve; to preserve the environment that currently exists there. It's also one of the few remaining cottonwood forests of its type in the world, so naturally there is great sensitivity in this matter. Doing a landscape with grass lawns, floral gardens, and other non-native features just destroys the whole point of the Bosque.

Okay, so that's the practical, environmental take. But then there's my other point, the "historical":

I've been traveling a bit lately, and I've seen the waterfronts in San Francisco, San Diego, St. Louis, Chicago, New York City, and Pittsburgh in the last few years. Here's the thing though: those cities were built around their respective water features, be it the ocean or a river. There is a historical connection to their waterway; at one point, the entire well-being of the city relied on their connection via water to the rest of the world. Their economies were built on it - industry was constructed along the water; shipyards, factories, warehouses, ports, etc.

Once we hit globalization and these cities decide to go post-Industrial, the industry is torn down and the port functions moved elsewhere. All of a sudden, the desire to connect people to the river is an option, because the land is now available. And this connection makes sense; the city was built on the waterfront and the density is already there, so it offers open space to a large population and establishes that historical connection.

So how is Albuquerque different? Well, the city has never been organized around the Rio Grande. Neighborhoods like Los Duranes and Atrisco, remnants of the Spanish agriculture settlements in the valley, are organized around their acequias, but the Rio Grande was too wild and flooded too constantly to settle next to - settlements had to establish themselves just above the floodplain in order to thrive.

Then Albuquerque becomes established around man-made features - the railroad, then Route 66, then the freeways. This period is where most of the city's development took place. After sprawling outwards so much, development starts happening in relation to natural features again, but not to the river - instead, to the Sandia Mountains and the West Mesa, as people start desiring a space perched in the foothills or with a gorgeous view eastward across the valley. In some ways, we are more connected to the Sandia Mountains than to the river - we see it every day, we watch it change with the seasons and with the light of the setting sun, and it seems to watch over us. For crying out loud, we built a tramway to the top of it. The crest and the foothills are kind of like our own little promenade, where many of us go to for regular recreation.

The function of waterways in Albuquerque has never really been for economic or transportation purposes, like it has been in New York or Pittsburgh. The Rio Grande and the Bosque have served as a source of water (both a long time ago with agricultural settlements and much more recently with the San Juan-Chama diversion project), a flood buffer, and an obstacle to be bridged to allow further West Side development. The recreational aspect has been more a side benefit than the primary purpose.

So we have to be careful when we talk about doing riverfront promenades and such along the Rio Grande, because doing so just doesn't fit our historical association with the river. Not to say the Bosque couldn't use a little improvement - I'd love to see a few small boardwalks providing access to the river, where you can sit and watch the river and the wildlife, since river access currently is rather limited, but beyond that would be too much.

Finding the Center

2009-10-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

If you asked someone from Albuquerque what the center of the city was, you’d find that the answer varies by the person. Some people spend their entire lives – living, shopping, working, relaxing – in the Heights, and for them the center of their lives is the pleasant houses and scenic trails in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains or the shopping centers of Uptown. Many people work at Kirtland or the labs, and for them that heavily guarded base is a logical center of city life. Some are farmers and ranchers of the South Valley, living by the fields, maintaining the ditches and relaxing in local cafes and bars (Note that all three of these are generalizations, merely examples to grasp a sense of the diversity of the people who live in Albuquerque). As in any other city, to each individual is their own – their own place to live, their own place of work, their own place to reflect.

For many years now, a well-meaning group of people have attempted to establish Downtown Albuquerque as the primary center of the city; the place that, if anyone asked, there would be no doubt that this is the heart. Their reasons are numerous and sometimes difficult to translate into words; their motives are based on a comparative analysis with other cities who have big, impressive Downtowns and have gone through similar soul-searching efforts, as well as a historical context which tells them that Downtown was the center of things until an invention called the automobile grew too popular.

When the railroad came to town, they knew that the place where they put the train station would become the center of a new city. The Old Town Plaza was where the settlement of Alburquerque was born, but the intersection of Central Avenue and First Street was where the modern city of Albuquerque was created. The area surrounding the train station remained as the central business district of the city until the middle of the century. However, there is a problem with using this historical context to create the Downtown Albuquerque of the future: until the construction of the Interstate Freeway System, Downtown was literally the crossroads of the city. Not only that, but Downtown was the center of a much smaller city – few lived west of the river, the fairgrounds were at the edge of the city, and as of 1940 the population of Albuquerque was only about 35,000 people. Even connected to the rest of the country by railroad, Albuquerque was a small city – there is little history of industry here and there have never been any major corporate investments in Downtown (how many large corporations can you name with headquarters in Albuquerque?). How does one take this context to make a place that will serve as the center of a region of - what is it, 800,000 people? - and where jobs, housing, services, and recreation have become increasingly scattered?

My answer is that you can’t. To attempt to do so is to make Downtown Albuquerque into something that it isn’t, that it never has been and most likely never will. Rather than looking at the city as one big mass which is missing a center, perhaps it would be of more use to break down the city into individual components, and find where the center(s) are. The center doesn’t have to be a formal space; it could be something quite simple – a little park, a major intersection, a certain street, even a strip mall – just a place where people gather for some particular reason – to relax, to shop, to work, or a combination of these.

So, in the pursuit of a center, let me share with you my center. Obviously, as a UNM student who lives in the UNM area, the campus is going to be a major center of my life. It also has components that enable it to act as a major city center, namely a whole lot of people working (if you think about it, there is little that separates the office worker from the college student in the eyes of a city planner – we both have to commute, congregate in these large buildings, and work), but also large social spaces which also act as places to recreate, spaces to be entertained, and plenty of shops and restaurants nearby which generate their business thanks to the presence of the university. It is a dynamic area with a culture and a lot of users, so where is the center of this city center?

For me, it’s the corner of Central and Cornell. No other intersection in the city (or for that matter, any city) comes close to this one in what it means in my personal life; not only does the intersection act as an entry point into the campus, but each corner contains some important function in my student life – bookstore on one corner, George Pearl Hall (where most of my classes are) on another corner, the Frontier on another, and on the last corner and just a little down the way is Saggio’s and the post office on one side and Satellite Coffee on another. Here (at least for me, which is the whole point I'm driving at) is the beating heart of Albuquerque, pumping cars and buses along Central Avenue and pedestrians and bicyclists in and out of the campus.

The way I see it, one cannot necessarily create their own center. One has to be pushed into that center. One has to find their center. And this is where the task of creating centers becomes so darn complex, because so much of it is about the individual. Take the urban renewal efforts of the 1960s, which gave us Downtown’s Civic Plaza. It would seem an ideal center point – important functions surround the space, there is plenty of room for large groups to gather, and plenty of decorative elements – yet Civic Plaza has a very dead feel for the majority of time. Save for the occasional large event, few seem to want to spend much time here. Rather, it is Central Avenue that delivers the goods; people will take time to explore the businesses along Central Avenue.

So what does this all mean in the pragmatic sense? What can planning do? How do we give people that center? Here’s some ideas:

1) Find a place of importance. No matter what neighborhood it is, there will be something of importance that's already there. As I said above, it can be virtually anything; it just has to be a place where people already gather.

2) Improve the place of importance. Allow people to walk comfortably through the space. Install the missing components that prevent the space from inviting people in. Give people the chance to explore the place of importance, and it will become a center.

3) Once you have established the place of importance as a center, then fill in the missing pieces and connect it to other centers. Raise densities and add services not yet in the area. Connect it to other centers via mass transit. The key isn't necessarily to create a city center, but a neighborhood center, where one can transition from the private life of their home and their neighborhood to the public life of the outer world, of the other centers of the city.

Braving the Balloon Fiesta Park & Ride

2009-10-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

Every year I make an effort to go to the Balloon Fiesta – it’s one of my absolute favorite things about Albuquerque and I can not stand the thought of missing out on the fun. Of course, I don’t have a car, and since all my friends seem to be too busy with homework or just uninterested in the Balloon Fiesta, I have to take mass transit to the Balloon Fiesta, which means taking the park & ride. Last year I took the Rail Runner, but this year I decided to ride the bus from the Coronado mall lot.

Now before you start laughing, let me just say the one thing everyone who makes a bad decision says: it seemed like a good idea at the time. You see, I also had to work yesterday afternoon, so I wanted as much time as possible between when I got back and when I had to go to work. I had only two realistic options: taking the bus from Coronado mall, or taking the Rail Runner. Taking the bus from Coronado seemed like the best option, because there were very few Rail Runner trains serving the fiesta and the first one taking people back from the Balloon Fiesta shows up at 9:30, while the park & ride buses start taking off at 8:30 – a whole hour earlier. Surely that would be the most convenient option!

So the plan was put into action. I took the very first 766 bus east, which arrived at Uptown just before 6:30. I walked to the Coronado lot and first saw the huge line which wound around a few of the parking aisles. My spirits were high until I realized it was getting awfully close to 7:00 and the mass ascension was starting. Right about 7:00 buses seemed to stop showing up, so the line was still for about 10 minutes while they called in more. They finally came and we took off at around 7:15.

The bus driver took us on a speedy route up San Pedro to Osuna, then down Osuna to San Mateo, but then the speed stopped when she pulled in to the Cliff’s amusement park lot. Something was wrong with the tires (and there was a slight smell of burning rubber in the air now) and she wouldn’t be able to take us all the way to the launch field. Deferred maintenance. Great. Fortunately, she had called in another bus, which was waiting at the Cliff’s lot for us.

This second bus was able to get us all the way to the launch field, but not before taking the park & ride’s rather convoluted route up Edith, across a couple of industrial lots, and down a couple of side streets, by which point half of the balloons were already in the air. We got there at about 7:40, and the mass ascension was already half-over. This is where I was thankful I had gotten my ticket online in advance, so I could skip the line for getting tickets at the gate (although it was short) and head straight in.

Nevertheless, I still had a blast. I was still able to take lots of pictures, get up close to plenty of balloons, and witness the colorful spectacle yada yada yada.

At about 8:45 I decided to get in line to get back to the Coronado lot. This is when I realized that out of everyone who took park & ride or the Rail Runner (which was a lot of people, mind you), about 2/3 of them must have come from Coronado mall. The line already wound out onto the launch field, now almost empty of balloons, and I wound up standing in that line for about 45 minutes. By the time I got on a bus and got back to Coronado mall, it was past 10:00. It was only as I was walking back to the Uptown ABQ Ride stop that I realized that since they don’t ask for tickets on the park & ride buses, I could have taken the shuttle to the Rail Runner stop, paid for a Rail Runner ticket, and could have been home by now. This brilliant but delayed thought was rewarded with a slap to my forehead.

Ultimately, I wasn’t late for work, but I didn’t have any time to relax, choosing instead to slug down a cup of coffee and pray they would take me through the rest of the day (it did).

To their immense credit, the bus drivers and the people actually running the show were really well organized, calling in more buses when needed and still being friendly to everyone while doing their job. It was a mixture of bad decisions on my part, some flat out bad luck, and a little bit of poor planning on part of the folks who set up the park & ride that made the actual getting there and back part of the fiesta a real hassle.

Firstly, ABQ Ride: could we get earlier service hours on the Rapid Ride? Seriously.

Secondly, how about making sure all those school buses are in top notch shape before sending them out for the weekend?

Thirdly, could we get some more park & ride locations, particularly in the Uptown area? Coronado and Hoffmantown obviously aren’t cutting it if 2/3 of the riders are still using one park & ride location. I hear that the fairgrounds has lots of parking. So does Winrock, now that I think of it.

Fourthly, maybe we could even devote more buses to the Coronado lot? Maybe expand the Coronado bus bay at the launch field, so there’s more room for all the buses that are needed there?

Or even better yet: hey ABQ Ride, how about running some real routes to that part of town, so that I don’t have to deal with any of this messy park & ride business? A San Mateo-Jefferson Rapid Ride line with a stop near the Balloon Museum would be really nifty.

A Post-Marty Albuquerque

2009-10-07T12:51:00.000-07:00

Wow. Yeow.

So there's good news, not-so-good news, and bad news.

I'll jump into the good news first. Most of the City Council races went the way I'd hoped, with Benton and Harris coming back for another term, along with Cook and Sanchez in no-contest runs. But those were no-brainers. The really good news is that the transit tax passed, along with every bond issue and proposition on the ballot.

Then there's the not-so-good news.

I'm definitely not thrilled about Berry's victory. As I said here a couple of weeks ago, I was really pulling for Romero, although I wouldn't have minded (and in fact, expected) a Marty win that much. Berry on the other hand, he's an unknown. Let's face it: this was a partisan race, and the Democrats were split between Marty and Romero here. Marty really ruined this for the Democrats - if he hadn't defied the term limits, I think Romero would have had a much better shot.

But I'm not partisan, and there is a silver lining to this cloud: Berry's an unknown. I don't think we really know how this is going to turn out, and it may be better than the Marty supporters (who today seem to be acting for all the world as if Albuquerque's glory days are over) expect. Sure, the ultra pro-development stance (which Marty definitely possessed) will carry over, but perhaps with less of the attitude. Maybe Berry will be more open to outside ideas. And don't forget: we just passed a bunch of amendments that reduce the mayor's power and gives the city council more control. This can totally work out folks: it's not the end of the world.

However, as far as I'm concerned, it is the end for district 5, where Dan Lewis trashed Michael Cadigan in the race for the city council seat. Cadigan was one of the few guys really sticking it to SunCal and other large developers, and he was one of the fiercer supporters of mass transit on the council. Cadigan wasn't a saint, but this was a vote bought by sprawl developers as far as I'm concerned. I can live with Berry, but Lewis is another matter. Michael, I'm going to miss you.

Overall, I'm a little bummed but still optimistic. I'm not yet ready to state that Albuquerque is about to go down the tubes and wind up another Phoenix - this can still work.

Dr. Chavez or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Trolley/Streetcar/Modern Light Rail (revisited)

2009-10-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

Given that this is a blog about living a carless life in Albuquerque, it’s fitting that I started with the most controversial mass transportation issue in perhaps the entire history of the city – the “modern streetcar” system. Since moving here in 2006 (the year it was first proposed), my feelings on the issue have become increasingly mixed and shades of gray have appeared where once there was a glorified image of a shiny trolley running past the Frontier Restaurant.

Full disclaimer: I still love the idea. If it came up for a public vote, I would vote for it, I would use it, and I would love it. It’s still a really cool idea.

But if I had the chance to design a rail system for Albuquerque, this isn’t what I would build.

Let’s go back to how this all started. Back in 2004, the City of Albuquerque produced a short video called “Rail Transit in Albuquerque”, where they promoted the creation of a light rail system in the city and showed off what some nearby cities (Denver and Dallas in particular) had been able to do with their light rail systems. Rapid Ride had just been created and was serving as a test project to see how high-capacity transit could function in the Central Avenue corridor.

A couple of years went by with little word on rail transit, as city officials started to realize that the costs of a light rail system would likely be a hard pill for voters to swallow, even with substantial federal funding. This led to the modern streetcar proposal in 2006, and if you follow what Martin Chavez has said on the issue, it is clear that he’s talking about streetcars as if it was light rail – all of the benefits at a fraction of the cost. As I pointed out in the first post, this is not true; light rail and modern streetcar are two completely different types of transit systems. But in an effort to get a rail system for cheap, the proposal had shrinked and the system had changed.

In 2006, local officials were riding on the first wave of love for the Rail Runner (which has definitely been eclipsed by the second wave which came when it got to Santa Fe) and rail transit seemed to be all the rage in city hall. But when the city came out with the streetcar proposal everything ground to a halt, and a lot of opposition to the project formed. I started getting a bad feeling when I realized it wasn’t just people who were vehemently opposed to the concept of rail, but also folks who loved the idea of rail in Albuquerque but were skeptical of the streetcar as designed. If you couldn’t grab these folks, something was wrong here.

It’s 2009. The streetcar proposal has been used against Martin Chavez as he seeks reelection, since reminders of it (such as Berry’s mention of it) are sure to stir up frustrated feelings in voters who remember the fiasco. There has been city council legislation that attempted to ban any study of rail transit whatsoever. Fortunately, the legislation failed to pass the council and I’m pretty confident that Chavez is going to win reelection. But the tide has changed – public feeling against rail transit feels quite high. What happened? Where did we go so wrong?

This summer, I read a blog called Human Transit, which I highly recommend – it is written by a transit planner who talks about even the smallest (but crucial) details in mass transit systems around the world and whose posts are always thought-provoking and well written. One day I came across a post of his titled “Streetcars: an Inconvenient Truth,” which was perhaps the most fair and balanced viewpoint on modern streetcar systems I had ever seen.

His argument is thus: a modern streetcar system which replaces an existing local bus line (such as the one proposed for Central Avenue) will not make any improvement to overall mobility. “Mobility” here means getting from Point A to Point B in a certain amount of time. And think about it – a ride from UNM to Downtown is not going to be any faster on a modern streetcar than on the 66 bus.

That’s not to say there aren’t any benefits from modern streetcar systems. There’s the obvious economic benefit – rail systems are highly visible and encourage new and higher density development along their route, which is perfect if one of your primary goals is to highlight your city and encourage infill development. There’s also the less obvious environmental benefit over buses – riding capacity, operating life, and the fact that it runs on electricity means there’s less energy consumption per passenger mile than a bus.

These two benefits are fine reasons to support rail transit, but is this really why rail advocates want rail in Albuquerque? When we go to another city and hop on their rail system, are we doing it so that we can see all the nifty new development along the tracks? Are we doing it because the vehicle produces no emissions and has more room than a bus? No, we take it because it is a quick, reliable, and easy way to get to where we need to go. And this is where people are rightfully skeptical of the streetcar proposal.

If want we want is to highlight Albuquerque and have denser development along Central Avenue, then streetcars are right up our alley. But if we’re looking to revolutionize mass transit in the city, where one can get anywhere in the city on mass transit, where it is quick, easy, reliable, and extremely efficient to do so, and where we can encourage denser, transit-friendly development across the city (as Denver is doing so well), streetcars aren’t likely to get us there. Rapid Ride has brought our transit system a long way in a short span of time, but we’ll need light rail to finish the job.

Consider this: Once you actually build a modern streetcar line, the tracks are going to be there pretty much forever. But you can’t really expand a streetcar line very much – the slow speed and frequent spacing of stops means the advantages or riding it (and thus the demand) drops off the further get from the city center. That’s not to say you can’t just build a light rail system in addition to your modern streetcar line later, but here’s something else to consider: There’s only two modern streetcar systems operating in this country at the moment, one in Portland and the other in Seattle (Tacoma has something which might look like a modern streetcar, but it actually acts as a light rail system). Both are in cities that had incredibly well-developed transit systems spanning the whole city when the streetcar line was built; Portland already had an excellent light rail system, and Seattle was just about to open their light rail system. The streetcar was built really as an afterthought – a way to get around the city center once they had established reliable links into the city center.

Like I said at the start; I still love the idea of a streetcar system in Albuquerque. I’m just not sure we’re going about bringing rail transit to the city in the right way.

The Growth of Uptown

2009-09-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

This weekend marked a major victory for those of us without cars in Albuquerque (at least, those of us who live along the 766 Rapid Ride line). This weekend, a new Trader Joe's opened in ABQ Uptown! Yes, finally we can get our jars of pineapple salsa, our affordable blocks of feta cheese and affordable organic food, without having to beg our friends to drive us to Paseo del Norte.

And hey, look at their mural inside the store!

This is just the latest addition in a long rebuilding (and rebranding) of the Uptown neighborhood. ABQ Uptown, the faux-urban and rather cheesy (yet strangley compelling) outdoor retail mall has proven quite popular and has in many respects inspired elements of other developments in Albuquerque, such as the proposed Winrock Town Center just across the street.

It's not exactly high-density and not quite what comes to mind when one thinks of "mixed-use" (given that the housing is separated from the retail by a gated fence and a street), but they've done a strangley good job selling each component of the development, judging by how many of the retail spaces are occupied, how many cars are in the housing development, and how they've managed to do what Downtown has never managed to do: attract a major grocery store. It's really no wonder ABQ Uptown is an example other developers are looking at.

And it has certainly changed the face of Uptown, and set the neighborhood in a right direction. Wide, welcoming sidewalks? Street parking? A walkable outdoor area? These are elements that no one would have linked with Uptown not so long ago. And these elements are apparently only going to expand and perhaps get better with ABQ Uptown Phase III and the Winrock Town Center across the street, but these are private spaces isolated from each other by large roadways. How can we make the connections, the public space between these sites, mutli-modal friendly?

There are three major trouble spots which impend pedestrians in Uptown. The first is the massive parking lot surrounding the Winrock Center - a factor already under work; the second is the massive parking lot surrounding the Coronado Center; and the third is the great divider of Uptown: Louisiana Blvd, an eight-lane roadway with one or two left turn lanes in the middle. Elsewhere in Uptown, pedestrians enjoy a fairly friendly environment: two lanes in each direction with a pleasant median, wide tree-lined sidewalks, and a slightly more dense pattern of buildings - still surrounded by parking lots, but not as dangerous for pedestrians as those that surround the malls.

So here's some ideas for making the neighborhood more pedestrian-friendly:

1) Knock off that right lane.

Louisiana Blvd has four lanes running in each direction; not only an effective barrier to crossing the street, but also unpleasent just to be near. Perhaps a good step to encouraging pedestrian use here would be to convert the right lane of traffic into a parking lane, with bulb-outs at the intersections for pedestrians. Or, if the general feeling is that there's enough parking to go around already, then convert it into a bus only lane. Or a bicycling lane. Or both.

2) Extend crossing time.

Right now, just about every intersection in Uptown has pedestrian crosswalks, but the time they allot you means you have to really dash across the street to make it. Let's have a little extra time.

3) Fly over Louisiana.

Even with a couple fewer lanes and longer crossing time, Louisiana will still be a hazard to pedestrians. I dislike pedestrian bridges in general, but maybe a few along Louisiana will be just what we need.

4) Or ride across it.

Establish an Uptown circulator bus route, like the D-Ride, to connect all the different components of Uptown. And make sure you get those buses right up next to the door, so we don't have to trudge through those massive parking lots which will unfortauntely remain until the landowner decides to do a little infill.

2009 Election Guide

2009-09-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

Before I start, I just wanted to give a quick off-topic message: I loved the wide variety of opinions expressed in the comments to my first post. Knowing that I can generate some interesting conversations among people who care about this city is what makes this blog worth it.

Now, on with the show:

The Journal and Alibi have already done theirs; I think now it’s my turn. Read on for my own personal choices for approval this election.

First, full disclosure: I am a single-issue voter. Yes, I admit it. My issue is public transit – the fellow who tells me I should be able to ride a bus past midnight in this town will immediately be the one to get my vote. I haven’t heard the fellow who told me I should be able to ride a bus past midnight in this town, so I had to dig through the rhetoric a bit to find the answers.

Mayor:

Let’s knock the big one out of the way – the office of the Mayor. I am not as vehemently anti-Marty as some of my friends, but I’m no fan of his either.

Firstly, Marty has had some great ideas. I love Tingley Beach, the expansions to the zoo and Biopark, his willingness to look into rail transit (although he did botch that rather horribly), water conservation has improved considerably, and since he became mayor there have been three major improvements to Albuquerque’s mass transit system: the creation and expansion of Rapid Ride, the construction of the Alvarado Transportation Center and a few new park-and-ride lots, and the purchase of a new fleet of wheelchair-friendly buses.

But then there’s all the bad. The crusade against smokers, the handouts to sprawl developers, the greenwashing, the downtown arena, and his incredibly pushy personality all get on my nerves; not to mention that his very presence in this election and defying term limits annoys the hell out of me. And at the end of the day, Albuquerque’s mass transit system is still incredibly underwhelming, even with recent improvements and soaring ridership levels.

Richard Berry has done little to impress me. He’s from a construction background and many of his ideas read like developer fantasies, “no impact fees” chief among them. He’s interested in privatizing certain city services and dropping the transit tax (which by the way, see below), all while claiming he’s interested in sustainability yet offering precious little evidence to back that claim. I wrote his campaign an email asking what they would do for mass transit and never got a word back; it’s just not an issue for him.

On the other hand, Richard Romero is an intriguing personality. Firstly, unlike Berry he actually did return my email (good man!) and has declared support for expanding mass transit in the city. His ideas on energy conservation are great, and I’m very intrigued by his plans to remake the city’s Planning Department. He’s got the experience, and while he doesn’t have the assertiveness that Chavez holds (what Marty’s followers seem to refer to as “vision”), his workable attitude might actually get more done in the long run, when we’re not drowning in mayor-city council or city-county fights.

While Marty’s campaign has surely outspent Romero’s and Marty’s chances for reelection are looking pretty darn good, I am voting for Romero, if just for the change of scenery.

City Council – District 1:

Ken Sanchez is running unopposed in this election, so there really isn’t much point talking about it anymore here.

City Council – District 3:

This is a run between incumbent Issac Benton and Alan Armijo. Well, Benton is the obvious choice here, and I have no doubt he will take this election. He’s probably the biggest supporter of alternative transit in the city, has repeatedly encouraged central city investment, and put a lot into energy conservation. You just can’t ask for a better guy than him.

City Council – District 5:

Probably the only contentious city council race this year is the one between incumbent Michael Cadigan and Dan Lewis. Cadigan definitely has my vote – he’s shown a true dedication to alternative transit (he actually uses the bus connections and bike paths he’s fought so hard for), has not been afraid to stand against sprawl developers, and is bold when it comes to conservation. To lose him would be a hard blow indeed.

Dan Lewis, on the other hand, has spent more time talking about Cadigan than anything else this election. On issues, he’s mostly about roads, roads, and roads. He also wants to ditch impact fees, preferring that the city pay for new infrastructure through taxes collected from the purchase of goods – it’s trickle-down economics, which is bad enough, but anyone with a shred of common sense knows what this proposal really means is that the whole city will be paying out of their pockets for the West Side’s growth. No thanks.

City Council – District 7:

There’s a race in District 7? Actually, you can’t really call it a race, since Mike Cook is the only fellow formally running. David Green is running as a write-in candidate, but he has no website and the voter’s guides don’t have any info on him, while Cook at least has a website. But Cook is an unknown as well – take a look at his website, and it’s all about his job experiences. He mentions what the major issues are to him, yet none of the info has any meaning and there doesn’t seem to be any plan of action whatsoever. I’m glad to see Sally Mayer leave (the pet focus was getting to be a bit much), but I’d rather she be replaced with a known. I’m just happy I don’t live here, so I don’t really have to think about it on Election Day.

City Council – District 9:

This is a race between incumbent Don Harris and David Barbour. Barbour has talked some great language in his campaign, such as expanding public transit and pursuing energy conservation, but while he can talk the talk he hasn’t convinced me he can walk the walk; for one thing, he opposes the transit tax; and another thing, his ideas don’t seem to have any plan behind them. I’m glad he’s bringing these issues up; he just seems to lack a ground to stand on. On the other hand, I’ve never been a huge fan of Don Harris. Here I just throw my hands in the air and thank god I don’t live there either.

Transportation Tax:

Well now, you’d be insane to turn this down. It has played a huge part in paving our roads, running our buses, and expanding our bicycle system. And what’s even better is that this time around, mass transit is getting a bigger slice of the pie, going from 20% of ¼ of 1 cent to 36% of ¼ of 1 cent. Greg Payne actually said that should the tax pass, ABQ Ride would look into expanding service hours and putting down more routes.

So vote for it, all right? Just say yes. Say yes, damn it.

Bonds and Propositions:

Just say yes. To all of them. Say yes, damn it.

Dr. Chavez or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Trolley/Streetcar/Modern Light Rail

2009-09-18T19:12:00.000-07:00

Recently, a little spat emerged in the mayoral race between incumbent Martin Chavez and challenger Richard Berry. It started when Berry criticized Chavez for supporting a “trolley” system. Chavez responded that he never supported a trolley; he supported a “modern light rail” system. What it boils down to is that Chavez decided to try and get all technical on Berry’s ass.

Marty, may I kindly request that you shut up and leave the technicalities to the pros? Please, allow me.

Technically, what Chavez and Berry are arguing over isn’t a difference in technology; it’s a difference in appearance. For all the talk about the proposed streetcar system being “modern”, there actually isn’t anything more modern about the fundamental technology between the trolley systems of the 1880s-1940s and this proposed streetcar system.

The term “trolley” is derived from the trolley pole, which is the metal pole that attaches the rail-bound vehicle to the electrical wire above, and thus allows the vehicle to receive energy from the wire and enable it to carry passengers. In fact, buses which use the same technology (such as in San Francisco) are often referred to as “trolley buses”, however we usually use the term “electric buses” in the United States to differentiate them from the rail-bound vehicles.

When people use the term “trolley” or “streetcar” in the United States, people are usually referring to the old-fashioned looking, rail-bound, electrically powered vehicles which were the primary mover of people in cities across the country at the turn of the 20^th century. These vehicles were often wood-paneled with open windows, but later ones (such as the famous PCC streetcars of the 1930s and 40s, which are currently used on San Francisco’s F-Streetcar line) are sleek (for their time), metal vehicles with glass windows.

Starting in the 1980s, cities in the United States began to rebuild rail systems which used the same technology as the trolleys/streetcars that they had torn out decades ago (that is, electricity fed through overhead wires down a trolley pole into the rail-bound vehicle). But the purpose of these systems was usually to connect distant suburbs or points of interest (such as the airport on the edge of town) with central business districts, so a faster and more high-capacity version of the trolley/streetcar had to be used. These systems were referred to as “light rail”, to differentiate them from both the older streetcar/trolley systems and current subway/metro systems (also sometimes referred to as “heavy rail”). Because these systems had to comply with federal regulations (such as ADA), they were designed differently than the old trolleys or streetcars to have features like low floors and ramps for wheelchairs, although the fundamental technology driving the vehicle was the same.

Then you have the most recent development, which only started occurring in this decade. Here we have light rail vehicles being used to for local service, to connect neighborhoods in a central area of the city, rather than connecting the central business district to the suburbs. Because the purpose of these types of systems was different from light rail systems (even though the technology was still the same), the term “modern streetcar” was adopted, because while they looked more like light rail systems, they functioned more like the older trolley and streetcar systems.

So Berry is a little closer to the truth than Marty here, because what Marty is supporting here is a trolley. It’s also a streetcar. It’s also a “modern” light rail vehicle – it’s all the same technology. Where Marty goes wrong is in using the term “light rail”, because light rail refers to systems which have their own right-of-way, stations spaced every half-mile to mile, and large vehicle capacities, all intended for the purpose of carrying large amounts of people quickly from downtown to the suburbs. This is not light rail; this is an updated version of the older trolley/streetcar systems, which move in mixed traffic, have frequent stops, and smaller capacities than their light rail counterparts. That’s not to say they’re useless, they’re just two different types of systems designed for two different purposes, even if the technology is exactly the same.