Earlier this week I did a post about how the US is moving forward in their thinking regarding the place of roads in the hierarchy of their cities and the greater realisation of the link between a car dominated city and lower liveability. In this post I want to cover off another subtle change in the US, the surge of construction of transit in the US. Many people think that under the Bush presidency that anything non-SUV was suppressed but given the three tiers of government in the US more progressive states, councils and politicians have still managed to plan and build some transit systems and now Obama and his stimulus money have come along, many more of these plans will become a reality, the following list of projects are under construction or have been designed, funded and have starting dates:
These cities have planned works in the pipeline:
For more info on these individual projects:
http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/under-construction/
http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/under-consideration/
Now I have to say I actually find this very disturbing for the future of NZ’s economy, the US rail network already works much better than ours carrying 40% of freight and they are starting to get it about what they call “transit”, PT to us. We know Europe is the rail, and to a lesser extent PT, capital of the world and the Aussies (who already have a much more extensive rail and PT networks than us) are planning on spending $60 – $80 billion on just their rail network to 2025, we are very vulnerable.
Turn to Asia and Japan has extensive rail and China is building a nation wide HSR rail system and the world’s largest Metro in Beijing (to be closely followed by Shanghai), Hong Kong and Singapore have good systems.
So what does it add up to? Well a world that is moving away from car based solutions, who realise that we cannot hope (and pray) that alternatively fueled cars can solve all our problems. Exactly what NZ is doing.
This really worrying when we consider NZers drives imported cars using imported oil, we are a small oil market at the end of a long logistical train, so if peak oil hits and hits hard what kind of oil market do you think is going to be the first to go? Add in climate change which is following the worst predicted IPCC trends and carbon is going to get very expensive, when the world starts freaking out, how are we going to get around? How are we going to pay the carbon cost to move goods around to power our economy?
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nice work with Print-Screen 😉
Ha ha, I wanted to make it easier than clicking the links…
Interesting how light-rail is such a big thing in the US. Here light-rail is usually killed before the first hurdle, and doesn’t even make it into the serious consideration basket. I wonder if this is because we obsessively look at old-fashioned, treasury inspired BCR’s for a project, and never look into the wider benefits of light-rail that the BCR’s struggle to deal with, and thus usually ignore. Lets hope this waterfront tram proposal will start things rolling in Auckland, as light-rail is far superior to very high frequency bus routes, especially in CBD and CBD fringe areas.
I think that’s certainly a possibility Luke. I also think that we often propose light-rail for the wrong projects (ie. ones where heavy rail is most appropriate). Generally it has seemed as though light-rail is almost as expensive as heavy rail, but only has a level of benefit similar to a busway – the “worst of both worlds” in a sense.
I think those are the wrong projects for light-rail though. The best projects are “on-street” locations, providing a better quality and higher capacity bus route. Dominion Road, Tamaki Drive and Great North Road between the city and the Zoo seem like the most obvious routes to start with.
I dont find this initially impressive looking list particularly convincing. The USA has a population of about 300 million, while nz has a population of 4 million. So the USA is 75 times the size and has loads of large cities within its borders. NZ has 1 large city and 2 medium sized ones. You are bound to be able to find lots of American conurbations with far greater PT investments than anywhere in NZ and many with far less investment. Indeed, if Auckland were in the US, you’d have found on your list the double tracking project, the electrification project and the busway project. These gross comparisons don’t tell me much at all. And it reminds me of the odious “lets catch up with australia” catch cry that is emanating from the government. What does it mean to “fall behind” or “catch up” with a country? We are not in competition with the USA or Australia in any meaningful sense. I think it is far more valuable to decide what we want for here and make an argument for it based on competing interests within the local economy and society, informed by well-chosen comparisons where appropriate.
@Luke, I think the driver for light rail is the state of their heavy rail system, it is choca with freight and most double stacked which means no room for commuter trains and no way to easily electrify them…
They also have a lot of old industrial rail rights of way, now removed which is good for light rail routes or busways, corridors I’d kill for in Auckland, they just haven’t bothered building in them before…
@David, the point is a fundamental shift has happened in the US and other countries in the world, the attitude of the current government here is, there you go, now shut up hippies back to building roads…
@Jarury I was actually referring to similar projects to you. Not as convinced about Tamaki Drive being a priority though. Would be a good tourist route, but doesn’t have the potential for intensification that the Dominion Road, Great North Road corridors do. I was also thinking that a route similar to the Link bus route would be a good option.
However I believe the Link bus is too convoluted, so maybe multiple routes serving the same areas would be better. Ponsonby Road would be really nice with light-rail running down the middle as well.
@Jeremy, I understand that that is the point you are trying to make and I completely agree that the government here is behaving in a very backward manner. I also agree that certain US cities have made great decisions and are improving their lot considerably. But you seem to suggest that there is some sort of sea-change going on in the USA with large-scale and nationwide PT investment taking place. To make your point you’ve come up with a grab-bag of projects happening over there without any mention of what the appropriate denominator for the comparisons – the US is a big place, right? Until the crash, they continued to build massive subdivisions, “ex-urban” developments, freeways, interstates and all that car-based infrastructure. Is there anything to suggest that, relative to that investment, there has been a significant rise in PT investment? Or that this putative increase is larger than the increases in funding for PT projects we have seen in Auckland over the last decade or so?
And since when was Edmonton in the US? Or Toronto, Vancouver, Quebec, or Montreal for that matter?
David, I think the point is that for decades the USA has been incredibly car-centric in its transport development – and generally (up until the last 10 years) getting progressively more so. Just compare your most recently developed cities, such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Houston with older cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco. What we have seen in the past 10 years as the reversal of that trend, and even cities like Houston are now building light-rail systems – which was probably unthinkable 10 or so years ago.
I agree that Auckland’s isn’t necessarily doing badly at the moment. However, there is a worry that once electrification, Project DART and integrated ticketing has been completed it will be back to the bad old days of motorway building. US cities are showing no real signs of taking that approach, a shift back towards focusing on roads, so I think the big point is the potential for us to take a giant leap backwards.
@David, yes I originally posted this in another blog under the heading NA cities but as this is a US themed set of threads and I didn’t wanna leave large blank spaces I left the Canadian cities in…
Ultimately the question is up for you to decide yourself: Is New Zealand Falling Behind the US?
My contention is yes, compared to the PT and active mode projects being announced over in the US compared to a few years ago but mainly, and more importantly, the proliferation of alternate transport websites in the States, the mindset is changing there in a fundamental way that isn’t happening here…
I’ve little doubt that auckland could perform a great leap backwards. But maybe it’ll be the “super-city” that can save us. I don’t agree that the mindset is truly changing in the USA (in all but a few places cars are still far and away the cheapest and easiest way to travel around and the broad majority of the populace remains married to this model) but the localised approach they have with differing levels of government – state and city governments large enough to decide what is good for their own area – allows a heterogeneous approach and means that shining examples (Portland!) can be developed independent of prevailing (federal) attitudes…