Swipe and shoot

Check out photographer Bill Sullivan's exhibition of photos he took of commuters as they passed through New York subway turnstiles. They all have the same dumbfounded, mind-elsewhere look, but you can tell from small visual cues what exactly they've been up to and what kind of day they had.

Rail Runner Running

Fatal rails in MA

Two fatal crashes is not a good way to kick off the new year.

On January 9th, two MBTA workers were killed, four injured, and ten passengers injured when a commuter rail train crashed into a maintenance vehicle working on the tracks. Human error is being investigated as the cause of the accident. Apparently, several other trains had passed the work site without incident, but when the fatal train approached, the warning signal and switch that would have diverted the train were not activated.

On January 15th, a 15-year-old boy was killed when he was hit by an Amtrack Acela Express train passing through the Mansfield Commuter Rail Station. The boy had been traveling on the commuter rail by himself and somehow wound up on the opposite track when the Acela passed through. The Acela driver noticed something on the track, but the train was traveling at 140+ mph and could not stop in time. Apparently, the boy's mother, who was meeting him at the station, witnessed the accident.

The article about the Acela accident lists four other fatal MBTA-related accidents in the past few years. However, the unidentified man found dead on November 25th, apparently hit by an MBTA Green line train, was not listed. I have no idea whether this number of fatal accidents is average or not, but it is certainly adding up in the public consciousness. Unfortunately, I don't hear the MBTA responding.

Carrot and Stick

Senators Trent Lott and Frank Lautenberg introduced a bill in the Senate yesterday to provide a 5 year funding package for Amtrak that sounds like a pretty good package. A good amount of relatively stable funding over 5 years, combined with (hopefully) enforced/enforceable goals to make the corporation get off its rear end and run more efficiently and with some spirit. Some details:

-- $3.2 billion annually, including $1.9 billion in annual appropriations and $1.3 billion in bond authority, with an average of $300 million in capital grants to be allocated to states annually. The bill also would provide funds to improve Amtrak's security, bring the Northeast Corridor to a state of good repair and authorize the Surface Transportation Board to fine freight railroads that delay Amtrak trains.

-- require Amtrak to reduce operating costs by 40 percent over the life of the bill, implement a new accounting system, establish quality standards that would be evaluated regularly by the Federal Railroad Administration and restructure its board to include nine bipartisan members.

New Jersey grows without car travel

A new report by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign shows that New Jersey continues to grow economically even as people start to drive less and take public transit more. While it should not be a surprise that more environmentally and space efficient travel (if not time efficient) could be just as useful in assisting a state's economy, it is always nice to have some proof that an investment in infrastructure and service has the payoff that one expects. A few items from the report:

-- From 1997 to 2004, the number of miles traveled by transit grew 30%, compared to 15% growth for the number of commuters who drive.
-- Economic growth in NJ has proceeded without corresponding gains in mileage driven – the number of miles driven for each dollar of economic output produced in the state has fallen 5 percent.
-- Freight movement, and particularly truck travel, is growing much faster than passenger travel, and managing this trend looms as a major challenge.

When the Rubbers Hit the (Rail)road

Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city will be distributing free condoms with foil wrappers and designs corresponding to subway lines.

Please continue to refrain from having sex on the subway. Thank you.

WMATA derailment injures twenty

A WMATA Green Line train derailed at the Mount Vernon Square station on Sunday. Twenty people were injured; one had a head injury.

That's four worker fatalities in fourteen months, the 2004 Woodley Park crash, the 2004 Silver Spring derailment, and the 2003 National Airport derailment, among many others, leading the Washington Post to decry that Safety Warnings Often Ignored at Metro.

It's absolutely imperative that incoming general manager John Catoe make safety his top priority. It's also imperative that Metro change its culture to identify and correct the systemic problems that lead to all these accidents, rather than setting up line employees to take the fall.

Filling in the rails

Atlanta's MARTA is exploring the possibility of adding in-fill stations to its existing rail lines as way of increasing ridership without adding new track (via Planetizen). Apparently the system has several long gaps between stations where a new stop could serve growing populations. The idea is "let's take the rail we already have and figure out how to serve more people" and increase revenues. But as those of us in Boston well know, there are significant challenges to building subterranean infrastructure in the middle of a living city, and cost is not the least of them. Apparently the concept is working well in Washington DC, which recently spent $120 million on an in-fill station. The question is whether the bump up in ridership is enough to justify the cost and effort.

A recent study of the MBTA's commuter rail system from the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston may shed some light on the question (via the Boston Globe). It suggests that the traditional approach of expanding rail lines further into the 'burbs is not very effective at increasing ridership. ("You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" seems appropriate here.) But over time, increases in population density does seem to correspond with increased ridership. So, if you can provide more/better service to areas where there is already a critical mass of population, then you just might achieve an increase in ridership. The study concludes

The data show that development patterns are governed by the dominant forces of the day. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, commuter rail service played a major role in shaping the land uses in the communities it served. But that does not seem to be the case today. Rather, the large investments in commuter rail have had, at best, modest positive impacts on ridership and land uses. ... Looking to the future, this means that providing new commuter rail facilities is not likely to produce significant changes in travel and land use patterns. Increases in density, on the other hand, might result in a higher share of people using transit to get to work. The data strongly suggest that commuter rail service can encourage but not spur these changes. This, in turn, suggests that efforts to increase density, reduce sprawl, and promote transit should start with local or regional land use policies and then link those policies with transportation plans.

WMATA Yellow Line Extending to Fort Totten

Once a shell of its former self after the 1968 riots decimated its retail core, the Columbia Heights neighborhood, along with its northern neighbor, Petworth, is finally getting respect from the Washington Metro Transit Authority (WMATA).

Since the opening of the Columbia Heights and Petworth Metro stations, both neighborhoods were serviced only by the Green Line Metrorail, even though there was infrastructure to run the Yellow Line on the same tracks, like the other dual-line services in the city.

The Yellow Line being a clear advantage over just the Green Line for local residents as it reduced the need for a transfer to reach important Northern Virginia destinations, like National Airport (DCA) or the Pentagon, a major employer.

Now, with the start of DC USA construction and the completion of the Tivoli Square retail centers at Columbia Heights, the Yellow Line service extension will serve to facilitate a new traffic pattern - Washingtonians shopping in Washington.

Major retailers like Target, Best Buy, Washington Sports Club, and Bed Bath and Beyond, DC USA will become the one-stop shopping destination for all of Washington, DC.

And thanks to the efforts of people like Jim Graham, WMATA will have a 18-month off-peak Yellow Line extension pilot prior to (hopefully) instituting full time Yellow Line service:

The Yellow Line will be extended to the Fort Totten Metrorail station during off-peak hours starting Sunday, December 31. The new extended service adds five extra stops on the northern end of the line and will provide additional off-peak rail service to customers traveling to the Shaw-Howard U, U St/African-Amer Civil War Memorial/Cardozo, Columbia Heights and Georgia Ave-Petworth Metrorail stations.

Weekday off-peak service (9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.) will operate every six minutes. Week night (after 7 p.m.), and weekend service will run every 7 ½ to 10 minutes.

The trip from Huntington to Fort Totten will be six to 10 minutes faster with this new service, which helps connect Northern Virginia with Columbia Heights, Petworth and the U Street neighborhoods.

Tags: WMATA | Metrorail | Yellow Line | Green Line | WMATA Trip Planner