Commuting Gas taxes Oil and gas prices Passenger rail Roads Transit: congress
by Patrick
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What’s ahead for gas prices, taxes and roads
You’ll likely pay more than $3 a gallon for gas next spring.
But you’ll probably keep paying the same 18 cents per gallon federal gas tax — which has lost more than a third of its purchasing power since it was last raised in 1993.
The roads you drive on will get worse. Transit will face ongoing challenges.
That’s what appears in the fog ahead as Republicans take back the U.S. House amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Feeding voter sentiments are widespread fears about rampant spending and taxing.
Incoming Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica of Florida told reporters last week that the gas tax will go nowhere — which mirror’s President Obama’s position — and that he wants to reconsider recent high-speed rail grants.
But Mica also said he’ll grab hold of a stalled $500 billion six-year transportation reauthorization bill, now a year overdue, and work to push it through. The bill is twice as much as the 2005 law and twice as much as what the gas tax will bring in.
Even so, the massive bill still falls some $150 billion short of just being able to maintain what we have, indicates a report headed by two former U.S. transportation secretaries. And that’s just the federal gap — states and local entities have holes too.
We are facing an “elegant degradation” of our transportation system, the report warns. It will be slow, sure and very costly.
SOURCES:
- Federal gas-price predictions
- St. Augustine Record report
- Reuters report
- New York Times report
- Well Within Reach report
OTHER STUDIES:
Commuting Parking Passenger rail Railroads Transit Travel
by Hugh
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Passenger rail in Asutin and San Antonio
Larry Walsh and the Austin MetroRail
My friend, Larry Walsh, and I finally found the time last Tuesday, July 27, to make a visit to Austin’s new commuter rail line, Capital MetroRail. This is what is hoped to be the first thirty miles of a city wide system. This first section runs from the city center at 4th and Trinity to Leander, a commuter colony way to the north of Austin itself. more »
Bicycling to downtown San Antonio on a summer day
Augusta Street bridge, San Antonio
My wife and I spent some five hours out and about on our bikes yesterday, heading downtown from our house near Red McCombs Ford outside Loop 410 to the King William district. Altogether it came to a trip of 22.35 miles, mostly along San Antonio’s old main thoroughfares, San Pedro Avenue and Fredericksburg Road. We set of around 8:00 AM, when it was only 80 degrees and got back just before 1:00 PM, when it was well over 90. more »
See how San Antonio plans to make its buses perform like light rail
Can buses look and operate more like light rail?
VIA Metropolitan Transit officials think so. And now the public can peek under the hood of a plan to spend $57 million to speed up bus travel and make trips more comfortable along Fredericksburg Road.
The agency will hold three public meetings over two weeks to explain the latest on an environmental study:
Monday, May 24
6 p.m.
Jefferson High School cafeteria
723 Donaldson
Thursday, May 27
1:30 p.m.
Norris Conference Center
Wonderland of the Americas Mall
4522 Fredericksburg Road, Suite A100
Thursday, May 27
6 p.m.
Norris Conference Center
Wonderland of the Americas Mall
4522 Fredericksburg Road, Suite A100
The study says buses could scoot along 30 percent faster on nine miles between downtown and the Medical Center, two prime job centers anchoring one of VIA’s busiest routes. More than a fourth of the area’s 79,000 residents depend on transit.
The cost for bus rapid transit, as it’s called, includes traffic signal controls to give buses more green time, faster ticketing, sidewalk-level boarding, two roomy transit centers and eight enhanced stations. The hope is that developers will create walkable, mixed-used hubs around the stops.
The cost does not include dedicated bus lanes on part of the route, as proposed in previous plans that put the tab at around $100 million.
Construction is supposed to start this year, with service starting in late 2012.
LINKS:
One in four commuters are part of this growing national trend
One in four big-city commuters walk to work, ride bicycles, use transit or at least share car rides with other workers, a new study says. A good number even stay home to work.
In other words, 24 percent of Americans in the 100 largest metro areas don’t drive solo to work, according to ”The State of Metropolitan America,” a report released this week by the Brookings Institution.
And though a whopping three-fourths still drive alone, that portion has been shrinking, says the report’s 12-page commuting chapter.
From 2000 to 2008:
TRANSIT RIDERSHIP: went up for the first time in 40 years, reaching 5 percent in 2008, though that’s still shy of 5.1 percent from 1990.
DRIVING SOLO: slid down slightly, mostly in 2007 to 2008, the first year of the Great Recession and a time of shockingly high gas prices. Austin led the nation’s biggest cities with a 3.6 percent drop.
CARPOOLING: dropped to 11 percent, less than the 12 percent from 1970.
TWO-WHEELING: by bicycle and motorcycle rose slightly, to 1.7 percent.
WALKING: declined to 2.8 percent, down from 7.4 percent in 1970.
TELECOMMUTING: jumped to 4.1 percent.
The report breaks down the trends by demographics and geography and mentions some other notable Texas numbers:
El Paso is third in the U.S. for a 3.2 percent increase in solo driving and second for a 5.2 percent decrease in carpooling; McAllen ranks in the top five for both the percentage of commuters who carpool and those who quit carpooling; and Houston is fifth for loss of transit share.
LINKS:
MPO holding public meetings for 4 year plan
The San Antonio-Bexar County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) will be holding three public meetings on its 2011-2014 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP). Essentially, this is the revolving list of local transportation projects that are proposed to be funded* over the next three four years (yes, I can count <g>). The projects selected are typically a subset of those in the current long-range plan. Obviously, what eventually does get funded depends heavily on what money eventually comes to this area, but this plan identifies the projects that are first in line to get whatever funding becomes available. The plan includes allocations for all forms of transportation including highways, streets, transit, and bike and pedestrian amenities.
The MPO is the agency charged under state and federal law to control the transportation funding purse-strings for the San Antonio urban area, which in this case includes Bexar County and portions of Comal and Guadalupe counties in the Schertz area. The TIP is required under federal regulations as a condition of receiving federal funding. Projects not in the TIP cannot use federal funds, so this is an important process.
There will be three meetings, all with identical content:
- Tuesday, May 4th from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
- Thursday, May 6th from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
- Saturday, May 8th from 9:00 a.m. to noon
All three will take place at VIA Metro Center on San Pedro just south of SAC. Visitors will also be able to check-out some new interactive systems and discuss the transportation planning process with the folks that make these decisions.
For more information and to see a draft copy of the TIP, click here. Also, see the interactive site here (link added 5/4/10 10:35 am).
(* As I’ve discussed before vis-a-vis the US 281 project, the term “funded” in transportation parlance means that anticipated revenues during the plan timefame will be able to fund a project. Until those revenues are actually allocated to the MPO, a project does not actually have money available to start work.)
Five things to know before heading to Fiesta events
Soggy skies put a damper on the start of the year’s biggest party, with officials cancelling tonight’s Fiesta kickoff at Alamo Plaza and moving the opener to Market Square tomorrow. Hope you didn’t head out to Alamo Plaza.
No worries about the revelry cranking up. It will. But before joining the fun, here are some things to check on:
PARKING: Even tested downtown drivers can lose a little focus when Fiesta fills up parking lots and kicks up parking fees. The Express-News has a decent map of parking lots, but alas, doesn’t include fees. MAP
EXPRESS BUSES: Avoid parking altogether by hopping on special Fiesta express buses. VIA set up an event page with details, which includes reroutes of regular services due to street closures. FIESTA BUSES
DRINKING: If you drink, have a drinking and NOT driving plan. The easiest thing to do is assign a designated driver. In a pinch, Yellow Cab will provide up to 700 free rides for certain events, thanks to a state grant. Of course, you can always fork out your own $25 for a cab, and it’ll be a lot cheaper than a $17,000 DWI fine. CALL 222-2222
TRAFFIC: Make it easy on yourself. Just a few minutes checking TransGuide’s site for wrecks and slowdowns can save you an hour on the highway. TRANSGUIDE
WEATHER: Nuff said on that. FORECAST
Now go have a great time. And be safe.
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Commuting Construction and closures Toll roads Transit: Loop 1604
by Patrick
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What’s in store for your Loop 1604 commute?
People mill about at a meeting earlier tonight for Loop 1604
Here’s the gist of what’s being laid out, in a series of public meetings wrapping up tonight, for Loop 1604′s future.
The problem, officials say, is that traffic demand in 25 years will be twice as much as what can fit on the highway today. The lanes can currently handle about 80,000 vehicles a day, but demand is 110,000 now and will surge to 155,000 by 2035.
An environmental study is sizing up impacts of three basic strategies:
Buses and passenger rail. At best, this can meet 15 percent of demand when you consider that top-notch transit cities such as San Francisco, Washington and Boston snare about that much of the trips in those cities.
Managing and improving traffic flows. This is done with engineering, like the super street idea, and behavior incentives that range from carpooling to staggered work hours and telecommuting. California enacted laws requiring large employers to use such commuting strategies but cut traffic just 3 percent.
Adding four lanes to the highway. Since each lane can handle about 20,000 vehicles a day, that would do the trick.
So you can see where the math leads.
However, a dozen various community criteria will also drive decisions, and that produces a little more mix into the approaches.
Automobiles Bicycles Commuting Roads Toll roads Transit Travel
by Hugh
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2005 Dodge Caravan 4th anniversary
This is somewhat obscure but while searching through papers for the upcoming tax adventure, I happened upon the original sales document for my 2005 Dodge Caravan which I purchased exactly four years ago to the day, March 28, 2006. Since then I have added 69,271 miles to its already high one year total of 28,702 – it was probably a rental that maxed out early – making a grand total, as of today, of 97,973. more »
Downtown will be jam-packed Saturday
Photo from www.luminariasa.org.
It’s going to get a little crazy this Saturday, with some 200,000 or more people converging on downtown and carrying on from morning to night.
If you’re heading down there, or just passing through, have a plan. Several streets will be closed. And buses on a dozen routes will be rerouted throughout the day.
First up, an annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade will thump and blast its way past the Alamo, starting at 11 a.m. Then the party will shift to the River Walk for an afternoon of dancing and music at the Arneson River Theatre and a 3 p.m. river parade.
Later, throngs of artists, performers, musicians and fans will light up La Villita and HemisFair Park for Luminaria: Arts Night in San Antonio, and hang out past midnight. The celebration highlights Contemporary Art Month.
So if you want to be mobile in downtown San Antonio this Saturday, you might have to get a little creative. Good luck!
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