Alex Goldmark

This just in from the DOT:

To see what's getting funded in your area, click here.

Full press release:

U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood Announces $1.58 Billion for 27 Major Transit Projects Across America
WASHINGTON – U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced $1.58 billion for 27 transit projects nationwide that will improve public transportation access for millions of Americans while reducing our dependence on foreign oil and curbing air pollution.

“Investing in a modern transportation network is a key part of President Obama's strategy to win the future by out-building and out-competing the rest of the world," Secretary LaHood said. “America’s long-term economic success requires investing now in transportation infrastructure capable of moving people and goods more safely, efficiently and quickly than ever before.”

“Our investments in expanding America’s transit networks will not only improve reliable transportation access for communities across the country, they will support construction jobs and economic development,” said Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff.  “And, a more efficient and reliable transit network means new opportunities for Americans to keep more of their paychecks in their wallets and spend less at the gas pump.”

Twenty-seven transit projects across America are on a path to receive funding under the New Starts program, through which Federal Transit Administration (FTA) provides federal support for major capital construction projects such as subways, light rail, streetcars, and bus rapid transit. These projects include:

• The New Britain-Hartford Busway will provide commuters traveling between New Britain and Hartford a more efficient and cost-effective alternative to the current daily commute on Interstate 84, the region’s most congested highway. The dedicated busway will provide the area’s relatively large transit-dependent population better access to the 81,000 jobs along the route and across the busway’s 11 stations, promote redevelopment opportunities along the 9.4-mile corridor, and provide faster transit access to major activity centers throughout the area. The FTA anticipates an overall federal commitment of $275.3 million to the $572.7 million project.
• Denver’s 13-station Eagle Commuter Rail project, which will add nearly 23 miles of service to Denver’s transit system connecting downtown Denver and Denver International Airport to the east with numerous communities in between. Ultimately, the FTA projects contributing approximately $1 billion towards the $2 billion project, which is expected to create 5,400 jobs during peak construction. This is one component of FasTracks, a multi-billion dollar, multi-year transit-expansion program that will help Denver support smart, sustainable growth, create jobs, and compete for business for decades to come.
• The Rapid C Bus Rapid Transit Line will help to relieve traffic congestion in West Seattle, Washington, improve access to downtown Seattle’s 150,000 jobs, and connect the popular Washington State Ferries serving Vashon Island and Southworth among other spots along the corridor. Nearly $21.3 million in discretionary 2011 funds has been budgeted for construction of the $28.4 million project. The C Line, which should be fully operational by the fall of 2012, is expected to create approximately 180 construction, manufacturing, and transportation jobs during the peak construction period.
• The Central Corridor light rail project will connect Minnesota's two largest cities—Minneapolis and Saint Paul—by light rail for the first time. The FTA recently signed a Full Funding Grant Agreement making a long-term financial commitment to the $957 million light rail line, which will carry 40,000 riders along this busy 11-mile corridor. The project, which includes 18 new stations and 31 new rail cars, is scheduled to open in 2014. In addition to serving the downtown areas of the Twin Cities, the Central Corridor line will provide more efficient access to the University of Minnesota, the Midway area, the State Capitol complex, Target Field and the Metrodome, and many neighborhoods in between.
• The Austin MetroRapid is a 37.5-mile, 40-stop, bus rapid transit (BRT) system.  The FTA is supporting the local vision with a $24.2 million investment in 2011 towards the nearly $50 million project.  The project, which is scheduled to open in the summer of 2013, is the first phase of Capitol Metropolitan Transit Authority’s comprehensive and forward-leaning All Systems Go ten-corridor long-range transit plan.

A complete list of the 27 projects receiving New Starts funding allocations for 2011 can be found here.

(Photo: (cc) Flickr user Global Jet)

[Updated with comments from NYPD]

(Alex Goldmark, Transportation Nation) The NYPD issued more tickets for tinted windows violations than speeding so far this year. That's one little tidbit to come out of a new data dump that has road safety advocates excited. New York City traffic data is coming online, allowing anyone to evaluate which streets are the safest, and even which police precincts are the most active in traffic enforcement.

The NYPD has released some--but not all-- of the data required under New York City's Saving Lives Through Better Information Bill (human readable background here). You can now see how many tickets each police precinct has issued for 36 different categories of moving violations. The law requires the NYPD to have three kinds of data available online. Moving violations figures by category and precinct have been posted. Crashes by location and data on injuries and fatalities have yet to be released. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne told Transportation Nation, "As soon as department computer personnel work out the technical requirements for accurately accumulating  motor vehicle accidents, the data will be posted."

The NYPD has issued 530,826 moving violations in the first five months of 2011. According to a WNYC analysis of the first data released, not wearing a seat belt is the top offense (if you include not using a car seat for children), eeking out cell phone use, each with a bit over 81,000 tickets. Combined, those two offenses are about 30 percent of all summonses issued in the five boroughs in 2011. Browne says those violations top the list because they are easier to enforce. "Seat belts and cell phone violations are commonly observed and they do not require special equipment like radar guns, to document or the specialized training that Highway Patrol has in stopping and often pursuing speeders." He added. "Also, illegal  cell phone use, because of its link to accidents and fatalities,  has been the subject of special quarterly enforcement efforts which tend to boost the numbers significantly."

Safer streets advocates like Noah Budnick of Transportation Alternatives is excited to see this law take effect. "This will show where there are the most crashes and the most common factors that contribute to them. Then, that can be compared to summonsing data and help the NYPD target their limited resources on the most dangerous locations and behaviors."

For example, Transportation Alternatives and the NYPD paired up on Wednesday to target a dangerous intersection in Williamsburg with an education campaign. Signs were made to remind cars they must yield to pedestrians and bikes, seen here. "We partnered with the local precinct to advance our shared goal of safety," said Budnick. "Now that the Saving Lives through Better Information Act is in effect, this event a great template for anyone to work with their local precinct to reduce crashes."

This kind of data has been closely guarded by the NYPD in the past. The department has turned over some similar data to Transportation Nation in the past, including bus lane enforcement, but have also frequently declined to provide data on other occasions, including bike ticketing.

Under the new law, the NYPD will issue a monthly report with this data. We'll keep an eye on it, especially after the crash data is posted, and see what we can learn about street safety and moving violations. Stay tuned.

New York's legendary Port Authority bus terminal is getting a modern facelift. It's actually a bit more like an LED veil. The 61 year-old building will have a jumbotron-sized mesh of programmable lights draped over the facade, allowing the agency to play high resolution images and messages.

The neon look catches the building up a bit to its glitzy neighbors, like the soaring New York Times building across the street, designed by star architect Renzo Piano. The moving stream of neon on the terminal's exterior serves to simultaneously, and contradictorily, give the notoriously bunker-like building brightness and life while reminding older New Yorkers of a time when the 24-hour glow of 42nd street was a beacon of the city's seedier subculture.

The 6,000 square feet of mediamesh--an LED light array that allows ventilation into the building while projecting images outward--will also earn the agency extra revenue. Along with advertising, the mediamesh will provide information during emergencies and periodically promote charitable causes.

According to Railway Gazette, this could be what the London Underground trains look like in the future.

Siemens unveiled this concept for consideration for the next generation of tube trains. The current rolling stock is undergoing an upgrade now. And as The Londonist points out, aside from the distinctive circular operators cab, this vision isn't all that different from the newer cars.

Siemens does point out this concept design would increase capacity by 11 percent, impressive, considering one of the limitations of London's system are the tight tunnels, which constrict car height, Many of the the system's eponymous tubes were originally designed and built well over 100 years ago.

(Chinese Maglev High-Speed Rail Train, (cc) by Flickr User cramnic)

Nearly 150 years ago America built the first transcontinental railroad with  American technology and capital, but imported labor. Some 10,000 Chinese workers used pickaxes and dynamite to cut tunnels and lay rail-lines, sometimes below feet of snow where locals wouldn't work. Now, President Obama is promoting a new generation of rail and the Chinese are again involved. This time, though, they don't just want to swing an axe. They want to design and part-fund America's first generation of high-speed rail based on their own existing technology. Americans would provide the labor.

Alastair Leithead, a reporter with the BBC, has been looking at the story for their series "Power of Asia." Our partner The Takeaway excepts some of his reporting and talks with Brian Leung, the author of "Take Me Home" a book about Chinese Americans in the nineteenth century.

"I think if this project takes hold there are going to be lots of interesting discussions about what labor pool is going to be exploited in the building this time," Leung says.

Hear the full story of China's American rail ambitions, the labor/capital role reversal on rail, and the interview with Leung at The Takeaway.

The Souris River, which loops from Saskatchewan, Canada to North Dakota, has risen to record high levels and is spilling into the North Dakota city of Minot, causing more than 11,000 residents from there to evacuate for the second time this month. The flooding is said to have been caused by a heavy spring snow melt and heavy rains. The last major flood in the area occurred in 1969, which prompted the construction of levees. But this flood is five feet taller than the 1969 flood, and the levees are unable to contain it. 

The trip planning website HopStop.com is transforming itself into a lifestyle app for transit riders. Besides transit directions, its bread and butter since 2005, it now offers features like bike directions and carshare and taxi reservations.

This is yet another example of the trend in transit trip planning apps and websites to integrate more complete and customizeable route options that incorporate walking, bikes, real time arrival information and, now, carshare. It's also a sign that HopStop is feeling the heat from the hundreds of local trip planning apps that are popping up as more and more transit agencies make their schedules and data available to software and mobile app developers.

For instance, one of the Hop Stop's new features is biking directions, which they currently only provide for New York City. Google Maps began introducing that in beta last March and MapQuest added it this February. But in other areas, HopStop is ahead. It now combines carshare locations with reservation services at Hertz Connect (but not Zipcar). There's also taxi directions with fare estimates through Limo.com, and an option for city to city public transportation routes via Amtrak.

In the past, where HopStop has gone, other app companies have followed. So it's worth noting that HopStop's new features integrate Facebook and Twitter, allowing users to broadcast where they are, or will be, and have HopStop stick instructions right in there for others to join up. HopStop was the first major trip planning company to develop software that made using transit easier. Now that the field it helped create is getting crowded and increasingly competitive, expect to see more roll-outs of complete offerings like this one.

Back in January we reported on a study using local data that found that building bike lanes brought more bang for the buck on job creation than building roads. Now, the original researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute of U. Mass Amherst have expanded that study to 11 cities with the same findings.

The PERI study (PDF) finds:

"Overall we find that bicycling infrastructure creates the most jobs for a given level of spending: For each $1 million, the cycling projects in this study create a total of 11.4 jobs within the state where the project is located. Pedestrian-only projects create an average of about 10 jobs per $1 million and multi-use trails create nearly as many, at 9.6 jobs per $1 million. ... and road-only projects create the least, with a total of 7.8 jobs per $1 million."

The study says bike lanes generate more jobs per dollar spent because building a bike lane is more labor intensive than building a road. "A greater portion of the spending is used to employ construction workers and engineers, both labor-intensive industries." So, for example, "a bike path which requires a great deal of planning and design will generate more jobs for a given level of spending than a road project which requires a greater proportion of heavily mechanized construction equipment and relatively less planning and design."

They study adds that a greater proportion of road spending "leaks" out of state for supplies.

These findings are already being used by advocates like America Bikes and the League of American Bicyclists to argue for more bike lanes, and to steer tight infrastructure dollars toward bike plans at a time when an increasingly effective argument for spending on road repair is not disrepair but job creation.

Via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

It's vacation season, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wants people to remember travel by bike is an option too, even across the country. Last month the Association of  American State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) approved the first new first new routes in over 30 years.

The new routes are in Maine, New Hampshire, Alaska and Michigan. LaHood reports on his blog that 30 states are working on new routes now to add to the U.S. Bicycle Route System--click through for a map and more info.

Here's an interactive version of the national bike highway map.

Only July 9, southern Sudan will secede from Northern Sudan, in compliance with the South's vote for independence in January. Oil accounts for nearly all of southern Sudan's income, but Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has threatened to shut pipelines carrying southern Sudan's oil, if the two sides of the northeastern African country cannot reach an agreement on oil by the July separation.

In a live national address this morning, Syrian president Bashar Assad accused "saboteurs" of trying to smear the world's image of the country, by protesting his rule for the past three months. Assad also made an appeal to the thousands of Syrians who have fled to the border of Syria and Turkey to return to their homes, saying that the biggest danger facing the country is the threat of an economic collapse. Anthony Shadid reports from Beirut for our partner, The New York Times. He speaks with us about President Assad's speech, and whether or not it will change the course of events in Syria. 

Today the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a global body that coordinates internet names, voted to allow companies to apply for their own domain name extensions. Instead of choosing from the 22 existing top-level domain names, like dot com, dot org or dot net, websites will be able to apply for alternate URL endings—think dot takeaway or dot WNYC. At $185,000, the application fee is hefty and will likely limit the applicant pool to global business giants hoping to maximize their internet presence. ICANN will begin accepting applications on January 12, 2012. Mariko Oi, business reporter for our partner the BBC, speaks with us from Singapore, where ICANN met this morning.

Two car photographers somehow got stranded overnight at the Dallas Forth Worth airport. Security never came and got them, they say. So, the y took out their $30,000 worth of video equipment they were lugging back from a film shoot and made a movie about being stuck in an airport.

It showcases all kinds of advanced photography skills, juvenile behavior, and lots of places you never get to see in an Airport.

Jalopnik has the behind the scenes story which claims it's real and they really were stuck.

Nissan Leaf

(Alex Goldmark, Transportation Nation) We started watching electric vehicle sales to see how many people would be willing to give up gas for the untested plug-in powered cars. As it turned out, automakers have struggled to get enough EVs on the road to meet market demand or even stock dealerships. That may be  be changing this month for the Nissan Leaf, at least according to statements from Nissan's CEO Carlos Ghosn.

Ghosn told reporters today that he expects "1,500 Leafs to be delivered in June." Nissan had averaged 113 vehicles per month in the first four months of the year. He said, 1,142 Leafs sold in May. Still a far cry from the roughly 20,000 people WHO reserved a Leaf in 2010 according to AutoNews.  But the company is now accepting new reservations.

The Chevy Volt has met similar issues of excess demand. They told Transportation Nation in May that they had sold a total of 1,547 Volts in the first four months of 2011.

Via AutoblogGreen.

A young electric bus maker got a boost Monday from GM, Kleiner Perkins and other funders, rescuing it from potential collapse, and speeding up the deployment of electric buses in at least three cities.

Proterra announced $30 million in funding after a rough spot with a key investor was snagged in a ponzi scheme (Proterra was uninvolved). Jeff Granato, president of Proterratells Transportation Nation, "this gets us caught up with all our suppliers" Adding, "if Proterra didn't make it past this time, it would have been a big setback to the industry."

While there is active competition in the electric car market, there aren't any other electric bus manufacturers delivering vehicles to municipal transit agencies right now, and Proterra is barely getting started themselves. That's not for lack of need or opportunity. Buses are just about the worst category of polluter per passenger mile. And regulations are rolling out that will incentivize adoption pretty soon. California is requiring 15 percent of buses purchased by municipal agencies  to be zero-emissions vehicles starting by 2012. Proterra’s EcoRide BE-35 bus is currently the only one that meets the regulatory requirements.

Right now, the only city where Proterra's all electric buses are on the road is Pomona California where they make an 8 mile loop on Route 291. The buses can recharge in less than ten minutes at a layover spot where the buses have to wait for 15 minutes to stay on schedule anyway. The city's transit agency paid $5.6 million for three buses and two chargers.

Granato says, "the primary customer for us will be public transit agencies." He's signed preliminary deals with San Antonio and Tallahassee to get pilot routes in place by the end of the year like the one on Pomona.

The nature of public transit may actually help make electric vehicles more affordable. "You can very specifically put the capacity of energy on board that the route demands," Granato says, explaining that agencies can avoid paying for extra battery power on routes that have longer or more frequent layovers suitable for charging. That means the price can come down once there is enough data to make more precise calculations on energy use. "That's the wonderful thing about public transit. The routes are very predictable. You've got the ability to ... spec the system to the exact needs of the route and the schedule," he says.

The buses could run for up to four hours without a charge, and the charge could be timed to overlap with required break times for drivers.

(Photo (cc) by Flickr user poka0059)

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo introduced legislation proposing strict new penalties for distracted driving Friday. The law, if passed, would make using a mobile electronic device while driving a ticketable offense worth three points on your license, even if a driver isn't breaking any other laws or driving dangerously at the time. Thirty-three states already have laws against texting while driving. However, According to a crowdsourcing project by our partner The Takeaway, the practice is common and not everyone agrees it should be banned, and most people don't think behavior is changing. (See interactive map below.)

In New York, it is already a crime to text while driving, but it is a classified as a secondary offense, which means drivers can only get a ticket for texting behind the wheel if they also break another law. The law Cuomo wants to pass would make it a primary offense to use any portable electronic device while driving. We assume that excludes GPS devices, but we're checking.

The Takeaway, interviewed a mother who has been advocating for a tougher law in New York after her son was killed texting while driving. All week long The Takeaway has been asking listeners what they think about the safety risk and potential laws around texting and driving. The audience was split down the middle about whether they do it and how dangerous they think it is. Here's a map of their responses. Click on the pins for the comments.

As you can see, not everyone is in favor of the new laws. As one Massachusetts listener put it, "I'm driving while texting this response. It's only deadly if the driver is uncapable to drive [sic] and text. I drive for a living and do it frequently." Most respondents however, admit the practice is dangerous, even if they do it. A driver from South Carolina confessed, "I do it all the time. No accident yet, but I've come close a few times... I know I shouldn't do it! And I'm trying to stop."

The topic has gotten national attention in recent weeks following a trio of fatal crashes in Michigan, California, and Georgia. Still, most people in who responded to The Takeaway think the practice is here to stay. "I'm not sure what the solution is. My state now has laws against texting while driving and I'd imagine it hasn't affected anyone's behavior. As a driver, I don't text while behind the wheel unless I'm stopped. As a cyclist, I'm more afraid of texting drivers than I am of drunks," said a more responsible respondent from Madison, Wisconsin.

Transportation advocates, however, are applauding Cuomo's proposed legislation for New York and want to see more done. "Distracted driving is as dangerous as drunk driving," said Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. "Nobody should be texting or updating Facebook while piloting a two-ton piece of machinery on public streets. New Yorkers will applaud Governor Cuomo for this groundbreaking effort to stop distracted driving." His organization just released a report on traffic safety that finds that more New Yorkers are killed in traffic accidents than by guns.

(Transportation Nation) The video in this post is an interview with Casey Neistat, not his bike lane protest video going viral right now, in which a Transportation Nation radio segment excerpt plays a bit roll. It's sparked a question to NYC Mayor Bloomberg about cycle etiquette, international media coverage, more than 1 million views, and now an Associated Press sit down interview with the filmmaker, Casey Neistat.

In the AP video above, we hear Neistat's motivation and a few behind the scenes tidbits on the making of the video, but we also learn that Casey Neistat was hired by the NYC DOT to make their own bicycle safety videos as part of their Don't Be a Jerk campaign earlier this year. "Those videos are all about properly adhering to the rules of the road," he tells AP."So there's some irony there." The renegade protest video was a personal project.

Neistat admits he's not the most law abiding cyclist, but he felt this particular ticket he got for not riding in a bike lane was "above and beyond." So he made a protest video.

He says, "I thought it was a very literal take on not being allowed to ride outside of the bike lanes." He also swears he didn't set anything up, all the obstructions he slams into were naturally in the bike lanes.

This isn't the first time Neistat has taken to two wheels with his camera for outlandish bike-themed short films. In fact, one of his older videos that earned him and his brother praise and recognition as a filmmaker pits a Schwinn against a Ducati in a race through city traffic. Yogurt vs Gasoline currently has about 1 percent of the views as his bike lane protest.

About a thousand Syrians crossed the northern border of the country into Turkey overnight. They are fleeing a possible assault from the Syrian Army, which is believed to be led by Syrian President Bashar Assad's younger brother. The troops have surrounded the town of Jisr al-Shughour, close to the Turkish border, with heavy forces and tanks. The Turkish government has already built one camp to house the Syrian refugees, and is currently building another. 

(Transportation Nation) I'm not sure if I'm flattered that someone who crashes into things for fun decided to include me (or my voice) in his protest video. But I have to admit I laughed out loud.

Here's a video from Casey Neistat, professional viral video maker (of the Niestat Brothers show on HBO). In it, he films himself getting a ticket for not riding in the bike lane in NYC--a story we broke here on Transportation Nation.

Then ... spoiler alert, stop reading if you want the full effect in the video ... to demonstrate why a cyclist in New York City might need to ride outside the bike lane, he proceeds to crash into anything and everything that blocks a bike lane from construction barricades, to trucks to ... well, just watch till the end. In the middle of the cringe-inducing bike lane bedlam, the video cuts to a radio segment from WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show in which I was the guest discussing our mapping project on the scale and scope of NYC bike ticketing.

By the way, our reporting shows it is not a violation to ride outside a bike lane in New York. That misconception comes from state code in VTL 1234, posted here, which does not apply in New York City.

"There's no more need to guess when to leave."  That's the bold claim from Google today, as it announced the addition of real time transit information in Google Maps for four U.S. cities and two in Europe.  Instead of making a mental calculation about which train to take, or wondering whether to wander out in pouring rain, you can check when all the trains or buses near you are actually going to leave, not just when they are scheduled to leave.

The data come from GPS devices embedded in the actual buses, and other real-time data collected by the transit agencies.

Boston is one of six cities to get Google real time mapping along with San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Madrid, Spain and Turin, Italy. The data includes service delays, just like HopStop.com, but the real innovation is that you can see, right on Google Maps, when the next bus is coming at any given station, just by clicking on the station icon.

So when you click on Boston's Park Street T station this pops up. You see bus routes, and T lines. Click on that, and you get the departure times for all the lines. This is "huge news," Josh Robin, Director of Innovation and Special Projects for Boston's MBTA.

Departure times aren't always so frequent as these are from downtown Boston on a weekday rush hour. On weekends or late nights some buses run only once an hour. So imagine you are eating at a restaurant, or getting ready to leave your friend's house. You can pull out your phone, bring up Google Maps, which will know where you are, and click on the nearest station to see that you have to leave right away, or that you can kick around for another 20 minutes. And if you have to decide which of two lines at two stations to take, you'll now see which is coming first. Now imagine if it were raining outside. Handy, and it all makes riding transit more convenient, which makes it more likely that more people will do it.

Boston has made GPS data available to third party program developers since 2009, so there are already a handful of mobile apps that answer the "when to leave question." And they're popular, at least when it's raining. In Boston, when there's bad weather, one in four bus riders use existing transit apps that have real time arrival data.

But the new service means a big expansion of who uses the data. "With Google having a massive user base in the hundreds of millions, this is the next big step towards making real-time data truly ubiquitous," Robin told Transportation Nation.

Google told the Boston Globe that 200 million people use Google Maps from their phones every month, that's 40 percent of all Google Maps searches.

You can already get transit directions on Google Maps, in most cities, just as you've been able to all along. And there's still HopStop.com, which does a great job, MapQuest and other map programs that have their own versions of the service. What the real time data adds is a feature that tells you when to leave your house right there in the directions.

So, this search, for San Francisco directions done at 5:24 p.m. suggests I leave 20th and Mission at 5:30 p.m. In essence saying, sit tight, keep reading Transportation Nation for another six minutes before heading out. A valuable service indeed.

Live in one of the six cities? Test it out. And tell us how it's working in your area. Are the times actually accurate? Are the directions correct? Is it helpful? Let us know.