Transportation Nation

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) In a few years, Metro will be getting a crop of all new trains. And this morning, it unveiled the LED signs that will let riders in those new trains know where they are and where they're going.

Look familiar, New Yorkers?

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) The intercity bus industry is red-hot here in the Northeast Corridor. Almost a dozen companies have sprung up seemingly overnight to meet the demand for inexpensive, scheduled service between Washington D.C. and New York City.

These buses are more colloquially known as Chinatown Buses, because many of them pick up passengers on the curb in D.C.'s Chinatown neighborhood and drop them off on the curb in New York's Chinatown neighborhood. (And vice versa, of course.)

But now, for the first time, District officials are attempting to regulate this largely unregulated new industry. D.C.'s Department of Transportation will start charging bus companies a public space rental fee for use of the curb, which could total $80,000 a year or more. DDOT will also now be able to prevent bus companies from operating in certain locations in D.C.

For more info about this nascent industry and the rationale behind these new regulations, check out this story on WAMU.

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) It's five months into his first term, and D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray still hasn't selected a permanent head to his Department of Transportation. Now, two of the Department's top deputies are resigning and one says this leadership vacuum was a factor in her departure.

Deputy Director for Resource Management Leah Treat and Associate Director for Policy Karina Ricks are leaving DDOT, the organization for which they've worked for a combined 22 years. Ricks says she will be leaving later this summer. According to sources within DDOT, Treat is already gone.

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) My colleague at WAMU, the esteemed J. Patrick Madden, reports that membership in Capital Bikeshare, D.C.'s nascent bikesharing program, "practically doubled overnight to 10,000" after the city partnered with the online coupon company Living Social.

Thousands of Living Social members took advantage of discounted membership rates and can now ride on one of the seemingly ubiquitous red and yellow Capital Bikeshare bikes.

The District is looking to build 25 new bike rental stations, Madden reports, in addition to the 100 that already exist. Currently, the stations are only in D.C. and neighboring Arlington County, Va. But other local jurisdictions, such as Alexandria, Va. and Montgomery County, Md., have expressed interest in joining Capital Bikeshare.

(Washington D.C. -- David Schultz, WAMU) Metro is moving forward with a $200 million contract extension for the company that operates its MetroAccess transit service for people with disabilities -- despite some questions about whether the contractor may have engaged in unethical lobbying.

Documents obtained by Transportation Nation partner, WAMU, show the contractor, MV Transportation, hired a lobbyist who until recently served as one of Metro's top executives and a member of its Board of Directors. The lobbyist, Emeka Moneme, sent emails to several of the advisers to the Metro Board requesting meetings to talk about MV, just nine months after he left the agency. Metro's ethics rules prohibit its executives from working on Metro-related business for at least a year after they leave.

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One of the advisers who received an email from Moneme forwarded it to WAMU. Through a public records request, WAMU has obtained a copy of a second email sent from Moneme's office to another Metro Board adviser. The second email also requests a meeting to discuss MV, and is almost identical to the first.

WAMU has contacted all the advisers to the Metro Board, but almost half have not responded. Of those who did, all -- including the two who received emails from Moneme -- say they did not agree to a meeting with him nor with anyone representing MV Transportation.

Moneme has refused to discuss the matter. MV says it hired him to do "community outreach," not to lobby his former co-workers.

Metro's General Manager Richard Sarles says he believes its contracting process has not been compromised, and a formal investigation has not been launched. Sarles says the advisers to Metro's Board of Directors serve in a voluntary capacity not on Metro's payroll. Therefore, Sarles says, Metro's ethics rules do not govern them.

Sarles acknowledges that, in government contracting, sometimes the mere appearance of impropriety can be as damaging as actual impropriety itself. “I’m always concerned that we have the appearance of proceeding the way we should with regards to our procurement rules," he says.

But Sarles says, because none of the advisers agreed to meet with Moneme, he's confident Metro's ethics procedures are being followed. "To my knowledge" he says, "thus far, those procedures have not been violated.”

MV Transportation's contract extension is scheduled to come up before the Metro Board for a final vote later this month.

(To see a copy of the email Moneme sent, visit WAMU's website.)

This map from the early 1960s shows all the highways planned for construction by the end of the century. Some were actually built. Others, like the second Beltway, weren't.

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) The idea of a second Beltway -- a circular highway in Virginia and Maryland,  is sort of mythical now, but back in the 1960s, it was a reality. An official map from back then shows the highways that regional planners thought would be finished by the year 2000. A bright, red line forms a concentric circle around the Beltway -- the first Beltway, that is. This red line goes around or, in some cases, directly through the towns of Mount Vernon, Fairfax and Herndon in Virginia and then Rockville, Bowie and Upper Marlboro in Maryland.

Stewart Schwartz is the executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, a local nonprofit group opposed to sprawling development. Schwartz says a second Beltway would have made our outer suburbs look very different than they do today.

"You would see what typically follows highways -- especially at interchanges -- is development. And you'd have hotels and gas stations and strip malls along these areas," he says.

The second Beltway does not exist, despite its presence on the 50-year-old maps of the future. Funding for the highway was just never there.

Still, not everyone thought it was a bad idea. In fact, there are still some folks out there who think a second Beltway could actually work.

Bob Chase, president of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, leads a pro-business advocacy group that seeks to steer more funding to roads and highways in the Commonwealth.

"The reason the existing Beltway is so crowded is because we have not constructed alternatives and we are forcing an inordinate amount of traffic onto a very limited facility," he says.

To be sure, many transit activists say more trains and buses would accomplish the same goal.

Chase says the politicians that killed the second Beltway did so in the name of slowing growth. But, he says, that growth happened anyway. Now there aren't enough roads to accommodate it.

"Two-thirds of your population is outside the Capital Beltway and in the future an even higher percentage is out there. And right now, there's no way to move people between Maryland and Virginia other than the Beltway," he says.

Chase doesn't just want a second Beltway, though. He thinks the region also needs a third.

In fact, the regional planners of the '60s agreed with him. A third Beltway is also on their maps. It would've gone west of Dulles Airport in Loudoun County, then down past the Manassas Battlefield and across the Potomac River into Charles County, Md. Beyond that well, the planners didn't really get that far.

Today, the mere idea of a third Beltway is a political nonstarter. And that, Chase says, is what's wrong with the modern day political process.

"Transportation policy is responding too much to small groups, small neighborhoods, small situations and ignoring the big picture. And that's why we have the nation's worst congestion," he says.

Right now, though, and off into the foreseeable future, we're stuck with the one Beltway we already have. But the idea of multiple concentric circles isn't just theoretical. After all Baltimore has a Beltway, Atlanta has a Beltway, Houston actually has two.

And Schwartz, the anti-sprawl advocate, says he'll take D.C. over any of them: "We have been much more successful as a region because: a.) We've protected our greenspace; b.) Because we've revived our city; and c.) Because we've tied it all to a transit system," he says.

Perhaps it's just as well. Because once you build a third Beltway, you'd probably need to build another one...and another one...and another one. And really at that point, who can keep track?

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Note: This story was originally written for broadcast on WAMU in Washington. To listen to the audio version, visit WAMU.org.

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) The construction of a subway line out to Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia is one of the largest public works projects in the country, with a price tag of around $6 billion.

With that kind of dough, politics is bound to seep into the process one way or another. And it definitely has, especially after a decision yesterday that puts local politicians here in a no-win situation.

Yesterday, the Board of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is overseeing the project, chose to locate the planned Metro station at Dulles underground, rather than above ground.

The Board made this decision against the advice of almost every elected official in the region - local, state and federal. That's because the underground option is more than $300 million more expensive than an above ground alternative.

Airports Board members said they chose the more expensive option because

DDOT got an earful from angry riders of its Circulator bus service.

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) The District of Columbia began operating its own local bus service in 2005. It's called the Circulator.

The idea behind the Circulator was not to supplant the regional bus service provided by Metro, the local transit authority here, but rather to supplement it. The Circulator was meant to be a way to encourage people to go from the District's bustling downtown area to nearby economic "activity centers," as the city called them.

The buses were brand new and, thanks to shorter routes and limited-stop service, they come every ten minutes. Also, Circulator fares are 25 to 50 cents cheaper than the buses run by Metro.

By all accounts, the Circulator was an instant hit. Ridership boomed, new routes were added and City Council members began clamoring for the Circulator to come to their respective wards.

So it's surprising that the District is now scaling it back. Beginning today, the Circulator route that went around the National Mall is eliminated. And D.C.'s Department of Transportation, or DDOT, is proposing more route cuts, in addition to a 50 cent fare hike, for later this year. This would equalize the Circulator's fares with Metro's.

Marti Ann Reinfeld, a planner with DDOT, says the Circulator is a work in progress. While some of its routes have been successful - very successful - others, such as the National Mall route, haven't. She says the District plans on adding several more Circulator routes in the next few years as they get more data and refine exactly what this bus service is and could be. As for the fare hike, Reinfeld says that was planned since the Circulator's inception almost six years ago.

How are Circulator riders reacting? For that, check out this WAMU story. (Spoiler alert: they're not happy.)

Courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/waba/2511198017/

(Washington D.C. -- David Schultz, WAMU) A private email obtained by WAMU shows that Emeka Moneme, a former top executive at D.C.'s Metro, may have violated ethics rules by lobbying his former coworkers on behalf of one of Metro's largest contractors.

Metro says it still believes in the integrity of its contracting process.

Gallery/Chinatown DC Metro Station (photo by Jill Robidoux)

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) The DC chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has been unhappy with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's bag searches since WMATA began the searches in December. Now they're seeking people who've had their bags searched -- and so would have legal standing in court to challenge the program's constitutionality.

Johnny Barnes, the director of the local ACLU, announced the potential lawsuit this morning. "The WMATA board is on collision course with the ACLU and its partners," he said.  "In 2008, Metro considered bag searches but decided against them. In December 2010, they decided to do them. In between nothing happened...Suspicionless searches don’t meet constitutional muster, but if you show a special need they do. So what’s the special need?"

Late last year, Metro began searching the bags of its train riders in an effort to combat terrorism. It stationed police officers at unannounced train stations, where they would subject the bags of randomly selected passengers to mechanical - and sometimes physical - searches.

Similar programs in Boston and New York City have been upheld in court. But Barnes says Metro's bag search program is different because it was not implemented in response to a specific threat.

In the weeks before the program went into effect in D.C., two people were arrested for plotting separate terror attacks against Metro. But Metro's top executives have said publicly that there was no specific threat that prompted them to implement the bag searches.

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) Have you ever been out to a restaurant with a group of people and one person didn't quite finish their entree? Whenever this happens, I'm usually the first to broach that eternal question, "You gonna eat that?"

I realize in some circles this is interpreted as uncouth behavior. I ask the question not to offend, but simply as a means to distribute a meal more efficiently. In other words, if you're not going to eat it, I will.

And I'm not the only one who holds these controversial views. Ten Democratic Senators from the northeast sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Friday asking that $2.4 million in high speed rail funds semi-rejected by Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) be redirected to their states. In other words, if Florida won't eat it, they will.

Full text of the letter after the jump...

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) A scathing report has just been released by the transition team of incoming D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray. The report is something of an indictment against the city's Department of Transportation, as led by Gray's mayoral predecessor, Adrian Fenty, and his young, charismatic transportation director, Gabe Klein.

Among its grievances:

(Washington, D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) Sean Connaughton, Virginia's Secretary of Transportation, announced this morning that the state is scaling back a project to add High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes to one of its most congested highways.

The state had planned to build HOT lanes along I-95, from far-exurban Stafford County all the way to the state line along the Potomac River. But the project ran into a snag when Arlington County sued the state in federal court. Arlington claimed the HOT lanes project unfairly received a federal environmental exemption in the waning days of the Bush administration, and also that it would violate the civil rights of the minority residents who live near the highway.

This morning, Connaughton announced a major change to the HOT lanes project: the lanes will still begin in Stafford County, but they will now terminate at the Beltway in Fairfax County, well before the Arlington County line.

Connaughton says, with congestion getting worse and worse on I-95 in Northern Virginia, and with a major traffic nightmare expected to crop up later this year when the Army moves thousands of its employees to a transit-inaccessible location near the highway, Virginia couldn't wait any longer to move forward with the HOT lanes project.

Check back in with WAMU News later today and tomorrow for more on this story.

Courtesy Capital Bikeshare

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) Last year, D.C. unveiled its nifty new bike sharing service, Capital Bikeshare, which allows riders to swipe a credit card and rent a bike for a few hours from dozens of street corner bike-sharing stations across the city.

It was billed as one of the crowning achievements of former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and his prolific transportation guru Gabe Klein. (Ironically, the launch ceremony for Capital Bikeshare was held just days after Fenty's devastating primary election loss to the city's current mayor, Vincent Gray.)

At the time, one of the big questions that many people a few people I had was: who is Capital Bikeshare for? Is it really going to significantly improve transportation in Washington? Or is it going to be used only by committed cyclists and/or tourists looking for a quick way to museum hop?

Well, some early data is in and it looks like my skepticism may have been unfounded. As the map to the left shows, most of the trips taken by Capital Bikeshare have been within D.C.'s residential areas - not around the touristic mecca of the National Mall.

This garage fills up every morning by 7 a.m., so local officials are building another one.

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) Earlier this week, we told you how some cities in Europe are trying to encourage transit use by making parking more expensive and less convenient.

Officials here in the U.S. - specifically in the D.C. suburb of Montgomery County, Md. - are trying to accomplish the same goal, only through the exact opposite means. They're trying to encourage transit use by building more parking.

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) D.C.'s Metro announced this morning it will eliminate almost all of the 1,074 pay phones in its train stations.

The reason why shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has ever seen someone who appeared to be talking loudly to themselves but was actually using one of those tiny Bluetooth thingies in their ear: cell phones are pretty prevalent nowadays. It seems like everyone has one. Yes, everyone.

Long, long ago, you had to find a phone booth (and a quarter) to make a phone call. Now, if you have a cell phone, you just have to find something to say - and even that's not always necessary.

Dulles International Airport

(Washington, D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia is not just an airport; it's also, according to design and planning guru Roger K. Lewis, "one of America's greatest works of modern architecture."

Dulles' main terminal was designed in the 1960s by Finnish architect Eero Saarinen. Along with the St. Louis Arch and JFK Airport's TWA Terminal (now the JetBlue terminal), Dulles Airport is one of his most well-known accomplishments.

But while Saarinen's Dulles terminal is almost universally celebrated, it's also causing some headaches for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

(Washington, D.C. -- David Schultz, WAMU) Nowadays, the cash toll roads generate is often put toward more than just the maintenance and upkeep of the road itself.

That's what's happening in Northern Virginia: the Dulles Toll Road connects the D.C. region to Dulles International Airport. The local Airports Authority here is using money from the road to pay for a new rail line that will run parallel to the road.

But how much money are they using? Therein lies the rub...

A prototype of D.C.'s new streetcar

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) So let's say you're a city. You want to build a big public works project, like a school or a fire house - or let's say a $1.5 billion, 37-mile streetcar network.

First you formulate a design for the project, then you find the money to pay for it and then you get local politicians to sign off. (Not necessarily in that order) In most cities, with most projects, that's how it works.

Not in the District of Columbia. In Washington D.C., you also have to make sure the project you're working on doesn't impinge on any of the august, historic symbols that populate the Nation's Capital.

Chris Zimmerman

(Washington D.C. - David Schultz, WAMU) In news that has come as a shock to many—especially myself—Chris Zimmerman announced this morning that he will be stepping down from the Board of Directors of Washington D.C.'s Metro system at the end of this year.

Zimmerman had served on the Board for more than a decade, and he had been instrumental in guiding Metro through the darkest period of its 34 year existence. Over the past 18 months, Metro has faced multiple budget crises, a rapidly crumbling infrastructure, federal condemnation and a train collision that killed eight of its passengers. Zimmerman, whose main job is as a local politician in Arlington, Va., was there through it all, rarely—if ever—missing a Board meeting.

Before I joined WAMU, I reported for a weekly newspaper in Arlington, so I got to know Zimmerman fairly well. And I can say definitively that he lives and breathes transportation. His influence in the D.C. region far exceeds that of his job title, as he sits on no fewer than four regional transportation bodies. (Although, after today, that number is reduced by one.)

Zimmerman has become something of a boogeyman for the pro-roads set in Northern Virginia. Many believe he is the man pulling the strings behind Arlington's efforts to block the expansion of several major highways that lead in and out of the District. But he is also a hero to the burgeoning transit-oriented anti-sprawl community in D.C.

We will continue to follow this story and watch to see if other changes are coming to Metro's leadership.