Streetsblog San Francisco

Some of you saw the Examiner piece yesterday about SkyTran's personal rapid transit (PRT) project and were probably looking for a response from us (one of you even asked in comments why we didn't touch it), but I've been very leery of the topic since I saw the "Pod People" post over on New York Streetsblog blow up with 227 polarizing and dogmatic comments for and against PRT (Personal Rabid Transit?), before the editors shut comments down. I'm pretty skeptical of anything taken on faith as good or bad, so why get into the fray, especially with a technology that hasn't been proven at scale?

Then there's my personal bias against the aesthetic clutter that would ensue with multi-level guideways two stories high running down quiet residential streets to whisk people to their front doors? I don't know about you, but I like walking those quiet streets and looking up at the sky.

And isn't a transit system that costs at least five times less than freeways and light rail called a bus? If the problem is competition with traffic from cars, then make a serious policy commitment to segregated roadways for buses. Or why not spend public money for innovations like bike-share, which would have the added benefit of keeping you healthy?

One of the issues the Examiner didn't touch in its promo for SkyTran was feasibility. Where in the world would the money come from to build a workable system less marginal than the monorail at Epcot Center?

"The most likely source of major public funding would be federal funds that are targeted toward new rail projects," said Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) spokesperson Randy Rentschler, whose agency would be responsible for finding public funds for PRT, should that ever be mandated by the public. He explained that the New Starts federal fund typically doles out $1.5 - 2 billion annually, though that goes to projects all over the country. In San Francisco, the Central Subway is one of the projects competing for the money, for example.

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The MTA has released video of Saturday's Muni collision, which was captured by several platform cameras at the West Portal Station. The footage showing an L train slamming into the rear of a K train, and the immediate aftermath, was in the custody of the National Transportation Safety Board but turned back over to Muni today. According to MTA spokesperson Judson True, there is no video from inside:

No surveillance video from either light rail vehicle (LRV) involved in the collision exists because the video system was not fully implemented on the entire light rail fleet during the vehicle procurement process. All video surveillance systems on Muni light rail vehicles are being inspected and will be activated and functional as soon as possible.

48 people were injured in the crash, including the operator of the L train, who told NTSB investigators he "blacked out." The MTA said the two most seriously injured, including the operator, are in good and fair condition at San Francisco General Hospital.

More video below the break.

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Streetsblog tipster Nick just sent us these photos of one of the damaged trains being hauled away following today's Muni collision:

I snapped these pics 8PM Saturday night as one of the trains was being taken down Ocean Avenue. One thing about it that was kind of odd was that the train was running red lights on Ocean. Not sure why they were disregarding safety after such a terrible accident. In fairness though, they did have one or two trucks ahead of the train with flashing lights leading the way but still.

And here's the latest Muni service alert. Service has resumed at West Portal Station:

As of 8:02 p.m., regular light rail service resumed at West Portal and the K, L and M lines are returning to regular service.

According to the most recent information from the San Francisco Fire Department, there were 48 injuries as a result of the collision: 4 red (critical) including the Muni Operator from the L Taraval, 24 yellow (serious) and 20 green (minor). All were transported to San Francisco hospitals.

The SFMTA will provide additional information from the ongoing investigation on Sunday.

Multiple injuries are being reported after two Muni light rail vehicles collided this afternoon at the West Portal station. From the Muni Service alert:

As of 2:57 p.m., all Muni Metro light rail service that travels through West Portal Station in either direction has been halted because of a collision between two light rail vehicles (LRVs) on the outbound platform at West Portal Station.

Initial reports are that a one-car L Taraval LRV travelling at low speed collided with a stopped one-car K/T Third LRV.

There are reportedly multiple injuries as a result of the collision, but none of the injuries have yet been described as life-threatening.

Buses are providing substitute service between West Portal and Castro stations and West Portal Station and western destinations for the K/T, L and M Muni Metro lines.

Everyone knows that Phoenix has a huge sprawl problem. But now transit-oriented development is on the upswing in this Sun Belt metropolis. In December, the Phoenix region opened one of the most ambitious transit projects in recent U.S. history: a 20-mile light rail line with 28 stops serving three cities (Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa). Future plans include an extension within three years, with several new corridors being studied. 

The Valley Metro vehicles are handsome and comfortable, and thus far ridership has far exceeded initial projections -- with as many as 40,000 riders per day, compared to the expected 25,000. Each station features amenities and art installations. In addition, with many folks using the light rail as an intermodal step in their commutes, bicycles are welcome aboard. 

In a rally held at the Oakland Coliseum BART station yesterday, transportation and social justice advocates joined with transit and public health unions to call on the BART Board of Directors to study a full-BRT line connecting BART to Oakland Airport, instead of the proposed elevated people-mover that BART staff seems so intent on building. Advocates claim the BRT model could be built at such a cost savings that BART could provide free airport connector service in perpetuity.

"We are calling on BART staff to immediately assign their consultants and their staff to work with us to further analyze the ridership on this proposal and to bring that to their board on May 14th so they can make an informed, smart decision," said Stuart Cohen, Executive Director of TransForm.

TransForm released a report for a service they call RapidBART (PDF), which would run at street level with separated lanes and signal priority at traffic lights.  Stressing the fact that new ridership numbers are one-third what they were when BART initially studied the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) in 2000, TransForm claims RapidBART would have higher ridership because it would stop several times along Hegenberger at the various commercial destinations there.

TransForm also noted that when voters initially approved of the OAC in 2000, the project was budgeted for $130 million, but that it was unacceptable to spend stimulus funding and borrow more than $150 million to meet the much higher $522 million price tag now needed to complete the project when a true BRT option with signal priority hasn't been studied.

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Seattle's South Lake Union Streetcar is a 1.3-mile line that opened in December 2007, the first leg in the city's commitment to new transit and light rail. It passed the half million passenger milestone in its first year, surpassing ridership projections.

The streetcar features many top-of-the-line tech amenities, including real time arrival message boards, solar-powered ticket vending machines, and human-activated doors to save energy while the train is in layover mode. If you go to the Seattle Streetcar web site, you can find out the next arrival time and actually watch the streetcars moving via GPS trackers.

As you'll see in the film, development is booming along the South Lake Union corridor. "If you build it, they will come" certainly seems to apply here.

The debate among policy makers and community stakeholders over the merits of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) versus Light Rail Transit (LRT) is often heated, and usually centers around whether LRT recoups the substantial capital costs of implementation over time versus BRT, and whether BRT has a more substantial carbon impact. Sometimes it can also boil down to a debate over whether buses are sexy enough to get people out of cars and onto transit.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) recently presented a report comparing BRT and LRT in the “medium investment” range for the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) on the Purple Line, which would connect suburbs around Washington DC with the city center.   WRI’s analysis confirms that BRT is the option that would work locally to fight global warming, with a medium-investment system cutting carbon dioxide emissions by almost 9,000 metric tons per year, equivalent to taking about 1,600 cars off the road (PDF).

In an interview with Worldchanging, the report's authors, Dario Hidalgo and Greg Fuhs, address the CO2 numbers: "While this could change in the future with a major and permanent shift to low-carbon energy sources, for the foreseeable future we would likely continue to see higher CO2 emissions from light rail in this case," said Fuhs.

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