Scooters

Athens Rising breaks down the impact of the scooter/moped trend, especially on UGA's campus.

Scooters have made traffic move a little more slowly and safely, creating a better environment for bicyclists and pedestrians as well. Sure, there are bad scooter drivers, but those kids would be just as bad behind the wheel of a Suburban, which is where this change in policy will likely send them. If scooters are made to be inconvenient to use, then we’ll likely see a host of other unintended consequences kick back up.

I agree. Scooters are a much more bike/ped friendly mode of transportation than automobiles. They're less noisy than cars, have good gas mileage, and they travel at much safer speeds. I'd rather bike next to a 35 mph scooter than a 55 mph Expedition. For folks whose physical condition or geographic location prohibits cycling and/or walking, scooters are a much more sensible transportation than a full-size car for short, in-town errands.

UGA does need to come up with a solution for the crowded and haphazard scooter parking on campus, however. Scooters block entrances and sidewalks, and they are frequently chained to bicycle racks, which are in high demand. Pushing scooters to the frontiers of campus is not the solution. As Williams notes, "any hasty move which disincentivizes this mode of transportation will cut off a whole realm of possibilities for the future of Athens."

Any other perspectives on this?

Parking it at UGA

The Red & Black compares UGA's parking facilities to those of its peer institutions.

“Parking is one of the biggest problems on most any large university campus,” [ University of Florida vice president of Business Affairs Ed] Poppell said. “On our campus we say, ‘We have enough spaces, but just not in the right places.’”

The saying is a result of one of UF’s initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and congestion on campus by enforcing certain regulations, such as the university’s “auto-free interior campus,” where only buses and service vehicles are allowed on the interior of campus from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

“We have significant policies on our campus limiting what students can do and where they can park,” Poppell said. “We have also continuously increased the price of our decals, encouraging people to find alternative means of transportation.”

At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the parking is highly selective. With 16,000 total parking spaces on campus, the school allows only 3,900 of its 28,136 students to park on campus. Unlike the University, UNC does not offer parking to incoming freshmen.

“There are a lot of folks who prefer to utilize the transit system,” said Randy Young, spokesman for the UNC Department of Safety. “We’ve gone to inordinate measures to make sure that the congestion and dependence on single-occupancy vehicles are attended to here on campus. We have 6,000 people on the Commuter Alternative Program.”

The program offers students an incentive to walk, ride bikes or use transit on campus by rewarding them with prizes and merchant discounts.

The University has a similar program called the Alternative Transportation Program, with a student participation of 1,200.

The program allows students who walk or take the bus* to receive 22 days of free parking per year in specified parking locations.

*ATP is also available for cyclists. With its campus pedestrian malls, campus transit, and bike racks, UGA certainly leads the county in supporting alternative transportation infrastructure.

Still, more can be done to encourage alternative behavior among a student body overwhelmingly conditioned to drive enormous SUVs for 2 mile errand trips. Increasing ATP participation should be a top priority. Given the comparatively low levels of participation, UGA has a ways to go before it can say it has "gone to inordinate measures to make sure that the congestion and dependence on single-occupancy vehicles" are minimized.

Indeed, since its inception, the Alternative Transportation Program has grown more restrictive, due to concerns that the program was being abused. Instead of marginalizing a good idea, UGA ought to develop creative enforcement solutions and then widely publicize the program's availability and benefits. Fewer cars means less need for bond-financed parking decks, which means less congestion, both on our roads and in our air.

Unfortunately, other considerations tend to distort the University's thinking on these things.

GA loses out on even more transit funding

As if the loss of high speed rail funding wasn't painful enough, AJC comes in with this late hit.

The Federal Transit Administration on Tuesday published a list of 27 transit projects recommended for $1.8 billion in federal funding. Georgia wasn’t on it.

It couldn’t be. Georgia had no proposals up for consideration, FTA spokesman Paul Griffo said.

In contrast to the high-speed rail grants last week, these recommendations would fund development of local transit projects such as new bus and streetcar lines.
...

Rail advocates last week blamed Georgia’s loss of high-speed rail money on the state’s past indifference to rail transit.

"If you don’t have operating money, nobody’s going to give you the money you need to build lines," said Lee Biola, president of Citizens for Progressive Transit. "Other states are investing in other ways of traveling [than by car] and they are becoming competitors when it comes to luring businesses and high-tech workers to their states."

If it wasn't clear before, it's clear now: Georgia's old boy network of back-slapping car dealers, sprawl builders, and road pavers will keep us mired in gridlocked traffic, smog, and ugly landscapes until we demand something better.

Sidewalk biking debate continues

Local Reps. "Doug McKillip, D-Athens, and Ed Lindsey, R-Atlanta, introduced House Bill 965 this week, [which] would give local governments the option of allowing bicycles on sidewalks," reports today's Banner-Herald.

I stated my opinion publicly, but I'll reiterate it by re-posting a comment from the ABH website:

Sidewalks might be ok for kids and folks wishing to putter, but there is no way a sidewalk is safe for even for the speeds a newbie on a road bike can make. Most road bike groups are going to average 14-18 mph, maybe a bit slower on hills, but that is pretty close. Elite groups will be faster, and some riders will be slower. While bikes may delay you a few seconds on your journey, it is safer for pedestrians, pets, and the bikers themselves, to have them on the road at those speeds than on a narrow unregulated sidewalk.

By definition, bikes are "traffic" and have the same rights to the road as slow drivers, garbage trucks, busses, postmen, etc., and any other vehicle that might slow you down. Share the road works when everyone is respectful and considerate.

While I agree with the above 100%, I recognize my opinion is informed by my experiences on Prince, Milledge, and Lumpkin. Any thoughts from other commuting corridors? I'd like to hear both cyclists' and pedestrians' perspectives.

If you don't want to comment here on the blog, respond to the poll on the right!

Bad news/Good news

The bad news:
Our great state's short-sighted, issue-neglecting leaders have squandered the chance for millions in high speed rail money.

Georgia appears to have won as little as $750,000 from the $8 billion pool of high-speed rail grants.
...
Last fall, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told a number of states, including Georgia and Florida, that they had better get their act together on rail transit or risk losing out on the high-speed rail grants.

In a special session weeks later, Florida voted additional annual funding for one transit rail line and expedited buying track for another.

What did Georgia's legislators do? Not a thing. And what are they doing now? Talking about more tax cuts for big business (and campaign contributors) and ethics re-form.

All of which nets us, the traffic and air pollution-beleaguered residents of the state, with .0094% of the federal funding available for high speed inter-city rail.

The good news?

Maybe folks will finally get fired up about the ridiculous priorities of our state government and demand some actual governance, the kind that faces reality and seeks informed solutions to our common problems.

Gov. Perdue sure likes talking the talk. Will we ever see any action? That's largely up to us. We'll have to drag our highway-loving legislature kicking and screaming, but we can make it happen.

Let your legislator know how disappointed you are!

New thinking @ Atlanta Regional Commission?

Tad Leithead, the newly elected chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission, looks like an advocate for better public transportation in Georgia:

He is keen to resurrect the North Cobb to Akers Mill to Perimeter light-rail line that would alleviate congestion along interstates 75 and 285. Commuter lines from Atlanta to Macon and Athens rank high too. The so-called Northern Arc, connecting interstates 75 and 85, deserves serious reconsideration, Leithead said.

Marta needs a steadier flow of money to maintain, let alone upgrade, its system. Public-private partnerships could turn HOV lanes into toll lanes.

Leithead said the General Assembly must give the 10-county metro region the financial tools to solve transportation woes. A penny sales tax would raise $7.9 billion, he said, with federal matching dollars adding another $5 billion.

“To be a great metropolitan city, we must have that great transit system,” Leithead said.

I'll amend his comments a bit: to be a functional, responsible, and sustainable society, we must have a reliable, convenient, and valued transit system. Here's hoping Leithead succeeds in his transit goals.
The northern arc...not so much.
You can't build automobile infrastructure and expect people to use transit. Every road widening and new road construction project guarantees the congestion you're trying to eliminate.

U.S. Trans Sec rightfully disses GA

Via Blake Aued's blog:

For decades, Athens residents have despaired of ever seeing a much-needed and much-discussed commuter train to Atlanta move forward while our leaders pay lip service to the concept.

Georgia is the largest state in the nation that does not fund mass transit. Do not expect any help from the Obama Administration – which has set aside billions for light rail – until state officials make a commitment.

“The Northeast (high-speed rail) corridor has its act together,” U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood told AJC columnist Jay Bookman. “The Midwest corridor has its act together. The governors there have set aside their own egos and their own ambitions” to work together on bringing high-speed rail to those regions.

“If the people of Atlanta think it’s OK to sit in traffic for an hour and a half on the way to a doctor’s appointment, so be it,” LaHood said (hat tip to JMac).

Come to think of it, just about every politician I’ve ever interviewed, from governor on down to county commissioner, has been in favor of the Brain Train. Yet it never gets done. Funny how that works.

Indeed. Haha.

Parallel universes

AJC journalist Jay Bookman deconstructs Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine's plans to solve metro Atlanta traffic problems by building more multi-lane, interstate-style highways:

The highway "would run about two miles east of the existing [I-285] connector. It would start at the intersection of Ga. 400 and I-85 and travel south to connect with I-20 and then I-285, a 15-mile route."

But,

Even the chairman of the state Transportation Board, Bill Kuhlke, has acknowledged that the era of major road-building is over in the metro area.

“Transit is going to be the biggest part of the answer for this particular region, “ Kuhlke said earlier this year.
Unfortunately, that realization is not widely held among the state’s elected political leadership.

Far more common is Oxendine’s claim that “we got to build a lot of roads around metro Atlanta,” a mind-set that blinds people to other possibilities.

For example, the so-called “Brain Train” — a proposed commuter rail line linking Athens, Gwinnett County and a downtown Atlanta multimodal station — would provide a more efficient and less destructive means of moving passengers from the northeast suburbs to the airport than the parallel connector, and at a fraction of the cost. But that kind of solution just can’t get a serious hearing from the state’s current leadership.

Given that reality, one of three things has to happen to address metro Atlanta’s transportation crisis:
We have to change the mind-set of state leaders; failing that, we have to change state leadership, period; and failing that, the region has to demand the authority to plan and finance its own transportation solution.

In other words, instead of a parallel connector, we need a parallel universe.

The cause of accidents

From the NYT:
A study in Toronto "found that clumsy or inattentive driving by motorists was the cause of 90 percent of [bicycle-car] crashes. Among the leading causes: running a stop sign or traffic light, turning into a cyclist’s path, or opening a door on a biker."

GDOT's new director approved

Todd Long, the governor's pick for the newly created statewide transportation planner, was unanimously approved today.

In his comments, Long assured the House Transportation Committee "that while the director of planning has a close relationship with the governor, he would weigh the governor’s priorities alongside others, and that he was dedicated to serving all of Georgia’s transportation needs, not just urban, suburban or rural."

And:

He ... threw cold water on the notion that he’ll be able to solve congestion and throw new roads all over the state, especially in metro Atlanta. “Our goal cannot be to widen every road wide enough that your trip no matter where it is is going to be free flow 100 percent of the time,” he said. “There’s just not enough money to do that…You’ve got to provide options.”

By "all of Georgia's transportation needs," let's hope you mean this, and by "options," how about some of this, this, or this? You can take a lesson or two from D.C.

GDOT ok's sprawl in Oconee Co

Banner-Herald:

GDOT "will give Oconee County officials the go-ahead to buy 150 pieces of rights of way along Mars Hill Road in North Oconee."

" The new Mars Hill Road will be a four-lane, divided highway... and [will] help spur business growth in the area. "

The affected area:



View Larger Map

Givin' us the ole one-two

For the second year in a row, T-SPLOST "legislation has failed on the last night of the session."

Meanwhile, a revised version of the GDOT overhaul bill passed and awaits Perdue's signature. The legislation undoubtedly gives the governor's office far more direct control over transportation planning and decision making.

Good ole boys, sprawl, congestion and lower air quality win this round. Georgia's decision makers are utterly committed to keeping the state last in serious-minded solutions to transportation issues, last in overall quality of life, and last in building a near-term future with any chance of survival.

More parking decks at UGA

Awwww.... come on!

The University of Georgia will add two more parking decks, one near the intramural fields off College Station Road and one near the Performing and Visual Arts Center on East Campus.

If approved today as expected by the University System Board of Regents, construction crews will begin work within weeks and finish as early as August, said UGA spokesman Tom Jackson.

The $9.2 million, 490-parking space deck near the intramural fields is scheduled to be finished in time to furnish overflow parking for UGA home football games, Jackson said.

UGA is supposed to be discouraging automobile use. These decks are utterly at odds with the university's demonstrated commitment to 1) expanding greenspace, 2) increasing walk- and bike-ability on campus, and 3) encouraging on-campus living.

The increased automobile traffic they create will make cycling on College Station's bike lanes far less safe.

This is a terrible, backwards-ass idea, and it sounds like it's being done to appease the tailgating Escalade convoys from out of town, and that it's too late to oppose it.

Not only is this asinine from a transportation perspective- it demonstrates a callous mis-allocation of money for the university. The state keeps shoveling money at UGA, but only for megalithic student centers and wrongheaded parking decks. Meanwhile, academic departments and student service offices are facing unprecedented cuts, including potentially widespread layoffs.

Is it sane to build a monumental campus, full of hapless students in empty, un-staffed buildings, while cash and bourbon-fueled donors park their land yachts in awful, modernist parking decks?

Flagpole: downtown ped mall, GDOT, and more

Along with cover art by a former BikeAthens' Board member, this week's Flagpole features stories on possibly converting College Square to a pedestrian plaza and the budgetary tribulations at GDOT.

Budget woes & transit talk

Also in the current Creative Loafing, an article about the state's overall budget crisis and the debate over transit in Georgia and how to pay for it.

While the whole piece is worth a read, here's the gist :

[Alan Essig, executive director of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute] says Georgia, which has one of the lowest tax burdens in the nation, is in a “structural deficit.” For the past 10 years, the Gold Dome’s addiction to cutting taxes while doling out incentives to businesses cost the state an estimated $1.5 billion annually.

Contrary to what most GOP power-hitters say, Georgia has a revenue problem, Essig says, not a spending problem, and the decades-old habit of bending over backward in terms of tax credits, incentives and exemptions has left the state no better off.

“The problem is [the budget’s] lacking any bold vision,” Essig says. “The elected leadership has to tell Georgians what it takes to develop first-class health care, first-class education and first-class transportation — and be honest about ways to raise revenues to do it. And if we’re not going to do it, then to stop promising that goal.”

AMID CONCERN OF THE state’s budget woes, there will be other issues that demand lawmakers’ attention — some say immediate attention.

Chief among them: the ever-pressing challenge of the state’s notorious congestion problem.
Last year, a lack of funding to build roads, repair bridges, and introduce much needed public transit to our auto-dependent state was one of the biggest hurdles the General Assembly tried to overcome. Look around and you can see the problem was far from solved.

In the run-up to this year’s session, the state’s most powerful business leaders echoed their call for lawmakers to create a new funding source for transportation. The most popular idea — a 1 cent sales tax that counties could levy on themselves to fund road, rail and bridge projects — is a slightly altered version of legislation that failed by three votes in the Senate just minutes before the General Assembly adjourned in 2008.

Judging by Perdue’s recent speech to lawmakers, however, we’ll still be sitting in gridlock come next year. He says he’ll support a new transportation tax when such a plan makes “business sense.” Last week, the governor proposed a sweeping overhaul of the state’s countless transportation agencies, parroting last year’s line that the different groups are in need of reform before they receive more money.

Nonetheless, lawmakers are giving transportation funding another go. Last week, Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, introduced legislation that would revive the regional sales tax funding mechanism. Members of the House want a statewide 1 cent sales tax, a move that Cagle says isn’t likely to pass in the Senate, over which he presides. If either moneymaking mechanism were to succeed, it would require a state constitutional referendum on the 2010 ballot. In other words, there won’t be any new funds for a while.

Perdue has indicated a willingness to fund public transit, if not MARTA specifically. The Georgia Regional Transit Authority, which Perdue oversees, has been appropriated $11.6 million by the governor for new buses to shuttle commuters from intown to the suburbs. The agency requested the funds last year as well, only to be rebuffed by lawmakers.

In terms of commuter rail, Perdue received a tongue-lashing from U.S. Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., because the governor didn’t include in the budget funding for a rail line between Atlanta and Griffin, a project he said he’d support during the state’s gas shortage last year.

The good news: Lawmakers are lining up to support a bill that would allow alcohol to be sold in stores on Sundays. It won’t solve the deficit — an additional day of booze revenues would only generate $4.8 million in taxes — but it would at least provide more options for drinking away your economic sorrows.

Cheers.
Get in touch with your elected officials to let them know you support an increase in general support for public transit, sidewalks, and bicycle infrastructure in Georgia, as well as a 1 cent sales tax (aka TSPLOST) dedicated to funding transit & rail.

GA lowers gas tax

Happy New Year!

Our first post for 2009 relays the bittersweet news that Georgia's already moderate gas tax has been lowered even further.

The state tax was lowered by 4 cents per gallon to 14.6 cents starting Thursday. Georgia's gas tax is adjusted twice a year based on the average price of gas. When that average price dips - as it has in recent months - the tax goes down as well. Gov. Sonny Perdue rescinded an executive order he issued in June that froze the tax as prices skyrocketed during the summer.

The reduction cuts millions of dollars for the state Department of Transportation, which had a $456 million budget deficit for the fiscal year that ended July 31, according to an audit report in September.

"Our costs are going up and our revenues are declining," DOT spokesman David Spear said Friday. "We're trying to prioritize our projects and do the things that are most needed."

The DOT budget for this year is about $2.3 billion, with about half coming from federal gas tax revenues and a comparable amount from the state. Spending could be padded by a "few hundred million" dollars in bond sales, Spear said.

Transportation funding is a problem nationwide. With motorists driving less and buying less fuel, the current 18.4-cents-a-gallon gas tax and 24.4-cents-a-gallon diesel tax fail to raise enough to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs.

In Georgia, a proposal to allow counties to group together and impose a regional sales tax to pay for transportation projects failed to pass in last year's General Assembly by one vote. The legislature is expected to try to tackle a statewide transportation plan in the session beginning this month.

Let's hope the legislature & GDOT concentrate on projects that are "most needed," such as commuter rail, transit expansion, and transportation-oriented bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Recklessly throwing money at road widenings and interstate construction will only waste GDOT's time and money and will exacerbate our state's transportation crisis.

GDOT projects list

Last week, I wrote GDOT and asked them what "ready to go" projects they were submitting should the national infrastructure bailout funds come through.

Below is their response:

Thank you for contacting YOUR Georgia Department of Transportation.

The Georgia Department of Transportation looked at all of the projects that we had out there. We took a thorough look at safety, bridges, intersections, new capacity and maintenance. The biggest driving force in identifying the projects for our list was the 180 day criteria. We identified projects that we considered were ready to go meaning that; environmental approval from FHWA, Right of Way acquisition, designs and plans all would be complete and the project ready to let within 180 days. We had a number of projects that could meet that standard- totaling some $3 billion which we submitted. This is merely a preliminary list and we are still reviewing projects and looking at other considerations before a final decision is made. The Board will also have an active role in our project identification process and intends to solicit input from local governments and our transportation partners as we continue to further develop our list.

December 8, 2008
SUMMARY

Aviation $45,344,231 (1.3%)

MARTA
$1,100,830,000 (32%)

Transit
$61,978,000 (1.8 %)

GRTA (GA Regional Transportation Authority)
$8,000,000 (0.2%)

GDOT Roadway Projects (Including Maint.)
$2,205,308,473 (64%)

Commuter Rail
$22,575,000 (0.6%)

Grand Total
$3,444,035,704

Again, we thank you for submitting your inquiry to the Georgia DOT. Please continue to contact us with your comments and questions.

Thanks,

Office of Constituency Services
Georgia DOT

It's good to see that MARTA is receiving the help it needs, but road projects take up nearly 2/3 of this $3+ billion list. Commuter rail and transit are barely recognized, when what we need is a massive infusion of investment in these modes of transportation. We do not need to continue feeding the growth of a failed transportation model.

Deep decline in driving

I'm a sucker for alliteration.

AJC relays:

It may not feel like it, but the American road is a lot more open these days.

In a year of historic changes in how we live, the federal government today is expected to announce yet another blockbuster. From November 2007 to October 2008, the U.S. saw the biggest sustained decline in miles driven in recorded history, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

Never before have Americans put the brakes on automotive travel in such a decisive way. Month after month, for an entire year, drivers put fewer miles on the road than they had the year before. It was an unprecedented stretch of highway-driving decline, according to FHWA spokesman Doug Hecox. The agency has been keeping records since 1942.

Vehicles on U.S. roads clocked 100.6 billion fewer miles in the year ending in October than they had traveled the year before, according to a monthly federal report expected today.

Georgians were among those helping drive the trend. Every month, they drove less than they did in that month the previous year. In August —- traditionally a big month for vacations —- Georgians chose to stay off the road by the biggest margin of the year.

In contrast, buses, trains and HOV registries are packed.

State Department of Transportation Commissioner Gena Evans is one of those people who cut down on driving.

After she and her new husband, former state Transportation Board Chairman Mike Evans, saw the rising cost to fill up his Hummer, she started riding mass transit to work in downtown Atlanta much of the time.

Gas prices encouraged the GDOT Commissioner to switch from a Hummer to public transit. No baby steps for Gena Evans!
Let's see if she takes her personal realization and packs that "ready to go" list of state transportation projects with desperately needed mass transit infrastructure (bike paths and sidewalks would be nice stocking stuffers as well).

Transit use on the rise

Despite cheaper gas prices the past few months, records indicate that transit use in this same period has grown at its fastest pace in 25 years.

Americans rode subways, buses and commuter railroads in record numbers in the third quarter of this year, even as gas prices dropped and unemployment rose. The 6.5 percent jump in transit ridership over the same period last year marks the largest quarterly increase in public transportation ridership in 25 years, according to a survey to be released today by the American Public Transportation Association.

"It's very rare to see when virtually every part of the country and every mode of transit is up," said APTA President William W. Millar. "As other costs in their lives have gone up, Americans are looking for ways to economize, and in most communities, transit is still a bargain."

The trends are likely to boost support for more transit funds in the economic stimulus package that Congress will send to President-elect Barack Obama. With the economy in a recession, Obama pledged Saturday to create the largest public works construction program since the building of the federal interstate highway system in the 1950s.

At a meeting with Obama in Philadelphia last week, governors estimated there were $136 billion in "ready-to-go" projects that go beyond traditional bridge and road repairs to include public transit, water and sewer plants ("Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger agreed the nation needs to invest in infrastructure, particularly high-speed rail. “It’s time we got our act together,” he said.").

Public transportation advocates say investing in transit creates jobs, reduces America's dependence on foreign oil and helps combat climate change.

Full story.

I couldn't locate any details on what Sonny submitted for the "ready-to-go" projects list or where he stood on federal assistance for the states. Let me know if you hear anything.

California sets an example

Good news from the west coast: pending legislative efforts to curb sprawl and greenhouse gas emissions.
From the NYT:

SAN FRANCISCO — California, known for its far-ranging suburbs and jam-packed traffic, is close to adopting a law intended to slow the increase in emissions of heat-trapping gases by encouraging housing close to job sites, rail lines and bus stops to shorten the time people spend in their cars.

The measure, which the State Assembly passed on Monday and awaits final approval by the Senate, would be the nation’s most comprehensive effort to reduce sprawl. It would loosely tie tens of billions of dollars in state and federal transportation subsidies to cities’ and counties’ compliance with efforts to slow the inexorable increase in driving. The goal is to encourage housing near current development and to reduce commutes to work.

OK, Sonny. You said you were committed to fixing GA's traffic congestion crisis. Are we gonna have more of the same, or are we gonna get on board with real solutions?