Over on the Switchboard blog written by Kaid Benfield, he writes today about a free downtown circulator that Baltimore has recently put in place. (pasted below) This is a great heads-up to those cities that are cutting back on transit in tough times. I’ve thought for a while that we need an entirely new service model for transit in most American cities, and will write about this more in future posts. The reality is the current system in most cities is so completely unsupported by fares that we might as well have completely free zones in order to encourage denser, walkable development. And then, we need to find a new revenue/service model that works for other day to day service. What Baltimore is doing is very encouraging – let’s hope more cities follow their lead and really begin to see transit as a tool for economic development.

Kevin

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/free_downtown_transit_could_be.html

Last week Baltimore launched the Charm City Circulator, a free bus route that connects the city’s downtown with neighborhoods east and west and with other transit routes.  At a time when many transit providers are having to cut back on service, Baltimore is betting that the new service will entice economic activity.

Even better, the Circulator has a dedicated lane through congested areas and, by putting seven buses on the Orange Route (route above), the first of three planned, free Circulator routes, the city will be able to offer service at 10-minute headways. Neighborhoods served by the Orange Route, in addition to downtown, include the city’s popular Inner Harbor, Little Italy, and the University of Maryland’s Baltimore campus.  The fleet consists of environmentally friendly diesel-electric hybrids.

Writing on the web site Autopia, Zach Rosenberg reports that the system is funded by a 16 percent tax on parking, which will raise about $5 million annually, and that its underlying logic is compelling:

“Despite the high costs and massive subsidies implicit in driving, forking over a relatively small fee to ride a bus or subway is a psychological barrier to getting people out of cars. Even the most efficiently run buses can be crowded and slow, but by running at frequent intervals on dedicated lanes between fixed stops — as the Circulator does — delays can be kept to a minimum. The bus might not stop next to, or even near, every rider’s point of origin or destination, but it ensures a measure of proximity for most riders.”

The Charm City Circulator’s own web site stresses the environmental benefits:

“We service residents, downtown employees, students and tourists and anyone else who wishes to ride. The shuttle is intended to reduce congestion and greenhouse gas pollution by offering a convenient, reliable and eco-friendly form of public transportation.

“We’re not only dedicated to offering a stellar form of public transportation that links critical parts of the city—we are interested in doing it in the cleanest way possible. That’s why we’ve chosen 21 DesignLine 2009 EcoSaver IV LF Hybrid Electric vehicles—the first fleet of this type in a major metropolitan area. The Charm City Circulator is one part of Mayor Dixon’s vision of a ‘cleaner, greener Baltimore.’”

The Orange Route serves an east-west corridor, as can be seen above.  When introduced, the Purple Route will serve a north-south corridor will run all the way from Penn Station in the north to Federal Hill in the south. The U-shaped Green Route will run from City Hall down through Fells Point and then up to the Johns Hopkins University’s East Baltimore campus (see photo set).  The routes intersect each other at several points and also connect to other forms of transit, including trains, light rail, buses and water taxis.

Portland has long had a free downtown zone for its regular light rail service, but has had to cut back recently to address budget shortfalls.  Several cities in Europe have free transit zones.  Washington has popular circulator bus routes that link downtown with nearby neighborhoods and that link to but are operated separately from the main Metro transit system; the DC Circulator is not free, however, but operates on a reduced fare system.  Baltimore’s bold venture into free transit service is an exciting initiative well worth following.

This one is especially for my readers in the Kansas City region (but hopefully for others of you in northern climates).

I love the snow, and what it does to life in cities. So much of our lives gets consumed by activity and noise, it’s refreshing when we’re forced to have much of that go away. Mainly, it’s wonderful just how quiet the city gets when vehicles can’t travel very well. We forget just how much of the noise of life is vehicular, except when a snowstorm comes and takes most of that away. It’s so… peaceful. Which of course makes you think.

You may wonder what a snowstorm can say about walkability and how we live our lives. Well, since we own this bit of cyberspace, let me share a few thoughts.

For one, it doesn’t take much of a weather event to reveal just how fragile our existence is. And how dependent we are on our machines. For so many, life just shuts down completely. That’s not always bad, except that it’s a forced choice, not a conscious one.

And it also reveals just how much of the “panic” that comes with a big storm is because of our auto-dependency. For example, if you live in a place where walking is the norm, a storm is just an inconvenience – you can still get to the store, the local bar, to work, and the kids can even get to school. But in a culture where all those things require a vehicular trip, we either shut life down completely or over-purchase on our vehicles for winter driving ability. Again, I kind of like how life quiets down from a storm, but not when it’s forced upon us.

Another thing that’s been at the top of the mind of Kansas City, MO residents in particular is snow plowing. Yes, the bane of our existence – we live in a city that is inept at plowing its streets (even though most of the same complainers don’t bother to clear their own sidewalks). But while I’d concede we live in a poorly managed city, is that really the root of the problem?

Like so many of our fiscal issues, it’s impossible to ignore the impact of how our cities are planned and built. KCMO is an extremely spread out municipality, with very low overall population density. This particular pattern of development is extremely expensive to service, with many more lane-miles of roadways than similarly-sized cities that are more compact. While the city contains certain areas (the urban core) that are fairly compact, it has extensive square miles of land that are low-density subdivisions or rural areas. All of those parts of the city still demand municipal services, regardless of their plus or minus contribution to the general fund. It’s nothing new or groundbreaking, but the reality is that the pattern of development we’ve primarily built in the last 50+ years is a money-losing proposition for city governments. It seems strange with all of the fees on new development and new tax revenue to say this, but those are all short-term hits that don’t even come close to paying for the long-term expenses of repair, maintenance and basic services.

It’s a funny catch-22 that the more compact and walkable a city is, the more likely it is able to provide quality municipal services, such as clearing, cleaning and repairing streets. Even though, you may need your vehicle even less!

Topic for another day: should municipal services be tailored to efficiency of the neighborhood, or in planner jargon terms, to Transect Zone?

So, what is the bottom line? Enjoy the snow. Let life slow down a little. But if you care about how quickly or effectively your street gets cleared, start paying to development and land use issues in your city.