White Dudes

I gave a presentation on how silly the planning for the Brent Spence Bridge is. One slide that did and did not surprise me was of the key players. 

Now I was a little selective in the reporters I picked, I think maybe a female or non-white dude has written something. Also - I have Portune in there  - but a different white dude took his spot.

Also these are just the public faces. Maybe there is some diversity at the working level. 

Also - I am a white dude and most (but not all) of the transportation planners I know are. 

But I am just saying. Maybe we need some diversity in thinking to solve the problems at hand. These guys have not come up with a working solution yet. 

Bailey Bike Bridge

I was thinking about transportation finance recently. Today, multi-modal projects can receive significantly more federal funding than uni-modal projects. The means that adding a bike/ped component to a major project can be free for states. As always I was wondering what this could mean for the Brent Spence.

Where is the bike/ped component in the image below?

 

There is none. Peds can use the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge today. 

Six (on BSB) plus three (on CWB) local lanes seems a little excessive to me. It all seems a little excessive to me.

If I were to ride my bike from Cincinnati to Covington I would probably use the Robling bridge as the man below (google street view) has done. 

What we could do today:
Road diet the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge to add protected bike lanes in both directions - eliminating the reversible lane. The intersections on both sides of the bridge should be looked at to make sure bikes are visible and respected.

Then - extend Redbike to Covington.

Maybe Second street will someday look less like a parking lot overpass/ highway ramp and more like an urban street. The current setup sends the message to drivers that they are still on a highway. Adding bike lanes would narrow the street - helping drivers to realize that they need to be alert of their surroundings. Best thing that can happen on a street like this is to make the driver uncomfortable so that they slow down.

What do you think? Do we need a reversible lane on the Bailey? Would you bike on it today? Is the Robling bridge enough? Do we need 5 car bridges and one person bridge? Should every local bridge have bike lanes?

Finally - what if you had a chance to add in a bike component to the $3 billion plan? It would be a rounding error on the budget. I am thinking that 6 local lanes on the BSB and 3 on the Bailey is too many. Covington could have one of the best bike bridges in the country by taking 3 of the 9 local lanes proposed.

Purple People Bridge - you have a challenger.

Lots to talk about

Love this!

"We need to see what was the starting point of the conversation regarding the current alignment," McDaniel said at his capitol office last week. "I'm not convinced that everything was considered fairly, and I would like to know why did we end up at the decision that the Brent Spence Bridge needed to be updated, and then having a new bridge built right along side of it. And then we could look at other alternatives as part of that conversation."

But McDaniel said that the bridge decision should also include potential impacts on commercial development and that it is a "60-70 year decision, not just for the next three to five years."

This is part of a post by Jason Williams about highlighting the issues with the planning of the Brent Spence Bridge project. While it not clear from Jason's report, the root of this discontent is the same as I have been saying from the start. The project has the wrong goals. 

I am not saying that the current bridge is great. It is not. I am not saying that the engineers on the project did a bad job, they did not. The issue is that from the start, engineers were not given the correct goal.


Here is a list of the "messages" at the start of the project:

1. The purpose of this project is to improve safety and capacity on I-75/71 across the Ohio River. 
2. Replacing, rehabilitating the bridge or adding capacity is a very lengthy, detailed and regulated process. We are in the initial stage of project development, during which a series of alternatives will be developed. 
3. We are looking for a solution that is affordable, functional, aesthetically pleasing and ultimately constructible. 
4. Input from the Advisory Committee and the public will be taken seriously and incorporated into the decisions made during the planning and alternative evaluation processes.

Issues I have:
1. The safest street is one where vehicles go slow. There were zero auto related deaths in 1850. Transit is significantly safer than autos. Wider highways reduce accidents at specific points, but induce more driving in the region, potentially increasing accidents. If safety was so important, why not switch to three lanes on the BSB today using only paint?
2. The alternative were developed, but never given proper public review. A document exist of this process but it is not available on the web page. Only a table with cryptic descriptions of the alternatives is available. I am requesting that the document: "Brent Spence Bridge  Replacement/Rehabilitation Project: Conceptual Alternatives Solutions (March 2006) be made available to the public. It really bothers me to see quotes like this: OKI executive director Mark Policinski. "The location of the bridge has been well studied and documented." It may be documented, but how would the public know, it is not available. I only know it exist because other documents refer to it. 
3. "Ultimately constructible" it a terrible phrase to use in a scoping document because it assumes that construction is needed. This shows that the project was biased from the start. 
4. The primary input that was received was regarding aesthetics. An "Aesthetics Committee" was set up from the start. The first time most of the public heard about the project was to give input on how the bridge would look. No one today is commenting on how the project should look. What the public cares about is the cost and ROI of the project. Where is the public outreach on that?

The Northern KY Tea Party echos this sentiment:
“OKI's Policinski said it's not his agency's job to do a cost-benefit analysis of the project” [Brent Spence Bridge: What you need to know for 2015 Kentucky General Assembly, Lucy May, WCPO, January 7, 2015]

-----------------------------------

While the detailed document explaining the alternatives is not available, the criteria document is. It includes a number of metrics that the projects are scored "poor", "average", or "good".

Areas of consideration (with detailed components) included are:

• Congestion Mitigation
• Safety
• Geometric Improvement
• Separation of Regional and Local Traffic
• Simplification of Roadway Network
• Engineering
• Meets Current Design Standards
• Sustainability/Flexibility
• Environmental Resource Impacts
• Hazardous Materials
• Ecological
• Historical
• Archaeological
• Community
• Environmental Justice
• Access/Accessibility
• Interstate/US Routes
• Local Roads
• Overall
• Construction Cost
• Constructability

Let me take a few of these criteria on. 

Congestion Mitigation: Congestion pricing is the best way to accomplish this. 

Safety: See above

Engineering: Lots of issues with road engineering industry today. Here is one article that scratches the surface of the issues. Starts with the line: "Some of the most trusted planning tools used to manage vehicular traffic have shown themselves to be pretty harmful to city life in certain ways."

Environmental: When I first saw this, I though - I have been wrong this whole time, they did consider the community impact. Actually - nope. Here is how the largest infrastructure project in the regions history defines community: "Community: includes community facilities and services such as schools, parks, facilities and churches; business and residential displacements and community cohesion." That's it. No mention of quality of life, community goals, existing bike trail plans, transit or future development potential. 

Missing: Economic benefit - there is no mention of the economic impact of the project. 

From this document it appears that 100% of the goal is safety. 

This has led to other in the region to come up with plans that fill the void of the planning done by KYTC and ODOT. Most recently, Sen. Chris McDaniel has called for a review of the project, but he is not the first.  Revive I-75 was imagined by the City of Cincinnati who would have benefited from a new neighborhood to tax. Northern Kentucky United would like to see I-71 rerouted to benefit KY property owners and developers. However the process was rigged from the start to recommend maintaining the current routing. If economic development were treated the same way that safety is, all the development in West Chester would be ignored and only the development within 200 feet of the project would be counted. This would result in a much different project.

-------------------------------------------------

As McDaniel says, this is a 60-70 year decision. How will the basin of Cincinnati change over that period? Do we want to double the size of the trench cutting the city off from land in Queensgate? Is industry really coming back to the US and do we really want it downtown?

I will remind you. The correct answer is to congestion price the bridge we have. By the project teams math, this will redirect 40% of the current traffic to other bridges. Less traffic means that the bridge will be on par with other bridges in the country as far as utilization. Make it free during off peak hours. Problem solved.

This solution may not have sounded plausible in 2005 when "Traffic volumes are projected to increase to 200,000 vehicles per day by 2025." Even the USDOT now recognized that forecast done during this period were off.



-------------------------------------------------

P.S. I keep reading about how the gas tax has not been raised in 20 years. This is true and I support raising it. What is left out is that funding for transportation from the gas tax was last increased in 1997. Here is some history:

The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, signed by President Bill Clinton on August 10, 1993, increased the gas tax by 4.3 cents, bringing the total tax to 18.4 cents per gallon. The increase was entirely for deficit reduction, with none credited to the Highway Trust Fund. However, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, which President Clinton approved on August 5, 1997, redirected the 4.3-cents general fund gas tax increase to the Highway Trust Fund.

Small point, but I think it is important because when we raise the gas tax this time, I believe we should include a deficit reduction component again. 

Reasons an New Bridge has not been built yet

1. People don't like cars anymore - A thread of this argument is in all of the issues below. We built the interstate system at a time when cars were sexy and something to aspire to. Cities were scary and highways let us escape to large cheap homes. That was the 1950/60's. People then realized that we were tearing down great places. The 1970's brought the EPA, clean air, and clean water. Highways when from a way to escape polluted cities to the source of pollution.


2. Earmarks - Republicans banned them, but we still need to have a process for picking projects to build. Congress was afraid to let the President (or well informed Agency staff) make the decisions on what get built, so instead they are trying to craft a way to make earmarks without calling them that.


“I have to make sure that I explain to my conference that if you do it in a new way—as opposed to the way we used to do it—we will cede our power to the executive branch,” Shuster said at a March speech at the National Waterways Conference. link


 My Take: The Secretary of Transportation is more qualified than Congress to determine project priority, but if Congress wants to keep it out of the President's hands, let Governors decide. I guess, in a way this is what is already happening and also similar to the Republican proposal to divest back to states. The result will be tolls on every interstate. I have no issue with this. Most interstate congestion is local traffic, let local leaders solve it. USDOT can still set safety standards and give extra help to the soon to be created National Freight Network.


Or we could just bring earmarks back:
A political slogan symbolizing Washington’s wasteful spending was born, and earmarks began their demise. Lost in this debate was the fact that earmarks made up a minuscule fraction of the federal budget, less than one-half of 1 percent.


3. A long term transportation bill - MAP-21, the current transportation bill expires after just 2 years and was the first "long term" bill since 2005. IS-TEA was a six year bill. These long term bills are needed to builds long term infrastructure. Congress is playing a game of wait and maybe-we-will-be- in-power for the next bill. This make it difficult for both government and P3's to know what to plan for.


4. The gas tax - Ugh. As I have previously stated on this blog, I am not a fan of the gas tax. It encourages road construction while ignoring the impact on the community. (a.k.a. property values) A better system would capture the value that transportation bring to a property and collect it to pay for roads. This is how transit systems and road were built for most of U.S. history. Land speculators built them to improve their property values.


5. Transit - Transit is getting better. Cities around the country are building rail and BRT lines. Smartphones have taken the mystery out of transit. Technology is reducing bus bunching and giving transit agencies better ways to measure ridership. This means better routes with more informed riders. Better transit means that people that don't like cars can avoid them. The leads to lower VMT.


6. Lower VMT + Other bridges = No P3 - Since the Feds are not handing out checks anymore, P3s are all the rage. Every proposal to build an extra bridge includes a P3 to finance it. This works by giving all the tolls for X number of years to an investor who agrees to front the bridge construction cost. The issue is that investors hate risk and there is a big risk on the extra BSB. VMT is declining and no one can predict where it will go next. Most toll projects have few alternatives routes. This project will have at least 5 other bridges that people can use. If it were the only bridge to an island, investors would have confidence that people will use it. Lots of choices equals lots of uncertainty. Number of trips on I-75/71 will defiantly go down in the short term as people shop closer to home and use 471. In the long term, VMT may go up or down. Are we at peak car? Ever investment dollar in OTR is a bet against cars ruling the future.


7. Tea Party - They do not want to pay for anything. Ever. In any way. Unless it is guns.


8. Disbelief that driving is subsidized - This makes it hard to believe that the gas tax does not make a pool of money that can be used. People do not know how roads are funded.


I could keep going - but have dinner plans. Stay tuned for more.

Wait - can we toll the BSB?

I have been pleasantly surprised by the recent talk from the Obama Administration and Sec. Foxx regarding tolls on existing highways, but it got me thinking. What is the plan for the BSB if an extra bridge is built? Would an act of Congress be needed to make the current proposal legal?

From Washington Post:
"What does current federal law say?
It prohibits states or the federal government from establishing tolls on existing interstate highways. When states expand the system — think of the HOT lanes that opened last year in Virginia, and Maryland’s Intercounty Connector — they may receive permission to apply tolls on new lanes."
My understanding is that the existing bridge, which would be maintained for a complicated combination of local roads and I-71 can not be tolled under existing federal law. This may complicate any effort to fund an extra bridge over the river for I-75 traffic if people can avoid the toll simply by using the adjacent bridge. I am going to have to re-read some documents and sort this out.

We have been reading all about how Ky needs to pass laws to allow for tolls, but do we also need Congress to take action?

Help me out in the comments if you know the answers:
Would the existing capacity be tolled? (4 interstate lanes in each direction)
Would local (non interstate) lanes be tolled?
Is Congressional action needed to add tolls to the existing Brent Spence Bridge?

I am guessing that you could get away with some kind of technicality where you toll the approach to the bridge rather than the bridge itself. Just wondering what this technicality is.

Existing Studies

I was reading that studies exist on regional rail transit in Cincinnati. The one the is most interesting is also 3000+ pages. I pulled a few interesting pages out for you below.

First, they evaluate a route similar to mine. I am not sure why they want to go through Evendale when they could go through Glendale, Wyoming and Tri County. My route is in pink below. They also proposed a route through West Chester. This is wrong, transit is for urban walk-able places. 

So what did they think? The route would get a 1000 riders a day.  This is crazy. They only expect 9 riders a day to the Dayton Airport. I have not had a chance to dig in and find the methodology error yet. For more realistic ridership numbers, check our Chicago's Metra daily ridership. 

With only 1,000 riders a day, their analysis concludes that the route would cost $54 a day per rider. If the ridership were something more realistic like 20,000 a day the operating cost would be $2.70 per rider. This is completely feasible.

It should be noted that the expected cost of these rail lines would be 1/5 the cost of an additional bridge. We should put it to voters - would you rather have five commuter rail lines or another bridge. 

Finally - just because I thought it was pretty: 

My Plan

My plan is to create a region tied together through transit. Cincinnati does not think of itself as connected to Dayton - but everyone else does because it is.

My has several parts and may take 20 years to implement. 

1. Move I-75 west at the river into the flood zone freeing up space in downtown Cincinnati for transit oriented development
2. Build transit connecting the region along the Mill Creek and Great Miami River
3. Consolidate airports
4. Connect I-71 to the new airport

Part 1 Move I-75 West

This is the focus of this blog because this has the most near term implementation. The point of this is to reverse some of the damage done in the 1960's. It also brings underutilized land into the urban core, allowing the city's central business district to grow. Few other cities have the opportunity to increase the acreage of the urban core like Cincinnati does.

Part 2: Build Transit connecting the region

Eighty percent of Ohio residents live in an urban area. That does not include Northern Kentucky, one of the more urban parts of that state. Historically, railroads went through urban cores because when they were built, that is where the factories were. Today, those rail lines still carry freight through the center of Cincinnati, Hamilton, Middletown and Dayton. However, several railroads wanted to service this route, so redundant lines run parallel to each other throughout the region. This leave the opportunity to consolidate service and free up lines for transit exactly where they are needed - in urban areas. It would connect the (newly expanded from pt 1) Cincinnati and Dayton convention centers. A major stop and only park and ride would be located at Tri County Mall. This would utilize the mall parking lot that sit empty much of the time - while people are at work.

Sorry for the messy map below. The line I am proposing is in yellow below.
Key 
Yellow: Proposed line
Red pins: Proposed stops (potential extension to Columbus)
Black: Existing Freight Rail Lines
Blue: Dead end existing freight lines
Pink: Rail spurs that would be impacted
Brown: New airport - keep reading
Orange: New highway

Part 3: Consolidate the Airports

Cincinnati gambled on Lunken Airport are the main airport for the region and lost. The resulted in CVG becoming the leading passenger airport and control of the airport in Kentucky's hands. Closing the DAY (Dayton) and CVG will not be cheap, but it is in the best long term interest of the region. In order to compete, an airport needs a strong base population. This is why OHare has continually gained flights while CVG has very noticeably lost them. Consolidation changes the region from one of 2 million people to one of 3.3 million. It also allows the region to connect the airport to transit and give control of the airport back to Ohio. This new airport would be located along the new transit route between Trenton and Hamilton.

Think of the economic impact this would have on Ohio. I don't see how Ohio politicians could resist.


Part 4: Connect I-71 

I talk a great deal about how bad highways are on this blog, but I am not totally against highways. Connecting I-71 near Kings Island to I-75 and the new airport will bring passengers from all over Ohio to the new airport.

This plan is an alternative to the Brent Spence addition for several reasons.

• Less development in Kentucky means fewer people crossing the river
• Fewer trips to CVG means fewer trips over the river
• More transit along I-75 means fewer car trips
• Transit serving the second street transit station would have strong connections to Northern Kentucky transit - reducing vehicles