Breaking News: Congestion Chokes Charlotte
Charlotte topped the congestion charts among mid-sized cities again in the Texas Transportation Institute rankings report released today. The Queen City is the third most congested of nation's 30 mid-sized cities, falling behind only Nashville and Austin (which has a light rail line that Charlotte leaders recently traveled to the city to admire.)
Charlotte ranked 34th most congested overall in terms of travel delay out the country's 85 largest cities. Charlotte also earned two F+ marks for being above average in congestion growth. (Atlanta, which has an extensive light rail system, was the second most congested city in the nation overall.)
None of this is good news when you consider that the Charlotte's own city traffic engineers predict that our congestion will surpass Atlanta's over the next 15 to 20 years.
The Charlotte region is one of the nation's fastest growing, and by 2020, it is predicted that a million additional people will move to this region and flood our roadways. Some 340,000 of the them will locate in Charlotte, the rest outside it. That's on top of the 146,211 people who already live outside the county and commute in, according to the Charlotte Chamber. Worse yet, transit planners predict congestion here will at least double over that period. Light rail doesn't have the capacity to carry even a single percentage point of the traffic when current and future drivers are counted. So what's the plan? As I've reported before, if the city's own future road construction maps are to be believed, there apparently isn't one.
YOu just don't get it. The Plan is to force people to live downtown in 20 story condos and commute by Segway Scooter.
Reply to this
Tara: What I like about the current rail system that people are not told about is that it is dependent on the population around these transportation corridors to increase to the size of a large town just along side of them.
And then of course that means the remaining unlucky people who can not take the trains (4000 for the North) will have to contend with twisty little two lane roads up North or I77 and I77 and South Blvd along the South Line, all which have no plans for any work or additional capacity. I77 from the North has 66 thousand cars coming in now and 175 thousand is predicted by the time those 4000 are on their trains. How is this going to help again????
By the way did you know that they now have plans to take those commuters who are coming in by bus from Rock Hill and stop at the first station and let them take rail into town?
All they want to do is to increase the ridership on buses and trains. As a Citizens Adviser to CATS I asked why.
Especially since this rail was supposed to create new ridership all on its own.
Oh and it this is about alternatives and helping the air, why not give us fleets of helicopters. Have heliports all over the county and manned and ready fleets of helicopters. We could try it out an get just one which if the internet is right would only cost us about 5 million a year. Maybe we citizens could get one like our Governor Mike Easley?
Reply to this
The irony is that our tax money will be subsidizing the few riders who can benefit from light rail while many of us, not driving a corridor route to and from work, will suffer longer and longer delays. Our tax money at work -- for someone else, that is. Has anyone estimated what a round-trip fare on this light rail line would cost if it weren't subsidized by our tax money? Perhaps the pro-Light-Rail gang would think differently if we required people to pay their fare.
Why aren't taxpayers taxed to reduce airline fares? After all, it does reduce congestion, doesn't it? Why should Joe Businessman have to pay the full fare for a plane trip from Charlotte to New York once a week?!
Reply to this
Ummmm, you guys realize that the Federal Govt pays for 90% of our Interstates, right ? If you guys are saying that light-rail riders should pay the full true cost of riding the train, then states/city should foot the entire bill for building freeways and interstates, right ? ?
Look at Atlanta & DC guys; They've spent billions & billions on freeway and construction and guess what? AM & PM Rush Hour traffic still sucks!!!!!!!!! Always have, always will. I'm not saying don't widen I-77/I-85/I-485, but I think most of the anti-mass transit folks are falsely thinking that 'Oh, we'll just widen __________ and congestion will be gone!!!!' But what is making congestion bad is 1) folks wanting to move further and further away from the center city and live in their mini cul-de-sac mansion which 2) encourages developers to build more shopping centers & housing developments in their area (see University City, Pineville, Matthews, etc.), which jams the area's 2 lane roads which causes more congestion. The thing about Atlanta & DC is with their subway systems, people have the choice where they D-O-N-T have to drive to work. I think when the South Light Rail line opens, folks in Rock Hill won't probably mind taking the light rail from Pineville up to Uptown.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Whatever roads we do widen, I think in 10 years it won't be enough. At least having the light rail line (keeping the mass transit tax in place) will give people in this area the option of not having to drive. Why is that such a bad idea to the anti-transit crowd?
Reply to this
Umm, Sly, your opening argument doesn't work. The reason the Fedral Government pays for 90% of our interstates is because they are *inter*state roads. The Interstate Highway system was initiated BY the Federal Government and we do pay for those roads through our highway taxes -- or did you forget about that?
Reply to this
I have heard repeatedly that the there is no quick and easy way to fix congestion around the country. I beg to differ. If we "remove" the illegals from this country, we would have less congestion.
Reply to this
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/18/AR2007091800777.html
The above article is from the Washington Post the other day, which ranked DC the 2nd most congested city in the country. Check out this quote from page 2 . .
===========
Good news was hard to find in the report. Even Atlanta's apparent improvement in certain categories isn't cause for celebration, experts said. Yearly congestion in the Georgia metropolis dropped from a revised 73 hours to 60 hours per traveler between 2000 and 2005. Although Lomax said that drop was partly due to an improved response to stalled vehicles and other blockages, experts cautioned that the figures are probably due to the expanding geography of the region into more rural areas and a rapid growth in population, both of which would water down per-capita averages.
"I wouldn't be looking to Atlanta as a model of the solution," Pisarski said.
Hmmmmmmmmm, I wonder if Ms. Tara is going to mention this in CL or on WBT the next time she starts preaching again at how we should follow Atlanta's model in dealing with congestion (mainly build more roads, screw expanding MARTA)
Reply to this
Let's think about this...
60 hours a year is 1.15 hours a week. If we're only talking about working commuters, then based on a 5-day work week, that's just 13.8 minutes a day. What's that, 6.9 minutes each way round-trip? Hardly seems worth getting all worked up over.
Reply to this
Full quote from the article I just posted awhile ago . . .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/18/AR2007091800777_2.html
===============
Perhaps most discouragingly for the area, many of the solutions suggested in the report -- using mass transit and HOV lanes, telecommuting, building new roads and relieving choke points -- are already being done. Even with a new Woodrow Wilson Bridge and Springfield interchange and plans to expand Metrorail in Northern Virginia and build an 18-mile highway across the Maryland suburbs, there are simply too many people to move.
"We're not even close to keeping up, much less catching up," said Alan E. Pisarski, a traffic analyst from Fairfax County who has authored the "Commuting in America" series. "We've just got such a dramatic backlog of work to be done."
Good news was hard to find in the report. Even Atlanta's apparent improvement in certain categories isn't cause for celebration, experts said. Yearly congestion in the Georgia metropolis dropped from a revised 73 hours to 60 hours per traveler between 2000 and 2005. Although Lomax said that drop was partly due to an improved response to stalled vehicles and other blockages, experts cautioned that the figures are probably due to the expanding geography of the region into more rural areas and a rapid growth in population, both of which would water down per-capita averages.
"I wouldn't be looking to Atlanta as a model of the solution," Pisarski said.
Reply to this
Sly is right -- a city can widen and widen and widen roads, but they will just fill to capacity again and again and again. A rail line off the road (as opposed to a bus, say) gives people options. It also removes cars that could clog the roads for people who can't use public transit. Because widening roads isn't a long-term solution, light rail can't hurt and it can only help Charlotte's traffic patterns.
Reply to this
Sly,
If you want to avoid driving, there are already buses. How many options are necessary?
Reply to this
Having light rail gives me a 3rd option . . . What's wrong with that ? ? ?
Think about this: Folks in Gwinett County GA have voted down the MARTA Tax several times over the last 30 years (2-3 times maybe they've voted NYET to the tax). Meanwhile, I-85 has been expanded to 8-10 lanes. Hmmmmmmm, with all those lanes that have been built over the last 30 years, the rational that the anti-transit folks have been preaching is 'Build more lanes to handle congestion'. Have you been on I-85 South in Gwinnett County at 7am? Or how about 5pm heading North? Traffic sure is zipping up and down I-85 during that time of day (insert several rolling eyes here).
These same folks who move out to the fringe suburbs (and rightfully so for whatever reason; lower taxes, better schools, less crime, bigger house, etc.) expect to be able to get to work in 30 mins. or less. That's not going to happen!!!!!!!! At some point, I would think the folks in Gwinnett Co. will say 'I'm tired of sitting in traffic, bring in MARTA!!!'.
And that's the whole point of why I think keeping the transit tax is important. Having light rail in this area would give folks a choice in deciding how to get around town (and to a lesser extent, where to live). If you want to live in Union/York/Cabbarus/Iredell Couny and spend 45-60 mins. driving into work every morning, that's fine. If folks want to live closer to town and use mass-transit to get to work, what's wrong with that?
Reply to this
Hey Sly...
Helicopters would be a fourth option, should we fund that too? Wait, how about space shuttle transit? That could be a fifth option, should we fund that.
Let's face it, the transit plan will haul, at best, 6% of the commuters. We should expect and demand more for our $9.0 BB investment. Remember, it's an opportunity cost and we won't have it available when we really need it.
Reply to this
Ken Rogers:
Hey, I saw a set of really, really funny skits about you on YOUTUBE the other night. There were from you hosting your version of MTV's JACKA** on MADTV a few seasons back . . . I was LMAO!! They were quite funny
Anyhow, back to the issue at hand. Yeah, I think option #6 should be Hovercrafts like in the JETSONS. That way, we wouldn't have to build more roads just take to the sky
Cmon Kenny, wake up and smell the coffee. If you think mass transit won't move enough people here, do you really think adding a couple of more lanes to I-77 & I-485 (I-85 is pretty much maxed out now, in case you haven't noticed) over the next several years will handle the 340,000 people who will move to the Charlotte area by 2020? That's what the anti-mass transit folks want you to think.
Again, look at Atlanta & DC; Look how well AM & PM rush hour traffic move on their 8-10 lane freeways. Now take away their HOV lanes, subways, & commuter train systems and see how much worse it would be. Yessssss, at the most they are only moving 2-5% of the traffic. But then again folks in those areas have a choice of driving to work or not. If you want to spend 1-1.5 hours driving to work, that's your choice. If I want to drive 20-30 mins. to a subway/commuter train station and then continue my trip to work, then that's an option I would like to have.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Yessssssssss, add more lanes to the area Interstates. But at some point, you will run out of space for more lanes (see I-85 & I-285 in Atlanta). What's next Kenny, double deck the lanes? Or maybe we can build freeway lanes underground like in the movie I, ROBOT (That was kinda cool though
Reply to this
Meanwhile today out in California . . . . .
Gov. Terminator was in San Diego today to kick off a statewide program to spend over $20 billion in state bond money voters approve in 2006(Yikes, that's as much as our entire state budget!!!!!!!) to help improve traffic & congestion throughout the Golden State. The bond money is going to be used to fund repairs to key bridges and roads, reduce congestion and . . . . . expand transit!!!!!!!!!!!!
THE BOTTOM LINE: Oh my God, what a novel idea to attack traffic; Build more roads A-N-D expand mass-transit!!!!! This is totally impossible; What would the local anti-mass transit folks think about this
GOV. ARNOLD KICKS OFF $20 BILLION CALIFORNIA TRAFFIC RELIEF ATTACK PLAN:
http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/press-release/7724/
Reply to this
The link below breaks down how the entire $20 billion bond California voters passed last year will be spent:
http://gov.ca.gov/issue/strategic-growth
Reply to this