Tag: planning

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Up To Speed

San Francisco looking to create $1.6B mixed-use environment around AT&T Park

San Francisco looking to create $1.6M mixed-use environment around AT&T Park.

The San Francisco Giants are not only looking to remain on top of baseball following their World Series Championship, they are also looking to improve the environs surrounding one of the league’s most unique ballparks. Just as was the case in Cincinnati with the Reds, the Giants are leading the charge to redevelop a parking lot into a mixed-use attraction. More from the San Francisco Chronicle:

The plan to put the long-awaited $1.6 billion Mission Rock development on the cold, desolate parking lot across the channel from AT&T Park is nearly complete, and the prospective landlords couldn’t be happier.

The development, now scheduled to break ground in 2015, would put an entirely new neighborhood on the 16-acre waterfront site known as Seawall Lot 337, providing space for 2,000 residents, 7,000 workers and hordes of visitors to the area’s planned parks, restaurants, shops and attractions.

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Up To Speed

The sky-high cost of China’s sprawling cities

The sky-high cost of China’s sprawling cities.

The growth of China’s urbanized population is truly staggering. But what might be more unique than that is that Chinese cities have been able to learn from the successes and mistakes made in already developed cities in Europe and North America. The problem, however, is that is appears that almost all of the Chinese cities have ignored those lessons. More from the Financial Times:

Pictures of towering skylines in cities that few outsiders have heard of – from Anshan to Zhengzhou – seem to suggest that China’s urban future will not just be big. It will also be a model of sleek modern efficiency. The reality is, more often than not, disappointing. Many Chinese cities are drab facsimiles of each other, beset by clogged roads, dirty air, hastily built apartment blocks, monolithic government buildings and few green spaces.

The real concern is that when the sprawling cities fill up, they will offer a substandard quality of life that will make for a divided society and an economy that fails to deliver on its promise. China still has time to shift its policies to create happier, more productive cities. But the window is beginning to close.

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Up To Speed

Washington D.C. plans $26B rail investment as Cincinnati moves on first

Washington D.C. plans $26B rail investment as Cincinnati moves on first.

As Cincinnati moves forward with construction of the region’s first rail transit, many residents are now looking forward to what might be next, and how to best connect the growing metropolitan area via rail. Meanwhile, in the nation’s capital, the Washington D.C. Metro has proposed $26 billion worth of upgrades to its already extensive system. More from the Washington Post:

Metro’s top managers are proposing a new rail tunnel under the center of the District, a second tunnel under the Potomac, and they estimate the transit agency will need $26 billion over the next three decades to pay for those and other improvements to an aging system that is falling behind the region’s needs.

The proposed new rail tunnels — one under 10th Street to Thomas Circle and another between Rosslyn and Georgetown and on to Thomas Circle — would be massive undertakings. The projects would require major financial commitments from local and federal governments and would take several years to plan and several more years to complete.

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Up To Speed

Bus rapid transit systems in the U.S. not keeping pace

Bus rapid transit systems in the U.S. not keeping pace.

Many American cities, Cincinnati included, are working towards enhancing their bus systems as ridership grows. Bus rapid transit systems consistently come up as potential solutions, but rarely are they true BRT systems. More from Greater Greater Washington:

The Institute for Transportation & Development Policy publishes BRT standards that describe minimum characteristics necessary for a bus route to qualify as BRT. Those standards establish three levels of BRT quality: bronze, silver, and gold. They include features like off-bus fare collection, high station platforms, and bus frequency.

So far, only 5 lines in the United States have scored highly enough to qualify as true BRT, and all 5 rank at the bronze level. Not one is even silver, let alone gold.

According to ITDP, the best performing BRT systems in the world are Bogota, Colombia and Guangzhou, China, which score 93/100 and 89/100, respectively. They are the gold standard.

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News Transportation

New programs, technology driving ridership surge for Cincinnati’s largest transit provider

The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) saw ridership on Metro bus service increase by approximately 200,000 riders in 2012.

SORTA officials say that the 4.2% increase is due in large part to a greater number of students from the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati State taking advantage of a new student pass program instituted by Metro last year. Metro officials say that there was a 24% increase in ridership at the University of Cincinnati, and a 19% increase at Cincinnati State when compared to their previous years.

As a result, the regional transit agency provided nearly 17.6 million rides and outpaced the 2.6% ridership increase experienced elsewhere throughout the United States, according to the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).

Cincinnati Metro Bus

Metro had provided around 20 million rides annually in the early 2000s until large-scale service reductions took effect when the national economy struggled.

“We’re focused on providing a great customer experience and are seeing positive results from improvements we’ve been making for our customers,” Metro’s CEO Terry Garcia Crews stated in a prepared release.

Metro also saw ridership gains along the 38X route running from the new Glenway Crossing Transit Hub to Uptown. This route experienced an 18% ridership increase when comparing data from December 2012 to December 2011 when the new west side transit hub opened.

“We expect the number of 38X riders to continue to climb,” explained Jill Dunne, Metro’s public affairs manager. “As more routes go through the Glenway Crossing Transit Hub, it will become easier to transfer to different routes, and that should help ridership continue to grow.”

One of the new additions riders can expect at the Glenway Crossing Transit Hub in 2013 is expanded crosstown service via Route 41. Metro officials say the service modification will be included in a new system plan to be released this spring, and will extend the existing Route 41 to North Bend Road to the new Mercy West Hospital, and connect through Cheviot and Westwood to the west side transit center.

Dunne also says that Metro*Plus limited stop service, previously discussed as Cincinnati’s version of bus rapid transit, will begin operating between Downtown, Uptown and Kenwood via Montgomery Road.

In addition to the physical improvements to the region’s bus system, Metro officials also believe that the agency’s new electronic fare payment system is making the system more attractive to new and existing riders. One of the new options riders might be able to expect in 2013 is a smart card that allows for stored values, in addition to the 30-day rolling pass and 10-ride ticket.

“We’ve upgraded our bus fleet, introduced new fare options, added real-time information at Government Square, improved our website and customer information, and that’s just the beginning,” Crews continued. “In 2013, we’re continuing to make Metro easier to ride to better meet the community’s needs for transit.”

Perhaps one of the most welcome pieces of news for existing Metro riders, however, is that SORTA does not anticipate any service reductions or fare increases in 2013.

We discussed bus rapid transit on episode one of The UrbanCincy Podcast with a city planner from Bogota, Colombia, and on episode two we discussed the problem of transportation poverty in the Cincinnati region, including the lack of service to the new Mercy West Hospital. You can stream our podcasts online or subscribe to our bi-weekly podcast on iTunes for free.