One More Step

After four years in the works, the proposed CSX greenline trail is steps away from becoming a reality.

Monday afternoon, the County Commission is scheduled to vote on the purchase of 7 miles of the former CSX railway. Members of Greater Memphis Greenline are asking supporters to fill the chamber at 1 p.m.

Greater Memphis Greenline president Bob Schreiber says greenlines improve public health and cohesion, among other things.

"Greenways in general have been shown to improve property values 25 to 50 percent, depending on how close you," Schreiber says. "At worst, crime rates stay the same as the surrounding neighborhoods. ... Security is an issue some people around here are concerned about."

Plans for the greenline include motion sensors, lighting and, possibly, call boxes.

In many instances, crime on a greenline actually goes down because of the increased number of people using the area.

Schreiber hopes this $4.5 million project will be just a "small piece of the puzzle."

"We're hoping the day will come when all the rail will circumvent the city," Schreiber says. "When that day comes, all the railways will become open to some sort of better transportation, whether it be trails or lightrail or whatever."

Shovel Ready?

When Congress and President Obama began planning for the largest infrastructure improvement initiative since the Depression, they wanted "shovel ready" projects that would be ready to go within 60 to 90 days of funding.

That only makes sense, seeing as the reason behind the initiative was to stimulate the economy. They don't want project that aren't going to even strat until 12 to 18 months from now.

But at least one commentator is urging caution:

"I fear that 'shovel ready' means boondoggles like the E- 470 beltway, a six-lane, 46-mile arc through empty high-desert grasslands dotted with new subdivisions east of Denver. Cars cruise the wide-open toll road at 80 miles per hour.

Touted as essential to the metro area’s growth, this land developers’ delight hasn’t lightened loads on more centrally located highways. It’s just rearranged growth patterns, scattering splotches of development over an unimaginably large landscape. New residents depend on long beltway commutes by car," writes Bloomberg architecture critic James Russell for Bloomberg.com.

"We can’t do better now, the lobbying legions say, we need to start the bulldozers fast. Translation: No bridge to nowhere will be left behind."

So what projects should be funded? Russell talks about aligning roads and rails and adding express bus lanes and bikeways to reduce car dependency. He talks about adding planted buffers in streets to make pedestrian crossings safer and soak up storm water.

"Dollars spent that get Americans out of cars will ease traffic, save money, reduce pollution, slow global warming and make us less vulnerable to volatile oil oligarchs.

Road projects do little more than rearrange the traffic jams. Look for freeway spectaculars among the proposals, like the 23-lane extravaganza touted for Atlanta’s suburbs. Mark them “D” -- for delusional."

Here in Memphis, not all the possible projects have been publicized so there may be some road projects in there. However, some of the plans submitted to the city for the funds — they still would have to be submitted to the federal government — include a Wolf River Greenway near the Pyramid, the Bioworks Foundation's research park, and streetscape improvements in Midtown.

Traffic

I've been reading this book called Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us).

The author, Tom Vanderbilt, starts off with a discussion of early merging versus late merging and argues that it's better — in terms of using all possible road capacity, faster, safer, etc. — to be a late merger.

(That is, unless you mind people who haven't read the book glaring at you for being a late-merging jerk.)

There is a pretty interesting discussion about vehicular communication and how we don't get a lot of feedback on our driving. Everyone I know thinks they're a pretty good driver (with one exception) but we've all seen people on the road that we definitely wouldn't call good drivers. Vanderbilt says the disconnect is in the lack of feedback.

For instance, the car in front of you may be veering from one side of the lane to the other because they're eating a bagel and talking on their cell phone, but they're distracted so they don't notice and there's not really an easy way to for you to tell them (if you'd even want to).

Once again, I'm not quite done with the book yet, but my library fines are stacking up, so I think I'm as done as I'll probably get. (If you're interested in reading it, give it a few days and then check the central library's popular materials room. You know, the one with all the DVDs.)

Oh, Tom Vanderbilt also has a blog.

Transportation Odds and Ends

— From BusinessWeek: The 65 mpg Ford that won't be sold in the U.S. and why. It looks cute, but you won't see it on American roadways, so don't fall in love.

— From Next American City: Amtrak can't handle rising ridership. (It sounds a little bit like the MATA situation here in Memphis.)

— More about bag-check fees and crowded overhead bins from USAToday.

The Flying 7-Eleven

Anyone who knows me knows I get cranky when I fly. I'm sorry: I'm impatient, I can't stand downtime, I hate other people, I always think I'm running late even when I'm running right on time, I don't like to use airplane lavatories, the list goes on and on ....

I just want to get on the plane, read my book, take off at the appointed time and get to my destination/connecting flight at the appointed time, and have my luggage arrive there safely and conveniently with me. (It occurs that this will be the second post in a row I should tag as "hassles.")

My sister and I are flying American in a couple of weeks and were recently discussing the $15 surcharge for checking your bags.

Neither of us plan to check our bags for the upcoming trip (it's only a weekender) but she, unfortunately, has to bring a full-length satin bridesmaid dress with her. I have no idea how she's going to do it. She says she's going to vacuum-pack it, but I suspect she may have to wear it, airplane courier style.

A bad bridesmaid dress on Katherine Heigl

It is going to be an interesting trip. It will be my first time flying since they instituted the surcharge for checked baggage, so I'm expecting it will be tense.

But there may be one group of people that have it worse than airline passengers: airline flight attendants.

If you're interested, the NYT had a good piece yesterday on flight attendants and what their jobs are like now ...

Said one flight attendant: “Who would have thought, after 30 years, that we’d be a flying 7-Eleven."

Update: At least I'm not flying United. They've upped the price of a second checked bag from $25 to $50.

SCMAQ Down

A few months ago, local governments were planning to add hybrid vehicles to their fleets. Memphis was going to buy 10, Shelby County and Collierville were going to get four each, and Bartlett was going to get two.

But that was before a budget snafu and a reduction in federal funding for clean air projects.

“There was money taken out for the [FedExForum] garage incident. That was the beginning of the problem,” says Larry Smith, supervisor of the local health department’s air quality improvement branch. “In addition to that, the state reduced the allocation given to the local area.”

To fund its upcoming projects, the Health Department reallocated money from its RideShare program, but other agencies weren’t as lucky. Funding for a new MATA transit center near the airport was eliminated.

“We generally get about $3.2 million” each year in Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality money, says Martha Lott, administrator for the local Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO).

“In 2000, we got $1.9 million. In 2008, we got $1.6 million, and they’re telling me for 2009, 2010, and 2011 to project about $200,000 less each year,” she says.

The funding, known under the acronym CMAQ, is federal gas tax money that is disbursed to the state and then spent in areas that don’t meet clean air standards in ozone, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter.

Though the state said it would recoup more than $6 million in funding in late 2006 because of money misused for an intermodal bus transfer facility at the Forum, that money was not transferred until May of last year. Lott says she was not notified when the money was transferred.

In previous years, the state has given about 80 percent of CMAQ funding to the state’s various MPOs. This year the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) used 86 percent of the $28 million in this year’s CMAQ funding.

Alan Jones, advisor for TDOT’s environmental policy office, says one of the department’s priorities was intelligent transportation systems — which include cameras and electronic message boards — in Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga.

“We have not started Chattanooga’s system yet,” Jones says. “Of the $28 million, $23 million is dedicated to starting Chattanooga’s system. None of the other MPOs had to spend their money on that.”

However, Jones says he hopes to see more funding given to MPOs in future years.

“The MPOs are uniquely qualified to understand their region and what might be the best projects,” Jones says. “Having this hybrid of the state department of transportation looking at priorities established by Congress or by the administration, we need the ability to send at least part of the money to MPOs to make their own decisions.”

Jones could not comment on the FedExForum garage because of an ongoing Tennessee Bureau of Investigation inquiry.

[Note: This story was supposed to run in this week's Flyer, but because all my colleagues had to go and do good work and get awards and everything, it got the ax. Which is probably just as well.]

More Maps!

Because who doesn't love maps?

Polar Donkey just sent me some maps that prove his point (comments re: Fill 'er up) that, with so many employers located along Germantown Parkway, people might gravitate there instead of the urban core.

In this map of total employer establishments by zip code, downtown does have a lot of employers, but so do big chunks of Cordova and East Memphis. (Click to enlarge.)


What I think is interesting about this 1990 commute map is that the highest commute time on the map is 17-18 minutes (in red). Most people in the area had a less than 15 minute commute.



But when you compare that to the 2000 commute map, a commute of 1 to 18 minutes (remember, 17-18 miles was the longest commute in 1990) is the shortest commute. Sure, the longest commute on the 2000 map is 26 minutes (and comparatively, that's not horrible) but the Frayser commute almost doubled, from 12 to 14 minutes to 23 to 24 minutes. And in Whitehaven, you see basically the same thing.


Thanks, Polar Donkey!