RTA BRT WTF?

In today's RTA Board Meeting agenda, there were some details about the forthcoming Route 1 Limited, the lukewarm successor to the previously-proposed RapidLink project from nearly a decade ago. The Press-Enterprise hinted at the project, noting that RTA snagged a cool $12.3 million for new buses to run the service. But here, we have details:

Service characteristics of the proposed Route 1 Limited-Stop service
include:

• Weekday service only during peak hours between UCR and the Galleria at Tyler during peak hour periods between 5:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. and 2:30p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
• 15-minute frequency
• 15 stops in each direction over approximately 12 one-way miles 1
• Up to 20 percent travel time reduction between terminals
• Maximization of transit signal priority capabilities currently in place
• along the University/Magnolia corridor
• Approximately 17,028 annual revenue service hours

 And they call this phase one of the "BRT" project. Color me underwhelmed. We get no stop improvements, no off-board fare collection, we don't even get all-day service. Signal prioritization is nice and all, but this isn't a BRT service in any way. BRT is supposed to be the backbone of a frequent, all-day, daily transit network. This Route 1 Limited is simply a limited-stop commuter service, which is a far cry from what we desperately need on the University and Magnolia corridors.

Oh, and at the same time, the City is talking about how streetcars are going to make local stops, making them an expensive downgrade from present local bus service. More proof that local leaders don't really understand transit.

Local Reaction on the Streetcar

Yeah, it's about what you'd expect. Boondoggle, who'll ride this choo-choo train, this will probably require operating subsidies, etc. etc. Here's columnist Dan Bernstein, who calls the plan "disturbingly delusional," and the PE's Editorial Board, who sticks with "boondoggle."

The thing is, they're not entirely wrong. The City's choice of streetcars as a transit mode does appear to be driven by a me-too attitude and unjustified technophilia. The Riverside Reconnects study is not intended to study how to improve public transit in Riverside, or even how to build a rail transit line in Riverside, but to study a streetcar line in Riverside. And among the anti-transit bias are justified critiques-- for example, would this money be better spent augmenting Riverside's existing bus service?

I'm still tentatively pro-streetcar here, and I'm disappointed with the reflexive anti-transit attitudes of the local press, but streetcar advocates do need to make a better case for their project.

Riverside Reconnects demo today

The Riverside Reconnects project parked a Siemens S70 light rail vehicle on University today. They marketed it as a chance to get to know the sort of vehicle that the project proposes to run on Riverside's streets*, but I took it as a chance to talk to some of the staff and planners about what they see as the possibilities for Riverside's streetcar project.

San Diego MTS' newest S70 LRV, parked on University Ave. today.

The bad news is that nobody is even thinking about a serious light-rail system for Riverside. The staff I spoke to said that the main decisions to be made are choosing between single-track and double-track, side- and median-running, and what sorts of signal prioritization might be available, along with the usual questions about length, scope, and phasing. While I'm admittedly disappointed that the stomach to piss off drivers and do something really daring seems lacking, I'm still hopeful that a judicious combination of median-running, aggressive signal prioritization, relatively large stop spacing (especially outside of downtown and the University area), and off-board fare collection will provide a significant upgrade to transit along the University/Magnolia corridor.

The project study area map.

The good news is that everyone behind the project seems to have the right idea. The word on everyone's lips was "Portland." Both staff and the electeds I saw there (Councilmen Gardner and Melendrez) seemed to be aware that the future of our city is increasingly transit- and active-transport-oriented, and less and less car-dependent. They know that, somehow, rail transit is key to the transformation of Portland's downtown-- and that such a transformation is vital for Riverside's future. Staff was also very conscious about the colossal failures of Los Angeles' streetcar planning, and wanted to avoid doing the same thing an hour's drive inland.

It seems like there's momentum behind this streetcar thing. It's up to us advocates to make sure that it is developed into a real transportation alternative, rather than an expensive toy that's more symbolic than transformative.

*No, this sort of vehicle would not run on Riverside's streets. The Siemens S70, which was on its way from the plant in Sacramento to San Diego's MTS, is a large bi-articulated light rail train, designed for high-speed running in grade-separated right-of-way. Siemens suggested their new S70-derived streetcar variant, or their new S100, for Riverside's project.

Goings-on in Government

Several things are happening in the City that urbanists should be happy about.

1. The City Council formally appropriated money for the streetcar study on Tuesday. While I still have my reservations about the streetcar project, and how it will be handled by City Hall, I still want to see a good project, and hopefully this study will produce it. (That said, if you check the support documents for the agenda item on the Council agenda, it's clear that they're thinking of this thing as a development project, rather than a transit project-- and down that road lies transit ruin.)
2. The Transportation Board (along with a long list of other people, including the Planning Commission and the City Council's Land Use Committee) yesterday approved a permitting process to allow parklets. It's a bit arduous, but in line with what other cities have done, so I was happy to approve it. The process is linked in the relevant agenda.
3. The Brockton Avenue Road Diet project is finally going to City Council for final approval. This project, which has been the subject of ridiculous amounts of controversy, is one of those no-brainers that should be simple to pass. The project would improve road safety and traffic flow for all road users, including drivers (through the addition of a center left-turn lane). The project has been slightly revised, and will now keep two traffic lanes in each direction from 14th to Tequesquite near Riverside Community Hospital, but the bicycle lanes will remain throughout. (The lanes will, sadly, be striped in the door zone.) The project goes to Council on the 22nd, and it goes without saying that y'all should show up.

Riverside isn't exactly an urban paradise yet, but green shoots like these are encouraging.

Riverside Gets Streetcar Money

InlandEmpire.US, which appears to be an IE PR newswire, is reporting (along with the PE and CBS, but IE.US is running the full press release and everyone else seems to be a little confused) that the City has received $237,500 in state money towards the planning of a streetcar line from UCR to downtown, with the project dubbed "Riverside Reconnects." (Points for alliteration, but hardly inspiring.)

Prior reporting from the PE suggests that the plan will be little more than a novelty, rather than a serious investment in transport infrastructure. The plan is currently split between a single track and two tracks, the latter in mixed traffic. Either way, the plan as it currently exists (which, granted, is a back-of-the-envelope sketch straight from Mayor Rusty's office) would spend a lot of money to make a transport service that is worse than existing high-frequency bus transit along University. I'm hoping that $237,500 is enough to convince the City that this thing either needs dedicated lanes, or it needs to be smothered in its infancy, before we spend $100 million on a useless toy train for City Hall to brag about.

No Streetcar is Better than a Bad Streetcar

Riverside's new Mayor, Rusty Bailey, has made the development of a streetcar network part of his platform. He mentioned it both during his campaign and in his State of the City address, and I have heard word of grants being written to study the issue. Obviously, the plan is very new, and so anything I say here is speculative at best, but I want to get out ahead of this thing. Streetcars are in vogue right now, and while they are undoubtedly cool, the details of the implementation of a streetcar plan are important to determine whether it will promote mobility and development, or whether it will simply be a shiny toy for City Hall to trumpet.

Here's the thing: streetcars in mixed traffic are usually worse for mobility than the buses they replace. This is because of the simple fact that buses can turn and get around obstructions (such as parking or turning cars, broken-down cars, traffic accidents, debris, etc.), while streetcars can't. There's some benefit to running streetcars in interior lanes with island platforms, or using off-board fare collection, but neither is intrinsic to streetcars per se-- buses stopping at the same island platforms and using the same off-board fare collection would also run faster. To really radically re-shape mobility in Riverside, streetcars would either need to run on a lower-traffic street, or need their own lane to run in. The former raises concerns, as lower-traffic streets are usually that way because few people want to be there, and I strongly doubt that there's enthusiasm for the latter at City Hall and among the automobile-attached residents of Riverside.

Second, the logical place for a streetcar is along the L-shaped corridor formed by UCR, downtown, and the Plaza (and in the future, perhaps as far as the Tyler Galleria). This is a route that is already served by RTA, and mobility along that route would likely be better-served by improving existing RTA service than building a local-stop streetcar along it. The streetcar will need to somehow do something that the current routes 1 and 16 don't do, and will also need to be well-integrated into the current transit system, both of which are a daunting proposition.

Furthermore, a streetcar is an expensive proposition. If the plan is a good one, by all means, we should turn our transit dollars towards that expensive proposition. I am, however, extremely wary of spending scarce transit dollars building and, more importantly, operating a streetcar that will not improve mobility in Riverside and that will cannibalize limited funds from desperately-needed transit expansion. I'd love to see good local rail service in Riverside, but I'd rather see all-night bus lines or additional frequency than a bad streetcar project.

Los Angeles' streetcar project is a great example of what happens when you don't take into account mobility outcomes when building a streetcar: you get giant one-way loops and low frequencies that will make the new streetcar less useful than the old DASH bus it's replacing, especially for the short downtown trips it's supposed to serve. And they're spending a bunch of money for little improvement. I don't want to see that kind of thinking move east.

As I said before, the plans for a Riverside streetcar are in their infancy-- but that just makes it all the more important to make our voices heard now, before a finalized plan becomes something that we can't live with. Better no streetcar at all than a bad streetcar.