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The Inauguration: A shining moment for public transportation

If you were watching television last Tuesday, you saw at least two historic things happen, but there’s a chance that the lesser of them escaped your notice.

What you might have missed was the fact that Washington, D.C. also managed to quadruple the number of people who travel into the city on a typical day — from 400,000 to 1.8 million — without breaking out into total chaos. And that number was quadrupled at on the same day that they closed all Potomac River bridges and banned private vehicles from a large area around the Mall and parade route.

The star performer of the day? What the Washington Post‘s Dr. Gridlock calls “the Washington region’s biggest transportation asset: The Metrorail system.”

By many accounts, it was the largest public gathering in city’s history. And for certain, it was the highest rail ridership day that Metro has ever had in its history. It wasn’t even close. The previous record, actually set just the day before at 866,681 trips, was completely obliterated with a total of 1,120,000 riders on Inauguration Day. There were problems with stations getting closed at times due to crowding, and definitely some packed platforms, but on the whole, Metro stood up to numbers far higher than anyone had ever seen before.

Even President Obama got there on public transportation

The Post’s Dr. Gridlock wrote a four part post-mortem on “How It Worked,” and his general conclusion? Thousands biked, even more walked, roads and bridges were closed to cars, and embraced the superior carrying capacity of Metro.

Local blog Greater Greater Washington points to last Tuesday’s success as a blueprint for the future of a growing Washington, DC region:

If our region is to grow, we need to help more people reach their jobs. One approach is to add traffic lanes and parking garages at enormous cost, both financial and in lost urban vitality. The other solution is to move people as we did on Tuesday. More people rode the trains. Each vehicle coming into the downtown core carried far more people. Over 2,000 people used WABA’s bike valet. And many more people started their days within walking distance of downtown. Those houseguests raised our population density enormously, enriching our neighborhood businesses besides.

To follow that up, read what Ryan Avent points out about Metro’s ridership these days, especially in light of the city’s population continuing to grow.

And now, of the top 20 ridership days, one was in 2004 (Reagan’s funeral), one in 2007, 16 were last year, and two have already happened this year. And the metropolitan population continues to grow. One might think that WMATA and the District would work to enhance core service, by planning a new core line and by adding streetcar capacity to help with the intracity load.

So what’s the status of expanding and building upon “the region’s greatest transportation asset?” If you’ve seen the transit cuts map, you might already know the answer: Cutting nearly 900 jobs and cutting $73 million in service. That operating assistance sure would have been useful to keeping the economic backbone of the region functioning.

Call your representative today and urge them to support Rep. Nadler’s amendment to increase transit funding in the stimulus. (1/28/09)

Photos by Steve Davis

Poll Finds Americans Favor Smarter Transportation Spending in Stimulus Bill


	Download this Release (.pdf)
	Contact: David Goldberg, 202/412-7930 david.goldberg@T4america.org

WASHINGTON – Eighty percent of Americans want transportation and other infrastructure spending included in the economic stimulus bill to target projects that achieve multiple goals and create new jobs, according to a survey sponsored by the National Association of Realtors® and Transportation for America.

The 2009 Growth and Transportation Survey describes what Americans think about how development affects their immediate community. An overwhelming 80 percent believe it’s more important that a stimulus plan include efforts to repair existing highways and build public transit rather than build new highways. Forty-five percent of those polled said construction of new highways should “definitely” or “probably” not be included in the plan.

“Realtors® build communities and believe smarter transportation and infrastructure development will help create more livable and vibrant neighborhoods,” said NAR President Charles McMillan, a broker with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Dallas-Fort Worth.

The survey shows that Americans want Congress and the incoming administration to factor plans for reducing dependence on foreign oil, improving the environment, and increasing transportation choices into the stimulus package currently in development, even if it temporarily delays job creation.

Americans are also very interested in energy conservation. Eighty-nine percent agreed that transportation investments should support the goals of reducing energy use, with 58 percent agreeing strongly. Three in four of those polled also want the stimulus plan to support the reduction of carbon emissions that lead to global warming and climate change.

The 2009 Growth and Transportation Survey was conducted by Hart Research Associates, January 5-7. Hart Research Associates telephoned 1,005 adults living in the U.S. The study has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Transportation for America is a broad coalition of housing, environmental, public health, urban planning, transportation and other organizations, seeking to align national, state, and local transportation policies with an array of issues like economic opportunity, climate change, energy security, health, housing and community development. NAR is a member of Transportation For America.

The National Association of Realtors® “The Voice for Real Estate,” is America’s largest trade association, representing 1.2 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.

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Are we building new roads to crumbling bridges?

Would you like to avoid another one of these? Tell Congress

When Minnesota’s I-35W bridge collapsed in 2007, many Americans were shocked to learn that thousands of bridges across the country were rated “structurally deficient.” The last major survey in 2007 found that more than 72,000 bridges were structurally deficient — or about 12.1% of all our nation’s bridges.

With billions of dollars about to be spent on an economic recovery package, you’d think Congress would prioritize fixing dangerous bridges and repairing unsafe highways — as well as investing in ready-to-go transit or rail projects that can help meet our pressing national goals of reducing oil dependence and lowering dangerous emissions.

But the powerful highway lobby is pressing hard for nearly all the money to be spent constructing new roads and bridges. This makes no sense.

Urge Congress to fix what’s broken before committing billions to expanding roads and highways.

Sign this petition to show Congress your support for fixing and maintaining the network we have with the stimulus rather than throwing our money into new highway capacity and 1950’s-style highway projects.

Before we add capacity to a highway system that is already too big to maintain in good condition, we should focus on life-saving maintenance and repair projects.

These are the projects that can get going now in communities large and small, creating millions of jobs, while making roads safer and preventing another tragic bridge collapse.

Congress simply can’t afford to write a blank check for new roads — and Americans can’t afford to have billions thrown away on projects we don’t need.

We need smart transportation spending that’s responsive to taxpayers, not the highway lobby. A fix-it-first transportation agenda is the solution we need to help create jobs in the short term, protect jobs in the long term, and help reduce our dangerous dependency on foreign oil.

Crumbling Bridges