This post was written for The Ground Floor by Robert Dunphy, emeritus fellow, Transportation and Infrastructure for the Urban Land Institute.
One of the key topics for infrastructure discussions in ULI District Council infrastructure programs in Houston, San Antonio, and Idaho was public transit, especially surprising since these are all emerging transit cities, where transit carries a very small share of the commute market, even in the cities.
All are interested in significant transit (read rail) projects, and face the dilemma of how to do make significant expansions of transit capacity without the density of development to make it work--or how to generate significant increases in density without a transit network to handle some of the additional traffic.
Houston recently opened its first light rail line, and has ambitious expansion plans, 58 miles of light rail and commuter rail, along with 40 miles of bus rapid transit, although in the city that proudly eschews zoning, it is difficult to mobilize a significant Transit Oriented Development (TOD) program.
San Antonio’s rail project was shot down, in part, by outsiders--a posse of anti-rail Libertarian outsiders who ride the range shooting down transit plans. While the existing bus system carries less than 4 percent of all commuters, expanding transit was reported to be the biggest challenge of all San Antonio’s infrastructure concerns.
Boise a relatively small region of less than one-half million people, nonetheless has big ambitions, transit wise. Experts on commuter rail, speaking at the Infrastructure forum there on May 14 discussed a range of issues related to implementing such a system, which I took to be quite boosterish, but the local newspaper ran an article suggesting not now and not never for commuter rail.
The point is not whether any of these transit proposals would work, but how to build the supporting development. It is quite a reversal from the last 50 years, when roads were in and transit was out. These next tier markets are all interested in getting transit, but must face the reality of an affordable system--bus is a good, but politically unpopular choice to a public not interested in using buses--and a sustainable land use pattern.
