transit frequency in Houston and Sacramento

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Houston has been in the news recently, and will certainly be today, opening day, for their revised transit system which created a network of high frequency (service every 15 minutes or better, 15 hours a day, 7 days a week) transit lines. The map below left shows this new system, only, and clicking goes to the high resolution image on the Houston METRO website. The map below right shows the entire system, with lines that don’t meet the high frequency definition. The system was redesigned with the help of Jarrett Walker, transit consultant and author of Human Transit, which I posted on yesterday and will be posting a lot more in the near future.

Houston METRO Frequent Network

Houston METRO System

So, what’s the story in Sacramento?

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Beg buttons on K? Really?

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Note: I discovered yesterday, to my chagrin, that I had a number of draft posts dating back to early 2013, which I’d never finished. So I’m going to post them now, all in a flurry. Some of these issues I’ll get back to and do an in-depth and up-to-date post, and some of them I probably never will. This is the fifth and last post, and I discarded two that were worth preserving. This just points out that I have more good ideas than I have time to carry them out.

My point here was that beg buttons should not be used on streets which are meant to encourage or emphasize walkability, of which K Street is certainly one. I will definitely be writing more about this.

Pedestrian beg button on a commonly used crosswalk (9th St at K St), this location should have a pedestrian signal on every cycle, not just when someone presses the button.
Pedestrian beg button on a commonly used crosswalk (9th St at K St), this location should have a pedestrian signal on every cycle, not just when someone presses the button.

Original 2015-04-11: I have to admit that sometimes I walk past things every day and don’t notice them, but this morning I noticed the pedestrian activated buttons on K Street in downtown Sacramento. Yes, they’ve probably been here since the street was re-opened to cars on November 12, 2011. These are technically called pedestrian pushbuttons, and their purpose is to activate the pedestrian signal head and a change of the traffic signal. They are often called beg buttons, because the pedestrian has to “beg” to cross the street by pushing the button, rather than being an accepted part of transportation on the street.

Sacramento in the middle for transit loss

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Note: I discovered yesterday, to my chagrin, that I had a number of draft posts dating back to early 2013, which I’d never finished. So I’m going to post them now, all in a flurry. Some of these issues I’ll get back to and do an in-depth and up-to-date post, and some of them I probably never will.

Original 2015-06-10: The recent CityLab article How Much Money U.S. Transit Systems Lose Per Trip, in 1 Chart shows Sacramento RT in the middle, a common place for Sacramento to be.

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Rangelands and greenfield development

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Note: I discovered yesterday, to my chagrin, that I had a number of draft posts dating back to early 2013, which I’d never finished. So I’m going to post them now, all in a flurry. Some of these issues I’ll get back to and do an in-depth and up-to-date post, and some of them I probably never will.

The topic was going to be greenfield development in Sacramento County, Rancho Cordova, Elk Grove, and Roseville, and how it will be impossible to achieve greenhouse gas reduction targets if the governments allow this type of sprawl or super-sprawl development to occur.

Original 2014-12-29:

Lost California rangeland is said to pose greenhouse gas risk (SacBee 2014-12-28)

New Study: Where Have All The Rangelands Gone? (The Nature Conservancy 2014-10-23)

Whither the Rangeland?: Protection and Conversion in California’s Rangeland Ecosystems (PLOS ONE 2014-08-20)

 

move to West Sac?

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Note: I discovered yesterday, to my chagrin, that I had a number of draft posts dating back to early 2013, which I’d never finished. So I’m going to post them now, all in a flurry. Some of these issues I’ll get back to and do an in-depth and up-to-date post, and some of them I probably never will.

I wish I knew where these quotes came from. It was something I was reading. The point was that a number of people had commented recently that things were going backward on the east side of the river, livability-wise, and things were going forward on the west side of the river, mostly due to Mayor Christopher Cabaldon. Some connection was made between this topic and these quotes.

Original 2013-09-10: “You could build all bridges and highways that you wanted to, and you still got more congestion. You could add all the bike lanes and bus service that you wanted, and you still got more congestion and worse air. Because it was the land pattern underneath.”

“It doesn’t matter if you have great bike paths and sidewalks and bus lanes if everybody is living so far apart from each other that they can’t get connected. And if you just build more, wider freeways, with the same land use pattern that we have…keep growing more and more into farm land and habitat…then people just fill up those freeways faster and faster and faster.”

Levee path

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Note: I discovered yesterday, to my chagrin, that I had a number of draft posts dating back to early 2013, which I’d never finished. So I’m going to post them now, all in a flurry. Some of these issues I’ll get back to and do an in-depth and up-to-date post, and some of them I probably never will.

Original 2013-01-07: Stories, editorials, and letters to the editor on the topic of the river levees in the Pocket and Little Pocket area were in the news this week. A small group of homeowners, some of whom have encroached on property that does not belong to them, are arguing against public access that would provide a continuous path along the Sacramento River. The levees were built with public money, local, state and federal, and it seems to me that property owners have no valid rights to prohibit access.

Added 2015-08-17: The legal situation is diverse, depending upon the history of each individual levee. Sometimes the levee was built with an easement “on top of” private land, in which case the property owner has some say about the levee, but the easement agreements never gave exclusive use. In other situations the land on and beneath the levee is the property of a levee district, in which case it is entirely the right of the levee district to manage access. However, since these levee districts are quasi-public agencies (they were chartered and received or receive public funds), there would need to be a compelling reason to deny public access. I never got around to the research that would be necessary to document the situation, which may well vary by the levee section, for this levee along the Sacramento River.

flipping choice riders and captive riders

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choice-captiveI am reading Jarrett Walker’s Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities. It is a revelation, and I’ll have more to say about it when I finish. He cautions about using the traditional categories of “choice” riders, those who are not riders but might be if they were better served, and “captive” riders, those who have no choice but to ride public transit. The equivalent is “rich” and “poor,” in that order. I agree with his caution.

But I realized that the categories should be flipped. Choice riders are those who have chosen to live in an area where transit is available, and have chosen not to indebt themselves and their family by owning, maintaining, and operating a motor vehicle. Captive riders are those who have chosen to live in the suburbs and exurbs where they have no choice but to own a motor vehicle, because there is no other way to get around, and no place worth going to, in any case. They are a captive of the choice they’ve made, far less free than someone who lives in a place with transit.

Davis protected intersection

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The new protected intersection in Davis, the first in the United States to open, has been in the news recently (#Damien Talks Episode 13 – The Davis Planning Department on the Bike Protected Intersection (Streetsblog), This California city just built the country’s first protected intersection for bikes (Vox), It Just Works: Davis Quietly Debuts America’s First Protected Intersection (Streetsblog), Davis Dutch intersection, first ever in U.S., unveiled with no drama (Davis Enterprise), and others). Though it did not initiate the movement towards protected intersections, which have long existed in some form in Europe, Nick Falbo’s Protected Intersection video has popularized the idea in the United States.

Yesterday I spent about an hour looking at the intersection. It was mid-day, so lightly used by bicyclists, pedestrians and motor vehicles. I might have a different impression at a different time of day. I was on my knee scooter, my current method of getting around, so acting as a pedestrian and not a bicyclist. The design is at the intersection of Covell Blvd and J Street/Cannery Row, on the north side of Davis. The intersection was revised because of the major new development north of Covell, The Cannery, which has recently opened but is still being developed. Some photos are on Flickr.

intersection diagram, from Davis Enterprise
intersection diagram, from Davis Enterprise

With one exception (below), the intersection worked just fine for all modes. Most bicyclists were on Covell headed east or west, and they used the on-street bike lanes. I saw one person use the ramp up to sidewalk and back down, and one bicyclist use the design to turn left from Covell westbound to J southbound. No issues. I also saw a number of pedestrians crossing in various directions. No issues. The signal cycle is slower than it probably needs to be, but, again, that might be different during commute times.

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News summary 2015-08-09

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