Myth Busting the MPO's Talking Points

The Eye recently received "talking points" from Hillsborough Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) Executive Director Beth Alden addressed to Hillsborough County Commissioner Kimberly Overman as a public records request. Beth Alden spoke to many of these points offering support for the AFT 2.0 transportation tax at the February 19, 2020 BOCC meeting, apparently at Overman's invitation.

Beth Alden talking her points.

The complete "talking points" memo is here. 

There's plenty to digest, but we'll take a few talking points that missed a few talking points.


Alden also provided Overman several extracted charts from the 2045 Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP), which we will avoid reproducing here. 

Commissioner Overman opens the stage for MPO Executive Director Beth Alden in the youtube clip below.



We do understand these to be "talking points", not a dissertation, so we know they may be incomplete thoughts. However, given the sensitivity to these issues across Tampa Bay, we believe it is imperative for the entire context to be communicated, not just a few "talking points."

For today, we'll review Alden's final talking points, as listed below [Bold in the original]:

Also: part of Hillsborough County’s growth management strategy depends on investing in a fixed-guideway rapid transit system of some kind.

• Fixed-guideway just means running in its own ROW so it doesn’t get stuck in traffic. It could be steel-wheel or rubber-tire, human or robot driver – those details can be worked out later.

• You’ve heard that our development pattern is lower density than allowed under our comp plan. We’re still mostly building car-centric communities, and we’ll continue to do that until there is a public investment in the transit system that establishes meaningful choices, other ways to get around.

• If we do make that investment in rapid transit, some of our fast-growing population and employment can be around transit stations.

• In fact, the Planning Commission estimates that 1 out of 3 new jobs, and 1 out of 4 new residents, can be accommodated in transit station areas.

• This kind of development generally takes up a lot less land, because people want to be able to walk or bike to the transit station.

• If we do NOT invest in a fixed-guideway rapid transit system of some kind, and growth continues on existing trends, we will need about 75,000 more acres to be added to the Urban Service Area than previously estimated. To be clear, that’s in addition to the USA expansion that you’ve been considering at previous board workshops.

Hillsborough's "growth management strategy" has been lacking for decades. Perhaps the only thing worse than no growth management strategy is one that pushes ... and limits ... the growth into particular modes, locations, and preferred types of residences and businesses, planned by the same people and process that got us here in the first place.

The MPO strategically believes in "real choices when not driving", but do they believe in real choices in where to live?

Regardless, this set of talking points is reference to fixed guideway transit and its perceived benefits, without acknowledging the tradeoffs. How about we take some of that on?

• Fixed-guideway just means running in its own ROW so it doesn’t get stuck in traffic. It could be steel-wheel or rubber-tire, human or robot driver – those details can be worked out later.

This is true, and we were pleased to see that Alden did not make any presumption for the type of fixed guideway transit. However, there are some other talking points to consider:

• Are the fixed guideways harvested from existing traffic lanes, or net additional capacity? If the fixed guideway lanes reduce existing traffic capacity, we can certainly expect increased congestion and delays for drivers. 
• If these are "rubber wheel" lanes, can these fixed guideways be shared with tolled vehicular traffic?  The concern here is that BRT over fixed guideways will have 10 - 15 minute headways, meaning most of the time they are empty. Is it feasible to provide a tolled, premium vehicular traffic option on some of these routes? This may provide better utilization of the fixed guideway, and help pay for its use.
• What about the rest of us "stuck in traffic"? What are the plans to get us "unstuck"? That part always seems to be missing.

If you're skeptical that many people will get out of their cars, sharing the lane with vehicular traffic may offer some "win/win" with transit. Otherwise, it may be a transit win, and a loss for drivers.

• You’ve heard that our development pattern is lower density than allowed under our comp plan. We’re still mostly building car-centric communities, and we’ll continue to do that until there is a public investment in the transit system that establishes meaningful choices, other ways to get around.

No doubt our transit is poor around here. But it's not really clear that it hinders the Tampa Bay area much. People are coming here whether we want them or not, with or without transit, with more cars. So we build car centric communities (while now starting more densification), which is tied into housing affordability in the area. Housing is more affordable in the suburbs, along with other advantages and tradeoffs. To each his own. However, there are about 4 times as many people moving into unincorporated Hillsborough compared to city of Tampa, so this sprawl is part of our region. Just like many other areas too many to list, but includes most of our peer cities we compare ourselves against.

• If we do make that investment in rapid transit, some of our fast-growing population and employment can be around transit stations. 

Note the use of some [bold in original]. Yes, some employment and residences can be around transit stations, and some (most?) employment and residences will continue to be elsewhere... where they are today. If fact, this has been studied.

The question of do light rail investments increase employment was studied for Charlotte (one of our "peer" cities we often are compared to) light rail system in 2019.

This paper examines whether rail transit stations tend to increase employment opportunities in nearby neighbourhoods and whether rail transit tends to be placed in neighbourhoods which connects to higher‐wage jobs. The results show no significant relative increase in the level of employment in neighbourhoods near rail stations post opening of the first light rail line in Charlotte, NC. However, the line connects to areas with significantly higher shares of high‐wage workers and industries. While creating accessibility to higher‐skilled jobs may result in greater economic impacts, it may conflict with goals of increasing employment opportunities for transit dependent, lower‐wage workers.

The effectiveness of being near transit has been studied in other municipalities as well.

Weber’s advice may seem surprising to the general public, which might imagine that transit provides sufficient mobility to low-income citizens. Transportation planning agencies report the percentage of households living “near transit” as an indicator of transit effectiveness, using measures such as a half mile from a transit stop. 

For example, Alltransit.cnt.org, ranks the Los Angeles metropolitan transit system as 6th best in the United States, out of 186. Alltransit.cnt.org indicates that 88.8% workers live “near transit” in Los Angeles. Yet, only 5.0% of Los Angeles commuters use transit. This speaks volumes as to the value of being “near transit” (Figure 1). Barely one in 18 commuters living “near transit” considers transit to be good enough to use instead of cars. Indeed, now nearly 97% of Los Angeles commuters have vehicles available, while the share of workers having no auto access dropped by nearly 18% from 2010 to 2018.

It does not appear there is an automatic "build it and they will come" effect with transit developments. Much more at the link.

• In fact, the Planning Commission estimates that 1 out of 3 new jobs, and 1 out of 4 new residents, can be accommodated in transit station areas.

Leaving aside we have no idea where these numbers came from, we'll take them at face value for now. Note this statement is solely about "new jobs" and "new residents", and not the 1.4 million that already live and work in Hillsborough. How many new jobs and new residents are we talking about?

We can get the data we need from the MPOs 2045 LRTP Plan. We'll use the same hybrid scenario numbers below as the MPO.

Hillsborough 2045 population and job estimates. Source http://www.planhillsborough.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/LRTP2045-HMPO-ADA.pdf

That works out to an estimated 183,575 new residents, and 291,533 new jobs near transit stations, out of a total of 2 million residents and 1.7 million jobs in Hillsborough by 2045. Which implies the vast majority of new and existing residents and jobs will not benefit from transit, still be "car dependent" and using roads nearly daily. Hillsborough's dependence on roads will only continue to increase, hence much more investment in road capacity and congestion relief is required.

If the MPO believes those that live near transit will benefit, should they pay some impact fee for the enhanced infrastructure required to support their choice? Most of the residents in the county will see little if any change to their advantage, but are expected to pay for others "choices when not driving" with higher taxes.

Note also the job numbers increase at an even faster rate than the population in Hillsborough. This implies that Hillsborough will continue to be the business driver in Tampa Bay, and even more employees will be commuting from neighboring counties. Again, vastly dependent on roads that work to get to work.

• This kind of development generally takes up a lot less land, because people want to be able to walk or bike to the transit station.

Sure, they'll enforce denser development on less acreage, which tends to drive up costs of housing. But as we've shown above, the use of transit is marginal at best, and having a few Transit Oriented Developments near some bus or train stations certainly does nothing for those elsewhere in the county.

• If we do NOT invest in a fixed-guideway rapid transit system of some kind, and growth continues on existing trends, we will need about 75,000 more acres to be added to the Urban Service Area than previously estimated. To be clear, that’s in addition to the USA expansion that you’ve been considering at previous board workshops.

Clearly there are costs associated with expanding the Urban Service Area (USA). Those costs should also be balanced with many other factors, such as cost of living, infrastructure impact, costs of new development for employment and housing, etc. There is a cost of not expanding as well, and inner city development tends to be more expensive, particularly as Urban Service Areas are limited or deeming expansion off limits result in much higher housing costs inside the USA. Real choices on where to live include the suburbs as well as the inner city and downtowns. There is little reason to restrict any choice.

Hillsborough still has plenty of room to grow, according to this 2011 study on the Urban Service Area from the MPO.

Hillsborough County Urban Service Areas and remaining acres

Another way to look at this, if Hillsborough did need to add 75,000 to the Urban Service Area, the growth would consume about 6.5% of the remaining acreage over 20 years, still leaving over 400,000 acres outside the USA. Plenty of room to grow.

Plans are only as good as the inputs. If you don't have all the inputs, you'll end up with a bad plan.

It seems Hillsborough officials do not want all the inputs.

They do want your money.