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by Adron

Episode 6: “Introducing Thanks @ The Streetcar Mobile Music Fest!”

This is the second of three episodes covering Portland’s Streetcar Mobile Music Fest. I did a sneak preview of the festival a while back and episode one is available here.

by Adron

Al Said Phoenix Has No Traffic Problems

Here’s the specific Twitter thread that started all of this, it wasn’t 100% Al but one started from snark and brought to full bore through the might of Twitter.

First off, my immediate response is, “…are you kidding me?” Ok, after I recovered from laughing right out of the chair I was sitting in, I thought “alright, I’ll give Al the benefit of the doubt, cuz Al is actually awesome!” So here’s some of the things I found, which made my falling out of the chair laughing incident all that much more reasonable.

Knowing Each City

Before diving straight into the stats to determine if Phoenix, Arizona actually has traffic problems or not we should get to know the city. In addition to Phoenix, since Al is always giving Portland crap about all sorts of stuff, I figured we’ll follow Portland’s stats for that matter too. So let’s get to know some basic stats about both cities. First we’ll take a look at Phoenix.

Phoenix is located in Arizona consuming 517.948 square miles. The entire metro area consumes 16,573 square miles. Phoenix, it is safe to say, is a sprawling expanse of a city. The city was incorporated on February 5th, 1881. In the 2010 census the population of Phoenix in the city limits was 1,445,632 with a density of 2,797.8 people per square mile. In the metro area of Phoenix there are 4,263,236 people making it the 14th largest metro area and the 6th largest city.

Portland is located in Oregon consuming 145.09 square miles. The entire metro area is 6,684 square miles. Portland, is sprawling in some areas, but dramatically smaller in physical land mass compared to Phoenix. The city was incorporated on February 8th, 1851. In the 2010 census Portland in the city limits had a population of 583,776 with a density of 4,375.1 per square mile. In the full metro area there are 2,289,800 people making it the the 24th largest metro in the country and the 28th largest city.Now, let’s take a look at Portland.

Bring Out The Traffic Stats! First stat. So before I even get into actual delays or anything, let’s talk about the most serious statistic of all.

Traffic Fatalities

How many people are killing each other on the roadways of Phoenix. I’d consider fatalities a number one problem with traffic, specifically auto traffic. So let’s get some insight. Let’s give a look see if Phoenix has traffic problems related to fatalities. The first results made for some mixed answers, at first, looking at the Google results it looked horrible for Phoenix.

Traffic Death results for Phoenix on Google.

Traffic Death results for Phoenix on Google.

Then the first article I pulled up here, talked about traffic fatalities falling.  Only (notice it states ONLY, as if have hundreds killed is a reasonable thing to have occur) 807 were killed in 2009 after dropping from 938 in 2008.  Maybe my laughter wasn’t valid and I had incorrect information. Maybe Phoenix’s plans of highway expansion had made the city safer and my assumptions were incorrect. So far, this is great, the traffic killing was decreasing. But wait, when did Arizona roads deaths increase? In 2011 they increased again to 825 people killed. This was however all state fatalities and not Phoenix fatalities. I kept digging around and then found a jackpot of information about Phoenix Traffic Collisions of 2010. Phoenix in 2010 had 121 fatalities from 108 collisions. However it appears motorcycle fatalities are listed different, that amounts to 19 fatalities, which fortunately is a huge drop over the year before. Then continuing on to see other related fatalities that for some reason aren’t inclusive of the collision stat for some reason, are 49 pedestrians. Of course, another that wasn’t included in the core fatality stat was the 8 cyclists killed by motorists. Go figure, America, home of the “we can’t add up numbers right and stuff” statistician. Either way, I combed through it and think there were some other stats, but am going to go with these numbers for now and dig up Portland’s. Here’s how it looks so far for Phoenix in 2010.

  • Motorists killed by motorists: 121
  • Cyclists killed by motorists: 8
  • Pedestrians killed by motorists: 49
  • Motorcyclists killed by motorists: 19
  • Light Rail Killing Anything: 0
  • Cyclists Killing Anything: 0
  • Pedestrians Killing Anything: 0
  • Motorcyclists killing anything: 0

Now it’s Portland’s turn. I right off found tons of information from Google about bicycle traffic and bicycling in Portland, but almost nothing on the first page of Google results related to traffic wrecks and such even though I was looking for wrecks specifically. This is, considering how Google works, actually a good thing for Portland. I finally found a document on Oregon’s Crash Summary. On page 5 there are Portland stats, putting the fatalities for 2010 at 24. But I knew there probably were other bits, as these statisticians are devilish about the details so I kept digging. It looked like, and I won’t even go into these stats, that statement at over 300 fatalities Oregon has more than it’s share per capita versus Arizona. That doesn’t bode well in a comparison, but we’re again, not comparing the states – there are LOT of other outliers in comparing the two states and how people create traffic in each. So back to Portland itself. I found the bike fatality rate at BikePortland, with the wonderful total of zero. This is fortunately a common stat in Portland and I hope it stays that way and we can keep dropping the numbers for every mode. So digging through another BikePortland entry I finally dug up a stat difference that the Oregon book didn’t seem to account for. One listing was for 26 dead in 2010 and the origin state stat document showed 24. It’s clear however, that the pedestrian deaths are over 50% of all fatalities, all killed by motorists. This is, very unfortunate and shows that motorists, once again should truly have a dramatically onus put on them to drive safe and responsibly, as motorists seem to kill each other and non-motorists far too often. Anyway, the stats for Portland.

  • Motorists killed by motorists: 7  (I’m going with this, I continued searching and this seemed the most consistent stat)
  • Cyclists killed by anything: 0
  • Pedestrians killed by motorists: 15
  • Motorcyclists: 4
  • Light Rail killing a pedestrian: 2
  • Cyclists killing anything: 0
  • Pedestrians killing anything: 0
  • Motorcyclists killing anything: 0

When looking at Phoenix and asking, “does Phoenix have a traffic fatality problem?” compared to the US and compared to Portland. The average fatalities in the United States are 10 per 100k people. In Phoenix it is 10 per 100k.  In Portland that rate is about 4 per 100k. These specific stats are available via the NHTSA Report for 2010.

Results for Phoenix Traffic Fatalities

  • vs. the US Average : No, Phoenix is doing just barely better then the country as a whole.
  • vs. Portland : Yes Phoenix clearly has traffic fatality problems, Phoenix is doing horribly compared to Portland. Portland is 60% below the fatality rate of the United States & Phoenix. A dramatic improvement over the country and the city of Phoenix.

Commute Time

What stat is something that should be compared next? Let’s take a look at average commute time. In Phoenix the average commute time was 25.3 minutes. In Portland the average commute time was 25 minutes.

Results for Phoenix Metro Traffic Commute Times

  • vs. the US Average : No, Phoenix is doing the same as the rest of the country’s average, which is 25.4 minutes.
  • vs. Portland : No, strangely enough, Phoenix isn’t particular doing bad, nor is Portland, we’re just about average.

Now even though it is hard to imagine Phoenix having an urban core, it actually does. The urban core in Phoenix is a traditional grid layout with a growing density. Here’s a map with great information about the commute times. If we take a look at this and look at the urban core, we find that the urban core of Phoenix has a commute time of 19.1 minutes.

Travel Options

This is a pretty easy measurement. What are the modes and travel options in the city? Does Phoenix really have options?

Transit

Phoenix has a transit system that is made up of buses and light rail. The light rail system carries a reasonable number of people. However, when one gets down to the specifics the travel times, frequencies and accessibility (i.e. how far one has to go to transit and how many are with X amount of distance from transit) leaves many Phoenix Citizens without transit as an option. So either way, even though many thousands of citizens in Phoenix can’t even get to a bus or the light rail, we’ll say they can. So from a transit perspective Phoenix has buses and light rail.

Just to recap, Portland has Phoenix handily beat in regards to transit options. With a greater density and frequency of services all around. We have buses, light rail, streetcars, and technically we have commuter rail. Albeit I’m not sure if I’d even count the WES, so we’ll leave it off and just go with the fact that we do have 3 heavily used modes: streetcars, light rail and buses.

In the rest of the country there really isn’t a national assumption of any type of transit. So it’s barely a comparison, any city is going to beat the options you have in the general areas of the country. However, most US cities, especially the size of Phoenix have dramatically more coverage, service, hours of operation and a number of other features and modes than Phoenix does.

Results for Phoenix Metro Transit Options

  • vs. the US average : No, Phoenix has vastly more choices than any rural area.
  • vs. the US urban average: Yes, Phoenix is very limited in modes, with very little coverage compared to the average US city of 4 million people or close to that number.
  • vs. Portland : Yes, Phoenix fails miserably compared to Portland. The ridership, coverage and in other ways Phoenix fails horribly in regard to options.

Cars

How about cars? Do citizens have access to cars? I did a few things to figure this out. First I figured out what the median income is in Phoenix. In 2010 the median income was a fairly sizable $55,054 for Maricopa County, but for the city specifically it’s as low as $43k! It appears that this is dropping these days too. Just for comparison, the US median income in 2010 was about $51k albeit dropping pretty rapidly. By 2012 it was down to about $48-49k, but to keep things conservative and make sure Phoenix has every available change to prove itself to not have traffic problems, we’ll go with $51k. Of course, we have to have a Portland reference in there, which in 2010 the median income was $40k.

Now all of these amounts are actually pretty irrelevant if we don’t know what these things can buy. The median transportation percentage, for these states is both just below 12%. So looking at that, people in Portland spend $4920 per year on transportation and people in Phoenix spend $5160 per year while the US median is $6120. The overall costs of things vary in large degree between Phoenix and Portland and getting a final cost of living comparison is really difficult. It primarily depends on what you want for your money. The same goes for Phoenix versus the rest of the country, but in this comparison we’re just looking at the cost to get around based on medians.

Results for Phoenix Metro Transportation Costs, based on Auto Median Cost

  • vs. the US average : No, Phoenix is actually cheaper than the US average. This is to be expected comparing an urban area with the average American landscape.
  • vs. the US urban average: Yes, Phoenix is more expensive than many of the urban landscapes in the average US city.
  • vs. Portland : Yes, Phoenix is more expensive.

Inter to Intracity Connections

The city of Phoenix has two options for coming or going, you either have to fly, but or auto. There are no other options in or out of the city.

The average US City, especially in the million plus person range, has air, bus, auto and rail transport options on average.

Portland has air, auto, bus and rail but also has river options. Some might say, “nobody takes river transport”, so that’s fine we’ll just leave that off. Which still gives Portland an easy victory in this category over Phoenix.

Results for Phoenix Inter & Intracity Options

  • vs. the US average : No, Phoenix has the standard mode of auto and bus, plus it has air.
  • vs. the US urban average: Yes, Phoenix has less options than the average US city.
  • vs. Portland : Yes, Phoenix also has less travel options out of the city versus Portland.

So you do the math, do the factor, does Phoenix have traffic issues? Hell yes it does. Are they worse than average US traffic issues? Not really, but then of course I’d say anywhere in the US has vastly more traffic issues and commuting concerns than Portland does based on these averages. As for automobile delays (which are extensive for EVERY city) the only real option is the city that provides for real alternatives and livability close to work, home and play. Very few places in the United States actually provide that.

References:

by Adron

Episode 5: “Introducing Eidolons @ The Streetcar Mobile Music Fest!”

This is the first of three episodes covering Portland’s Streetcar Mobile Music Fest. I did a sneak preview of the festival a while back.

by Adron

Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland, What Was First?

Portland was first, again, as usual it seems. What was it first for? Well, the list isn’t short, but what I’m talking about today is the MAX connection from downtown to the airport. I just read a summary of news tidbits on The Source titled Transportation Headlines for Wednesday, November 27th. The segment that caught my attention was the Denver East Corridor Rail line to the airport that pointed to the Streetsblog Article complaining about LA’s airport connector that is under construction.

Portland’s MAX Red Line

MAX Red Line, Click for Trimet's Page on the Red Line.

MAX Red Line, Click for Trimet’s Page on the Red Line.

In Portland the MAX Red Line opened in 2001 on the very unfortunate date of September 10th. The next day being September 11th 2001 really put the airport out of commission. For weeks after the opening date the line barely carried a soul to the airport, for obvious reasons. The entire place was closed after the world trade center twin towers came down in New York City. The world mourned the event and the Red Line suffered because of it, just as we all did.

However, as the city, the country and people got back to the business of day to day activities and the airport re-opened the line bustled with riders. Between 1990 and 2008 the airport had gone from six million passengers through the airport (flying) to over 13 million. 2020 projects are that it will easily surpass that, likely in the 20+ million range. The four stops of the Red Line however do not serve just the airport, and the length of the route serves many other stops with a huge number of riders. For those stops it doubles the service along the Banfield Corridor with the Blue Line all the way out to Beaverton. There is even talk of enabling it to double service even further out toward the edge of Beaverton or even going a little ways into Hillsboro. Time will tell for those changes though.

Why do I bring that up? Because the Red Line serves far more than just the airport, and even a bulk of the ridership isn’t even airport bound. The ridership for the two stops before the airport stop have boomed as retail has exploded around them. An Ikea opened, and along with a number of other retail options. These options benefit from a number of things including Oregon’s lack of a sales tax, creating a situation of thousands of Washington residents driving across the I-205 bridge to shop there. Many of these people drive across that same bridge in the morning commute and board the Red Line at the Parkrose/Sumner Transit Center stop. Some even sneak in and park at the Cascades stop (even though that’s retail parking for the businesses there, we know motorists rarely care nor know they’re not supposed to do that). Overall, all those stops in between the airport and where the line resumes service with the Blue Line (and now the Green Line too matter of fact) on the Banfield Corridor are hugely important.

Time for Some Data!

In 2010 I found some data Michael Anderson had gotten from Trimet for ons and offs. This is the counter data that all MAX trains have that count boardings and detrainings from the MAX Light Rail Vehicles (LRVs) at each stop. Remember this is 2010, ridership is up over 10% since 2010. So even correcting for the +-1% for data reading mistakes or anything like that, this data is a conservative look into what ridership is today in 2013.

Airport Station
Stop ID: 10579 On 1694 Off 1635

Mt Hood Avenue MAX Station
Stop ID: 10576 On 50 Off 253
Stop ID: 10577 On 252 Off 54

Cascades MAX Station has about 450 on and 450 off. Keep in mind, this was in 2010 when most of the retail wasn’t even open yet.
Stop ID: 10575 On 402 Off 46
Stop ID: 10574 On 43 Off 411

Parkrose/Sumner TC MAX Station, MAX Rides on and off only. There’s over a thousand on and a thousand leaving the station everyday, just on the Red Line.
Stop ID: 10572 On 113 Off 926
Stop ID: 10573 On 962 Off 134

The line is technically 5.5 miles long. This accounts for the Red Line segment that is entirely new, between Gateway TC and the PDX Airport. It was finished and opened for public ridership on September 10th, 2001. Here’s a map of the line, running from the airport to Beaverton today. When it originally opened it terminated downtown on the turnaround from the original Blue line that ran from Gresham to Portland. Now the turnaround isn’t used as an active turnaround, but as an area for train extras. The terminus is now on the middle track at Beaverton Transit Center.

The Trimet Rail System. Click for a larger image.

The Trimet Rail System. Click for a larger image.

Here’s some other stats of significance. The Red Line was the first train to plane service on the west coast. It was built through a public-private partnership, nothing seen like this for many decades (think pre-1950 when most transportation was nationalized). The funding split was Trimet general fund at 36%, Bechtel/Cascade Station Development Company, LLC at 23%, Port of Portland (for the airport) at 23% and the City of Portland at 18%. No federal dollars or new local taxes were used. This is of significant note, as with Federal dollars it would have likely taken 5-10 years longer to build, if it was even able to be completed then. Federal involvement always makes things dramatically more difficult to get shovels in the ground.

Why Mention This?

Well it seems, since the line was opened Seattle has open their Link Light Rail service from downtown Seattle to the airport. It serves about 22k people per day last I checked, which I’m betting it is up to about 28-32k per day now. It’s been a while since I checked. Los Angeles and Denver are about to join the ranks of cities in the United States west of the Mississippi to offer train to plane service. There has been some debate whether LA’s connector will be worth the investment and if Denver’s isn’t’ a better example.

My Bets for Denver

What I’m betting, contrary to the article fussing for a direct connection to downtown Los Angeles, is that most of the ridership for the Denver line will not actually originate at the airport. Almost all of the ridership I bet ends up being commuters in and out of the city from the 5 intermediary stops along the line. In addition, if empirical data is any proof, then most of the airport ridership will actually be local workers at the airport and not travelers going to flights. However, I counter that to some degree. So here’s my bullet point bets for the Denver line. This bet I’m making based on assumptions of what service will be and what ridership will be from 2016 when it opens until about 2020. After that, all bets are off.  😉

  1. Most of the riders will be commuters riding from the 5 intermediary stops into and out of Denver. More precisely riders originating from and to the 5 intermediary stops of: 38th and Blake, 40th and Colorado, Central Park, Peoria and Airport (rd/dr) and 40th will exceed 51% of all riders.
  2. A large percentage of the riders for the airport (into the actual final stop of the airport, not the Airport St & 40th stop) will be airport workers. I’ll estimate that at least ~12%. I wouldn’t bet against someone betting on 30-40% of the riders being workers at the airport. Ideally of course, only about 2-5% of the riders would be airport workers, as one would hope the rider count on the train will be very high.
  3. It will for the first 10 years be a significantly higher cost per ride then the light rail or bus service in the area. Over the 20-30 year period it will drop below thanks to inflationary cost changes and over a 30+ year it will drop below or be maintained at about the cost per ride of light rail and bus service. Pending of course we still even get around this way in 10-30 years from now. We might just use transporters and aircraft may be irrelevant.  😉

References: