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2015 APTA-TRB LIGHT RAIL & STREETCAR CONFERENCE

The Power of Traveling Light: Agency Leaders Share Insight into Light Rail's Impact

Light rail systems crisscross neighborhoods, cities and even states, linking riders to job centers, prompting economic development and strengthening community and regional expansion. To find out how public transportation agencies are leveraging light rail’s value, Passenger Transport posed this question to leaders:

Please share one element of your agency’s light rail system that has had the greatest impact on your community, describe how light rail facilitates intermodal transit in your community and note how your system maximizes this for the benefit of your riders or greater community.

Paul Comfort
Administrator and CEO
Maryland Transit Administration (MTA)

Providing Access to Jobs. For more than 20 years, MTA’s light rail system has played an integral role in Maryland’s longstanding policy of investing in key transportation projects that drive job creation and enhance economic development opportunities.

Built as three separate projects over 16 years, our light rail system today carries more than 7 million riders annually and has strengthened the appeal of the central Maryland region as a place where people want to live and work and where companies want to locate and create jobs.

Based on recent surveys, nearly 50 percent of our riders use our 29-mile light rail line to get to and from jobs. That comes as no surprise to us as our system connects growing suburban job markets north and south of Baltimore to robust job markets within Baltimore.

Strategically aligned through the heart of Baltimore’s central ­business district, MTA’s light rail system provides convenient access to nearly 125,000 downtown jobs. With an extension to Penn Station completed in 1997, we also provide Baltimore area residents with easy transit connections to jobs in Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia via Amtrak and Maryland’s commuter rail line, MARC.

During that same year, MTA completed two additional light rail extensions focused on job growth and economic development: Hunt Valley to the north and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI Marshall) to the south. The extension to BWI Marshall has played a key role in the airport’s record-breaking growth in domestic and international travel. Serving more than 22 million passengers last year, BWI creates and supports nearly 100,000 jobs.

As MTA embarks on a $162 million investment to overhaul our entire light rail fleet, we expect ridership will continue to increase and support job growth throughout the area. The MTA also is developing a P3 project to construct a $2 billion-plus new light rail line in the Washington, DC, suburbs. Known as the Purple Line, this 16-mile light rail line will connect with WMATA Metrorail and MARC. Gov. Larry Hogan is committed to delivering on his promise that Maryland is open for business, and MTA’s light rail system is helping deliver on this pledge.

Gary C. Thomas
President/Executive Director
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART)

Changing the Map. DART’s light rail is changing North Texas.

A new community is emerging from the prairie around our Bush Turnpike Station on the Red Line. The CityLine development features nearly 3 million square feet of office, commercial and residential space. It’s the region’s newest live-work-play community.

More than $5 billion in private funding already has been invested in new transit-oriented development along our corridors. Office properties located near our stations command a nearly 14 percent higher lease rate. Properties near rail lines are more valuable and, according to the University of North Texas, they’re generating more in local taxes. Tax contributions for development located near our stations exceed $36 million a year, more than twice the $14 million estimated from their control group of properties.

Another revitalized community is the Cedars, south of downtown Dallas. South Side on Lamar, once an empty Sears, Roebuck department store and warehouse, is the center of a community that features residential properties, great entertainment and dining venues. We don’t think it’s coincidental that the Dallas station locations under consideration for the privately funded Texas Central Railway high-speed line linking Dallas and Houston are in that area and will be easily accessible by DART.

For many, whether in the city center or suburbs, access to transit is becoming as big a factor in choosing where to work or live as schools and shopping. North Texans, as do others in transit-oriented communities, know that transit is more than a transaction—moving someone from Point A to Point B. It’s about transformation. It’s about changing development patterns, creating economic opportunity, and in the process, changing lives.

John Nations
President and CEO
Bi-State Development Agency (Metro, St. Louis)

Spurring Billions. The MetroLink light rail system’s most important role is as an economic engine for the St. Louis metropolitan region. Since 2011, more than $2.2 billion in commercial development has been completed or is currently under construction within a half-mile radius of MetroLink stations.

However, MetroLink delivers an even more tangible economic impact to our communities, and a more meaningful impact to our riders as a connection to employment. Seventy-five percent of our passengers ride Metro to get to their jobs. With more than 17 million annual boardings on MetroLink, this means that almost 13 million times a year someone is riding the train for his or her work commute.

Riders choose MetroLink due to the reach of our service. Our transit system connects with 95 percent of the jobs in our service area, which covers more than 500 square miles in Missouri and Illinois. This is not only a huge benefit to our passengers, but also makes the bi-state region an attractive option for businesses looking for access to a large employment base.

We’re able to achieve this coverage by how our transit system is organized. MetroLink is the backbone, operating at 37 stations across 46 miles of rail in Missouri and Illinois. MetroLink has stations in major employment centers within the region, and the majority of stations also serve as transit hubs, facilitating connections between MetroLink and any one of the 77 MetroBus routes we operate. This not only allows passengers to reach employers throughout the bi-state region, it also lets us optimize our system in a way that is cost-effective and maximizes the use of our financial resources.

Jerry R. Benson
Interim General Manager
Utah Transit Authority (UTA)

Anticipating the Future. Regional population forecasts predict an increase of one million residents by 2040, increasing the need for housing and other community infrastructure along the Wasatch Front.

The Wasatch Choice for 2040 plan, adopted recently by local officials, promotes mixed-use growth centers. UTA is supporting this vision by pursuing an ambitious TOD program that merges mobility with complementary lifestyles. TOD encourages people to live, work and play in communities that support all of their life needs, consistent with the Wasatch Choice for 2040 plan. To date the region has seen between $6 and $8 billion in land use change because of UTA.

UTA’s TRAX light rail system is an economic engine for growth in Salt Lake City and all along the Wasatch Front. Many of the new transit-oriented developments under construction are along the agency’s light rail lines, but they have also sprung up along UTA’s FrontRunner commuter rail and bus system. UTA’s intermodal system has been planned with an eye toward multi-unit housing, retail shops and livable pedestrian-friendly communities.

UTA completed $2.5 billion in capital improvements at the end of 2013, including 70 miles of new light rail and commuter rail lines in less than five years. Additionally, the S-Line, a streetcar running through Salt Lake City’s Sugar House district and South Salt Lake, was completed. UTA has significantly expanded market share to downtown SLC and the University of Utah. UTA serves 25 percent of the trips to downtown Salt Lake City and 37 percent of all trips to the University of Utah.

Creating sustainable living centers and improving the environment are core concepts at UTA. We believe that encouraging transit-oriented development throughout our system is key to cutting down on congestion and achieving cleaner air. Currently the UTA transit system moves the equivalent of 3 highway lanes worth of capacity in Salt Lake County, 1.5 lanes in each direction. Alternative fuel vehicles, solar technology and clean diesel fuel are just a few of the initiatives in which UTA has shown environmental leadership.

Brian Lamb
General Manager
Metro Transit, Minneapolis

Linking Two Downtowns. The METRO Blue and Green lines—together averaging nearly 77,000 weekday rides—work in tandem to expand access to job and educational opportunities, a mix of housing options, health care providers and thousands of local businesses.

Some of the region’s most important destinations, including several ­colleges and universities, the University of ­Minnesota, the State Capitol and the downtown cores of Minneapolis and St. Paul, are served by light rail. The Blue Line is also encouraging compact development in suburban Bloomington, where light rail has become an essential option for those traveling to or from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America.

One of the key elements of Metro Transit’s light-rail system is station location. Stations have been strategically placed to do the most good for existing residents while supporting future transit-oriented development that retains a mix of housing, commercial and recreational opportunities that serve all income levels.

In addition to its downtown ­stations, Green Line stops are centrally located on the University of Minnesota campus and at key neighborhood hubs with existing density and redevelopment potential. While the Green Line has attracted more than $3 billion in private and public investment since its construction began, nearly 2,400 units of affordable housing have been created or preserved along the 11-mile corridor. Several new developments are occurring on urban brownfields that may otherwise have languished. Metro Transit will continue collaborating with public, nonprofit and private partners to build on these successes in the years ahead.

Importantly, light rail stations on both the Blue and Green lines have also been located at sites with strong connecting local and express bus services. A third of Green Line customers and about a quarter of Blue Line customers take a bus when transferring to or from light rail.

In 2016 the Blue and Green lines will be connected by the region’s first arterial BRT line, which will provide faster, more frequent service. Both light-rail services and the Northstar Commuter Rail Line connect in downtown Minneapolis at a transit hub that in the future will be served by light rail extensions, providing even greater access to job and housing opportunities.

In addition to these current and future transit connections, bike and car sharing resources have been expanded along light-rail lines to support last-mile connections. Bike trails and lanes also have been built or enhanced to support transit users who walk or bike to station areas.

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