Jump to content

Mass Transit around Greater Birmingham


Blazer85

Should Birmingham bring back their streetcars?  

41 members have voted

  1. 1. Should Birmingham bring back their streetcars?

    • Yes
      37
    • No
      2
    • Undecided
      2


Recommended Posts

Oh this is setting up to be another political showdown between Langford and the City Council. This along with the situation with the Glen Iris/former Knights of Columbus site is creating another political hostile situation in City Hall. I hate to say it but it sounds like the political picnic is over.
Link to comment
Share on other sites


  • Replies 161
  • Created
  • Last Reply

It seems that BJCTA is trying to lobby for Birmingham City Council support and state support for public transit. However, on the state thing I might be a little too late for that because the regular session wraps in about 2 weeks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Nashville has them, Salt Lake City and San Diego too, so why can't Birmingham have mass transit commuter rail. I think this would work better than let's say a MARTA type system. No Souja-girl attacks on any old ladies. (See here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-NZtGz_7WI0) Anyway, here's my plan.

-Use existing rail lines north, east, and south of Birmingham. These trains would take thousands of cars off interstates 65,20,59 and other major arteries. My plane calls for 13 stations reaching from Fieldstown to Calera. A main station would be built in downtown to also house the downtown streetcar station. Here;s a map:

MAP2.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nashville has them, Salt Lake City and San Diego too, so why can't Birmingham have mass transit commuter rail. I think this would work better than let's say a MARTA type system. No Souja-girl attacks on any old ladies. (See here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-NZtGz_7WI0) Anyway, here's my plan.

-Use existing rail lines north, east, and south of Birmingham. These trains would take thousands of cars off interstates 65,20,59 and other major arteries. My plane calls for 13 stations reaching from Fieldstown to Calera. A main station would be built in downtown to also house the downtown streetcar station. Here;s a map:

MAP2.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is a well-put together map and a great idea. However as Monsoon has mentioned earlier, the BJCTA MAX bus system would have become a strong and reliable component before we could actually add commuter rail. Until that occurs, our dream to create any form of rail transit would be nothing more than a distant pipedream.

So we should all push our local leaders and legislators to fund an efficient source of funding for the area's mass transit system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And not to mention that the idea of using existing freight rail lines is simply horrible because they are owned and operated by CSX or Norfolk Southern (or in a small area BNSF). The commuter trains would be at the mercy of these companies traffic and scheduling the same was AMTRAK is. AMTRAK is rarely ontime because of heavy, congested freight rail lines that it uses. CSX and Norfolk Southern don't give any preference to AMTRAK for keeping it's schedule and likewise, wouldn't give any preference to commuter trains either.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

An update on the region's transit situation:

The Birmingham City Council has approved an 2008-09 budget that funds the additional $9M needed for the MAX service to get new fleet of buses and expand to include an actual airport route along other services, but shelved the funding for the streetcars. Mayor Langford has said he refuses to sign off on the budget due to this and the shelving of the citywide scholarship program

Also the BJCTA and RPC has officially made the announcement that there will be the construction of more park-and-ride lots in the region, and the service to theses location will begin upon the arrival of the new fleet of MAX buses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

The Birmingham Metropolitan Planning Organization announced this week that 6 park-and-ride lots at area churches have been secured. At the TCC meeting at the RPC this past Wednesday, the announcement of the lots being available at Pelham, Hueytown, Forestdale, Center Point, Trussville, and East Lake. Also the work on an independent park-and-ride lot at Shelby County Airport is also underway. This is a part of the RPC plan to have lots around the entire region that ultimately including express bus services.

Here is the list of the new park-and-ride lots:

First Baptist Church of Pelham (at U.S. 31 south), 2867 Pelham Parkway, Pelham.

Hueytown Baptist Church (at I-20/59 south), 3000 Dwaine Ave., Hueytown.

Forestdale Church of God (at U.S. 78 west), 1433 Tomahawk Road, Birmingham.

United Methodist Church of Center Point (at Alabama 75 north), 2129 Center Point Parkway, Birmingham.

Northpark Baptist Church (at I-59 north), 5700 Deerfoot Parkway, Trussville.

Greater Emanuel Temple (at I-59 north), 7901 Second Avenue South in East Lake.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Well, due to the projected fiscal year 2008-09 budget shortfall, the BJCTA has been forced to ask the Birmingham City Council to allocate an additional $7.2 M. This just reinforces the ideology that State of Alabama needs to step up and finally allocate a dedicated source towards public transit statewide. Ridership of mass transit systems nationwide are actually going up substantially, but it seems here that is still mediocre at best. People here need to get up and actually get more involved in lobbying for better for the region's key aspect of quality-of-life, mobility.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...

Well, it looks as if there isn't some serious legislation passed by the local delegate in Montgomery, or some type of coordinated regional effort amongst our area cities that the $100M allocated to form a bus-rapid transit corridor along I-65 will be gone as of September 13. The only thing that has occurred has been the use $3.5M to do a study along the corridor by the RPC of Greater Birmingham. It looks as if that we will be dealing with another fiscal shortfall due to the ineptness of a number of area governments not wanting to push towards something resembling regional mass transit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

During the Operation New Birmingham breakfast last week, the executive director of the RPC announced that the new bus system during the In-Town Transit Partnership would cost $65M to construct and $6.5M to operate annually. The good news is that the RPC is attempting to obtain the Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER federal grant that wouldn\'t require a local match to get this system off the ground, but it would have to apply for by September 18 with it being approved by January 15, 2010. This would help tremendously because so much of the progress with transit in the region has been held up due to lack of state assistance or incentive and local cooperation from the city and county officials to make it a priority.

The new website for the ITP is up and here\'s the link:

Here\'s the preliminary map of the system for the City Center and surrounding neighborhoods.

ce-large-map.jpg

Also if you notice most of these routes have temporary endpoints signaling to if a local match is placed that it could become a large system that would serve a large chunk of the region.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.