There was a great article in Sunday’s Des Moines Register by David Elbert that talked about the redevelopment efforts that have been going on downtown. You can find the full text of the article here. The sidebar to the article had the biggest meaning to me, here’s what was included in it:

Des Moines’ downtown still faces a number of challenges, including:

COMPLETING THE RIVERFRONT: The biggest piece missing from the riverfront plan today is the World Food Prize Headquarters. City officials expect next month to turn over the keys of the former riverfront library to the World Food Prize organization, which plans to spend nearly $30 million to convert the century-old building into a headquarters that will include elaborate riverfront landscaping. The group still needs to raise about $5 million, but construction is expected to begin before year’s end.

HOUSING AND RETAIL: Retail development traditionally follows housing, so the emphasis is on housing. In 2002, a goal was set to add 6,000 downtown housing units. So far, the total is fewer than 1,500. New developments are being planned for an area south of Court Avenue called the Lower East Village and another location called Gray’s Landing between Southwest Ninth and 16th streets south of the MLK bypass. With the current economy, it could be years before either development begins.

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Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Biking | Condos | Dining | Lofts | Public Transit | Skywalk

President Barack Obama was in Iowa on Wednesday and told a group in Newton of his proposal to build a high-speed rail network that with a line connecting Des Moines to Chicago. Obama told the crowd that mass transit equals green transit.

His proposal would connect Des Moines to Chicago by using and updating existing tracks all along Interstate 80. The train could go up to 79 mph and take passengers between the cities in about five hours, with a few stops.

The overall project would cost about $30 million to connect the rail from Des Moines to the Quad Cities. Illinois has already started construction on the rest of the leg from Chicago to the Quad Cities.

The plan would call for the high-speed service to be up in running within three years. As often, as I travel to Chicago, I would really look forward to this. Think of all the tourism we could get into Des Moines via the high-speed rail. Maybe after this leg, it’s continued to Kansas City and to Omaha from Des Moines.

Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Public Transit

In Raleigh, North Carolina, a city that’s not that much larger than Des Moines, is experimenting with adding mobile DTV to their bus system. Raleigh has just rolled out its first CAT bus equipped with mobile DTV. The mobile DTV magic comes courtesy of a little help from LG and Harris Corp., who are supplying the displays and mobile transmission equipment for the pilot program, which will be expanded to five buses by August, with another 20 planned for the second phase that’ll run though August 2010. Viewing options will be somewhat limited, with a simulcast of local station WRAL , along with some weather information and lots of local advertising to appear. Maybe DART can use some Obama money and try this out.

Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Public Transit

A couple of weeks ago, the Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART) advised that Des Moines-area residents increased their use of transit at a rate four times the national growth rate in 2008.

Ridership growth was up 18 percent over ridership levels in 2007. Compare this to the national increase of only 4 percent and you will understand how huge this is. This 4 percent increase resulted in a 52-year ridership record nationwide, according to a report recently released by the American Public Transportation Association.

Now if we can just get our downtown tram built!

Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Public Transit

As Des Moines continues to look into future urban transportation solutions such as trams or light rail, here are some examples from other cities on a either a new from of transportation or improving existing transportation methods.

First up, from Madscar City in Abu Dhabi:

This is the PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) podcar from Zagato, a fully electric and fully automated taxi system set to shuttle people around Masdar City, an eco-utopia under development in Abu Dhabi that pledges to have no carbon footprint and no real roads, leaving these to buzz along underground at a leisurely 15 mph. Unlike other prototype autonomous taxis these will initially only be able to go between set locations, but the hope is that in the not too distant future they’ll take you to within 100 meters of any location in the city.

Next up, from  the city of Oslo:

The City of Oslo is adding “minor modifications” to 80 of the city’s public busses will allow them to run on biomethane fuel produced from raw sewage. The buses are apparently much quieter, and are more eco-friendly with zero net carbon emissions. The leader of the project, Ole Jakob Johansen, also says that the city should save about €.40 per liter on fueling the busses. The trial is part of Oslo’s plan to be carbon-neutral by 2050, and they hope to soon have the entire fleet of 400 rolling clean.

Both of these cities have goals to be carbon-netural by a certain date. Does Des Moines have this type of goal with our city’s transporation system? If not, why not?

Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Public Transit

Recently two public meetings were hosted by the Downtown Community Alliance to get public input on the feasibility of a tram system for downtown. I was unable to attend either of the sessions, but here’s what I’ve found out from others on the Downtown Shuttle System forum at AbsoluteDSM.com.

The following points were made at the meeting:

• Most people are only willing to walk .25 miles for mass transit.
• Start the tram system on a small scale that can later be expanded to include a larger area, with the first segment running about three miles in distance. 
• About every 900 feet would be a stop. At tram stops, there would be a GPS tracking system that would tell you how many minutes before the next tram arrives. You could then make a decision to either wait for it or not wait for it and instead walk to your destination.
• Tram cars would be modern style cars, not historic replicas, and initial run would require three cars. Cars cost approximately $3 million each.
• The first segment would cost approximately $50 million for planning, construction of track and overhead electrical lines and purchase of rail cars. Over 2/3rds of the money goes toward track construction, about 1/4 towards purchase of the cars.
• Initial build out is fairly quick since minimal existing utility relocation is done, a three block section can be done in about three months time. 
• The proposed bus transfer station is not part of this project and this project is not dependent on it.
• Every city that has added tram lines such as this has spurred development along the tram route.
• Tram would run till 10 pm on weeknights, midnight on Friday & Saturday nights, 8 pm on Sundays.

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Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Public Transit

In 2008, the economy prompted many people to take a practical approach and chose public transit. Numbers released from the American Public Transit Association this week showed that the third quarter of 2008 saw the largest quarterly increase in public transportation ridership in 25 years throughout the United States.

Commuters remained on buses, trains and metros at record levels even as gas prices started to fall. According to the report, people took 2.8 billion trips on public transit during the months of July, August and September, a 6.5 percent increase over the same quarter of 2007.

Whether a financial decision or an environmental one, people also increasingly turned to bicycles to get around town. I’m not sure what the numbers are for the 2nd half of 2008, but in July I know that KCCI was reporting that our local DART (Des Moines Area Rapid Transit) had it highest ridership in 24 years.

Now if we can just get the city to work on getting some more modern and fun bus stops.

Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Public Transit