The Urban Blog

Some Musings on Reno Regional Transit

It was great seeing Aisha @ EcoStreets talk a little bit about the BRT / Light Rail plans that have been getting a little discussion in the media sphere lately.  Whenever this topic comes up I feel compelled to noodle on what shape and form an ideal Reno regional transit system would look like.

The Urban Blog’s 2009 Concept for Regional Transit in the Reno area
Note:  This drawing is not a detailed plan for every street the route would run down or what technology it would use.  It is intended to paint broadly the important regional destinations that would need to be served by public transit.  Liberty has been taken with cardinal directions in particular.

Fundamental to this concept is the idea that a majority of the important regional destinations be considered and served and they fall into the following categories:

Transportation Hubs, Residential Hubs, Jobs Hubs, Destinations, Mixed Use Areas

It’s been encouraging to see that RTC Washoe’s plans for the BRT / potential Eventual LRT system they’re planning include feeder routes called RTC LOCAL to feed the RTC RAPID system they want to build.  That’s encouraging because whenever I think about this problem, I end up coming back to the need to tie this 40 x 40 mile metro area together with transit that gets people where they actually need to go, from not far from where they’re starting.  This means they’ll need vehicles that will take them the long haul, but it needs not to be a hassle to get to that vehicle.

However, if you get to the luxury of considering what I just mentioned, it means you have a workable system.  And I think a workable system means a system with a design that appears to the educated observer as something that would work in real life.

With that, I propose the above transit corridors- their destinations to be the ones that are most important to cover in the three county area that is represented above.

Now might be the best time yet to imagine such a thing, so if you’ve had notions of a regional transportation system that would serve the tri-county area ideally, please let me know what you think.  If I were in charge, this is the system I’d build.  How about you?  Comment here, link to your blog, etc.  Enjoy!

Spring Mountain (Winnemucca Ranch) Planned Unit Development Approved

In a 4-2 vote of the Reno City Council, the Planned Unit Development (PUD) plan brought forth by the developers of the Spring Mountain project was approved, greenlighting the developer to further develop plans for the subdivisions that would be contained within the PUD.

During the public comment period, many residents spoke both in favor and in opposition to the project.  The City Council, as it usually does in such matters, posed the key questions and themes espoused by opponents to the Applicant, City Staff, and various other public authorities at the county level to get answers to those questions.

Based on the unique situation put into place by the settlement agreement regarding spheres of influence (SOI) and binding against the regional plan, this PUD must be approved by the City of Reno as the area in question resides within the City SOI.

Spring Mountain’s developers defended their proposal and the City of Reno defended their motives against suggestions that this development was before the City in an effort to short-circuit the standards in Washoe County’s open space and wildlife mitigation plans and to grow the size of Reno’s physical plant, respectively. 

The developer’s representative maintained that they were agnostic toward the jurisdiction in which the project would reside.  Councilwoman Jessica Sferazza, who voted no*, was concerned that this development was out of character with the area and was not comfortable with the governance issues or the developer’s ability to meet the trip capture curve requirement in the PUD plan. 

Councilman Dave Aiazzi, defending his support of the project, returned regularly to the theme and asked the opponents of the project where the additional population growth was to occur if not in this privately held land. 

Appellant Erik Holland of Citizens for Sensible Growth echoed many in opposition in calling for more concentrated growth inside the already developed area of the Truckee Meadows, but would also have been open to growth east along I-80.  In their statements, several opponents applauded the developer for the vision and foresight put into the proposal while opposing it on other grounds.

School district representatives and RTC representatives appeared before the council to provide insight as to the planning for schools and existing roadways in the new development.  Aiazzi cited a statistic that a high school would require 50 acres according to the school district.  The logical follow-on question was regarding the availability of such a parcel of land in the already developed urban area.  Holland spoke to the idea of better public transit in the urban area and expansions for the existing school facilities in the urban area to meet those needs.

When all was said and done, the vote to approve the PUD was a vote to approve a plan that had been in the works for many years and had evolved considerably since its original inception.  This new city was not being argued to be annexed into Reno.  It was approved to be planned further and eventually built out according to the existing legal statutes governing PUDs, and must be built according to City of Reno standards, and based on the models used to calculate funding and fiscal sustainability would be able to support itself if taxes were maintained at city levels, regardless of jurisdiction.

Many questions remain unanswered.  Can this development succeed in establishing a complete place with a population of 50,000 and its own economic engine that is complimentary to, and not overly dependent on, cities and towns tens of miles away?  Can it meet its goal of being fully powered by renewable energy sources?  Are the water resources established by the plan truly sustainable and for how long?  Only time will tell.

* (the lone dissenting vote; [ upated – Ed. : Erik Holland reported that Councilman Gustin also voted nay on this.  Hascheff’s vote not included in tally.  Reporter apologizes, was watching via streaming video. ] Councilman Hascheff did not vote due to conflict of interest)

Growth Out There

Lately Northern Nevada has seen two projects receive the approval of the City of Reno, two projects which are pretty controversial and are indicative of a broader set of problems the city is trying to solve, and really, what that means, is that people need to speak up, but speak up in full context.  That's done here, below the jump.