Shift to Mass Transit

[Nexis4Jersey]

The Fact that Amtrak Ridership across the Country and the bulk of that is in the Northeast & West Coast is going up means something.  People want a less stress way of travel.  Amtrak recently added wifi and refurbished a few more cars back into service to meet the growing demand.  Amtrak plans on replacing there stock starting later this year with more European or Japanese type trains.  There on time performance has been very good as well.  People all across the Northeast and around the Country are pushing for more transit and highway expansion.  I hate people on this forum who keep putting down transit and saying garbage about.  Some of them don't even live in this country.  I want my Country to catch up to the rest of the world and not remain in the stone age.  And having Transit in almost every city with 50,000+ is a start whether its light rail or streetcars or Bus rapid transit. Once a city gets one line , whether its Light Rail or Bus Rapid Transit the nayers usually get proven wrong.  Like in the case of Houston & Phoenix new light Rail line.

[Duke87]

I also like being able to go WHERE I want and WHEN I want to do it, not on someone else's schedule. I've must have wasted at least a couple days worth of hours of my life waiting for some stupid bus.

And how much time have you wasted in traffic jams, or looking for parking spaces, or arranging rides while your car is in the shop?

A lot depends on where you live and where you're going. I don't hit traffic driving to the store or to pick my sister up from school, nor do I have a problem finding a place to park. Also, the nearest bus stop is over a mile from my house, so public transportation isn't really an option locally.

Meanwhile, I'd be mad if I was going into the city and chose to drive rather than taking the train.

How are they ever gonna fund that with a farebox recovery ratio of 9% that doesn't even cover operational costs?...The LACMTA has an annual budget of $ 2.8 billion. Only $ 260 million is funded by fares. The rest is local, state and federal funding.

It's the same for roads though.  Most have NO farebox recovery, it's all from taxes. Why must transit be held to a different standard?  Roads don't bring nearly as much economic development and increased tax revenue as transit does, mainly because we've saturated our environment with roads so they have little additional value anymore, yet we still don't make them pay for themselves.  Also, gas taxes only pay for highways, and the highway trust fund is still insufficient to pay for all of them.

Gas taxes are not a "farebox", but the effect is the same: those who use the system directly contributing to paying for it.

Basically all local roads are funded from property and income taxes, so there's no user fees going to them.  This is just one example of how the costs of driving are externalized, essentially punishing anyone who DOESN'T drive, because they're still paying for it.

On the other hand, buses use those streets to, as do pedestrians (some of which are walking to or from public transit). Also, ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars use those streets, as do the trucks that pick up your garbage, the trucks that brought goods to the store where you bought them, anyone who comes to your house to do construction or utility work, etc. Even if you've never gotten in a car in your life, you still use city streets.

The same goes for free parking, which is subsidized by higher prices for goods and services, which everyone has to pay for, whether they drive or take the bus or walk.  We all pay for these wars in the middle east, additional health costs from pollution, and reduced land values and general quality of life because of noise and fumes, even if we don't drive.  Where's the outrage here?  We give driving this free ride, so to speak, yet get all in a huff when we have to subsidize transit fares, it's a terrible double standard.

For the record, I don't mind subsidizing public transit (it wouldn't be viable if it wasn't subsidized!). What I mind is oversubsidizing it. The users need to cover a decent portion of the cost, with roads or with transit.

As for free parking, you can't put meters everywhere. Only works in commercial areas where parking is short-term. And stores would be mad to charge their customers to park in their lots, it's bad for business.

[Riverside Frwy]

The Fact that Amtrak Ridership across the Country and the bulk of that is in the Northeast & West Coast is going up means something.  People want a less stress way of travel.  Amtrak recently added wifi and refurbished a few more cars back into service to meet the growing demand.  Amtrak plans on replacing there stock starting later this year with more European or Japanese type trains.  There on time performance has been very good as well.  People all across the Northeast and around the Country are pushing for more transit and highway expansion.  I hate people on this forum who keep putting down transit and saying garbage about.  Some of them don't even live in this country.  I want my Country to catch up to the rest of the world and not remain in the stone age.  And having Transit in almost every city with 50,000+ is a start whether its light rail or streetcars or Bus rapid transit. Once a city gets one line , whether its Light Rail or Bus Rapid Transit the nayers usually get proven wrong.  Like in the case of Houston & Phoenix new light Rail line.

That's allot coming from someone with a New Jersey Turnpike Avatar. Here in southern California, our culture is based around the car. Especially how unreliable and nasty(literally) the public transits are, atleast here, no one in there right mind here would choose a bus over a car. Trains are useful but outside of downtown areas where everything is in walking distance, but once you get out of big city trains become very limited. For example, I live ATLEAST 5 miles from the nearest Metrolink train station. So.... Train=Fail out here.

We are not in the "stone age." Don't be fooled by what you see in Europe. Most european countries are no bigger than an average sized U.S. State. That means they can put more money per mile of highway. It would could cost WAY to much for ANY country to put all the fancy electronic signs with dynamic speed limits and all that on EVERY stretch of highway in the US. The interstate highway is already over 70,000 Km, let alone state route and US Route Freeways.

[Tarkus]

People want a less stress way of travel.  

For me, that's driving.  I like having control and the ability to leave when I want, and honestly, I find the idea of a semi-lengthy commute on decent roads to be good for clearing the mind.  And to be able to haul stuff--like groceries and musical instruments--without significant hassle.  Even if traffic were snarled, I'd much rather deal with that than deal with the stress of trying to catch a train or bus on time.  Plus with driving, you have the option of finding different routes in problem situations, not to mention the general slowness of transit in most places.  I took the Amtrak Coast Starlight once recently from Portland to Eugene--110 miles.  The train broke down three times and it took over 4 hours.  And there was certainly no wi-fi.  Cost $37 and it was hell.

I'll grant that there are indeed some places where transit works.  I rather like Washington, DC's Metro system.  It's really the best way to get around that town (if for no other reason then that it's got a weird/poorly designed layout above ground).  And I can imagine it's the same case in a place like New York City.  However, to at least some extent, those are special cases.  And I tend to take Frank Lloyd Wright's view that the "big city" is effectively an anachronism.  Unless you've got some amazing economic reason giving it a raison de etre and driving sustained growth, you're not going to be able to prop up a "new New York City" with those density levels capable of supporting a truly transit-dominated city.  At least, not without astronomical subsidies, which will ultimately result in an artificial and short-lived "bubble" and grave financial consequences for local residents and the government funding the subsidies.

I'll admit, in my earlier days, I did kinda buy the "Kool Aid" the smart-growthers put out.  There's tons of those types here in Oregon, and their propaganda is everywhere, particularly among the usual governmental types (especially with the latest "green" obsession).  This shift away from highway funding toward transit (mostly rail-based) has been going on since the 1970s when Neil Goldschmidt shifted much of the funding intended for the Mount Hood Freeway to fund the MAX light rail.  It is, in my opinion, a very dubious claim to fame.

After the year I spent attending Portland State and commuting there via MAX and the Portland Streetcar, I realized that the whole thing is a freaking joke and not worth the funding it is getting--and continuing to get.  The Streetcar is really little more than a bad theme park ride and to call it "transportation" is a cruel joke . . . I stopped taking it when I realized I could save 20 minutes by walking.  Neither the MAX nor the Streetcar are worth the billions of dollars of subsidies for construction or operations, let alone for "transit-oriented development" trying to artificially create ridership for them, which has actually decreased the quality of life in many neighborhoods (Rockwood, especially) and destroyed a lot of pristine suburban natural areas.  Good sprawl at least leaves pockets.

I think buses can have their place--they can use existing infrastructure, and provided they're given proper pullouts, they can blend in with private auto traffic.  Fixed rail is inflexible and overpriced, and unless you're someplace ridiculously dense, it generally can't provide proper coverage and the cost is too steep.  The main problem buses have is an "image problem" . . . if they spent even a quarter of the money they do hyping light rail and streetcars, a municipality could get a well-functioning and well-received bus system.

As far as the whole "road subsidy" thing, roads serve a lot of functions--travelway for cars, buses, pedestrians and bicyclists, and underground, sewers, water pipes, power conduits, fiber optic cable, etc.  You get a lot more "bang for the buck" with roads than you do with a fixed rail.

-Alex (Tarkus)

[jjakucyk]

...At least, not without astronomical subsidies, which will ultimately result in an artificial and short-lived "bubble" and grave financial consequences for local residents and the government funding the subsidies.

You can say exactly the same thing about sprawling car-dominated cities though.  Much of our current "financial consequences" are directly tied to the bursting of the (mostly single family) housing bubble.   

If dense cities are such an anachronism, then why have they been the default pattern of settlement (in varying scales of course) for the entirety of human civilization?  The majority of the world still understands the value of such places, yet in this country we seem to have forgotten about it.  Nevertheless, had Wright or Corbusier been correct in their assumptions, most cities would've evaporated into vast expanses of mostly rural development, something like 5 acres per household all connected by a grid of roadways.  That hasn't happened, and isn't going to happen, because cities provide benefits that rural and even suburban living don't. 

What we may see in the future is various cities with little inherent economic vitality contracting in size and importance.  However, they're much more likely to contract to their urban core where the framework of infrastructure is already highly developed and relatively comprehensive, if underutilized at the present. 

[mightyace]

If dense cities are such an anachronism, then why have they been the default pattern of settlement (in varying scales of course) for the entirety of human civilization?

Partially incorrect.  Up until the 20th century, the majority of the world population lived in rural areas.

In pre-modern times, you might actually live longer outside of a city because of the sanitation issues in most cities and the close huddling of people spread disease faster.

[jjakucyk]

Hence my point about scale.  It's kind of difficult to define rural with all the small towns and villages out there, but the point is that even in such sparsely populated areas, people still chose to settle together when possible.  Throughout history, people have always been leaving rural areas for larger towns and cities when they can. 

[Riverside Frwy]

Ok, today I passed by a Metrolink train....I remember taking that train a few times.....and I admit.....it was very useful....and helpful. I was going to visit a relative in LA, so I parked my car at the Metrolink station in Pomona, then took the train to Union station where I was picked up. I have admit it was a nice ride and it was actually better than driving there. Ok so that's ONE time rail actually worked for me but still....

[Scott5114]

The large, dense city was a staple of human civilization for centuries because of the old adage in strength in numbers. It's much easier to defend yourself from wolves/foxes/bears/cougars/Vikings/kings/DeWitt Clinton when your entire civilization is clustered in a few central areas and you can easily round up a bunch of people to kick some ass. These days, though, we have ICBMs. It had nothing to do with transportation, really...transportation only becomes necessary when you have somewhere to go to.



I always encourage transit buffs to look at Oklahoma City and its surrounding metro area as an instructive case study of how a city can do just fine without mass transit, and how transit cannot always be applied to a metropolitan area.

Oklahoma City has never had the experience of a "freeway revolt"–all of the freeways proposed in the Yellow Book were built, and then some. As a result, the concept of "missing links" in the freeway system is foreign to Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma City freeway system is basically a larger-scale version of the basic street grid. Few locations in the city are more than about six blocks from any freeway.

Below the freeway grid, the city has a complete system of city streets, moreso than most cities. Nearly all arterial streets carry through throughout the metro, with few exceptions; in addition, there are a fair number of minor arterials that supplement the major arterial system. Diagonal streets are close to non-existent, limited mostly to Exchange Avenue south of downtown and the Northwest Expressway (State Highway 3). For long diagonal movements throughout the city, it is generally easiest to simply use the freeway system; several of its members (especially I-44) help facilitate such movements.

Oklahoma City very infrequently experiences severe congestion of the type found in other major U.S. cities. Rush hour traffic in the city generally continues moving at 45—50 MPH at the worst. Full stops are rare, generally only occurring due to a major collision. Construction is a much more frequent cause of congestion; however it generally only results in a slowdown at the beginning of the zone as traffic must merge due to a lane closure and navigate channelizations. Due to this lack of congestion, the city experiences much less air pollution than other car-oriented cities.

This lack of congestion can be attributed to several factors, including the city's smaller population as a factor, but more directly the wide availability of freeways with at least six lanes, and the city's propensity to plan for growth by building freeways and expressways through rural areas on the outskirts of town far before the population is there to require them (the Kilpatrick Turnpike, the Bailey Spur, and SH-9 are all good examples of this). Indeed, the freeway system has been in a constant state of construction to achieve this; no sooner had the system been completed with the construction of I-235 in the 1980s had expansion and modernization work started on I-35 through Southside OKC. As of 2010, this work is still ongoing; I-35 reconstruction has proceeded south and is now working on the second-to-last segment of two-lane I-35 remaining between McClain County and Downtown, and in Downtown itself a new alignment of I-40 is being constructed with ten lanes, placed further south to connect blighted areas north of the Oklahoma River with Downtown in the hopes that such a connection will encourage the revitalization of Downtown to spread south. (This area had not become blighted due to I-40 creating a "barrier" between it and Downtown, but had always been so, dating back from the 1930s, when the area was host to the city's "Hooverville". It seems the area has always been afflicted with one thing or another, as the then-North Canadian River often flooded prior to the New Deal era, bringing disease. During the New Deal, flood control projects made flooding less of a concern, but property values seem to have remained low due to the area's history as a slum and the presence of an unsightly dry riverbed.)

Oklahoma City is a fairly recently build, being originally founded during the Land Run of 1889. An engraving of the city from 1890 shows that by then, the city had already adopted a basic street grid system, rather than the complicated organic street webs that are found in many older cities such as Boston and St Louis. Such a late start for the city meant it was uniquely able to embrace the new transportation technologies of the early twentieth century, namely, the airplane and the automobile. The city's growth hit its stride in 1928, when oil was struck beneath the city. This allowed the city to continue to grow throughout the Depression (although most of the city's residents were not able to personally profit from the discovery). By this time, the automobile had already become a staple of transportation.

As a result, Oklahoma City has always centered its expansion around the capabilities of the automobile. There very few distinct "points of interest" that consist of several attractions for traffic. The city's largest employer, Tinker Air Force Base, lies on the east side of the freeway system, downtown is in the center, the zoo and science museum are on the northeast corner, casinos are found in the far south of the metro area, and the major shopping center is on the northwest corner. The people most likely to use transit, college students, are found in the suburbs of Norman and, to a lesser extent, Edmond. It would be very difficult at this point to retrofit a transit system onto the city. The layout of the city makes it unlikely that any line would be able to serve more than one of these attractions. Physical size is another concern–the city is seventh largest in the U.S. by land area and a full 0.08% of the state of Oklahoma, spilling across four counties, is included within the city limits. Furthermore, the vast diversity of residential areas means that any such line would likely be several miles from the average OKCian's home, meaning that they would either have to use multimodal transit (bus, then train) to reach their destination, or use a Park & Ride, and, when you're already in your car, why invest the extra time to stop and switch to the train when you can merely hop onto the well-flowing freeway system?

Light rail is often bandied about as a possibility in Oklahoma City politics, usually with an eye to improving downtown access, but it seems destined to be a perennial proposal that never sees the light of day. In this city, transit is a solution in need of a problem. While it works well in many other cities, Oklahoma City is adequately served by its automobile transportation systems, and transit simply doesn't have the flexibility to compete. The benefits of transit do not provide much of an advantage in Oklahoma City, and its drawbacks are too numerous to make it anything other than a pipe dream.

[tmthyvs]

The thing is, highway construction and mass transit projects really need to be planned in conjunction with each other, not one after another. When improvements on one side are considered when planning another, the result ends up being better foresight for the whole system.

See, for instance, the TREX project on I-25 and I-225 in south metro Denver.

[jjakucyk]

The thing is, highway construction and mass transit projects really need to be planned in conjunction with each other, not one after another. When improvements on one side are considered when planning another, the result ends up being better foresight for the whole system.

That's a good point, so long as a balanced approach is taken.  There's another example here in Cincinnati with the widening of I-75.  Near the city the highway is paralleled for the most part by existing (but never used) subway tunnels and abandoned surface right-of-way.  One mandate for the highway project is to protect this right-of-way for future light rail use, something sorely needed here because I-75 is so heavily congested anyway.  That sure sounds like a great idea.  The problem is that in one particular area they are "preserving" it by saying "oh it's there, but a mile of new subway tunnels will have to be built to make it work."  ODOT basically brushed the light rail part of the plan aside, making it so prohibitively expensive that it is unlikely ever to be built.  Overall their plans for future station locations and other alignments are pretty awful.  It's mostly hand waving and posturing, they really don't seem to take it seriously, and that's a real shame because now is the time to get the planning for it done right. 

A more sound approach seems to be the one whereby transit right-of-ways are accommodated in the median of highways.  While from a walkability and neighborhood development perspective those highway median lines aren't the best, they're much better than having only highway and nothing else cutting through an area.  The advantage is that they're already grade separated out of the way of interchanges and ramps and other obstacles, and on a pretty good alignment because of the highway's design speed for curvature and superelevation, etc.  If they don't get used, you don't lose a whole lot, but if they do, no extra grading or property acquisition has to be done.  Unfortunately, it's not an easy thing to do on existing corridors that weren't originally built that way. 

[Nexis4Jersey]

As you can see the Keystone Line has done very well in terms of revenue.  And they plan on upgrading it over the next (?) to 10 years (slowly) to 140 mph and extending it to Pittsburgh and Cleveland.  The Keystone and Northeast Corridor lines are Amtrak's only profitable lines; the rest fail, although the Cascades line is expected to break that.  We can learn a lot from these two corridors and how they manage to do this, because the daliy ridership is 8,000-12,000 (Keystone) & 15,000-25,000 (NEC) which is small compared to what one would expect from these lines.




Spelling corrected.  Good job on Pittsburgh, oddly.