For the last time..There are 5 diffrent types of rail systems that serve diffrent pop. denisitys.

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I am sick of people telling me that we dont have the population density to support rail transit. They think that we need the pop. density of chicago or NYcity to have a rail system. NO and NO!. They just dont get it.

1.Heritage streetcar- serves citys with populations of 40,000 to 80,000 connecting tourist areas and Universitys areas for recreational or parking mitigation.

2.Light Rail rapid transit. Serves citys of 200,000 to 600,000 or more. Workes best to connect first tier suburbs with city core. Examples Cleveland and Pittsburgh

  1. Heavy above ground rail- Works best to take people to the airport and large sporting venues. also in vast citys that may have populationdensitys but buildings are not spaced so close toghther to nessate the building a subway

4.Subway and elevated- workes best in high density downtowns and citys. Also works where geographic enviroments such as steep grades makes above ground trains impracitcal such as hilly Montreal or San Fran.

5.My favorite-Commuter Rail-Connects low density suburbs and even rural areas with strong downtown cores. since many people drive to the station the Commuter RR line need not be next to high density area. In The case of MARC train servcie in MD the stations are in a National Park(C&O Canal Historical Park)
The problem is that even planners are getting this mixed up and it hard to advoacte when we are not all using the same dictionalry

2

What works best for the Amish?[:D]

3

Using sporting events to justify a rail line is pure folly. Especially when the modern trend is every sport to have its own venue.

What you need to support a commuter rail line of any type is a consistent, day in day out traffic base. 10 weekends a year for a football stadium won’t support a busline, let alone a rail line.

The major failure of modern commuter lines is the suburbs. The rider base is so disbursed that riders have to travel by car to get to the staion and since the employment loacations are disbursed with the modern “business parks” there is no one concetration of jobs to attract riders. The auto has killed off the feeder transit networks. By the time the commuter drives to the station/stop nearest home and then travels to the station/stop nearest work and arranges for transportation from the station to the work location most of the benefits of rail commuting have been erroded.

The fact is that we have not designed our development for any form of mass transit. The suburbs do not support mass transit until the traffic density gets so horrible that it is less painful to take mass transit than drive.

If we were serious about wanting to use mass transit we would zone our cities so that along a transit corridor we put islands of high density dwellings (apartment complexes) alternating with multifloor office space (all commercial buildings within 1/4 mile of the station have to be a minimum of 6 floors) and an indoor mall or “town center” style of shopping area where all the stores are designed to be accessible by foot traffic. That type of arrangement would maximize the number of people who could find living space, work, and shopping along the same transit system. Taking transit wouldn’t be for those one or two weekends a year you go to the zoo or to a home football game, it would be day in and day out to take you between home, work and shopping.

Dave H.

4

It’s the truth though. Why do you think that all the High Speed Rail vultures…errr I* mean VENTURES are so dependant upon the taxpayer being willing to play sap and help pay for lines that are so far away that they might as well not even be there?

Because the investment necessary is so steep that ‘online’ patronage would never be sufficient to provide a reasonable payback.

The customer base is so widely dispersed that the ROI would never be disbursed… [}:)]

5

Exactly, and city planners have wanted to do this forever. The problem is Americans don’t get that walkable neighborhoods with stores, offices, and train stations are a better way to live than in bedroom burbs miles from anything.

6

We gotta have a civil rights movement for people who don’t drive cars. Prohibit any new urban/suburban development that is not at least as accessible and functional for those who don’t drive as it is for those who do! Period! Paragraph! Furthermore . . .

7

Garyaiki and Lincol5390 both show a trait common to liberal control freaks. “Those ignorant peasants just don’t know what’s good for them. We enlightened folk do” Virtually every succesful mass transit system in the country serves a city that experienced it’s founding growth before private ownership of automobiles was common. The auto provides the average person w/ a degree of personal mobility undreamed of when the city cores of places like NYC, Chicago and San Francisco were laid out. The growth of suburbs since WWII is a manifestation of people CHOOSING the type of living arrangements they want. The idea regulating building so as to force the use of mass transit is not only laughable, it should be repugnent

8

Lincoln,
The Soviets had just such places…
Only they called them Gulags.
Not a prison in the conventional sense, but the economic bars and lack of any personal freedoms, like the right to choose where they lived and worked were just as effective as any prison cell block.
And, not that oddly, the apartment housing bears a close resemblance to a cell block.

Believe me; the Soviets have “mass transit” down to a fine science.
Count yourself lucky that you were never part of the “masses”!
Ed

9

Now there’s a couple fine examples of not getting it. The “Gulags” along Metro-North, Metra, and Caltrain are places successful Americans choose to live. And some even choose “prison cells” on Park Avenue or Nob Hill. They are free to move to unzoned Houston but somehow they don’t want to.

America has a frontier myth that real freedom is a 160 acre homestead where you can shoot pheasant for dinner. That’s not how most Americans live but too many try to fake it as urban cowboys or some comic book idea of a frontiersman.

If people would fess up that their lives are as soft as London hairdressers and learn a lifestyle that’s appropriate for metropolitan areas they might find civilization isn’t as bad as Ru***ells them it is.

10

Where do you get these ideas? Yes, people choose to live in the areas you mentioned. But if I were to take your philosophy that you and lincoln5390 seem to have, I would say “No, you cannot live there, you must move out to a suburb.” This is the first time I have heard freedom defined a 160 acre homestead. Freedom is being able to make you own choices. If you want and can afford 160 acres than move there. If you want to and can afford to live on Nob Hill then move there. But do not tell people they must live in a “walkable neighborhood”. If you like that lifestyle, then move to one. Why do you find it necessary to force other people into this? By the way, I see no posts by anyone named Rush.

11

Anyone who read my post or lincoln’s post without blinders on can see neither of us is telling people where they must live or forcing them to use mass transit.

Go ahead and make a sensible argument against voluntary I SAID VOLUNTARY walkable neighborhoods.

12

.“We gotta have a civil rights movement for people who don’t drive cars. Prohibit any new urban/suburban development that is not …”(fill in your personal favorite, his was about non drivers)

To which Gary agreed; “Exactly, and city planners have wanted to do this forever. The problem is Americans don’t get that walkable neighborhoods with stores, offices, and train stations are a better way to live than in bedroom burbs miles from anything.”

So, unless we build places that fit your personal wants and desires, we shouldn’t be allowed to build anything?

Note that Gary has stated that his vision, "walkable neighborhoods with…"as a statement of fact, as opposed to his opinion.
Also note that he said Americans should “learn a lifestyle that’s appropriate”…as if he has the right, or is allowed to choose lifestyles for someone else…

“America has a frontier myth that real freedom is a 160 acre homestead where you can shoot pheasant for dinner. That’s not how most Americans live but too many try to fake it as urban cowboys or some comic book idea of a frontiersman.”

So, now he resorts to the personal attack, which is often the last resort of those who have run out of salient facts to further their side of a debate.

It would be easy to follow his example, see below…

“If people would fess up that their lives are as soft as London hairdressers and learn a lifestyle that’s appropriate for metropolitan areas they might find civilization isn’t as bad as Ru***ells them it is.”
To which one could reply…

Would have no idea how soft a London hairdresser’s life is, don’t know any, so I guess we will have to take Gary’s word for it, assuming he must know from personal experience, or he might be implying that being as soft as a hairdresser is appropriate?

See, we can play the insult game all day long, if you choose….

And I don’t know too many folks w

13

Houston doesn’t have zoned areas? Does that mean heavy industrial can sandwich heavy residential?

14

I live less than two blocks from Acme Brick, (yes, it really is Acme) and Daniel Archer Valves is a few blocks away.
It is some what zoned, in that new residential areas are closed to heavy industry building there, but the older neighborhoods are cheek and jowl with many industries.

Of course, things like blast furnaces, mines and such or not here, but small manufacturing and distributing facilities are.

Trinity rail car builds tank cars smack dab in the middle of the near north side, within sight of downtown Houston!

Ed

15

Who like that? In Toronto, most industries are buffered by heavy or medium commercial before residential comes into play simply because industries have a tendency to lower property value which becomes less desirable to those who want to go into the realestate investments.

There is only a few spots in Toronto that I can think of where it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference and that is because it is the Waterfront and with CN/VIA/GO Union Station near it which does add some buffer but it is in downtown. The Gardener Express adds some buffer between Redpath Sugars and the downtown core too.

Most people I know prefer some kind of zoning just to protect their realestate investments for that purpose.

16

Wait a minute…I thought that your favorite was …

#6. Freight railroads to carry freeloading vagrants from dumpster to dumpster…

So is this an ultimatum? Like for the lasT time or you’re going to leave or jump off a bridge?

17

Peterson 6868 is really reaching to come up with five distinct types of rail systems. As I look at it, 1 and 2 are not so much distinct as different points on a continuum, light rail and streetcar have a lot in common. 3 and 4 are basically the same thing, it’s like making a distinction between various segments of the CTA Blue Line, which is variously surface, median strip, L and subway.

At any rate, all are quite expensive and consequently do need a pretty good population to justify building and operating them.

18

SEPTA .with all its faults has a very good incentive for its ridership
on the Philly-Paoli line. Commuter parking The Wynnewood parking lot
extends almost to the adjacent Narberth lot. Parking lot at Devon was n’t
that large so there is a Septa lot several blocks away on Lancaster Avenue.
From what I have seen all parking lots are always full. New multi-level
parking lot was being build at Ardmore station last time I was there.
Who uses these lots??? The type of person who would use his car to
go a few blocks to buy a pack of cigarettes, invalids, people who live
several miles away in the outer burbs. This is a source of revenue
for SEPTA. I believe SEPTA also has shuttle busses during
peak hours to some locations.

19

AMEN!! Anybody who wants to live like a rat in a box piled on top of other boxes and surrounded by other boxes, go ahead - it’s a free country. I would prefer to have a single-family, single-level home on a 1/2-acre lot, but can’t. I resent people who have an inflated opinion of their own intelligence trying to impose their opinions on me. If you think it’s so great, dive on in, but leave me alone to do what I want to do.

20

So,
How about it, Gary and Lincoln?

Would either one of you consider re-stating your original postings, in a manner that invites discussion as opposed to the “My way is the only way, and if you don’t like lit, lump it” style you employed before?

If so, I bet there are a lot of folks who would want to read what you find enjoyable about a “walkable” neighborhood.

I have lived in both a walkable neighborhood, and out in the Texas Hill country, and now live in a near town suburb of Houston, so I would like to hear your opinion on this, and how to fit the 3 million plus residents of Harris County in to a mass transit system.

Ed