Add Phoenix to the growing list of cities with a successful light rail launch. The 20-mile LRT line, which debuted late last December, averaged 30,600 riders per weekday, significantly above the 26,000 boardings per weekday anticipated by Metro.
Total January ridership was nearly 912,000,which was higher than the monthly total anticipated after one year of service, according to Metro Chief Executive Officer Rick Simonetta. Simonetta noted that Saturday ridership contributed to the overall number, with 10,000 more riders than expected. “We are very pleased with these numbers,” Simonetta told Metro’s governing board, noting that trains often were near capacity even outside rush hour peak loads.
Metro nevertheless is preparing for a ridership falloff when warmer weather arrives, though the authority is not certain how severe the impact might be.
Phoebee Vet: Here is possibly another Charlotte result!!
The naysayers on Phoenix light rail have been abundant from the start. And there has been some justification for their criticism, especially during the construction phase. Nonetheless, the general public has really taken to the Metro which is good to see. Crowded urban areas need alternative modes of transit and Phoenix has finally realized that more freeways are not the complete answer. As to the effect of the summer heat, the trains run on a frequent headway most of the day. John Timm
Charlotte is expecting a small drop in the March numbers because Wells Fargo (which bought Wachovia which was headquartered in Charlotte) and Bank of America (which is headquartered right across the steet from them in Charlotte) have eliminated hundreds of high end jobs in Charlotte City Center. However, Lynx is still running way above the planners’ estimates and the design phase of the next light rail line and the commuter rail line are proceeding on schedule.
City after city is learning that the system works well.
The disconnected track in the foreground is ex-Southern Pacific and goes back even farther to its predecessor. Long ago it served a creamery and later on a nearby flour mill and an Arizona Public Service power plant. APS stopped burning fuel oil and the mill closed in the last decade. Much of the old track and even a set of crossing signals with gates remained right up to the time of light rail construction. Metro follows much of the ROW through campus and on down to Apache Blvd. before heading over to Mesa. John Timm
To add to this, the route the light rail follows down Terrace Rd in Tempe, used to be an SP ROW where a portion of the old ‘Creamery Branch’ met up with the mainline at Normal Junction, MP 917.0. Many people don’t realize that Terrace Rd was an old railroad ROW. The rail in the image above was laid sometime in the late 1800s.
Many cities in Texas are saying no thanks to light rail. It is too expensive. Austin, Fort Worth, and San Antonio, which are three of the largest cities in Texas, have decided that the benefits generated by light rail do not justifiy the costs. Houston is reconsidering its plans to expand significantly its starter light rail system. They are going with commuter rail, in some instances, if it can be built along existing rights-of-way, and Rapid Bus Technology (RBT). Apparently the DOT is having some second thoughts about the cost of light rail. It has encouraged Austin, amongst others, to think RPT, which will start here in 2011 or 2012 if the transit authority can secure FTA funding.
Dallas opted for an extensive light rail system only to have it used by approximately three per cent of the Metroplex population. The subsidy required for each user is $3.22 per trip, which is more than double the farebox revenue. Interestingly, the HOV lanes in Dallas, which are operated by Dallas Area Rapid Transit, carry twice the number of people as ride the light rail trains.
Andy, Depending on where you are staying in Phoenix, it’s about 300 miles and six hours driving time. You can sometimes run into traffic congestion around Hoover Dam. The road is not four lanes all the way and carries a lot of traffic, so be alert. John Timm
This is a general note to people who post pictures to these forums. If you don’t size the picture properly, it distorts the display, i.e. it is necessary to scroll along the bottom of the screen to read any accompanying text.
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) operates 45 miles of light rail. It serves 35 stations with a total of 115 vehicles. In FY08 it accounted for 19.4 million passenger trips. The average week day ridership was 65,800, compared to an average of 29,400 on Saturday and 19,100 on Sunday. The average subsidy per passenger was $3.01 per trip.
DART and TXDOT operate 75 miles of High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lanes in the Metroplex. They carried 48.1 million commuter trips in FY08 or nearly 2.5 times the number of people carried on the light rail system. The average subsidy per passenger was $.18. Yep, that’s right: 18 cents verses $3.01 for the light rail.
I don’t have the capital costs of building the light rail lines vs. the HOV lanes, and I don’t have the time now to dig them out. But the subsidies tell the story. It cost considerably less to build the HOV lanes than to build the light rail infrastructure. The major reason is because the light rail system was built from scratch, although along abandoned rail lines for the most part, whilst the HOV lanes were developed on existing highways by using part of the center strip and making the other lanes a tad narrower. The advantage of highways is that they are shared access ways, which means the total cost is spread across multiple users, whereas a rail system tends to hoist a single user that has to eat all the costs.
At the end of the day, no matter how we shape the argument for light rail or public transit, most Americans prefer to commute in t
In your costs did you include the destination infrastructure to channel and park all those cars? After all, you include the cost of the stations and park and ride lots in the light rail figures.
It’s still not a fair comparison because with light rail you are including the cost of owning and maintaining the vehicles. Have you taken into account the buses and rental cars that use the HOV lanes? How about the DOT cost of maintaining them (Where I grew up they require sand, salt, and snow removal.
I have no delusions that the costs will ever be equal or in favor of rail, but I also think your numbers exagerate the difference. The simple fact is that rail allows a more dense population. The ROW takes up only the width of two tracks and the vehicles don’t require parking space. With short headways there is no way that a road can move the number of people that rail can move.
Picture trying to build something like Manhattan without the subway system.
I remember hearing all these same arguments when they were planning the DC Metro. Go there and try to take it away from them now…
Metroplex motorists drive to thousands of places for work, play, shopping, etc. In some instances, especially downtown, they pay a fee to park. In others the cost of the parking lots is embedded in a retailer’s pricing structure or in the building owner’s rents. Determining the cost would be nearly impossible. In any case, the cost of parking is paid for by and large by the motorists. And it is unlikely to account for the $2.83 difference between the HOV subsidies and the light rail subsidies.
For pay parking lot owners pay local and state taxes. If the cost of the parking is embedded in the owner’s rents, the owner pays local and state taxes, assuming that he or she earns a profit. Transit agencies pay no taxes; they simply eat them.
If you think that the cost differences are exaggerated, feel free to offer some contrary evidence?
I have lived in Texas for more than 35 years, of which 31 were spent in Dallas. During that time we had two good snow storms and two ice storms. The streets were clear within a day. Ice and snow in Dallas are so rare that it does not have any snow removal equipment; it just waits a few hours for the snow and ice to melt.
Public transit is necessary in metropolitan areas. And rail borne public transit is appropriate in major metropolitan areas such as New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, etc. But it not an optimum fit for most communities in the U.S., although many of them jumped on the light rail bandwagon because, well, it was the thing to do.
I campaigned for the implementation of the DART light rail system. Like most of the advocates I had no idea how much it would cost to implement and the magnitude of the operating subsidies. Neither did most of the other proponents. The last thing that
I’ve formed my opinion, I picture that Sam pretty much says public transit will never be as cost effective as private automobile except in very large dense populations, none of which actually exist on Earth.
Sam usually has some statistic available to support her claim, and will usually present it when asked, and sometimes even when not asked. I’m too lazy to look it up myself, and I bet most of us are just a lazy in that regard as me, so I accept her statistic, and pounce on every hole in her logic I can find.
You however believe that no rail route can go wrong. In my jolly trolley boy heart I want to agree with you, and it brings me great joy to hear you mention the great passenger loads in Charlotte, where they made a mistake by not building the light rail big enough for the demand. I wish every railroad had a problem with too many passengers, and I wish Phoenix well. Thank God I managed to mention Phoenix, so if I have to argue with the moderator I can claim we’re still on topic.
Now I’ve got to cherry pick and complain about one item in your post.
I agree that rail right of way is generally less intrusive than superhighways, and I definitely think a well manicured straight as an arrow Pennsylvania Railroad or Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee line is far more attractive than any asphalt road, but rail or no rail, the vehicles do require a parking space. Trolleys must spend the night somewhere,whether you call it carbarn, terminal, or yard.
