Rail may be great as long as it goes where people want to go. Bus has the advantage that it can change routes to serve people. Businesses close, neighborhoods changes, but the tracks sit there. Many cities are finding that the shiny new trains they built don’t take the people from home to work. And just because you build a new station does not mean people and businesses will relocate there. DC is finding that out with some of their new Metro stations.
You mean like those property taxes that pays for schools even when you have no children? As opposed to the buses my taxes pay for when only 2% of the people ride them? Whats your point! Everyday our taxes pay for stuff we do not use but if we did we could not afford them if we payed the true cost.
Streetcars work if there is a dedicated right of way such as a Blv. meduim strip or reused railroad right of way that would give them a avantage over automobiles. The St. Charles line was slow by light rail standards even though it used a center meduim strip was slow because there was too many grade crossings and the ol cars were contstaly playing chicken with cars and peds. Even though the light rail my be slower then driving a dedicated right of way means consistancy and that to a commuter makes a difference over driving. The ablility to multi-task as in sleep or work on the way to work and as well as save on parking. Can dedicated bus lanes and busways do the same job? For some odd reason DOT engineers dont not like to give up lanes for buses but at the same time will give up lanes for light rail. The Issue I beleive is saftey the so called “light” rail vehicals are many times heaver and more destructive to a car then a bus is. DOT engineers is cars first even though the T in DOT means transportation
People enjoy riding the cars in a world where technology changes every five minutes, it provides continuity to everyday life, with a reach of experience that goes back 100 years.
It’s a community shared experience rather than the increasing isolated and synthetic world we inhabit. It’s full of squeals, ringing bells and groans it winds its way through streets. Its not instant gratification where we are zoomed at mega speed to another destination with hardly a moment to enjoy the passing scene. Heritage streetcars once rerooted in the American scene, are a part of our public traditions.
Yes but the DC Metro is routinely setting records for ridership. If you build it they will come if you are close to thems.
My point is actually quite similar to the subsidized school and bus examples that you cite, except that light rail takes irresponsible spending to breathtakingly new heights.
There are a few people out there who love buses, not many mind you but a few.
Bert
No it is the other way around, it is responsible spending because it is getting people out of their cars, into the more fuel efficent mode of transport. It is also keeping people off the roads and preventing massive traffic jams. Look at the Chicagoland area, our expressways suck at rush hour times, just think about how much worse they would be without Metra or the CTA. To fund both Metra and the CTA is a drop in the bucket compared to what it would cost to expand the expressways to meet the demand of the people that use mass transit.
Bert
{A} I doubt seriously that among any given group of people having transportation needs, the majority of them (who will not be rail enthusiasts/hobbyists) will not find any one mode to be more “fun” than the other. Suggesting that the fun of riding rail would be a material benefit over and above bussing, has got to be one of the more (ahem, trying to be polite) CREATIVE suggestions I’ve seen on this forum in a while. [2c]
{B} I’d really like to see the heavy passenger rail option mentioned in Mr Klepper’s analysis manage to board 80,000 passengers an hour through a single point of entry. Just envisioning the logistics of trying to empty a sports stadium in 60 minutes with everyone exiting in an orderly path in the same direction, sorting their change to buy a ticket, then finding a seat, challenges believability. [2c]
{C} At least those children receiving government subsidized education will grow up to become slaves ERR, I mean TAXPAYERS to help pay into social security to pay for my retirement. Some hobbyist special interest streetcar will only rust away eventually, until some fool preservationist will get the crazy idea that the past must be preserved, and seek a government grant ($tax dollars) to restore the thing. Big difference in payback potential, if you ask me. one is a bottomless pit while the other at least presents SOME premise of payback. (teach a man to fish, etc) [2c]
{D} Those of you who think that rail will ride better than tires on pavement are really overlooking how bad aged / neglected railway rides, as well as overlooking the benefit of pneumatic tires in cushioning the road. If what you are trying to argue is that brand new rail supporting brand new equipment rides smoother than busses on existing city streets, well, sure, but i’ll bet we could fix an awfull lot of bumpy streets for the cost it would take to install new rail systems. and, at least by putting that money into streets, it would benefit ever
But how many more lanes will be enough? What’s the count on the Washington Beltway? We can’t keep adding lanes as a way out of congestion.
Other alternatives must be studied. Sure, that land won’t be able to be used by limos or concrete trucks, but by removing present cars from the road - we can free up more space for the trucks, limos, and whatever needs to be on the road.
We as a society always wait until the proverbial boiler is about to explode before we act. I fear it may already be too late…have fun sitting in traffic.
G’day, Y’all,
Mr. Antigates, problem is, people do enjoy rails. Why? If you read “Future Shock” back about 1970, you might have seen Toffler’s statement that in an increasingly technological world, we hang onto our sanity by maintaining something old. Now Toffler didn’t mention riding trains specifically, but he stated that we try to do things our parents did. Our parents often rode trolleys or interurbans. My mother rode the Atlanta Northern from Smyrna to Atlanta, as did my wife’s mother during WW II. Slightly OT but both our grandfathers knew each other and my wife and I met at the other end of the state of Georgia.
Olden times seem like happy days so we associate trolleys with good times because our parents told us of the fun they had going into Atlanta to shop or go to the picture show.
I’ve never been to Detroit which is supposed to have good roads but Atlanta’s suck. Buses and cars have to bounce over the spaces betweeen concrete or over asphalt patches.
Take decades to install rail lines? Bull! When Seoul, Korea decided that its ex-Atlanta street cars were not enough to move the public, the government decreed that subways be built. Three years later they were in operation. It depends upon what the government wants as to what will get built and when.
The New Orleans trolleys will each hold two bus loads of passengers, NO Regional Transit Authority General Manager Will Mullett told me. Incidentally, he told me the steel rails were over 100 years old and still gave him a sense of security.
When people start debating rails vs roads, they-the road people-tend to make it seem like an all one way or another thing to scare motorists. You don’t need to get all the people off the roads. If you did there would be no gas taxes to HELP pay for the roads. Experts say gas taxes pay only 60% of a road’s cost.
The highway lobby also likes to say the trolley used to pay for itself but people quit riding it. People used to walk to the store, too, until post WW II zoning made that a
Certainly there is intolerable traffic. But it might help if the people in charge of building roads did not have a conflicting agenda to get everybody out of their cars. What could possibly be more to their benefit than jammed up traffic?
Ask anyone in St. MO. how much fun it is to go flying past all those cars in grid lock at either morning or evening transit times. They will tell you it is fun to ride the trolly system (LR) to the airport! [8D] They are not rail enthusiast just commuters. Same for D.C.
Then buy a studebaker for mental health, lol…
Hey, trains CAN be 'fun", I know that when I FIRST MOVED to Atlanta, riding the Marta trains was fun"…same thing when i moved to Oakland. Riding Bart was fun.
But what I’m saying is that in practical use, day after day, the enchantment will soon wear off, except for the dedicated rail enthusiast.
Which is what, like 1.5% of the population?
Why should 100% of the people be forced to over pay for limited use transportation, just to entertain rail nostalgists?
Afterall, isn’t that what Classic Trains Magazine is intended for? [yeah]
nostalgia?
Ask Washington DC if their METRO is nostalgic.
We have to stop building transit as something that stands on its own. Too much of our transportation options are isolated. Commuter rail isn’t the answer in and of itself. But it is a crucial piece int he transportation puzzle. I could not imagine how DC could function today withouit their METRO. And it is not something that has existed for 100 yrs, but rather just the past 25.
If done right, and planned right, it will succeed. Will it replace the highways? Of course not. But we can not put all our eggs into one basket. We have been doing that for decades, and look at where it has gotten us. Suburban hell and gridlock city.
"{B} I’d really like to see the heavy passenger rail option mentioned in Mr Klepper’s analysis manage to board 80,000 passengers an hour through a single point of entry. Just envisioning the logistics of trying to empty a sports stadium in 60 minutes with everyone exiting in an orderly path in the same direction, sorting their change to buy a ticket, then finding a seat, challenges believability. "
Yep was done every year with the ARMY/NAVY Game in the 1940s…Pennsy did it I believe…
So what your saying is that all big city rail transportation is here just for the dedicated rail enthusiast? I think there are many people who depend on rapid transit to get to work that would argue that point.
Bert
A figure I learned over 30 years ago has stuck with me: one track of a double-track rail line can move more people than an eight-lane freeway.
You don’t understand.
the figure cited is some “flying mile” type optimized number, where the passengers were no doubt loaded at various and sundry points , taking well over an hour, and then paraded past one point for an optimal result…best ;possible reading SET UP, in other words.
So,lets do the same for cars, put 5 people in 100,000 cars, line them up bumper to bumper, give them a flying start, and then see how many of them can speed past one measuring point on the highway over an hour, and use that figure for the “auto” number.
i guarantee you they didn’t load, then transport 80,000 people over the same pair of rails, all in 60 minutes time.
getting 80,000 people all onto the train in one hour would be Herculean, all by itself
No, that isn’t what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that most argument made in support for rail mass transit on this forum, is hobbyist sourced, and should be regarded as such.
Maybe rail enthusiasts “enjoy” commuting by rail, but thats no reason to ***-U-ME that everyone feels the same way