While I enjoy riding the Sounder to work and back home once in a while, I hardly think this is a return to halcyon days.
I agree that for people with homes and workplaces in the vicinity of the downtown stations, it can be an attractive commuting solution. The ride is comfortable, swift, and, sofar, reliable compared to buses, and I have a wide range of commuting times.
Yet it takes me longer to get to work and costs more except when gasoline goes to $4. I still need to upkeep a car to get to the station in the morning, find a parking spot, wait in the rain, and transfer to a bus to finish my commute. So I am still subject to the reliablility of the buses, especially in the evening when traffic or weather may hinder or stop the buses. If the train is canceled in the morning, I must still drive in - the bus will be too late. If the train is canceled in the evening, I am fortunate to be able to fall back on another bus route that can still get me home.
The capital costs of setting up this relatively simple commuter project were enormous despite largely using a current rr route, and the ridership is modest. The governments involved had to put up these costs for those few riders by taxing people who will never ride it and never even get the small benefits of lower numbers of autos on the roads.
Even yearly operating costs are not covered by the tickets as they only pay for about a quarter of this ongoing cost. Many of the riders would not ride it even with those taxpayer-subsidized tickets, and most be further enticed by employer-commuter programs which are often strong-armed by government agencies. My employer pays me $30/month to encourage me to ride; this allows it to count me in its government quota. In fact my transfer bus is also subscribed by two local employers, [one is Boeing and the other is Paccar which recently layed-off 80% of its employees building Kenworths at its old railroad car plant (PCF). So I wonder how long this bus route will exist.]
Reynold
Very true, but then there were more opportunities to ride in the fifties I'd guess...more streetcar lines still in use, more commuter rail lines in use, etc.??
This is encouraging news, but let's keep in mind that the U.S. population is almost twice what it was 52 years ago.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090309/ts_nm/us_usa_transit_public_3
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