15. Pittsburg, pa ==== Transit authority PAT announce light rail service under Allegheny river to north side of river near NFL stadium will start Mar 21.
16. Hampton roads, Virginia beach ---- VB mayor calling for a referendum for expansion of HRT light rail line eastward from Norfolk to center of town or all way to beach. Vote proposed to be taken during Nov general election.
14. Portland, Or: Vancouver, WA --- FHWA, FTA and US DOT have given final approval and funding commitment for a replacement I-5 bridge. The bridge will include a double track Portland light rail line that starts at the present end of the Yellow line ( ? ) at the MAX Expo center station in Portland and will continue into Vancouver to Clarke college
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/11/11/2767136/light-rail-train-bumps-pedestrian.html#disqus_thread
Light-rail train strikes pedestrian
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Sam:
I have never questioned your numbers. I admire your skill at finding and correlating them. Where we disagree is philosophical. I believe that the value to the community exceeds the people who actually ride. I don't disagree with your calculation of the total cost of the system. I disagree with dividing that number by the number of riders as if only the riders benefit. Every person who rides does not need a destination parking space and does not take up capacity on both inbound and outbound roads, but also on city streets which are very expensive or even impossible to expand. Replacing rail with road is not the total cost to compare. How many busses would be required to transport the same number of people that a light rail line moves per day? One S-70 light rail vehicle can move 250 people at a time with one operator. Those vehicles can be consisted up to three still with one operator. How many busses with how many drivers would it take to replace that, and how much road capacity would they consume?
Your comment about Phoenix and the garbage does not actually address my garbage comment. Charlotte, too, bids out trash collection. As a result, some sections of the city are served by government employees and some are served by a private company, BUT THEY ARE ALL PAID WITH TAX DOLLARS. I was comparing to more rural areas where private companies bill residents directly and people pay by the can. I wouldn't have a problem with the actual operation of the rail system being bid out to private companies if they can do it more efficiently, but I still believe it should be funded publicly.
Phoebe Vet Sam: I understand your background is number crunching in a for profit industry, but I believe that you focus too much on the cost and value for individual customers instead of it's value to the community. Mass transit benefits the entire community, not just the actual riders. Rail is almost always on time regardless of traffic density and transports larger numbers of people than busses can. Most cities with well established rail transport would be paralyzed if the rail was removed. Most services provided by governments are not cost effective, that's why they are provided by the government rather than the private sector. Some services that are provided by the government in cities and private enterprise in small communities demonstrate that the best. For profit water systems are much more expensive for consumers than community systems. For profit garbage collection is more expensive than government garbage collection. But where people have to pay someone to pick up their garbage, people try to find ways around it. They take their garbage to dumpsters in the middle of the night, and throw it out in the woods near their homes. I had one tenant who just stored it in the family room until he moved out and left 75 bags of garbage behind.
I understand your background is number crunching in a for profit industry, but I believe that you focus too much on the cost and value for individual customers instead of it's value to the community.
Mass transit benefits the entire community, not just the actual riders. Rail is almost always on time regardless of traffic density and transports larger numbers of people than busses can. Most cities with well established rail transport would be paralyzed if the rail was removed.
Most services provided by governments are not cost effective, that's why they are provided by the government rather than the private sector. Some services that are provided by the government in cities and private enterprise in small communities demonstrate that the best. For profit water systems are much more expensive for consumers than community systems. For profit garbage collection is more expensive than government garbage collection. But where people have to pay someone to pick up their garbage, people try to find ways around it. They take their garbage to dumpsters in the middle of the night, and throw it out in the woods near their homes. I had one tenant who just stored it in the family room until he moved out and left 75 bags of garbage behind.
Focus too much on cost? Someone has to pay for the service. If the users don't pay for it, then the taxpayers have to pick-up the tab.
Public transit benefits segments of the community. In Dallas, for many it is those who don't have an alternative mode of transportation, i.e. they don't own a car or cannot drive, etc. Approximately 40% to 45% are in this category. The other major group are commuters, who for a variety of reasons, prefer public transport to alternative modes. They use public transit for the morning and evening rush to and from work. The third group, which is relatively small, are those who use public transit for special events, e.g. State Fair of Texas, events at the American Airlines Center, etc. Recall that more people use the buses and HOV services than the light rail, which comes in a distinct third.
Public transport is important for the community. The key question is the form that it should take, which in part is a question of how much the community can afford. Even the DOT has pulled back on its endorsement of light rail because of the costs. Another related question is how many people will use in the system? In the DFW Metroplex, less than five per cent of the population over 18 years of age use public transport.
Several years ago Phoenix decided to bid out garbage collection. Apparently city employees were not managing it very well. Interestingly, the Phoenix garbage collectors, who were unionized, were allowed to bid for the contract. They won! How did they do it? They got real about their cost structure and responded to the competitive market place. In my community trash collection is privatized. The service is excellent. And less expensive than was the case when city employees picked up the trash. The major reason is because the private contractor employees are more productive. Not because they are paid poorly! This by the way is a model that is found in many Texas communities.
Your correct in claiming that most services provided by governments are not cost effective. It is the very reason why I believe that government should only offer those services that cannot be provided by a well regulated, competitive entity. Government should not run commercial enterprises that can be run by a competitive entity. This includes intercity passenger rail!
In DFW the buses and light rail are operated by public service employees. However, the Trinity Railway Express is outsourced to Herzog. My contacts at DART tell me that they get a better deal from Herzog than would be the case if public service employees operated it. This model, by the way, is used by many commuter rail agencies. Although they are sole source contracts, the managers of the service provider know that if they do not meet the performance standards, they will lose the contract when it comes time to renew it. Just ask Amtrak, which over the past year or so has lost two contracts because it did not perform well.
The second page of Light Rail snips is spread beyond the screen and, thereby, is difficult to read. It appears to be caused by an improper link to another web site.
One question raised in response to greater than anticipated riders on DART's Green Line, in conjunction with the State Fair of Texas, is whether Dallas needs the light rail system. That depends on your perspective.
DART's system consists of buses, light rail, para-transit, commuter rail between Dallas and Fort Worth, and HOV lanes. The bus subsidy in FY10 was $5.10 per passenger vs. $4.21 for light rail, $6.19 for commuter rail, $42.91 for para-transit, and 21 cents for HOV users, which require at least two passengers per vehicle, except for motorcyclists.
Buses carried 34.5% of the riders vs. 16.2% for light rail, 2.3% for commuter rail, .7% for para-transit, and 45.5% for HOV. The total is slightly less than 100% because of charter operations and rounding.
DART is financially stressed for a variety of reasons. Heading the list, however, is the cost of the light rail system. I was all for it in the beginning, but the cost has caused me to rethink my position. If we could do it over again, I would opt for a smaller rail system or perhaps none at all, other than commuter rail, with an emphasis on Rapid Bus Technology, although in all fairness it was not on the horizon at the time I and others were advocates for the light rail system.
12. Phoenix Valley Metro light rail ==== Reports record month for Sept of 1.24M pass. Average of 47828 / day. Had a record day Sept 9 of 60,437. Daily average is close to 2020 projections that will be longer routes.
11. Dallas ---- DART light rail reports severe overloading downtown due to fair and is adding additional trains to green line. So was light rail needed in dallas ??
10. Dallas TRE and DART: -- Both systems report overloads today (SAT) due to football games and a fair. Have been running light rail on 10 minute headways and asking passengers to be patient. Guess they have not made ridership projections??
9. Seattle -- In the funny items one TBM caused a 60 ft geyser probably from the TBM's pumped in boring mud.
http://www.kirotv.com/mostpopular/29409140/detail.html
blue streak 1 8. Seattle Link: 2nd TBM started boring Jul 8. After more than a week of break in and tweaking + training of additional personel beginning next week a second shift of the TBM begins. A third shift is not scheduled due to truck traffic to remove excavated dirt overnights.
8. Seattle Link: 2nd TBM started boring Jul 8. After more than a week of break in and tweaking + training of additional personel beginning next week a second shift of the TBM begins. A third shift is not scheduled due to truck traffic to remove excavated dirt overnights.
New progress report on Seattle Link TBMs:
http://us.mc837.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.partner=sbc&.gx=1&.tm=
1317411903&.rand=aoh935elnsgp8#_pg=showMessage;_ylc=
X3oDMTBubmxpZHRvBF9TAzM5ODMwMzAyNwRhYwNkZWxNc2dz&mid=
1_309611_AEpVk0UAAQtDToYDGQR0fkIj0Gc&fid=Inbox&sort=date&order=
down&startMid=0&filterBy=&.rand=527011486&hash=06f41a737575a3a4e70e1a65c01fe81d&.jsrand=
731895
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/22/2630420/raw-video-woman-hit-by-light-rail.html
Charlotte's S-70 hit a pedestrian this morning.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/22/2629397/pedestrian-hit-by-light-rail-train.html
blue streak 1 Atlanta's MARTA ordered 4 Siemens S-70 street cars for September 2012 delivery and early 2013 service
Atlanta's MARTA ordered 4 Siemens S-70 street cars for September 2012 delivery and early 2013 service
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
14. Canada Ottawa -- The "O" line is ordering 6 new low floor DMU sets to increase capacity from 1100 pass/hr to 2000. Fate of original equipment 3 DMU sets is unknown. To operate on mostly single track 2 new passings tracks will be constructed allowing headways to decrease from 15 to 8 minutes. Ridership now is 12,000 / day. [ twice original 2001 projections ]
blue streak 1 13. Charlotte --- Phoebee how did you miss this one for us? LaHood announces 25M grant to Charlotte for its street car
13. Charlotte --- Phoebee how did you miss this one for us? LaHood announces 25M grant to Charlotte for its street car
Because it's old news. The line, which has been very substantialy shortened, is already half built. About 3,000 feet of track were laid during the reconstruction of Elizabeth Avenue in 2009.
The Streetcar Project is proposed to run from Beatties Ford Road near Interstate 85 in west Charlotte to the former Eastland Mall site in east Charlotte. This grant is only for 1.5 miles of it.
http://theoverheadwire.blogspot.com/2009/02/elizabeth-avenue.html
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/19/2621933/commuter-alert-falling-debris.html
A large piece of a building facade fell on the light rail tracks.
The light rail is running on schedule but is not stopping at that station.
12. Portland -- TriMet ridership up 3.2%
11. Seattle / Tacoma -- Sound transit reported 2nd Q ridership increases on Tacoma link of 16% and Seattle link of 10%. Sounder ridership was flat.
10. PORTLAND, OR: Tri Met announced July light rail ridership up from 15% - 16.5% based on line. This from last year. Noted that bus ridership stayed flat.
9. Norfolk = The light rail line is scheduled to start free rides next Fri the 19th. So a test train was running yesterday and a hit and run car struck a S=70 test train. Video is hoped to catch the perp'
blue streak 1 6. Seattle Link: Announced Wed Jun 29 that tirst of 3 TBMs has started boring from U of Washington station and has gone 320 ft so far.
6. Seattle Link: Announced Wed Jun 29 that tirst of 3 TBMs has started boring from U of Washington station and has gone 320 ft so far.
7. Seattle south streetcar: Ridership on the short 1.3 Mile route up to a daily 3000 riders for July ; It is above projections and much above critics estimates.
Light rail has its place. But it is not a panacea. As the folks in Dallas are finding out. Here is a link to an interesting editorial from a recent issue of the Dallas Morning News:
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20110629-editorial-trend-lines-for-dart-rail-are-going-the-wrong-way.ece
Part of the problem is a failure of expectations. Oftentimes proponents of light rail over estimate the benefits and under estimate the cost. Unfortunately, with light rail, if they get it wrong, correcting it is practically impossible. Tearing up the infrastructure and moving it is usually out of the question. On the other hand, if the proponents of Rapid Bus Technology get it wrong, it is much easier to change the routes, etc.
According to the proponents of light rail, it will attract development (residential, business, etc.) along the rights-of-way and near the stations. But it has not happen that way in Dallas or at least not to the extent claimed by the proponents of DART's light rail system. In fact, the greatest development in Dallas has been in Uptown, which is not served by the light rail system.
So who pays for the failure of the system to meet its expectations. The taxpayers. Wow, who would have believed it?
5. Seattle Link Sound Transit: Announced that final contract arbitration and payment for the Central Link light rail from downtown SEA to Tukwila . Project was completed on time (actually a few weeks early) and underbudget (actual $2.32B $117M under budget [about 2% under]).. Great to know someone can do what they promise!!
3. MBTA: announced completion of Blue line State Street station with full connections to Orange line.
4. New Orleans: Ground breaking for Canal St street car extension JUN 7. 1.5 mile extension will go to N.O. Union Passenger Terminal. Finally a connection to Amtrak.
We have 20 of those S-70s here in Charlotte. I like them.
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