If Dave didn't make it up, he has only to provide the citation to the study that established that number as the threshold where rail in the street becomes better than buses.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Phoebe Vet Your attempt to justify the huge number that you apparently pulled out of thin air does not hold water. How many buses and how many drivers does it take to run a bus every minute and a half, which you stated is perfectly realistic. You claim to count the interest on the rail infrastructure but I don't see any interest on the cost of purchasing all those buses and THEIR maint facilities. You claimed that your number is the threshold of when rail becomes reasonable. The number is ridiculous and I believe you just made it up.
Your attempt to justify the huge number that you apparently pulled out of thin air does not hold water.
How many buses and how many drivers does it take to run a bus every minute and a half, which you stated is perfectly realistic. You claim to count the interest on the rail infrastructure but I don't see any interest on the cost of purchasing all those buses and THEIR maint facilities.
You claimed that your number is the threshold of when rail becomes reasonable. The number is ridiculous and I believe you just made it up.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
My figure seems astromonical but is accurate if you want the overall expense of the streetcar or light rial line running in a street with other traffic to be less than running buses on the same street. And it is not really astronomical. Our Jerusalem Light Rail handles 110,000 separate journies each weekday, on one line, one route. I also pointed out that there may be economical development reasons to run streetcars, in the street, for far fewer passengers per day . But a success that has only say 1500 journeys each day seems problamatical to me. That would be 30 bus trips (with standees making up for the lack of a full load on other trips) or with 7AM - 10pm, ever thirty minutes.
I am counting the cost of interest on the capital expense of installing the track and power, the streetcars themselves, and the yard and shops. And conditions may vary. I am assuming all street track, in pavement, with no rail right-of-way ready to use and no economical regular tie ballast construction. I am assuming simple overhad wire with modern constant tensioning instead of complex railroad-like heavy-duty catenary. I am assuming regular pole construction without ties span wire to existing building or lamposts. Etc.
Articulated buses and trolleybuses can handle about 140 people with a full standing load. If we assume an average load all day of 60, which is reasonable, then we have 1000 trips a day for my figure as the upper limit for a bus lines. Now we divide by two, because we are talking about the entire route and not just one direction. So we have 30,000 people each way over a 15 hour, 750 minute, period, 500 trips each way each day. The normal traffic light cycle in New York City is 1-1/2 minutes, so we are talking about one bus each cycle, perfectly realistic.
On St. Catherins Street in Montreal in the streetcar era, seven or eight streetcars would cross on one green, as coupled in a train, but actually operated seperately!
Don't get commuter rail confused with rapid transit rail Rapid transit passengers usually don't ride to an end terminal but many are getting on and off at stations between end points. One seat can be occupied several times in a single trip plus many will stand. Commuter rail riders usually get on at a station and ride to an end terminal (GCT, NYP, Hoboken) or junction (Newark Broad, Newark Penn, Secaucus Jct, Jamaica for example) and usually occupies a seat on whatever part of the trip they are on.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
John WR New Jersey Transit multi level rail cars carry 140 people each. That is 1120 people in an 8 car train, a few less allowing for one handicapped accessible rest room and the engineer's cab.
New Jersey Transit multi level rail cars carry 140 people each. That is 1120 people in an 8 car train, a few less allowing for one handicapped accessible rest room and the engineer's cab.
I agree with your argument, but, unlike NJT, intra urban rail, like light rail, subways, and street cars do not worry about each passenger having a seat. The Siemens S70s used here in Charlotte claim a capacity of 236 each but have only 68 seats. FYI: The single 10 mile long Lynx Blue Line in Charlotte carries an average of 15,000 people per day. A 10 mile extension of the line is currently under construction.
I agree, That said, I strongly support rail in high density corridors but I do not support putting rail in the street mixed with rubber tire traffic.
Oil is good, water is good, but oil and water do not mix. Steel wheels and rubber tires do not play well together.
True. I was being generous. That 60K looks like a completely arbitrary number that should be about 3,000-4,000.
That is still a FULL bus every 5 minutes 18 hours a day.
Perhaps he meant 6,000? 120 buses running a route each day sounds like a fairly busy route.
daveklepper `1. If a bus line handles more than about 60,000 people a day, it usually will make economic sense to convert it to a streetcar line
`1. If a bus line handles more than about 60,000 people a day, it usually will make economic sense to convert it to a streetcar line
What is the source of that astronomical number?
The maximum capacity of a bus is 50 passengers. By my calculations that means that if more than 1,200 bus trips per day are required on a given route it makes economic sense to run a street car.
60,000 people a day sounds like a real challenge for even light rail. If a line operates 24 hours a day that is an average of 2500 people an hour or 41 people a minute. However, no doubt most people would ride during the rush hours.
New Jersey Transit multi level rail cars carry 140 people each. That is 1120 people in an 8 car train, a few less allowing for one handicapped accessible rest room and the engineer's cab. During the rush hours I would think you would need at least 5 trains (carrying a total of 5600 people) each hour but fewer trains outside the rush hour. Or, during rush hours, you might have a constant stream of large articulated buses but I wonder if they could keep up with the crowds.
`1. If a bus line handles more than about 60,000 people a day, it usually will make economic sense to convert it to a streetcar line even if the lanes must be shared with general traffic. The investment in physical plant and vehicles will be paid off by far more economical handling of the passengers and by some added travelers switching from auto to public transportation, since on the average, it costs half as much on a passenger-mile basis to carry a person on a streetcar than on a bux. (Larger capacity vehicles for more efficient manpower usage, and terrifically lower vehicle maintenance costs, like about 10%!)
2. Most new streetcar lines do not meet this criterion. Most are justified on the basis of economic boom along their routes, that land values will increase, more people will shop or work or live or whatever. In many cases this case has been proved . But when I read about a streetcar "success" that handles less that 2000 people a day, I have to question the wisdom of building the line in the first place.
You mean The Modern Great American Streetcar Scandal.
I thought this post was about the financially overblown, mindless streecar projects sprouting up all across America. You know, the ones costing tens of millions of dollars that merely involve having a streetcar line circle the block in some urban renewel real estate development that everyone has to drive to get to so as to ride around the block between their shopping or fast food activities.
Streecars are supposed to be line-haul transportation, not a quasi-amusement park ride.
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