Albuquerque Light Rail (Santa Fe, Bernalillo: real estate, amusement park, bankrupt)

[dmderosa2k]

Light rail will never happen here. This city does so much to impede progress and is so against change it is unbelievable. The mayor is toying with people. It is all politics. He brings these things up so he can later kill them and look like he was saving the city from impeding disaster. Marty is the definition of a politician if there ever was one. Do not kid yourselfs. Albuquerque as it is now will be Albuquerque in 20 years. Maybe more people but no progress. If it gets out of planning stages, it will be so delayed by lawsuits that it will never happen.

[LLD]

I am spoiled having lived in the DC Metro area three times now and soon to be a fourth. There is just no comparison between the cities I've lived in without good public transport and the DC metro area which is excellent in public transport.

But it is all about proper planning and execution. A good and necessary system can go awry if things aren't done right. I also think Americans' attitudes in general need to shift about public transportation. It really would make people lives easier and better and improve quality of life and also allow them to live in farther and less expensive and more expansive places if we had things like high speed trains -- where you could live 100 miles from where you work. You'd have the best of both worlds -- city salaries and amenities and a retreat into the quiet country or very outer suburbs with more land etc.

I often think we are way too short sighted in this country. In terms of light rail vs bus though.... light rail can carry many more people at a time than a typical bus and is a lot less energy and pollution.... but if it isn't done right it is an eyesore and also if not run effeciently with decent schedules etc then people won't utilize and it becomes a burden.

[yukon]

DART didn't start with elevated rail. With the exception of the Central Expressway tunnel (underground, no above ground easement was available), all initial rail segments utilized unused tracks purchased from a major railroad (forgot who, sorry). Just prior to starting construction on the beginning rail sections, DART was having to fight the state legislature, who wanted to totally cut funding to DART. DART had been running in the red prior to this point. In the space of about 3 years, DART went from the state's biggest joke to National Transit Agency of the Year.

The rail was presented in stages, with each stage building on the prior one. The first stage implemented was the section with the largest bus ridership, which guaranteed the rail had a large ridership. The first leg was so successful that DART was able to move up the schedule for the second and third segments. As major business areas were serviced by rail, the bus service in those areas was rerouted into circular routes that provided access from rail station to businesses, and from residential areas to rail stations. DART is a good example of how to mix the various transportation options - light rail, commuter rail, monorail, HOV lanes AND bus. They now have posted the transit expansion plans thru 2030.

The only way rail can be successful is if it's part of a long-term plan (20 yrs+) that considers both present makeup and future anticipated development of a metropolitan area. Houston still hasn't figured this out. If ABQ wants a successful long-term transit plan, they should look very closely at both DART and MARTA.

[yukon]

BTW, many riders will utilize public transit if the time savings are worth it - it's not always about cost. When I lived in Dallas, the Express bus fares often cost more than gas for me to drive, but the time savings were well worth the extra $. Here in Tampa, it costs less to ride the bus, but with no HOV lanes, the bus takes the same road I do - and it takes me longer on the bus. Ergo, I'd rather spend the $$ on gas and save the time. The exact opposite of Dallas.

[mortimer]

casden asked in the whats-albuquerque-really-like thread:

> But if you can enlighten me on an alternative to SOV's and low
> occupancy, emission transmitting, vehicles ... that doesn't also
> have an impact on tax dollars than maybe I'll admit that I'm
> wrong about wanting ABQ to progress from the bus and other
> emission transmitting vehicles to higher occupancy "people movers".

Note that I started a lightrail thread, so if you respond, please use
that location. I'm double-posting this response to both here and there.

I'm assuming that you are referring to the bus as a "low occupancy
emission transmitting vehicle" (?)

The alternative to the SOV *is* the bus. If you are concerned about
bus emissions, there *is* such a thing as an electric bus. Dayton, OH
has them.

I rode the bus last Saturday afternoon and the double bus on the Central
Avenue express was packed. If only half of the people on there were
car owners then despite the evil bus emissions, I'm guessing that total
emissions were reduced.

Lightrail run on electricity simply moves the emissions to another place,
so lightrail is *not* zero emission. There is also no reason that a bus
cannot be built with good emission controls and hybrid technology would
be ideal for such a stop-go-stop sort of vehicle. In addition, solar
panels could be used on the large flat bus roof to help power the hybrid
system's batteries.

> In the larger cities that I've lived in, it seems that the light rail
> sytems are highly used by both people ....

If you ran a bus line down the exact path that the lightrail systems
were being run on in those large cities, people could still use the
system at far less cost. There is nothing that the lightrail has to
offer that cannot be duplicated cheaper using a bus.

[mortimer]

LLD observed:

> But it is all about proper planning and execution. A good and
> necessary system can go awry if things aren't done right. ...

> In terms of light rail vs bus though.... light rail can carry many
> more people at a time than a typical bus and is a lot less
> energy and pollution.

I am skeptical about that claim. Why would it take less energy
to move, say three full carloads of people on a train than to move
three full busses (assuming the same carrying capacity) ?

During off hours, it is not unusual for lightrail to have only a few
people in those same three cars. Sometimes, a lightrail system will
decouple a car or so, but during off-hours, I would say that they
use far more energy than cutting back to a single bus.

Your first statement is quite true and is the reason that people think
lightrail is so much better. They run along efficienct trunk lines with
nice stations and tend not to share the road with cars. Systems like
DART have elevated lines that make it even better. A lot of planning
goes into their systems and definitely accounts for some of the higher
costs. Lightrail is generally cleaner with a better clientele.

My original assertion still stands: There is no reason you can't run the
bus system the same way using the same infrastructure, etc. much
cheaper such that the same money could serve more people better.

[GregW]

Mortimer - you are correct in your assertion that pavement bound busses ware cheaper than light rail. They are also slower, smellier and way more annoying. I take a bus 45 miles each day each way during my commute to Boston and I would take a train if one were available. I cannot afford to drive because parking is nearly unavailable in the city and driving is really difficult. We are talking about Boston after all.

Albuquerque should really study the problem and develop a unified mass transit system that made it faster and more convenient to use than private cars. Busses to connect residential areas to the rail lines and then to the employment areas. Light rail uses less energy than busses is because the rolling friction of steel on steel is ten times less than rubber tires on pavement. Light rail is also easier to run on electric power that can be produced by a non-polluting nuclear power plant.

[Zoidberg]

They have non-polluting nuclear power plants now?

[LLD]

I'm not against buses. But I think they are smellier and take up much more space on the roads and also all the stopping and dropping off does affect the flow of traffic.

As to only a few riders being on a train... well that happens on plenty of buslines too. It's all about the time of day and the route being taken.

Bus systems are generally much more spread out and cover a bigger area so covering more miles etc etc... think energy usage and so forth where as trains are usually more centralized, and often utilize common tracks or something adacent to existing things too.

I haven't done an official analysis or comparison in terms of energy consumption. I'm generally in favor of public transport and think all kinds of systems are needed to work together. We need buses and commuter trains and light rail etc. It's really about getting a well planned and efficient public transport system that is easy for people to navigate and use.

On that note, as a human factors/usability engineer I can tell you that trying to figure out some of the ridculous schedules and procedures and payment options etc etc in several different cities tells me the proper planning was not done with the consumer or rider in mind.

[mortimer]

GregW mentioned:

> busses ware cheaper than light rail. They are also slower,
> smellier and way more annoying. I take a bus 45 miles each
> day each way ... We are talking about Boston after all.

We are talking about high-speed rail and not light rail now.

I don't know Boston, but I know Phoenix. Phoenix is building
a Light Rail system running E-W across the lower N part of the
metro area.

Where they are running the lighrail they could use busses.

Funds are being wasted on lightrail that could otherwise be
used to build a BART or CalTrain type system that could ferry
you folks in from 25-50 miles out in less time than driving.

> Light rail uses less energy than busses is because the rolling
> friction of steel on steel is ten times less than rubber tires
> on pavement.

The rolling friction is not really relevant to a system that
stops every few to several blocks. There, you are fighting
inertia and not friction or air resistance.

> Light rail is also easier to run on electric power ...

No it's not. A bus can be powered by the same lines and
electricity. As I mentioned earlier, there are cities
with electric busses.

People are just used to what they see; smelly busses that
put out diesel soot. A bus can be powered by the same
technology that runs lightrail or a Prius. It is an ideal
platform for it. As for being slower, if you ran a bus on
a raised platform with grade separations and/or favored
traffic lights, the bus would be just as fast. You simply
have to think more flexibly.