Albuquerque Light Rail

[yukon]

My issues with Tampa (not ABQ) mass transit are because I've lived in cities with decent transit, be it light rail or other means. I'm very impressed that ABQ, as small as it is, IS trying to address this issue now instead of waiting until it's too late and there's no room to obtain easements, rights of way, etc. Does Dallas' light rail count as "functional long term"? Lived there 12+ years without a car, before and after light rail. Awesome system considering Dallas is a sprawling suburban area. But I'm for mass transit in any form

[GregW]

This issue of TRAINS Magazine has a very encouraging article about the light Rail system in Salt Lake City and surrounding area. I think that they should continue the investment not only on the North/South corridor but East/West as well. It may tale some time to develop a rider ship but the investment would be money well spent. A rail system from Los Lunas to Bernalillo with four trains per day to Santa Fe would probably be filled fairly quickly.

IMHO the ideal system involves taking a small car to the train station (plenty of parking provided), riding the train to within walking distance to work and doing the reverse in the afternoon. I know this is parochial but the bigger eastern cities have been doing this for over 100 years and it seems to work very well. For what it is worth, Los angles during the 1930's was laid our around very light rail (trolley) lines that functioned very well until they were bought up and destroyed by the auto interests in the ‘40s.

I must admit I have a bias toward small railroads mainly because I helped build a narrow (20" gauge) amusement park railroad near Albany, NY when I was a kid some 50 years ago. I would kind of like to build another some day but do not really expect to. I think the narrow gauge commercial railroads like the Portland harbor and Wiscasset, Waterston and Farmington museums in Maine. The trains are small enough to go nearly anywhere but large enough to carry 40+passengers per car. They do not have to be powered by antique steam engines but can be self-powered cars, locomotive driven trains or an overhead catenary. Don’t get me wrong, I love antique engines and consider them engineering marvels for the time but there has been over a century of knowledge about how to do it better since they were the only means available.

[mortimer]

Danhedonia tapped out a question:

> How many detractors of light rail have lived for more than
> 3 years in a city that had a functional, long-term rail system?

Why the "3 year" minimum? What good does living in proximity
to such a system serve?

GregW recommended:

> IMHO the ideal system involves taking a small car to the train
> station (plenty of parking provided), ...

b-b-but that would entail the continued use of the automobile as a means of
transportation. I think that violates some people's vision of mass transit.

I would also add to your "ideal system:" (plenty of [covered] parking provided)

I would also add [air conditioned and/or heated] waiting areas where busses
(or trains) greet you under a cover. In addition, streetside waiting areas
should be under a cover to protect either from the sun or the rain.

This is one reason that the myth of light rail superiority over busses is perpetuated.
I can't recall one light rail waiting area that wasn't nice and I can only recall a few
bus stops that were better than crappy.

Light rail systems are engineered to be nice and bus systems are engineered to
be slow, noisy, dirty, and inefficient so we assume that the problem can't be fixed.

[sveasgrandad]

Free" buses vs. "expensive" rail?

Myth:

There seems to be a widely held notion among the public – including many politicians, journalists, etc. – that rail transit systems, such as light rail transit (LRT), are weighted down with substantial heavy capital expense, while buses are more or less "free". Rail transit critics exploit this misconception by emphasizing the relatively high installation costs of new rail systems ("BILLION$$$ for rail") vs. the relatively lower costs of simply operating buses on city streets and freeways. "Why build expensive rail? Buses can do the same thing cheaper" is a familiar refrain in local debates over proposed new rail transit starts.

Reality:

Bus systems incur sizable capital expenses, too, as well as rail, with typically much higher operating and maintenance (O&M) costs; often, when you add up all these costs and account for the relative life of all the infrastructure and rolling stock, plus the work performed (measured in passenger-mileage or passenger-km), you may find that rail actually gives amazing "bang for the buck".

To demonstrate this, the Light Rail Now Project team carried out an analysis of transit performance data from St. Louis Metro, comparing the total operating and maintenance (O&M) plus capital costs of both Metro's bus transit and MetroLink light rail transit (LRT) systems for the period 1996-2005, using National Transit Database Agency Profile data gathered by the Federal Transit Administration.

The table below presents total costs (capital fixed facilities and rolling stock, and O&M) for each mode over the ten-year period (millions of US dollars), and the total passenger-mileage (millions) carried by each mode over that period:

NOTE: I cannot figure out how to put this graph in here in an understandable format, but its at
http://www.lightrailnow.org/myths/m_mythlog001.htm#STL_20070531which is also at the end of this post.
Source: Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database, 1996-2005]

It is particularly interesting to note that, even with its heavy capital costs, when operational costs are considered, St. Louis Metro's LRT in this period exhibits total costs slightly less than the agency's bus operations. However, higher total passenger-mileage was carried on the bus system, so a more complete analysis would require taking into consideration the differing life-cycle costs for each mode (e.g., railcars last considerably longer than motor buses) by annualizing capital costs.

To obtain a total annualized cost figure for each mode, capital costs were annualized using common economic analysis (see discussion below). Annual operating costs were averaged for the 10-year period, as was annual passenger-mileage for each mode – reflecting the advantages of the longer lives of both LRT infrastructure and rolling stock.

For bus, average annual O&M costs were $104.6 million, and average passenger-mileage was 139.0 million. For LRT, average annual O&M costs were $26.2 million, and average passenger-mileage was 104.8 million.

Via this "averaging" method, with annualized capita costs, the total cost per passenger-mile for each mode was calculated as follows:
• Bus – $0.88
• LRT – $0.74

This suggests that, with total capital and operational costs considered, St. Louis's "capital-intensive" LRT ends up costing approximately 16% less per passenger mile than the agency's supposedly "cheap" bus system.

This analysis was corroborated by a slightly different methodology – calculating the cost per passenger-mile for the final year, 2005, only. In this case, the annualized capital costs for each mode were added to the O&M cost for 2005, and then divided by the passenger-mileage for each mode in 2005 to obtain a total cost per passenger-mile figure for that year:
• Bus – $0.97
• LRT – $0.82

Through this method (which adjusts somewhat for more recent inflationary increases), LRT still comes out about 15% less than bus service In terms of work performed (i.e., passenger-miles carried).

The assumptions used for annualizing capital costs depart significantly from those required by FTA (after all, this is a form of benefit-cost analysis, not an exercise in meeting FTA's New Start project qualification benchmarks). Thus, an annualization (discount) factor of 5% was used, rather than the 7% mandated by FTA – given today's interest and inflation rates, it is difficult to justify anything above about 5% for a public works investment.

In this assessment, a 50-year life is assumed to be reasonable for LRT infrastructure because this includes right-of-way (ROW), to which even FTA assigns a 100-year life. FTA's mandatory life expectancy for railcars is 25 years, which seems unreasonably low compared with industry experience. Various sources report a 30 to 35-year economic life for rail rolling stock; this analysis has used 30 years.

The FTA's average life for a bus of 12 years, on the other hand, does seem reasonable in light of widespread industry experience, and this is corroborated by reliable documentary evidence. For the economic life of bus fixed facilities, 45 years has been used for several reasons: (1) Buses run mainly on public streets, so there's very little need for ROW acquisition and cost. (2) Many bus facilities, such as sidewalk signage, benches, etc., are much less durable than comparable items on rail stop or station platforms. (3) Bus pavement has a shorter life than rail track infrastructure, and their salvage value is basically nil.

Bottom Line of this analysis: At least in the case of St. Louis Metro's bus and rail operations, examination of actual total capital and O&M costs over a ten-year period suggest that investment in LRT has lowered the total unit cost of providing public transport mobility. And this simply accounts for direct agency costs, without consideration of the array of significant additional benefits of rail service for passengers and the community.

http://www.lightrailnow.org/myths/m_...m#STL_20070531

Finally, for those of you who still think that trucks and cars are more efficient than diesel locomotives:

A gasoline engine, like in an automobile or truck, has a thermal efficiency (the conversion of fuel into work) of 8 or 9%. In comparison, a diesel engine has a thermal efficiency of about 30%.

See http://exotic.railfan.net/dieselfaq.htm

A diesel locomotive at its most efficient can move a ton of weight 436 miles on a single gallon of fuel, according to the Association of American Railroads, making a full train about 10 times thriftier than your new hybrid. "Hands down, traveling by rail is the most fuel-efficient and least-carbon-intensive way you can go," says Nancy Kete, director of the World Resource Institute Center for Sustainable Transport.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145869?tid=relatedcl

[GregW]

I travel to a park & ride lot served by an intercity bus line every work day. This year they finally built a (over built actually) a grand bus station that, ironically, looks like an old fashioned small town railroad station. Finally we can wait inside on a freezing January morning instead of out in the sleet and wind.

I mentioned that the stations should have plenty of parking since our suburbs have already expanded enough that walking to the train is impractical. Many of the stops on the metro Boston system are within walking distance of the riders living in the inner suburbs but not of the riders in more dispersed housing. The point is not to have people stop driving completely but to have them drive less.

I hope that, for the selfish reason that I plan on moving there someday, Albuquerque, and other places in NM, keep working on light rail transportation. I am thinking about the practicality of smaller trains that could be run by computers and dispatched in proportion to the demand. Just some thoughts on this topic..

[Rob Martinez]

I am all for the Rail Runner AND light rail in Albuquerque. I am also for off shore drilling. But we do need to have different modes of transportation to get people around in the future. Some say "people won't use it." Wanna bet? When gas gets to $5 or $6 a gallon, people will use light rail.

Some people say "we will get future generations in debt." Guess what? That's already a done deal, thanks to the war in Iraq. Younger generations are going to be paying that one off for decades. And it will take raised taxes to do it. I'd rather pay higher taxes and get light rail than for some crazy war on the other side of the world.

Having no taxes and no public transportation works when you are thirteen colonies and are basically a rural economy. But when you have a growing population with industry and urban areas, taxes and public transportation are just reality.

[desert sun]

I would use light rail if it were convienent to me, in 2 weeks Im gonna try out the rail runner for the 1st time and take it into downtown for a concert.

[trappedinNM]

Originally Posted by Rob Martinez

When gas gets to $5 or $6 a gallon, people will use light rail.

At what price will they use the Bus? In other words, will people use the bus at $6 a gallon also? Or does it have to be $10/gallon before they lower themselves to the bus? Is light rail sexier? The question is rhetorical - of course they will use the bus.

I'm not opposed to light rail, but think it is a waste of money when there will be no net increase in ridership. Why not use the funds to improve the infrastructure in other areas of the city? Central has a dissproportionate amount of service compared to others areas of the city. There is NO bus service on Tramway or Paseo. Try and take the bus from Taylor Ranch to anywhere. Try and take the bus from North Albuquerque to anywhere. Where is the Rapid Ride for Paseo Del Norte? Tramway?

If you talk to AbqRide, they will tell you that they are focusing their efforts on "areas hit hardest by high fuel prices". Exact words! In other words, my $5k in property taxes and thousands in State taxes is going to help fund a snazzy light rail system so that the guy who probably pays zero in income tax does not have take a bus. He's already taking the bus! I think that sums it up well. Until all areas of the city are served, no argument that they make for light rail is valid.

The proposed light rail is more about politics that public transportation. The goal of public transportation should be to MOVE people from A to B at the lowest possible cost - including those that are not in areas "hit hardest by high fuel prices."

[Rob Martinez]

Originally Posted by trappedinNM

At what price will they use the Bus? In other words, will people use the bus at $6 a gallon also? Or does it have to be $10/gallon before they lower themselves to the bus? Is light rail sexier? The question is rhetorical - of course they will use the bus.

I'm not opposed to light rail, but think it is a waste of money when there will be no net increase in ridership. Why not use the funds to improve the infrastructure in other areas of the city? Central has a dissproportionate amount of service compared to others areas of the city. There is NO bus service on Tramway or Paseo. Try and take the bus from Taylor Ranch to anywhere. Try and take the bus from North Albuquerque to anywhere. Where is the Rapid Ride for Paseo Del Norte? Tramway?

If you talk to AbqRide, they will tell you that they are focusing their efforts on "areas hit hardest by high fuel prices". Exact words! In other words, my $5k in property taxes and thousands in State taxes is going to help fund a snazzy light rail system so that the guy who probably pays zero in income tax does not have take a bus. He's already taking the bus! I think that sums it up well. Until all areas of the city are served, no argument that they make for light rail is valid.

The proposed light rail is more about politics that public transportation. The goal of public transportation should be to MOVE people from A to B at the lowest possible cost - including those that are not in areas "hit hardest by high fuel prices."

Well, if you never ride a bus, that's a waste of taxpayer money to you. But buses are needed, whether you or I ride them or not. Light rail is another public transportation alternative, not a money maker, but neither are libraries or swimming pools.

I never said to ignore buses or not use them. My point is that our priorities in this country ought to be to improve public transportation over more frivolous things we are spending billions on.

And yes, light rail IS sexy! But that's what sells in the USA, and if we can get a sector of our population to use it instead of their cars, I am all for it.

Have you ever been to London or Madrid? Or New York or LA? They have buses AND rail systems, so does Portland Oregon. We CAN do both.

Or can we? What is it with Albuquerque? Most cities can have sidewalks and sewer systems AND build arenas for their population. But in Albuquerque, it's always squared as, "No, we can't build an arena or have light rail. We need sidewalks and sewer systems." It's time to stop thinking so narrowly, in my opinion. There will come a time when light rail will make perfect sense in Albuquerque, it will just cost ten times more to do it than if we invest in our future NOW.

[NorthernCalifornia]

Originally Posted by trappedinNM

The goal of public transportation should be to MOVE people from A to B at the lowest possible cost..."

Says who? I think you're completely off-base here. Doing things as cheap as possible is a terrible plan for the long term. Terrible. Also don't forget that roadways cost a ton of money and buses require paved streets and highways to run on. They extract a greater wear and tear on those roads, they congest those roads and they travel the exact same route as a car would. Riding a bus down the same crowded street you could take your car on is not a great way to get around.