Build the Transit First! (houses, class, area, buildings)

[A2DAC1985]

Until then my assertion that having a way to get somewhere is crucial in whether or not people will actually go there. And I stand firmly by my belief that more ways to get around means more opportunities for people to get to things they want, and creates a better living environment.

Airports are big and expensive and incredibly limited in where they can go, would you say they're a waste of money too? Or does the money put into them balance out with what the citizens and businesses gain by having another form of transportation at their disposal?

[nei]

The back and forth on this thread has gotten rather aggressive and a bit off-topic. I cleaned up a few pieces of it, but not everything. At the very least can we not focus on each other's ages or generation?

[nei]

Originally Posted by Katiana

I think that in 50 years, whether I'm still alive or not (unlikely but possible) people are going to look back at this light-rail building frenzy and laugh at the thought. It is incredibly expensive to build. It seems that the impetus for building it is that some people feel that riding on LR is somehow "hipper" or more "gentrified" than riding a bus.

Possibly. I've found it very weird how, until at least recently, so many large American cities lacked rail. I don't see rail as faddish, more than something that's normal but missing in some places. It's relatively common elsewhere in the developed world why do so many American cities lack rail? Maybe some find it strange to have cities that don't lots of freeways running to the center. Growing up in Long Island, there were 0 buses to the city center; it was only rail.

Light rail is often better than buses; a light rail car can hold more people than a bus and it can run separately from traffic. That's a huge plus in my mind. Express buses can be faster, especially if there's a separate highway HOV lane, but they don't cover in between destinations. As for being inflexible, that's more of a plus in my mind than a minus. Everyone knows it will be there and won't randomly get moved. If it was placed in a good developed corridor having the rail next to it should encourage it to be more desirable. Some of the light rail corridors in Boston have lots of development along them; and probably functioned the same since the rail was there. In my experience, rail is a bit more reliable than buses and less prone to random slowdowns.

Highways are expensive, too. Rail can be used instead of highways for getting people to the city center. That seems to be what Calgary has done. Looking at Denver's downtown's, I see an enormous space used for surface parking (I thought Seattle had a lot; this looks worse). Maybe a more extensive transit (both rail and bus) system could help remove these lots and help the downtown. I'm not saying light rail is always worth it, it depends on the location, but there are very good not-fad reasons to build it.

I AM old enough to remember back 50 years ago. (I was a kid then, in my very early teens.) I can remember the urban renewal projects in Pittsburgh, "slum clearance", the building of the Civic Arena (where the Penguins used to play, among other uses) on slum clearance land, etc. Housing projects were built to replace the substandard housing that was razed. Now, people say "that was the wrong thing to do". That is my point about light rail. It is so expensive to build, I doubt any kind of payback will ever be reached. Something else will replace it, perhaps before some of these systems are even finished. For sure I think TOD will go the way of "lifestyle centers" and the like.

The urban renewal projects removed a part of the old city as well as being expensive. I don't think light rail has done similar damage. The most expensive part is building it (and the costs vary a lot by system), the operating costs aren't that high. I don't see TOD going out of style, especially in more urban areas where transit use is high anyway, more changing as people learn what works and what doesn't.

OK, I read the PP's post about dinosaurs and I see he is talking about oil.[/quote]

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by nei

Possibly. I've found it very weird how, until at least recently, so many large American cities lacked rail. I don't see rail as faddish, more than something that's normal but missing in some places. It's relatively common elsewhere in the developed world why do so many American cities lack rail? Maybe some find it strange to have cities that don't lots of freeways running to the center. Growing up in Long Island, there were 0 buses to the city center; it was only rail.

Light rail is often better than buses; a light rail car can hold more people than a bus and it can run separately from traffic. That's a huge plus in my mind. Express buses can be faster, especially if there's a separate highway HOV lane, but they don't cover in between destinations. As for being inflexible, that's more of a plus in my mind than a minus. Everyone knows it will be there and won't randomly get moved. If it was placed in a good developed corridor having the rail next to it should encourage it to be more desirable. Some of the light rail corridors in Boston have lots of development along them; and probably functioned the same since the rail was there. In my experience, rail is a bit more reliable than buses and less prone to random slowdowns.

Highways are expensive, too. Rail can be used instead of highways for getting people to the city center. That seems to be what Calgary has done. Looking at Denver's downtown's, I see an enormous space used for surface parking (I thought Seattle had a lot; this looks worse). Maybe a more extensive transit (both rail and bus) system could help remove these lots and help the downtown. I'm not saying light rail is always worth it, it depends on the location, but there are very good not-fad reasons to build it.



The urban renewal projects removed a part of the old city as well as being expensive. I don't think light rail has done similar damage. The most expensive part is building it (and the costs vary a lot by system), the operating costs aren't that high. I don't see TOD going out of style, especially in more urban areas where transit use is high anyway, more changing as people learn what works and what doesn't.

OK, I read the PP's post about dinosaurs and I see he is talking about oil.

[/quote]

Re: your first two paragraphs about rail; many, if not most US cities had streetcars "back in the day". I can remember, vaguely, the streetcars in Pittsburgh when I was very small. Denver had streetcars as well. Therefore, there was no need for trains. I can also remember Chicago, back in the early 70s, had a train transit system to the suburbs. That was the only city that I have personally seen trains, not having spent much time in NYC.

Denver has lots of transit; I don't think there's a lack for those who want to use it. Their transit system includes the buses and Light Rail, but LR doesn't go everywhere and it's not going to go much of anywhere else since the RTD ran out of money. If they ask for a vote, I think it will likely fail. The economy will have to improve before tax collections give them enough money to finish it.

Yes, highways are expensive, but they are multi-use. That's both a pro and a con, I realize. Buses have to share the road with cars, though some of our highways have HOV lanes for buses and cars with more than one passenger.

As for light rail, the expenses of building it are enormous. It's the same as for highways, I guess, the cost is mostly in the building. However, there is upkeep, and the more high-tech it gets, the more to fix when it breaks.

I didn't mean that light rail has done similar damage as the old urban renewal, just that it might go out of favor as the "holy grail". The people favoring urban renewal projects are the antecedents of those who favor LR right now, the urban planners of their day.

It may be that TOD will simply change form a little. I think some of it right now is a nostalgia movement to go back to the "good old days", which weren't really all that good for all that many people.

[A2DAC1985]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Re: your first two paragraphs about rail; many, if not most US cities had streetcars "back in the day". I can remember, vaguely, the streetcars in Pittsburgh when I was very small. Denver had streetcars as well. Therefore, there was no need for trains. I can also remember Chicago, back in the early 70s, had a train transit system to the suburbs. That was the only city that I have personally seen trains, not having spent much time in NYC.

So, if there wasn't a train system out to the suburbs of Chicago, do you think the city and metro would be as large as it is today? What if Chicago only had one airport? Would it be as large and important as it currently is? What if it had no airports? Would there still be 9+ million in the metro?

Originally Posted by Katiana

Yes, highways are expensive, but they are multi-use. That's both a pro and a con, I realize. Buses have to share the road with cars, though some of our highways have HOV lanes for buses and cars with more than one passenger.

Highways are the same type of multi-use as rail. Commercial, transportation, and recreational needs can be met by both.

Originally Posted by Katiana

As for light rail, the expenses of building it are enormous. It's the same as for highways, I guess, the cost is mostly in the building. However, there is upkeep, and the more high-tech it gets, the more to fix when it breaks.

And that expense will only get larger as oil continues to get used. Building rail still requires transporting a vast majority of the materials via a fossil fuel transport. And the equipment used to physically build the rail requires oil as well. So building it today will be cheaper than building it a decade or two from now, if only from the increased cost of fuel.

Building a rail line when gas is $4 a gallon is going to be cheaper than building a rail line when gas is $5 a gallon.

And it also seems like more jobs can be created and maintained with a rail system in place. And if it is indeed high tech, then that means higher paying jobs. Building the Interstate system helped spurred America's climb to the economic powerhouse in the world. Building rail around the country will also help spur economic growth.

Originally Posted by Katiana

I didn't mean that light rail has done similar damage as the old urban renewal, just that it might go out of favor as the "holy grail". The people favoring urban renewal projects are the antecedents of those who favor LR right now, the urban planners of their day.

I would prefer heavy rail, but light rail is cheaper.

Originally Posted by Katiana

It may be that TOD will simply change form a little. I think some of it right now is a nostalgia movement to go back to the "good old days", which weren't really all that good for all that many people.

I don't want America to be caught with it's pants down. And I don't want to pay any more for daily necessities because the cost of gas continues to rise because there is no other way for a majority of Americans to get where they're going without a fossil fuel burning vehicle.

Besides that, we use oil for so, so, so much more than just putting gas in our cars. If we had a feasible alternative to gasoline that could power our personal vehicles, I would be a whole lot quieter about building rail.

Nostalgia is not the driving factor in me pushing for rail expansion and construction. My desire to see America remain at the top is why I push for different transportation options.

[Malloric]

Look Seattle Streetcar. It's horridly expensive. $50 million for all 1.3 miles and gets ridership of around 2,000 a day. A local two-lane road would cost a tenth of that and carry ten times the traffic. Seattle's Streetcar runs at a 12-13% farebox recovery despite the $2.50 fare to go about a mile, so it costs about $20 per mile very roughly. It's currently indebted with no relief in sight in the short-term. You could mill and surface an urban road every year for what the Streetcar costs to operate, and that's a road that carries many more people. Of course, roads don't need to be milled and resurfaced every year.

Undeniably expensive, but in the long-run I think it may make some sense. If you and work in the downtown area, there's really no need for a car. Cars have high fixed costs and parking in Seattle is hundreds of dollars a month. Advertising is picking up a big chunk of the costs (much more than fares are). In a suburb, most of the taxes for roads are coming from that specific suburb. That's not the case with the Streetcar. The funding is mostly coming from the ~2 million people in King County, of whom less than a tenth of a percent ride the Streetcar with any regularity.

[cisco kid]

Originally Posted by Malloric

Look Seattle Streetcar. It's horridly expensive. $50 million for all 1.3 miles and gets ridership of around 2,000 a day. A local two-lane road would cost a tenth of that and carry ten times the traffic. Seattle's Streetcar runs at a 12-13% farebox recovery despite the $2.50 fare to go about a mile, so it costs about $20 per mile very roughly. It's currently indebted with no relief in sight in the short-term. You could mill and surface an urban road every year for what the Streetcar costs to operate, and that's a road that carries many more people. Of course, roads don't need to be milled and resurfaced every year.

Undeniably expensive, but in the long-run I think it may make some sense. If you and work in the downtown area, there's really no need for a car. Cars have high fixed costs and parking in Seattle is hundreds of dollars a month. Advertising is picking up a big chunk of the costs (much more than fares are). In a suburb, most of the taxes for roads are coming from that specific suburb. That's not the case with the Streetcar. The funding is mostly coming from the ~2 million people in King County, of whom less than a tenth of a percent ride the Streetcar with any regularity.

The Seattle Streetcar line was indeed terribly expensive at $56 million for just 1.3 mile of track. But I think it goes back to the premise of the thread. That its probably a lot simpler and far cheaper to build the transit first then trying to do it after the fact.

Or in this case, trying to restore it. Over 70 years ago this streetcar line in Seattle once operated on the very same street that it is now. But in the 40s and 50s the city decided to systematically trash its entire streetcar network, over 200 miles, in favor of automobile and freeway centered development. So now its costing them like fifty to a hundred times as much to restore from scratch what they trashed than if they had simply left it in place. I swear NA cities were/are run by some of the dumbest people on the planet.

[wburg]

A mile of light rail line costs about the same as a mile of two-lane highway, with more capacity. People assume that roads are "free" somehow.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by wburg

A mile of light rail line costs about the same as a mile of two-lane highway, with more capacity. People assume that roads are "free" somehow.

Could you show us some stats?

[memph]

I don't know much about Seattle, but the current route doesn't seem to make much sense. 1.3 miles is a very short distance, if you have to wait more than a couple minutes for the streetcar, or if point A or point B are a bit East or West of the route, you might as well walk. For it to work, there should be very low headways (less than 5min), which is insanely expensive if you don't have a high ridership. Therefore, it only really makes sense if you have a route that's connecting very major destinations, like a major transit hub and a very dense office district, and other destinations within 1-2 blocks of stops.

The closest Toronto has in terms of a short transit route like that is the Bay Street Bus. Despite being flanked by two subway lines, it manages to get a ridership of 10,000 a day along around 3 miles. However, it has a ton of major destinations along it. It starts at the waterfront, which has offices and condos, plus some parks, ferries, etc, then goes by the main train station, goes through the middle of the financial district, next to a department store, city hall, major shopping mall, smaller shopping centre, a bunch of condo towers, next to the main medical cluster, the main government cluster, beside a major university, over a subway line (and station) and through Toronto's high end shopping district and a smaller office cluster. This is despite the fact that trips more than 1 mile (sometimes even less) are done by subway along that corridor.

It's not that there isn't anything along Seattle's streetcar, but there is a lot less. It mostly connects the CBD (but doesn't go through it) to a moderate amount of residents, a few stores and a small office district. There does seem to be a fair bit of development around the streetcar, so ridership will probably rise, but in order to be truly successful, I think the streetcar should be extended along Eastlake, as is planned. This will connect it the University of Washington, as well as some moderately dense neighbourhoods. The main thing though is that the areas at either end of this extended routes are too far apart to walk, and major destinations.

Local stop surface routes (bus and streetcar) in Toronto that go relatively long distances (5 miles or more) along arterial roads, so basically the core routes, carrz 10-40,000 people per day, even if they are just going from suburban areas to a subway station passing stripmalls and towers in the park along the way.