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Yes, there should be a greater focus wherever the demand is, like low-density suburbs.
Jobs are decentralized now. This means it is impossible to have commuter rail because no one is going the same place in the same direction. And don't forget the largest growing job sector are "services" jobs like retail and home health care aids - jobs that are mostly in the suburbs.
Given that most Americans are suburbanites (50%) wouldn't it make sense to focus mainly on commuter rail rather than intra city/metro (or even inter city) rail? It seems so much time is spent on developing light rail within a city, but given that our highways are so full it might be money better spent to focus on commuter rail.
Absolutely. Here, on the west-bank of the Hudson River, there's no commuter-rail (only freight). Commuting is auto-centric and extremely time consuming. Considering that Germany actually has a viable shared rail system, I think that this country should at least look into multi-use rail infrastructure...
That's the problem - what about ridership generators and employment areas besides downtown? Shopping malls, colleges, stadiums/arenas, etc.? You need to include them all. Commuter rail would not serve those locations, because the railroad companies never designed their systems with public transit in mind.
depends on where; in the Northeast and some of the Midwest the railroads built for passenger service as much as freight. And development often followed railroad lines "railroad suburbs". Of course, newer development doesn't follow closed or freight-only railroad corridors. In some NYC suburbs, the railroads are closer to more of the population than expressways are, which were usually squeezed through the less developed areas. Best Western example is Caltrain, where the older peninsula towns follow the line.
There should be a greater focus on mass transit in general including commuter rail. There are actually two types of developments regarding commuter rail that should be accelerated.
One is just the establishment of commuter rail lines where it's sensible to do so--this usually involves working on working with rail transportation companies that usually own the right-of-ways and track for rail lines in many major US cities to better create and run commuter rail lines. This is the avenue that smaller but booming major US cities have been taking such as Capital MetroRail in Austin, Music City Star in Nashville, and others.
The other is making better use of commuter rail lines that are already in existence--this usually applies to cities that already have expansive commuter rail lines and a lot of track and stations in dense, urban areas. The idea behind this is to make these run more similarly to S-Bahn lines in German-speaking countries, RER in French speaking countries, and the Crossrail program in London--they in essence up frequencies for individual lines, but these lines then merge in the more urban areas so that the joint frequencies of several lines make them function as rapid transit/"subway" within these shared stretches. The key to this is upping the frequencies for the different lines, electrifying certain or all lines and also to change the terminal stations in the city centers to become connection points for formerly disparate lines so that trains coming in from end then leave headed out to another which is called through-running. This sort of pattern can greatly benefit cities like Boston with the North-South Rail Link and Chicago with Crossrail Chicago and are possibly the most cost-effective methods to greatly increase mass transit capacity (and induce far greater demand) within these cities, but the initial investment is often quite expensive, so it requires a lot of political will to do so. Other places where this is possible, with varying degrees of difficulty and expense, are with MARC/VRE in DC/Baltimore (running MARC in this method was originally part of a larger Maryland DOT improvement plan but it's unknown how this will pan out), SEPTA/NJ Transit in Philadelphia, and LIRR/NJ Transit/Metro-North in the NYC area.
Absolutely. Here, on the west-bank of the Hudson River, there's no commuter-rail (only freight). Commuting is auto-centric and extremely time consuming. Considering that Germany actually has a viable shared rail system, I think that this country should at least look into multi-use rail infrastructure...
What you call freight ROW once largely served both passenger as well.
New Jersey was served once by many railroads including three passenger rail to ferry terminals that took freight and persons into Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island and other points east. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...rsey_railroads
There once was commuter rail service to Nutley for instance that ended only in 1966.
What happened there is what went on elsewhere; railroads were losing freight traffic due to the new highways, bridges and tunnels and the trucks that ride upon them. Worse New Jersey's like NYC's manufacturing base began leaving in droves. Passenger RR service is very well, but freight is what then and now pays the bills. Once RR's began losing commercial traffic carrying passengers became net loss, so they stopped. Today the most profitable RRs in the USA are mostly freight. Meanwhile passenger service has largely been left to local governments and Amtrak (federally subsided)
There is tons of abandoned ROW lying around NJ that could in theory be reactivated for commuter use; NJT is doing it now with a few lines including the Lackawanna Cutoff. However the cost is just too dear for the state to go it alone in any major way, and many local areas do not want RR trains period.
If highways to cities are jammed at rush hour, people could be encouraged to take buses, by making the bus fare low, and making the toll to the city high. If everyone takes buses at rush hour, what will that do to rush hour traffic? How high should the tolls be, to motivate them to take buses?
To carry that idea to extremes, all roads everywhere, not just in and out of cities, could be toll roads, which automatically charge vehicles even when traveling at full speed. And, at rush hour, the tolls could be a lot higher, and the bus fare lower, than the rest of the day. There could be a lot more buses, to carry all the extra passengers motivated by such a scheme. The tolls could pay for the buses. There might not even be any need to charge any bus fare at all.
Jobs are decentralized now. This means it is impossible to have commuter rail because no one is going the same place in the same direction. And don't forget the largest growing job sector are "services" jobs like retail and home health care aids - jobs that are mostly in the suburbs.
Don't know where you live put there are plenty of "service" jobs here in NYC where the workers are in desperate need of affordable housing. Many would benefit by living outside of NYC where costs are lower but the commute by car or whatever is neither often inexpensive or easy. For instance there is a large and growing number of persons who have moved out to the Poconos and suffer a soul crushing commute twice a day five or more days per week.
Problem with commuter rail service is the same with passenger rail; it just does not work without some sort of subsidy. Railroads of old used profits from freight to carry passenger service. Today there is a reason why Amtrak is the only major inter-city rail service in the USA and around the world passenger rail (including commuter) is either government owned and or relies upon some sort of direct or indirect subsidy.
It is important to remember when privately owned commuter rail service was either part of or a wholly owned subsidiary of large RRs. The PRR owned LIRR for instance. ROW was seldom used just for commuter service, but also freight and passenger as well. No one today outside of state entities like New Jersey Transit, Metro-North, etc... is going to lay down tracks for service that mainly has two peak times per day and is often dead on weekends or otherwise. Railroads pay taxes on their real estate holdings and that includes ROW/tracks. Thus you want to get the most bang (use) out of the thing to offset costs.
Government makes public transportation a lot less feasible by forcing it to compete against cars that use roads free. Government does what people want and vote for. Therefore the reason we have rush hour traffic jams is because that's what people want.
IMHO a large part of the problem is from improper land use designations. Having huge tracts of nothing but houses means everyone must commute. Adding in light commercial land use to neighborhoods would save a lot of folks from having to commute in the first place. If there were places to live in the same area where people worked, that would take the people out of the commute loop no matter what transportation they used.
There probably isn't one size fits all sort of a thing here, some communities might be better served by rail, others by bus, others by ferries. But they should all be considered when trying to work out the solution.
Other than multiple methods of transportation, getting them all integrated is really helpful. We like visiting Seattle since they have their light rail, heavy rail, buses and ferries all working together very well. One reloadable card is all you need to travel on any of them.
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