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Your numbers are off. Far more people take the bus than the train.
Total Annual Unlinked Trips
Bus .................................................. ............................... 155,676,004
Rail (includes some of Metro north).......................................... 79,632,021
Today's home buyer doesn't want to live in a tiny home where the master bedroom won't even hold a queen sized bed. They'd rather have a home with modern conveniences and have to drive to a commuter station than live in a tiny home that backs to tracks. That's why so many of them are board ups.
You are talking about NJ, I'm talking about the Albany area. I've lived and commuted in both. It would be far less expensive to create HOV and bus lanes on the Northway and 787 than it would be to put in rail to the suburbs. Considering that a huge number of workers in the suburbs don't even go into the downtown core but rather to areas like the State office campus, Colonie, and Latham, rail makes no sense. People from Malta would need to drive to the station then take the train to downtown and then transfer to a bus to go five miles to where their office is. It would be faster and more cost efficient to drive.
Rail works in places like NJ/NYC where there isn't a logical option to drive and parking runs $30 a day. But it's not going to work in a spread out suburban area like the Capital District where the reality is that as much as they complain about traffic, the reality is that it's simply not that bad and they aren't going to drive to a station, ride to an inter-modal, and then transfer at least once and ride to their destination. Not when it's going to take them 80 minutes for a drive they can do in 40.
Its 1.5 Million for Regional Rail...6.5 Million for Suburban and Urban buses and 6.1 for Urban Rail.... Rail can work anywhere , you just have to build it right...your not going to build a massive system for Albany a few lines connecting nearby cities and large towns that's about it , busways & streetcars would service denser areas in Albany and Troy... About 60,000 currently use the Bus system in Albany so its not like people don't ride up there , so throwing in a few commuter rail lines and streetcar and busways wouldn't be a total waste. Investments along the corridor and population and workplace shifts would benefit the regional. The Younger generations prefer cities and towns where there not forced to drive everywhere....make Albany attractive to them and they will move in , companies also like cities with a large or decent sized transit system.... Then you have the Elderly who don't have many options and shouldn't be driving after a certain age so creating a larger transit system would benefit them aswell....
Hi, not sure if I can get this discussion going again but I'll try. I recently made a newer, more feasible version of the map. I took all of your comments into account when making it, and I think it makes more sense.
Here's a link: Map - Capital District Subway
I'll answer all questions about where stations are and why I put them there.
Hi, not sure if I can get this discussion going again but I'll try. I recently made a newer, more feasible version of the map. I took all of your comments into account when making it, and I think it makes more sense.
Here's a link: Map - Capital District Subway
I'll answer all questions about where stations are and why I put them there.
6 lines? Waaaaaaay too ambitious! People won't use CDTA so why would they use rail?
6 lines? Waaaaaaay too ambitious! People won't use CDTA so why would they use rail?
Rail tends to get higher usage in non transit areas , but this indeed is a little to big. A small Regional Rail network of 2 lines and 2 Light Rail or Bus Rapid Transit lines is all Albany region needs.
Rail tends to get higher usage in non transit areas , but this indeed is a little to big. A small Regional Rail network of 2 lines and 2 Light Rail or Bus Rapid Transit lines is all Albany region needs.
There's only 800K people in the Capitol Region. Many of them are children and elderly who aren't going to take the train. Most people are so glued to their cars that they won't be interested either. There are some rapid bus lines. CDTA has worked on numerous things over the years. There's some buses for people out in areas like Clifton Park to take to downtown for work. Lots of issues with those is the timing of the buses and the people still have to get to their offices from that bus stop which may be quite a distance. There have been people who've posted on here about that bus line and how it's not used much and the issues they ran into.
Well I'm not saying all six immediately. You could start with one and if its popular, slowly add more to meet demand.
"Could" being the key word! This idea doesn't have a lot of support in general. Where would funding magically come from? We can't afford education so what are going to use to pay for this magical plan?
I'm with ss20ts on this one. While I think the map developed by the OP is fun, subway/commuter rail in the Capital District is a completely ludicrous idea. The traffic is not nearly bad enough to justify it. Sure, there are other reasons to have rail (environmental, etc), but in Albany or anywhere else the bottom line is people won't use it in large enough numbers to justify it until traffic gets really bad.
The OP says you can start with one line and IF it is popular you can add more. That's a big IF, one cannot build and pay for that kind of infrastructure until they KNOW that it will be popular. And it won't unless there are two things: heavy traffic and/or true urban density where cars are somewhat optional. I'll also continue to note that census statistics for the Capital District and NY state also show population growth lag far, far behind the rest of the country (between 2000 and 2010 only Michigan, Ohio, and Rhode Island experienced lower population growth). With population basically staying the same around Albany, I can't imagine the need for public transit increasing any time soon.
Again, credit to the OP for thinking big and a nice map, but JOBS, growth, education, and resident retention are far more pressing debates.
I'm with ss20ts on this one. While I think the map developed by the OP is fun, subway/commuter rail in the Capital District is a completely ludicrous idea. The traffic is not nearly bad enough to justify it. Sure, there are other reasons to have rail (environmental, etc), but in Albany or anywhere else the bottom line is people won't use it in large enough numbers to justify it until traffic gets really bad.
The OP says you can start with one line and IF it is popular you can add more. That's a big IF, one cannot build and pay for that kind of infrastructure until they KNOW that it will be popular. And it won't unless there are two things: heavy traffic and/or true urban density where cars are somewhat optional. I'll also continue to note that census statistics for the Capital District and NY state also show population growth lag far, far behind the rest of the country (between 2000 and 2010 only Michigan, Ohio, and Rhode Island experienced lower population growth). With population basically staying the same around Albany, I can't imagine the need for public transit increasing any time soon.
Again, credit to the OP for thinking big and a nice map, but JOBS, growth, education, and resident retention are far more pressing debates.
+1. I can't rep you again but you put this in a good perspective. I'll admit that I like rail and it really provides wonderful benefits for a city/metro. I would prefer to take the rail over a bus. As much as I like having a car, I don't like to be dependent on it 100% of the time. But you're right, the Capital Region needs to focus on needed growth, needed revitalization in the cities, and diversifying its economy a bit more before jumping into a project like this. However, if the Capital Region does address those issues in the near future, I would say then it would be appropriate to look into a possible light rail.
What about a smaller commuter rail project using existing infrastructure?
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