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There are 13 miles of single track on a 35mph railroad out of about 30 miles between Tilford Yard and Acworth. It's not hard to see what's needed to increase capacity on the existing line. If CSX wants to play the "most congested railway" card, then they should double track what's left and see that fill up before whining about it again. If it's "at capacity" then it's because the capacity is being kept artificially low. Howell Junction also isn't a deal breaker, there is plenty of room in all directions to build a flyover.
HOT lanes do not encourage economic development, they will only make any money by direct costs, and after the I-85 debacle, it's questionable if they'll even do that. HOT lanes may actually decrease overall revenue since less gas will be burned resulting in less gas tax collection. Commuter rail on the other hand will pay back dividends in increased economic activity which yes, it's harder to quantify, I freely admit that, and I freely admit that those numbers won't go on the balance sheet of the project to push it into the black. HOT lanes aren't going to generate new trips, they'll make existing trips easier. People around here want to escape traffic and won't decide to go spend money in Atlanta or even "down the line" because of a few more strips of asphalt, people will however decide to head into Atlanta if they don't have to worry about getting there.
There are 13 miles of single track on a 35mph railroad out of about 30 miles between Tilford Yard and Acworth. It's not hard to see what's needed to increase capacity on the existing line. If CSX wants to play the "most congested railway" card, then they should double track what's left and see that fill up before whining about it again. If it's "at capacity" then it's because the capacity is being kept artificially low. Howell Junction also isn't a deal breaker, there is plenty of room in all directions to build a flyover.
HOT lanes do not encourage economic development, they will only make any money by direct costs, and after the I-85 debacle, it's questionable if they'll even do that. HOT lanes may actually decrease overall revenue since less gas will be burned resulting in less gas tax collection. Commuter rail on the other hand will pay back dividends in increased economic activity which yes, it's harder to quantify, I freely admit that, and I freely admit that those numbers won't go on the balance sheet of the project to push it into the black. HOT lanes aren't going to generate new trips, they'll make existing trips easier. People around here want to escape traffic and won't decide to go spend money in Atlanta or even "down the line" because of a few more strips of asphalt, people will however decide to head into Atlanta if they don't have to worry about getting there.
In the meantime for those transportation/geography nerds out there who have attentively watched this issue for over 10 years will tell you there is no traction on that corridor.
At some point you really need to start looking all of these complex issues up more and see how these uses inter-related.
That track you are talking about (which goes through Marietta and Kennesaw) is major bottleneck until the tracks split going north on two separate routes in Cartersville. It is the 2nd busiest railroad track in town, second only to the NS mainline going to Austell. It carries about double the number of trains than most other mainlines in the Atlanta region. It carries 60-99 trains/day and moves over 75 million tons.
Howell Junction is a MAJOR obstacle. It is not a simple flyover bridge and will require a huge rework of the whole junction, that has to correspond with the plan to handle all of the other freight rails through the junction. It isn't like roads. Rails can only curve so much and grade changes must be very controlled and extremely graduate. When they re-do that junction it can affect the rails up to a mile in any one direction and it is in a densely built area. This is an expensive change and it can not be done haphazardly. If they made a flyover bridge for one track freight might not be able to enter the rail yard properly and it might cause complications for when other tracks are separated.
This is unseen. It is on the GDOT agenda. It is a difficult mess to say the least and no one has create a great workable solution yet. It will be expensive, not cheap.
Planners have shy'd away from those rails so much, they aren't even discussing doing the limited rush-hour one-way service. They certainly can't do the all-day two-way service you typically argue for. The railroads have shown the most resistance to allowing passenger rail in that direction.
When they came up with the Concept 3 plan those commuter lines were axed for these reasons. It is also why Cobb and Cherokee was getting a really long LRT in the plan that was suppose to run, like a regional rail approach. That LRT line also closely parrallels that rail line. They will not want to put the long-term, heavy expenses into that line for dual service in that corridor.
All of your arguments regarding HOT lanes are simply wrong. I'm not really sure where this is coming from. Please back up all of your statements. I'm not even sure where to start, it is so off the rails (pun-intended).
The I-75 HOT lanes project does the following:
-increases lanes
-increases capacity
-keeps traffic flowing more during congested periods (in other words 1800 cars per hour keep passing through in that lane, instead of 1200 when the freeway moves too slowly)
-Generates enough toll revenue to pay for close to half the HOT lane system
-Would increase gas tax revenue, since it increases capacity (I got really confused on your argument here)
You either haven't looked it up, haven't read any of the GDOT materials about the project in the past, or don't understand how it works.
Economic development will follow the movement of people, regardless of the method, so your arguments are a bit off.
As for CSX. We can't just force things on them and leave them to whine. We'd have to add the track for them to open up capacity. This is horribly expensive. It is cheaper to go the LRT route.
We also need to be much more respectful of freight, not just the companies moving it. It is a huge boost of our economy. We'd be shooting ourselves in the foot to hurt it.
As for CSX. We can't just force things on them and leave them to whine. We'd have to add the track for them to open up capacity. This is horribly expensive. It is cheaper to go the LRT route.
I agree with most of your comments, but is an entirely new light rail line really cheaper than adding additional capacity to existing lines for a few extra commuter trains? I feel like light rail is also not ideal since it works better in denser areas with slower speeds and more stations and is a very different option from commuter rail.
In the meantime for those transportation/geography nerds out there who have attentively watched this issue for over 10 years will tell you there is no traction on that corridor.
At some point you really need to start looking all of these complex issues up more and see how these uses inter-related.
Then maybe people just give up too easily.
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That track you are talking about (which goes through Marietta and Kennesaw) is major bottleneck until the tracks split going north on two separate routes in Cartersville. It is the 2nd busiest railroad track in town, second only to the NS mainline going to Austell. It carries about double the number of trains than most other mainlines in the Atlanta region. It carries 60-99 trains/day and moves over 75 million tons.
If it's so busy then why isn't it completely double tracked? Why isn't the speed higher?
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Howell Junction is a MAJOR obstacle. It is not a simple flyover bridge and will require a huge rework of the whole junction, that has to correspond with the plan to handle all of the other freight rails through the junction. It isn't like roads. Rails can only curve so much and grade changes must be very controlled and extremely graduate. When they re-do that junction it can affect the rails up to a mile in any one direction and it is in a densely built area. This is an expensive change and it can not be done haphazardly. If they made a flyover bridge for one track freight might not be able to enter the rail yard properly and it might cause complications for when other tracks are separated.
Yes, the whole junction needs to be reworked, but if the freights aren't willing to do it just for freight business then it can be done simpler for passenger rail. There is enough room on both sides to create a steep flyover for passenger trains such as this: http://goo.gl/maps/CVuIS That was done in 5 minutes on a laptop so it isn't the best, but you get the idea. Passenger trains can take far steeper grades than freight can like Florida's New River Flyover that Tri-Rail and Amtrak uses, but not CSX, they still take the drawbridge. The best part about that though is the passenger trains stay completely out of the flow into the two classification yards.
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This is unseen. It is on the GDOT agenda. It is a difficult mess to say the least and no one has create a great workable solution yet. It will be expensive, not cheap.
Planners have shy'd away from those rails so much, they aren't even discussing doing the limited rush-hour one-way service. They certainly can't do the all-day two-way service you typically argue for. The railroads have shown the most resistance to allowing passenger rail in that direction.
Then again, they've giving up too easily and buying the crap that CSX is giving them.
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When they came up with the Concept 3 plan those commuter lines were axed for these reasons. It is also why Cobb and Cherokee was getting a really long LRT in the plan that was suppose to run, like a regional rail approach. That LRT line also closely parrallels that rail line. They will not want to put the long-term, heavy expenses into that line for dual service in that corridor.
They don't want to spend mega bucks for a high capacity solution, but they want to spend mega bucks for a low capacity solution? In what strange parallel universe does that even make sense? Unless the "light" rail is run like Cleveland's red line which is actually heavy rail (but shares revenue track with its light rail lines) then the cost vs. benefit is nowhere near what commuter rail or heavy rail would be. I'm not actually opposed to a light-heavy rail approach in general, I think that's what Doraville-Perimeter-Cumberland needs, but not for this corridor.
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All of your arguments regarding HOT lanes are simply wrong. I'm not really sure where this is coming from. Please back up all of your statements. I'm not even sure where to start, it is so off the rails (pun-intended).
The I-75 HOT lanes project does the following:
-increases lanes
-increases capacity
-keeps traffic flowing more during congested periods (in other words 1800 cars per hour keep passing through in that lane, instead of 1200 when the freeway moves too slowly)
-Generates enough toll revenue to pay for close to half the HOT lane system
-Would increase gas tax revenue, since it increases capacity (I got really confused on your argument here)
You either haven't looked it up, haven't read any of the GDOT materials about the project in the past, or don't understand how it works.
I have read the materials and can't buy most of them. An increase in capacity over a congested system would decrease fuel revenue. This is such a minor point I didn't feel it needed expansion, but if you insist. Right now, cars trapped in gridlock don't use fuel nearly as efficiently as they could so they have to burn more which means more gas tax revenue. If they start moving efficiently, they start burning less fuel which means less revenue collected.
People aren't going to go on new trips just because congestion is reduced, their existing trips are just easier. What's my data for this? The weekends. When traffic is nearly free flowing, people by and large stay in the suburbs. But I don't see this "stay put" mentality nearly as much along the MARTA rail lines where people are moving about simply because it's so easy. Outside of peak times in the peak direction, these lanes are completely useless. But rail outside of the peak times in peak direction is not.
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Economic development will follow the movement of people, regardless of the method, so your arguments are a bit off.
No, because the people won't have any increased movement, their existing movement will only be a little bit faster.
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As for CSX. We can't just force things on them and leave them to whine. We'd have to add the track for them to open up capacity. This is horribly expensive. It is cheaper to go the LRT route.
If CSX isn't making sense or outright lying about the capacity constraints, then we should call them out on it. The figures I've seen for a second track in an existing RoW are $30 million per mile, or $390 million for the 13 miles of track needed Acworth-Atlanta. You can't build light or heavy rail for less than $100 million per mile, so how is that cheaper?
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We also need to be much more respectful of freight, not just the companies moving it. It is a huge boost of our economy. We'd be shooting ourselves in the foot to hurt it.
Agreed, and I don't see how adding double track to benefit both freight and passenger hurts the freight.
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Originally Posted by jsvh
I agree with most of your comments, but is an entirely new light rail line really cheaper than adding additional capacity to existing lines for a few extra commuter trains? I feel like light rail is also not ideal since it works better in denser areas with slower speeds and more stations and is a very different option from commuter rail.
Not even close, see my numbers above. Also look at the I-20 East and GA-400 heavy rail projects, and those won't even have to deal with much private RoW such as running alongside CSX would. Those however are needed because there isn't an existing rail corridor to improve so there isn't any choice there.
It seems to me that they need to build a N/S tunnel for any passenger trains to reach the MMPT. Start it south of the Gulch and extend it up to Hollowell Junction and have the tunnel fork in a couple directions.
Yes, this is very expensive but if there is going to be any sort of real commuter rail network, this is a necessity. Many large cities already do this. Tunnel through the center of town and then the lines join up along with the freight rails.
Why is no one proposing expansion north from the Bankhead station? It's all by itself and expansion could add more stations within the city where transit is needed.
Why is no one proposing expansion north from the Bankhead station? It's all by itself and expansion could add more stations within the city where transit is needed.
I agree with most of your comments, but is an entirely new light rail line really cheaper than adding additional capacity to existing lines for a few extra commuter trains? I feel like light rail is also not ideal since it works better in denser areas with slower speeds and more stations and is a very different option from commuter rail.
Well you raise a good point and I need to be more carefully with those words, since it is a slippery slope.
The main thing I was trying to get at is it is a duplication of service. It is cheaper to stick with one and LRT has less problems with it largely because it is a built from scratch system and we don't have to work with a freight company operating a congested corridor. We can also design it to go into areas with future land-use plans in mind and stop at major employment centers near Cumberland and run two-way service as we see fit.
We also need to consider type of service. LRT can be built differently. Commuter rail can keep cost down, but it is one-way commuter only service. MattCW typically argues for all-day service, which means we need to come close to building a new rail network and cost skyrocket for a lower capacity service all-day service and more expensive than commuter rail.
LRT costs can vary widely. The tracks are actually cheaper, because they don't have to follow the FRA requirements of a freight railroad. They are lighter weight and use less steel. The passenger cars don't have to meet the safety requirements of being on a freight track. There is much more wiggle room for how it is built. They can take far tighter curves and larger grade changes. They can cross roadways more.
The issue is how it is built, how many bridges, tunnels are needed, and right of way that needs to be bought. These are the issues that make the costs balloon.
This also goes both ways for freight rails. The cost of re-doing Howell junction doesn't have a price tag yet. No one has been able to propose a workable solution yet, because of the area constraints. This alone will push the cost to be higher, however this is needed for freight and other commuter rail routes NE of town. This means it is a cost for variety of projects, which is doable....but it means waiting. It also would be a new bridge across the chattahoochee and existing road bridges would have to be expanded.
Commuter rail start ups today are low-density/high-impact solutions, ridership doesn't get that high, but it is designed specifically to pick up choice commuters who would travel long distances and alleviate roads intown, on/off ramps, and a long stretch of freeway. The real strategy is to make it so people can live all over the region and still be able to work in one single place and attract more companies, instead of a congestion scenario where you only live in certain places only based on where you work. There is also more room to absorb growth, whereas freeways can only get so wide.
LRT in contrast depends on how you build it. It's main benefit is it gets away from the regulations of a freight rail corridor with mixed uses and it gets away from the regulations of a heavy rail corridor with a 3rd electrified rail. There is also more room for ridership to grow higher.
You can buy a LRT car on the market now that easily goes 66 mph. They can be built to be anything between a street car and commuter-oriented operations.
If you build many stops it can't operate for commuter operations well. If you build it in street it must wait on car traffic. If it crosses a street it must slow to a speed where it can stop if a car isn't off the tracks, then it won't work well either.
Under Concept 3, if it is ever actually followed... it is suppose to be designed with a regional-rail approach. The problem, as I'm seeing in Gwinnett, once the CID or local developers get ahold of it they argue for more stops trying to increase land value as much as possible. It will help meet future land-use policy.
For a while I actually argued an alternative would be to build one LRT track with the right of way for 2. In the short-run use a single LRT track for commuter operations until it gets "inside the beltline" as so to say.
One last thing, Under Concept 3 and about all GDOT plans the commuter rail lines are just that. Commuter service. Peak hour one-way service. This is the only way they can not disrupt freight service much and partially use the same tracks more often. Their cost-estimates are based on that.
The one thing Muddying up these conversations with MattCW is he wants commuter rail + regional rail on freight tracks. All day, two-way service. The problem with that scenario is we essentially would come close to building a new network from scratch. It isn't as simple as finishing double-tracking that corridor. The places where a second track exist, the second track doesn't act like Marta with two tracks...one each way. It is a passing siding and a local freight delivery track for long regional freight trains. Freight also moves slowly and stops and accelerates very slowly, so we'd really be building an extra track primarily for passenger rail during the day for the whole corridor.
In this scenario I'd definitely say the cost-benefit is better for LRT, given long-term land use planning for the corridor and given that I don't think we should duplicate service and we need to consider what type of service we can or can't get out of it.
When we do, as a region, use commuter rail I'd rather it be commuter-only service and we only make some changes to the freight tracks, disrupt freight less, and keep costs down.
In our heavy-use corridors where there is more business investment and more room to zone density and larger activity centers, we can do a new start up tailored to that capacity/function. The northern corridors are the heavy-use corridors.
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(pun-intended).
