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I'm referring to the fact that the federal government continually funds highway expansions nationwide, but refuses to give any money to the Hudson tunnels. The federal government and a certain political party have successfully convinced the public that funding rail is socialism, but funding highways is not. In doing so, they're putting our lives at risk every single day by refusing to fund the tunnels. Instead, they use NJ/NY tax money to expand a freeway in exurban regions of the country to benefit a handful of people just so their commutes can be a few minutes shorter. Meanwhile, we risk dying every day going under the Hudson, but our needs are seen as socialism, while the needs of exurbanites is seen as a necessity (aka not socialism).
I am a member of the "certain political party" to which you refer, but I also think that funding interstate transportation projects is a proper function of the federal government. This would include the Trans-Hudson Tube (or whatever they're calling the proposed tunnel to replace the current Amtrak/NJ Transit tunnel) as well as the exurban freeway benefiting a handful of people, providing that those people are engaging in interstate commerce and an equally suitable but less expensive option isn't available or feasible.
The Interstate 270 corridor is not only the most direct route, it is probably the only possible alignment that wouldn't die the death of a thousand cuts from every single high-income, politically connected homeowner who wouldn't want a new rail line coming through his living room, or his back yard, or even anywhere close to him. It would surely be expensive to build a line over the highway, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to discuss the engineering aspects of it.
The L runs on freeways in Chicago and the Green Line runs on the 105 in LA. I think BART runs on freeways in parts of the East Bay. So it possible for more rapid transit style of rail to fun on/above freeways. I'm not sure the difference in weight/size/capacity for for commuter rail, though.
I am a member of the "certain political party" to which you refer, but I also think that funding interstate transportation projects is a proper function of the federal government. This would include the Trans-Hudson Tube (or whatever they're calling the proposed tunnel to replace the current Amtrak/NJ Transit tunnel) as well as the exurban freeway benefiting a handful of people, providing that those people are engaging in interstate commerce and an equally suitable but less expensive option isn't available or feasible.
IMO, as a country, we've spent far too much money for far too long on exurban highway development while almost entirely ignoring the public transit of our major cities. It just baffles me that the federal government, and some state/local governments, are always able to find money in the budget to expand freeways and add lanes, but they are often unable to find a dime to invest in public transit. Rather, many are cutting public transit still, even at a time when more cities need better public transit.
I think we need to take a step back from the exurban highway building and focus on things like commuter rails and efficient BRT in metro areas. Most importantly, politicians need to stop playing politics with the lives of thousands of people just because we don't politically support the current federal administration. Our public transit and older neighborhoods are the "socialist" projects that need the most support right now, with countless older bridges and tunnels that are in need of repair. It just seems like whenever new infrastructure spending is approved, it goes towards building and improving highways and creating more induced demand. It rarely is spent on public transit or improving bridges. And that's largely because conservatives and libertarians have done an amazing job at convincing Americans that public transit spending is socialism.
Commuter rail styled after the S-Bahn or RER networks and similar in Europe or the commuter rail systems in Australia would be great. The way they differ from most commuter rail systems in the US is that these lines branch out quite a bit, but go through central corridors within the dense urban core as a combined route.
What that allows for is essentially rapid transit within the densest parts of the metropolitan area since a branch coming every half hour for most of the day combines with another branch or three in the urban core and so for several or more stops have service that so that a service with four branches running every half hour each then becomes a rapid transit solution in the city that comes every 7.5 minutes (so an average wait time at the station of under 4 minutes) during most times of the day and more frequently during peak periods.
The closest to getting that right now is Philadelphia though its shared interlined parts parallel part of its rapid transit system though one can argue that the DC Metro and the Bay Area BART are or have a lot of similar characteristics to such systems.
Mass transit is a 19th century concept. In news from Britain, I regularly read horror stories of delays and cancellations: leaves on the track, cleanup from a suicide, storms, protestors gluing themselves to transport, platform pushers, etc.
Such horror!
They should have a better transportation network like America:
- 40,000 Americans die by car annually
- Cars are the leading cause of child deaths
- Fattest/unhealthiest country in the west because nobody can walk anywhere.
- Engage in foreign wars to keep the cheap oil running due to addiction to driving.
- Have no mobility alternatives with people chained to metal boxes for basic daily trips.
- Force everyone to depend on the financial burden that is car ownership, easily $10K+ annually for most households.
- Destroy entire neighborhoods to build massive, overpriced infrastructure that is impossible to maintain.
- Pollute and poison the environment
Those are grants and not subsidies. They are being used to fund existing projects to expand the network and not for maintenance. Crossrail, for example, goes beyond the city limits and it would be ridiculous for London to pay 100% of its development.
The grants are what we in the United States would call "capital funding," which doesn't count towards operating costs.
What might be worth noting here is that there are two sources of non-fare revenue for operations that we might call "taxes" or "tolls", namely, the congestion charge for cars entering central London and the local business rates (which I'm guessing would be analogous to local business income taxes).
New York is about to implement a congestion charge for vehicles entering Manhattan south of 60th Street. (Drivers entering Manhattan via the Lincoln or Holland tunnels will not pay it, as those two commuter routes are already toll facilities.) These strike me as both sensible and defensible, as the availability of good public transit should enable them to leave their cars at home and ride into their jobs in the city.
Edited to add: Rereading the material from the TfL website RaleighSentinel posted, the business rates retention would also count as capital, not operating, funding.
(regarding commuter/regional rail lines being routed through the city core)
The closest to getting that right now is Philadelphia though its shared interlined parts parallel part of its rapid transit system though one can argue that the DC Metro and the Bay Area BART are or have a lot of similar characteristics to such systems.
I made that last argument on the "BART vs. DC Metro" thread and got lambasted by others who focused on the operational rather than the functional nature of the WMATA system.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NJBoy3
Cost would be beyond enormous. Not to mention environmental impact. Can no longer be done in this country..
If by this you mean acquire right-of-way for new rail lines where none exists now, maybe, but there are ways to acquire rights of way that may not require significant taking of property.
SEPTA is on the verge of building a new light metro spur off an existing line in the suburbs that will serve the shopping center and business park in King of Prussia, the Philadelphia region's biggest edge city and second on the East Coast only to Tysons (Corner), Va.*
It will follow a utility transmission line for part of its route, run alongside the Pennsylvania Turnpike on an elevated viaduct for another part, and run on an elevated viaduct over local roads for the remainder.
*And come to think of it, WMATA Metrorail's newest and longest extension runs on an elevated viaduct through Tysons Corner, then in a freeway median to Reston.
I made that last argument on the "BART vs. DC Metro" thread and got lambasted by others who focused on the operational rather than the functional nature of the WMATA system.
If by this you mean acquire right-of-way for new rail lines where none exists now, maybe, but there are ways to acquire rights of way that may not require significant taking of property.
SEPTA is on the verge of building a new light metro spur off an existing line in the suburbs that will serve the shopping center and business park in King of Prussia, the Philadelphia region's biggest edge city and second on the East Coast only to Tysons (Corner), Va.*
It will follow a utility transmission line for part of its route, run alongside the Pennsylvania Turnpike on an elevated viaduct for another part, and run on an elevated viaduct over local roads for the remainder.
*And come to think of it, WMATA Metrorail's newest and longest extension runs on an elevated viaduct through Tysons Corner, then in a freeway median to Reston.
Good idea, KOP has needed it for years. Will it be electrified like the other SEPTA lines?
SEPTA is on the verge of building a new light metro spur off an existing line in the suburbs that will serve the shopping center and business park in King of Prussia, the Philadelphia region's biggest edge city and second on the East Coast only to Tysons (Corner), Va.*
'Bout time. King of Prussia has needed high-capacity service at least since the 1980s, when I lived in Philadelphia. I'm sure they need it even more now.
"Light metro" implies grade-separated guideway and a decent amount of carrying capacity. If it's going to be a spur of an existing line, I would think it would have to be a branch of the Norristown High Speed Line (or whatever it's called nowadays). That's the only "light metro" line in the area that I can think of.
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