Photo: Roadsidepictures
You know that old saw about how greens should shut up about public transportation because Americans hate trains and insist on getting around in their own private chunks of resource-sucking steel and plastic?
Well, that may be going the way of $2/gallon gas. Get this, from a recent poll of North Carolina residents:
Potential new railway options were embraced positively by those surveyed. Commuter rails in urban areas and high-speed train travel between larger cities were supported or strongly supported at 72 and 70 percent of respondents respectively. Respondents also embraced the possibility of a regional rail system in their area, with 65 percent supporting or strongly supporting this concept.
And this:
While respondents appeared willing to support railway services financially, there was general opposition to transportation funding in the areas of road construction and maintenance.
If public transportation is capturing the imaginations of North Carolinians -- a state heavily marked by sprawl and car reliance -- then folks in other areas, too, are likely ready to embrace the train.
Public investment in a functioning train system might in the end make more sense than propping up biofuel production, waging multi-trillion-dollar oil wars, or mopping up mammoth Wall Street messes.
Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)
For public transportation to survive, we all need to ... drive more?
Sen. Ben Cardin answers Grist’s questions on public transit and mountaintop removal mining
Comments
View as Threaded
Pompey Road Posted 5:56 am
18 Mar 2008
I guess the same people who bought up the trolley systems bought mass transit out even in the rural area's.
Ain't nothin like a slow train ride through the mountains, I don't care about high speed rail.
I would ride the old narrow gage like the one from Durango to Silverton if they would only bring one back.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
Permalink
sindark Posted 6:05 am
18 Mar 2008
The biggest gains were in rail ridership, with significantly lower increases in bus use, except in relatively small communities.
a sibilant intake of breath
Permalink
sindark Posted 6:06 am
18 Mar 2008
http://www.apta.com/research/stats/ridership/
Some Canadian data is also available:
http://www.apta.com/research/stats/ridership/riderep/docu ...
a sibilant intake of breath
Permalink
rh Posted 7:44 am
18 Mar 2008
Permalink
Pangolin Posted 2:57 pm
18 Mar 2008
In California we have voted repeatedly for trains to take some of the load off of the I-5 corridor and the legislature and the governator flat refuse to fund anything to do with them. As a result we now have worse rail service than was available in the state in 1910.
Anybody who's holding out for rail service in the 21st century should quit holding their breath now. You're more likely to get that flying car that Popular Mechanics keeps promising us.
Put the Carbon Back
Permalink
ViridianSeattle Posted 4:05 pm
18 Mar 2008
That said, at least here in the NW we have the Amtrak Cascade run from Seattle to Portland. They even have a limited number of bike hooks in the baggage car so you don't have to box your bike to take it along. A great way to get down to P'town...
Permalink
John Dewey Posted 12:36 am
19 Mar 2008
Trains can only go where rails are built. Buses can go everywehere that cars can go. Buses can easily be reallocated to meet shifting demand. Buses can serve events in locations throughout a metro area.
Why do so many greens buy into these expensive solutions that suck funds from more cost-effective alternatives?
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 12:45 am
19 Mar 2008
The basic point is this: The advantage of the tracks is that steel wheels on steel track has much less friction than tires on roads. So, according to what I have read, the logical thing to do is to have trains where the density and ridership justifies it, and buses where there is less density. It's not either/or, it's both, in the appropriate areas.
Another good side is lightrailnow, although as you can tell from the title, they are slanted toward light rail.
Permalink
John Dewey Posted 1:01 am
19 Mar 2008
Dallas Area Rapid Transit has collected about $5 billion in sales taxes and federal government grants over the past 20 years. Their latest rail ridership figures for 2007?
light rail - 60,592 riders per day
commuter rail - 8,893 riders per day
Ridership figures count each half of a commuting round trip as a separate trip. Do the above ridership totals really mean that - at most - 34,700 passengers have abandoned their personal vehicles to ride the trains. The areas served by DART and the Trinity Railway Express are home to 3.5 million daily commuters.
Net result from collecting $5 billion of taxpayers money for rail transit in Dallas? 1% of commuters have been removed from the highways.
Trains do not work in low density metro areas. Yet greens keep promoting them. Why?
Permalink
Tom Philpott Posted 1:26 am
19 Mar 2008
Victual Reality
Permalink
John Dewey Posted 1:29 am
19 Mar 2008
Thank you for the link to the very detailed anlysis. The conclusion of that analysis makes sense:
"Neither the automobile nor mass transit will significantly reduce our energy consumption in urban passenger transportation. There is no magic technical fix for the problem, but there is an obvious solution: Simply greatly reduce the amount of travel."
Environmentally conscious citizens should be promoting mixed use development rather than expensive and ineffective trains.
Permalink
John Dewey Posted 1:41 am
19 Mar 2008
As I see it, whether low density is a problem or not, it is the choice that 2 million households have already made in north Texas. Spending another $5 billion on trains is not going to change the density. IMO, it is not practical to assume those 2 million homes are going to be abandoned. On the other hand, workplaces can be moved closer to existing housing. That's what is happening not just in Dallas, but across the nation as office jobs are relocating to the suburbs.
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 1:59 am
19 Mar 2008
The caveat to your argument against trains is this: in areas that seem to have a "density potential" (my term I just made it up), like around Washington DC, the appearance of transit stops actually encourages density, more people use the trains, more buildings build up near the transit stops, and a self-reinforcing process occurs. So it sounds to me that Dallas should be putting in trains along with plans for new town centers (which Virginia Beach constructed a Town Center, for example).
Permalink
John Dewey Posted 2:44 am
19 Mar 2008
That would be OK, except that it cost Dallas metro taxpayers $5 billion (so far) to provide a system to serve 1 percent of the commuters. Of course, if the train commuters were paying for the total cost of their own ride, ridership would plummet.
The problem with so many green solutions is that the masses end up subsidizing the few. What are needed are solutions which pay for themselves.
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 3:03 am
19 Mar 2008
It seems that what is going on is what I described earlier, that transit stops are spurring a self-reinforcing cycle of density in Dallas; the real estate in those areas has been increasing in value as well. Also, ridership is up past 60,000, apparently. It sounds like you have a winner there.
Permalink
John Dewey Posted 3:12 am
19 Mar 2008
Please remember that "ridership" counts every one way trip as a rider. So a "ridership" of 60,000 means that, after 15 years and $5 billion in subsidies, 30,000 people are using the trains each day - in a metro area with a population of 5 million. How on earth is that a winner?
Permalink
John Dewey Posted 3:25 am
19 Mar 2008
DART - and its hired econimist from the Universiy of North Texas - are quick to claim credit for every development that occurs anywhere close to its rail lines. The developments they list just happen to be next to either existing expanded freeways or the still vibrant center city. Fort Worth has seen similar development near its center city - but miles from the nearest rail line.
What DART - and its economist - do not advertise is that DART lines not adjacent to freeways - such as the Trinity Railway Express and Blue Line to Garland - have seen no development. They also fail to point out that every new freeway and tollway in the Dallas-Fort Worth area is quickly followed by office and housing development hundreds of times larger than what occurs near its rail lines.
Bottom line: development still follows roads and highways, just as it has done for the 100 years since the introduction of the Model T.
Permalink
freespeech Posted 3:25 am
19 Mar 2008
We cannot afford to do both unless our next president with backing of Congress starts a WPA-style "Green Progress Administration" that can rev up the economy with green jobs, and that is successful to the point we get out of the hole we're in.
And we've got to stop this lousy war.
What will you tell your children when they ask what you did to help our planet in peril?
Permalink
javaearth Posted 3:31 am
19 Mar 2008
There is a new train system put in place in Northern Utah.
Most people here do not take nor care for the public transport, however when the gas prices go up and there is only one income supporting the family for 3 to 4 kids, I am sure that attitude is going to change. Utah has the highest numbe rof people per family in the US. Becausee the average couple here has 4 plus children.
The new train will go from Pleasant view to Salt Lake city.
Permalink
freespeech Posted 3:34 am
19 Mar 2008
What will you tell your children when they ask what you did to help our planet in peril?
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 3:46 am
19 Mar 2008
It's very difficult to assess the value of public transit, in my opinion; I don't know if economists could have predicted the success of the NYC subway system for instance, it's more a case of trying to decide how to plan the future of an urban area -- although cost is certainly important too.
Permalink
Tasermons Partner Posted 3:49 am
19 Mar 2008
Actually, and though not a part of the DART system technically, parta the growth in Fort Worth is due to an expansion of daily services of a transit line that connects Fort Worth to Dallas, and the DART line.
And many of the new developments along the Dart line have been designed with DART in mind, and several are considered pedestrian-friendly mixed-use, new urbanism developments...the type of which may not have occured in that particular area had it not been for the DART lines.
Similar results are occuring with the METRO line in Houston and the new transit lines in Austin.
Permalink
John Dewey Posted 4:15 am
19 Mar 2008
And what part would that be?
The Texas and Pacific lofts by the T&P station are a fraction of the development at Sundance Square - which is on the other side of downtown from the TRE line.
I've seen no development near the Richland Hills station.
And, of course, the housing development in the far suburbs of Tarrant County - around Keller, Southlake, Colleyville, and Grapevine - dwarfs the puny growth near the TRE line by a factor of at least 500. IOW, for every condo that has been added near TRE since its opening, at least 500 single family homes have been added in train-less Fort Worth suburbs.
Permalink
racc Posted 7:38 am
19 Mar 2008
According to the census, in 1996, 13,415 or 16.8% of people commuted to work by transit. In 2006, this increased to 23,445 or 25% of people, an increase of 10,030. The percentage of people driving by themselves decreased from 64% to 57%. The number of people using transit would have been even higher if it were not for a lack of trains and buses. During rush hour, many trains and buses are filled to capacity.
There are hundreds of units of housing currently being built around SkyTrain stations. More trains will start arriving in 2009. With high gas prices, the number of people using transit will only increase while the number of people driving will continue to fall in Burnaby and throughout Metro Vancouver.
I do feel sorry for cities that have over built highways and bridges that are useless in a future of expensive energy. Time to stop wasting money on roads and cars and invest in rapid transit, rail and buses. This is what the rest of the world is doing. The US needs to act fast or it will even be further behind.
Permalink
racc Posted 8:35 am
19 Mar 2008
In addition, while just DART is only at 60,000 today, it can easily be expanded to handle several times that amount. Light rail can handle up to 20,000 people per hour per direction while a lane of highway can only handle 2,000 vehicles per hour.
Rail is a much better choice especially in the long term especial in a world of expensive energy and increasing prices for just about everything. With the rapid growth in China, it would not surprise me that soon, due to rising cost of materials, the average person may not be able to afford their own automobile
Permalink
infp Posted 9:00 am
19 Mar 2008
Permalink
Tasermons Partner Posted 11:30 am
19 Mar 2008
Really? Ya haven't noticed all the new condos, the mixed-use development, or the new mid-rise office park?
When was the last time you were down there?
IOW, for every condo that has been added near TRE since its opening, at least 500 single family homes have been added in train-less Fort Worth suburbs.
Yep. And had the Dart not been built, then that would be 501 houses, wouldn't it? And 501 cars instead of 500. Every little bit counts. I'll take 500 over 501 any day (even though I'd like it to be even less).
Permalink