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So Moscow thinks it's the first city to use celebrity voices to make subway announcements. Telling New Yorkers on the new subway cars to step in and stand clear of the closing doors is none other than Charlie Pellet of WBBR-AM 1130, aka Bloomberg Radio. Strangely enough, the trains had Charlie's voice before his boss became Mayor. I'll grant that he's not of the caliber of NYC taxicab announcers (Joan Rivers, Elmo), but I think he would count as the first recognizable-from-somewhere voice on the subway.
Did you know that the 2004 Toyota Prius is equipped with Bluetooth? It's true - you can make and recieve calls right through the car's control panel without any wires. That car has a lot going for it, except for the fact that it's sort of ugly and runs on tiny little tires...
WMATA is loving the publicity it's getting from the security camera footage of a deer in running down the platform at the Addison Road-Seat Pleasant Station. Until a few minutes ago it was the lead story on WMATA's site, but they've taken down the post. Here's what WMATA's site looked like.
Contractors are bidding for construction of the first (Red) line. Needless to say, there will be some problems if the ever decide to build a Green Line.
Also, notice how many of the contractors come from countries that are anti-Israel or have significant anti-Israel elements. Unlike the U.S., which can't divorce a country's political views from its technical abilities, Israel prefers to build bridges. Then again, they don't have much of a choice.
"They are nothing more than "engineering boondoggles" in the mind of Fred Moore, president of the Association for Public Transportation in Boston, an advocacy organization for car-free transportation. He said monorails cannot travel faster than 35 miles per hour, do not contend well with snow and ice, and are difficult and costly to repair. "Even the deep pockets of Disney does not build them any more because of the cost," Moore said. "People get all caught up in the futuristic, but the reality is that there's nothing a monorail can do that a light rail can't.""
Why can't engineers come up with something cool and practical?
Try as I might, I haven't been able to figure out what this game is. There's a BBC message board that's devoted to it. And I know the game apparently has something to do with the BBC 4 comedy, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
Can some help a poor American out and explain how this game works? Maybe we can adapt it to the DC metro or NYC subway....
...Ho Ho Hos, that is. Just in case you thought you could escepe the endless waves of sickly-sweet holiday cheer washing over the world by going underground, you're wrong, at least in Chicago, where a Santa Claus made a flatbed car his sleigh.
Us anti-Santanistas did get one moment of dark humor to enjoy however, as the Christmas train derailed.
...Because only a true transit nerd would follow this link to an interesting article in Metro Magazine on the advantages of the multiplexing of bus wiring.
So, all our loyal Live from the Third Rail readers have probably noticed the domain name this blog rests on -- smorgasblog.com.
We're pleased to announce that Smorgasblog has now officially launched, so to speak.
What is Smorgasblog, you ask?
Think of Smorgasblog as the Venn diagram of group blogs. We're a group of bloggers who have some (but not all) overlapping interests and like to write on different topics but in communities of those with the same interest. The end result is a grouping of specialty blogs, each with multiple perspectives. We now have two blogs, but more are in the works.
Posts to each of the blogs are aggregated on smorgasblog.com, so that you can quickly see what our bloggers are writing about.
We'll be launching new themed blogs over the next several weeks and months. If this sounds interesting to you and you would like to join us (or suggest/start a blog on smorgasblog.com), email us at smorgasblog@smorgasblog.com.
AirTrain opened yesterday, making the trip to JFK only slightly less of a pain. I've already pronounced the $1.9 billion project asinine, so please forgive if I'm not thrilled at the opening.
The first email sent to someone on a New York subway platform via a WiFi transmitter on a bicycle bore the subject line "im'prove ^^your perfor`man^ce : wwvzhxtwcba."
Cars are most people's main form of transportation, so I suppose they are as good a topic as any for this forum.
So, Chevrolet will initiate a patriotic marketing campaign with the slogan "An American Revoution." I'd like to enjoy American cars, I really would, but there's one big problem and it's not that I'm a lilly-livered defeatist commie liberal weenie.
As much as it pains me to say so about an industry that built large swaths of my country, American cars are mostly butt-ugly, inefficient, badly designed and noisy. I had the (dis)pleasure of riding in a Ford Focus last night, and my experience only fortified my belief that the only way to sell these things is to appeal to something other than consumers' desire for quality. The cupholders were hidden below the stereo, which was hard to use and read. The seats were uncomfortable and the glove compartment jutted out too far. From the outside, the car is a giant-fly-like monstrosity. The country that brought the world the GTO now makes the aformentioned Focus and the Pontiac Aztek.
In fact, the only reason I'm complaining now is because it's been so long since I rode in an American car that wasn't a taxi (and it's been a while since I was in a taxi as well). All of my friends drive imports - they're young and don't make that much money, so things like reliability and fuel efficiency trump concerns like sticking it to the Krauts and Japs.
Maybe if Chevy and Ford stopped relying on jingoism and xenophobia to sell cars, they might actualy produce something worth purchasing. Their shameless performance after 9/11 leads me to believe they won't any time soon.
According to USA Today, six Southeastern states are joining forces to push for a high-speed train network connecting Washington, D.C. Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee.
Why? Who is going to use this? The sprawling megalopolis that extends from Washington DC to Boston made the Acela a good idea. Baltimore, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington--the main stops along the Acela line--are among the 25 most populous cities in the nation. Of the six Southeastern states, only Tennessee has any of the nation's largest cities. And lets be realistic, this isn't high speed rail, it's traveling at around 85-90 mph. It's kinda quick rail.
Barring a massive shift in American transportation culture, this is a bad idea.
But wait -- SkyWeb Express, the personal rapid transit company based in Duluth, MN (see below) might not be so stuck on building in Duluth after all. Or at least, they're telling Santa Cruz, CA that they are the perfect small city for personal rapid transit.
I've been a huge fan of PRT since I began hearing about it many years ago. It has a number of positive aspects:
Individualized cars means that people who are less comfortable on other forms of mass transit (such as the middle class "bus phobia")
will be drawn to it
By going directly to the needed stop, rather than stopping at every station, you reduce wait and transit time
By the same accord, you eliminate the need to "transfer" lines, as individual cars can reach any station in the system
It just sounds cool
But there are some serious problems with PRT:
It doesn't work for high-volume transit systems. Fitting four people into a cab is nice and comfortable, but when you haul 300,000+ a day, it isn't a feasible system.
PRT has few advantages over an automobile, other than not having to park it. And it has many detractors, in that people still only end up at a transit station and not at their final destination, so they can't eliminate owning a car all together (unless they live in the heart of the city)
No matter what SkyWeb Express says, this is not going to be a revenue generating endeavor. I wish it were, believe me, but mass transit - no matter how cool it is -- doesn't earn money in this country, unless the fees are very high. And residents of neither Duluth, MN or Santa Cruz, CA, are paying $3-5 a head for a transit ride.
So, long story short, it's a great idea for mid-sized cities. And I can't wait to see it implemented. But it's not the panacea that people think it is.
The Rochester-Toronto high-speed ferry has a website. I didn't know such a thing as a "ferry with attitude" existed.
UPDATE: We’ve been receiving a number of google hits for the Rochester/Toronto ferry. If you’ve arrived here via Google, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the ferry, as well as what drove you to search for more information. Please feel free to leave your comments in the box below. And, of course, feel free to read more of the site.
The New York MTA wants to eliminate some elevator operators. On the surface, it doesn't seem like the subways need elevator operators. I occasionally switched from the 1 or 9 to the A train at 168th Street station, one of few with the operators. They don't close the doors by hand or operate levers as if they were in a Park Avenue apartment building - they just hit buttons like normal riders in modern elevators.
So why are they needed? Well, the 168th Street elevators are huge and go very deep underground, making for a fairly long trip. It wouldn't be surprising if someone felt uncomfortable riding alone with a menacing stranger, even if security cameras watched over them. Besides, the 168th Street elevator operators happen to be some of the friendliest people working for the MTA and earn their keep in the form of goodwill many times over.
"'If no new money is found for the fund, it will go bankrupt on July 1, 2005', said Martin Robins, director of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Institute at Rutgers University, New Brunswick."
I won't summarize the entire article here, but here's the gist, it's nearly broke because of "more than a decade of mismanagement, heavy borrowing, inaction by officials and snowballing debt."
I think the article fails to stress how avoidable the current crisis once was. A consistent lack of foresight from politicians on both sides of the aisle has allowed the fund's financial woes to spiral dangerously out of control. The Transportation Trust is funded by multiple sources, but a significant portion comes from the state's gasoline tax. According to state law, New Jersey's gas tax is dedicated to the Transportation Trust, but "the annual state budget reroutes millions of dollars each year into the general treasury because the budget can supersede state law." New Jersey's 10-cent gas tax is the third lowest in the nation, only Alaskans and Georgians pay less. (Before anyone gets upset, I'll clear this up, since depending on where you look you get different answers to this issue--New Jersey drivers currently pay a 10-cent gas tax and a 4.5-cent petroleum products gross-receipts tax. The 10-cent gasoline excise tax is the third lowest, the 14.5-cent total tax is the fifth lowest in the nation--everyone happy now)
All but four states - Georgia, Alaska, Minnesota and Indiana - have raised their gas tax since New Jersey last did in 1988. Proposed gas-tax increases have been proposed and either rejected by Governors, voted down in legislatures, or ignored since '88.
"In 1998, a proposed 5 cent per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax was never voted on. The current commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, John F. 'Jack' Lettiere Jr., said such an increase might have averted the current crisis.... 'Guts and leadership are the reason we're in this situation. No one's had the leadership to say we've got a real problem here,' Lettiere told a Gannett New Jersey editorial board meeting last month. 'Maybe the responsible thing to do a couple years ago would have been to raise the gas tax 2 cents a gallon.'"
One can't help but think of the phrase, 20/20 hindsight, when reading Lettiere's quote, especially in light of a blue ribbon panel of transportation experts' recommendation for a 12.5-cent hike in the gas tax. That proposal was summarily killed by Gov. James E. McGreevey last week. Word is that McGreevey won't support a gas tax increase in '04 either. Ironically, a report published by New Jersey Policy Perspective in '02 noted that "when NJ Transit bus and rail fare increases were approved in January [of 2002] the action was in part defended on grounds that they had not risen since 1991 - but New Jersey's gas tax hasn't been increased since 1988.
Adding to the Trust's problems is the relatively recent (2000) modification of the law's language, to allow salaries and other nonconstruction items to be paid from the trust fund which was originally created to fund "transportation projects." (The language was changed to "transportation purposes.")
Perhaps the biggest problem facing New Jersey commuters has received little coverage. The Press of Atlantic City reports:
A spokesman for [New Jersey Alliance for Action], Ernie Landante, said New Jersey stands to lose close to $10 billion in federal aid if it does not reauthorize the transportation trust fund.
'We only get the money if we provide a 20 percent match,' Landante said. 'The only way to do that is by having funds available in the transportation trust fund. Otherwise, money that would be ours would go to building roads in Utah and railroads in Iowa.'"
Addenda
While researching this post I came across the following article from the Courier Post Online, it made me laugh. It's because of people like Martin Cruz that I'm proud that I don't drive anymore.:
Governor rules out gas tax increase
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Panel supported up to 15-cent hike to fund road work
By LILO H. STAINTON
Courier-Post Staff
WOODBRIDGE
Gov. James E. McGreevey on Tuesday put the brakes on plans to raise New Jersey's gas tax by up to 15 cents, directing the transportation commissioner to find ways to fund road and rail repairs and improvements with existing revenues.
"With New Jersey just beginning to emerge from an economic downturn, with small businesses struggling to create new jobs, with families struggling to pay bills, it is the wrong time to increase the gas tax," McGreevey said.
New Jersey's gas tax of 14.5 cents per gallon is the nation's third lowest. A panel recommended a 12.5- to 15-cent hike two weeks ago as a way to pay for transportation projects.
Customers at the Race Track Texaco on Route 70 in Cherry Hill were elated to learn McGreevey scuttled the plan.
"God bless him, especially as high as (gas prices are) now," said Martin Cruz of Camden, who paid $30 to fill his sport utility vehicle Tuesday...
Well, it was bound to happen eventually. WMATA's long history of regional cooperation may well be nearing an end. Encouraged by Herndon's recent torpedoing of the financing plan for the Dulles extension, Maryland's representative on Metro's board of directors said the will refuse to pay its share of the operating costs for the line. According to the Washington Post Ehrlich administration appointee Robert J. Smith "said the Republican administration that took office in January believes bus rapid transit is a cheaper and faster solution to the region's transit needs."
Smith went on to call Fairfax leaders "rather negligent" for pushing the Metro extension. Smith's statement prompted a terse response from Virginia's Metro representatives. Again, the Post:
"Across the river, T. Dana Kauffman, a Fairfax supervisor who represents the county on the Metro board, unleashed a sharp retort. "I continue to be amazed at Mr. Smith's understanding of the price of everything and the value of nothing," Kauffman said. "This is a state priority project, not just a Fairfax project. He's picked a bad fight."
The Ehrlich administration is promoting buses because it favors roads over rail, Kauffman said. "Many of us don't buy into their current love affair with anything asphalt," he said."
Smith wants to change the complicated current funding structure, in place since 1976. This prompted another Virginia representative to Metro to issue a not-so-veiled threat to Maryland, saying, "Virginia is always open to discussing funding formulas, but far more of the long routes today are in Maryland than they are in Virginia. Bob [Smith] may want to be a little careful what he asks for. It may be time for everyone to have a tutorial on how the formula works."
In short, it seems that none of us will be seeing rail to Dulles in our lifetime.
A Bush helps a project fail -- this time it's not for science class
As much as I'd like to stick it to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, I'm not entirely convinced the constitutionally-mandated Florida high speed rail is such a good idea.
On one hand, the voters approved it, so if they don't use it, it's their fault. Also, I've driven Florida from end-to-end on I-95, and the trip is neither interesting nor reasonable in length. Had an affordable and convenient rail option been available, I would have ditched the car in Jacksonville in a heartbeat.
On the other hand, I have serious doubts as to whether people will use it and if Gov. Bush wants to get an initiative on the ballot to stop the project just four years after it was first okayed by voters, I wouldn't be surprised if he spends a great deal of time and effort to stymie the project, making it less useful for Floridians and scaring off other states thinking about high-speed rail. Better not done at all than done wrong, I'd say.
Contractors said the state would make money, but I don't know if I believe it, given the fact that a state legislator actually had to request the double-tracking of the initial Orlando-Tampa segment. Single-track high speed rail? Are they serious?
A judge ruled today that employees belonging to four Amtrak unions are legally allowed to strike. Amtrak had fought to prevent the union strike, which may occur during the December holiday rush. The unions claim they are striking because Congress did not provide enough support for the passenger rail; Amtrak claims they want bargaining power in upcoming negotiations.
It's a well-known fact that the privately-owned airline industry is subsidized to a much greater extent than the publically-owned intercity passenger rail network. The airlines don't just get money because more people use them, they get money because they can give money -- to politicians. Yesterday's campaign finance ruling won't change that.
If government-owned industry will always be undersubsidized because it can't engage in rent-seeking behavior and privately-owned corporations can't fail because politicians are so well taken care of by them, thenwhy wouldn't regional, privatized passanger rail lines soak up even more subsidy than Amtrak without the burden of money-losing continent-crossers?
An example: JetBlue got its prime spot at JFK airport with the help ofNew York Sen. Charles Schumer. All he wanted in exchange was service to Buffalo and Rochester so it would be easier for him to visit and fundraise in other parts of the state. All a rail company would need to do is provide a stop in a legislator's hometown for essentially unlimited bond-guarantees, write-downs, Army Corps of Engineers studies and whatever else it takes to run a railroad.
There's no such thing as an unsubsidized mode of transport in America anymore, so why not take advantage?
The University of Washington has come to an agreement with Sound Transit on the tunneling for a new light rail line. University officials were originally concerned that having the route go to close to the science and engineering buildings would disrupt experiments. Apparently, the University has an unusually high level of "vibration stillness" which allows research involving acoustic and electromagnetic waves that other universitys can't. Who knew?
Why, oh why, do they want light rail on the northern shore of Staten Island? The St. George SIRT (heavy rail) terminal has two platforms leading directly to the abandoned line. Why not get it up to heavy rail standards, run existing SIRT rolling stock (supplimented by a few old NYC subway cars), saving money on labor, maintainance, yards and work to the St. George station. How many cars could you possibly need to run a 5-mile stretch of track anyway?
There is another reason some want light rail on the north shore.
It turns out the Bayonne Bridge linking Staten Island with New Jersey was built with space for transit and certain Jersey interests want the Hudson-Bergen light rail to come to Staten Island for the 2,800 Staten Islanders who work in Jersey City. Why else would PANYNJ even bother with something that's so clearly a MTA issue?
WCBS 880's New York Wire reports that a study, funded by PANY/NJ, finds that resurrecting and recreating a Staten Island rail line (~5 miles in length) would carry about 16,000 passengers a year. The line has been defunct since the mid-1950s; it would be intended to reduce the commute time to the St. George Ferry Terminal from 40 minutes to 15 minutes.
Metro Magazine has an interesting feature article on the diesel multiple unit (DMU) trains. DMUs combine a locomotive with a passenger car. Each car cam accomodate between 200 and 300 passengers, so they are potentially very useful for commuter rail lines with lower ridership who could benefit from less expensive rail.
Why has Pennsylvania lost population and jobs, while other states succeded? A Brookings Institution report says it was a lack of a coherent growth vision:
"For the last 20 years, Pennsylvania's population has barely grown, inching up only 2.5 percent from 1982 to 1997. Meanwhile, it developed more acreage than all but five other states.
[...]
Brookings documented wide state spending disparities between established communities and newer "outer townships," with the former getting short shrift. Through one administration after another, the report says, the state poured resources into the construction of highways, schools and sewer and water systems in undeveloped, outlying areas, which then quickly became developed.
For instance: Since the late 1990s, per-capita state spending on roads in outer townships has been almost double the amount given to older areas. Meanwhile, other projects in newer communities have been favored, as well, by the state's seven major economic-development programs."
While building new roads and laying down new pipe may make it feel like progress is being made, all that new stuff, combined with the cost of keeping the old infrastructure in usable condition, really adds up, cost-wise. If government is going to pay for most infrastructure development costs, they should at least have a plan to direct the money where it can be used most efficiently.
Neighboring New Jersey, which is also saddled with an old industrial infrastructure and sprawling suburbs, grew by twice Pennsylvania's rate, but set aside millions of acres of open space and encouraged dense development.
Four LFTTR maxims:
1. More roads don't decrease congestion or shorten commute time.
2. More sprawl doesn't mean making room for more people.
3. If government pays for infrastructure, it should be able to say "no."
4. Most people just don't like riding the bus.
The Las Vegas Monorail Co. has hired Brown & Partners as its advertising and marketing agency. According to an article in AdWeek, Brown & Partners is "charged with branding the monorail system… and promoting it as a new Las Vegas ‘experience…’ The agency will focus on the monorail's unique and convenient facets, which include its connections to eight major resorts and nine convention facilities."
We've talked about Las Vegas' monorail on this site before, but what's interesting about this story is that it seems the monorail will be billed as a Disney-esque gimmick, rather than a viable option for public transit.
Brown & Partners also provide marketing services to other transit clients, including the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada and the California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission (CNSSTC). (Speaking of the CNSSTC, I'd love it if someone blogged about that project which would connect the LA metro area and Vegas using maglev trains.)
Why Does The Seattle Area Have All The Interesting Transit?
One more piece of newscoming out of Seattle -- two local firms are hoping to take over ferry routes that the state no longer runs after voters rejected a tax increase to pay for the service:
Four private marine operators have formed a company that hopes to run passenger ferries between Kingston and downtown Seattle, while another company is hoping to pick up the Bremerton-Seattle route abandoned by the state in September.
They hope to begin service within 6 months, although there are many hurdles to jump (including getting the state to relinquish their monopoly over the ferry routes...)
Contrary to popular belief (given the LA and Canadian transit strikes), not all Unions and Transit Authorities hate each other. The Longueuil transit agency, for example, agrees with its union that they shouldn't be subcontracting bus routes, according to a Montreal Gazette article.
Could it happen here? Given the complete lack of any security at most rail facilities, probably. Although chemical weapons and radiation detectors for stations are sopping up millions in homeland security money, the real danger is from conventional explosives.
The definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Such is the case with the guy at TOLLROADSNews, who never saw a stretch of pavement clogged with gas-guzzlers he didn't like. Somehow, the next new road will be the one that makes everything flow smoothly. Now, TRN is using this week's Metrorail vote in Herndon to tar all rail advocates as crazies.
You know what, they're right. Metrorail didn't solve the problem of traffic congestion in DC. However, it did solve it for the 600,000 riders who use it every day. We don't get killed in accidents involving drunk drivers, we don't spend 30 minutes hunting for a parking spot every day and some of us don't even bother paying high car insurance fees. We stay off the roads, making it possible for those of you who do choose a soulless existence amidst the strip malls and prefab houses to get to work in the morning.
It's a pity that the writer at TRN is such a blindidealogue. Toll roads are a good idea - it's nice that someone wants to see road users pay their way for once, but maybe whoever is responsible for TRN should take the train for a change - it could help them chill out a little.
Light rail in Lagos, Nigeria? It seems so. What surprises me in the article is the estimate that it will take 20,000 people to build it. Granted, every development economist will tell you that labor-surplus economies should use labor-intensive practices, since they are cheaper and have the added benefit of preventing the jobless from rioting.
The amusing part is that there are some American light rail systems that have fewer daily riders than the Lagos system will have construction workers.
Sure, the Washington Metro is clean, safe and fast, but one thing I miss about the New York subway are the performers, otherwise known as buskers. There simply isn't space (or tolerance) for the occasional accordianist, piccolo player, Michael Jackson impersonator or flamenco dancing couple in the Metro, which keeps the system grayer than it needs to be.
Anyway, busking was almost severely restricted in Boston, but it looks like a deal has been reached.
A The Seattle Times article reports on a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project in Eugene, OR.
The project may be one of the few BRT projects that makes sense, for a couple of reasons:
Smaller Population - The town's population is ~325,000 -- not high enough to justify the expenses of light or heavy rail.
Proactive Rather than Reactive - The line is being designed and installed early, as there currently isn't a horrible traffic problem but one is anticipated.
Dedicated Lanes - Two-thirds of the BRT travel will be in a dedicated lane (this should be 100%, but what can you do?)
Traffic Priority - Buses have priority at traffic signals, speeding them through traffic.
Better Information - Digital signs will announce the arrival of the next bus
The system will certainly not be perfect. But as transit proponents, we have to realize that transit will hit all our desires, and a system that accomplishes 85-90% of the goals is really the best we can hope for. This BRT system may be one of the few that accomplishes that to date.
Mind you, BRT still should never be used in large cities or to transport significant numbers of people. But that's for another blog entry.
Herndon Throws a Tantrum, Breaks Its Toys, Ruins It for Everyone
On behalf of the DC metropolitan area, I would personally like to extend my thanks to the Herndon, Virginia Town Council. You see, like many other Washingtonians, I was worried that future voyages to Dulles International Airport would be vastly different experiences. Instead of sitting comfortably in my car for about an hour (if you're lucky) and paying an exorbitant fee for long or short term parking (or hiring a price-gouging airport shuttle) I would be forced to sit sit comfortably on one of the cleanest transit systems in the nation, staring at marijuana ads (more on that later).
Thankfully, Herndon, with the best interests of its citizens in mind, stopped that from happening. The Washington Post reports:
The financing plan for the $3.4 billion Dulles rail project collapsed yesterday when the Herndon Town Council vetoed a special transit tax district, unraveling the campaign to build the 23-mile Metrorail extension and effectively halting long-term expansion plans for the Washington region's major train system.
The rail extension which would link Tysons Corner and Dulles to the Metro system is, effectively, dead. Why, you ask? Well here's how I see it. Due to funding constraints imposed by the Federal Transit Administration, the expansion was to be completed in two phases. The first would end with a stop at Wiehle Avenue, just shy of Herndon. The second would link Herndon and Dulles with the rest of the rail system. Herndon leaders did not want to pay for a rail project that would get to other municipalities before it reached Herndon. In fact the council approved an alternative proposal that extend building on the first phase of the rail project "beyond Wiehle Avenue to reach the town. But that was dismissed by state and Fairfax County rail organizers, who said the compromise was financially and operationally impossible."
So hats off to Herndon, I'll be thinking of you folks when I'm sitting in traffic on the Beltway, within sight of the Dulles Toll Road and it's one hour till my flight leaves. Huzzah!
For those of us for whom entire trips are ruined by worrying over the safety of our car in the long-term lot, trains to planes are a godsend. Washington, Boston, San Francisco and other cities have subway lines to the airport. Strangely, New York has two airports within the city limits, but no rail connections. The AirTrain is about to change that.
It's a light rail line that connects JFK airport with the Howard Beach subway station and the Jamaica subway/commuter rail transfer point. This is a colosal waste of money and here's why:
1. It costs $5 and doesn't bring you into the city. No form of mass transit within the city limits costs that much.
2. After you get off the AirTrain, you still have the majority of your trip ahead of you. This is especially true of the Howard Beach subway link, which is 31 stops away from Times Square through some of Brooklyn's roughest neighborhoods. Not a good option for your average Danish tourist. Even the LIRR link requires a transfer.
3. It would have been much cheaper to extend service to LaGuardia. LGA is closer to Manhattan and could have been served by an extension of the N train, eliminating the need for the MTA to build new light rail-only facilities and eliminating a transfer for customers with luggage.
Commuters on BART will get a free ride Thursday morning from 4 to 9 a.m. courtesy of a new advertising campaign by Internet savings bank ING DIRECT, according to an Oakland Tribune article.
ING DIRECT paid BART the equivalent fare for all 100,000 people who use the rail system in the morning -- somewhere in the vicinity of US$250,000. For the donation, ING gets to flood the stations with promotional materials and set up tables -- and receives the ensuing goodwill for providing commuters with a free ride. It's clearly a good deal for ING, although whether its more cost effective than TV or Internet advertising has yet to be seen.
But, given that we're here to talk about transit, is it a good deal for BART? They certainly think so:
"We're hoping this will be an opportunity for new riders to give BART a try," said Mike Healy, the transit agency spokesman. "We are providing longer trains to accommodate the extra people."
BART is trying to claw back to the go-go days of 2001 when 330,000 passengers rode the system every day. Before the SFO extension opened in the summer, the numbers stood at 290,000 and is now in the 315,000 range.
I'm inclined to agree, although not necessarily for the same reasons. It sounds very good in theory to say that if you give people a free ride once, they'll see how nice the commute is and keep coming back. In reality, however, few people are going to take the train on Thursday who didn't take in on Wednesday or who wouldn't take it on Friday. $2.55 (the average ticket price) is rarely the deciding factor on whether or not people take transit -- and if it is, one day on the train is not going to change that individual's mind.
What it does show, however, is innovative thinking. It shows different ways advertising can benefit transit and ways of thinking outside the box. What if they could find 52 companies interested in sponsoring such a day. Make all Friday morning commutes free. While $2.55 doesn't make people look twice, savings $130 annually on their commute does. And to be honest, it probably can't be worse than what WMATA is planning on doing to the DC metro.
And ING DIRECT has proven that their advertising methods work -- they've been one of the fastest expanding banks and have survived the internet crash. Perhaps this is a trend of the future. I, certainly, could deal with a free commute once a week.
The hacks at TOLLROADSnews rip a report on the New Jersey transport trust fund. Let's look at this little gem:
"Readers [of the report] are assured that contrary to all recent and past trends this will turn the tide away from the automobile and in favor of transit (p22) though how far this might be accomplished, or why, is undiscussed. Despite opening of new lines, increased service, modernization etc the report notes that transit ridership has declined 4%, which it attributes not to people's preference for automobile travel but to a "weakening regional economy." Mysteriously, that weakening regional economy has been accompanied by continued growth in vehicle-miles traveled on the roads! "
The report, which I'm having trouble finding online, uses statistics that are less than two years old, which means they reflect conditions after you-know-when.
Democrats have been accused by some of the more unscrupulous Republicans of forgetting the lessons of Sept. 11, whatever that means (they usually mean that criticism of Republicans is unpatriotic). Here's one lesson that's not open to debate: If terrorists destroy a train station used by over 65,000 people, people won't take trains there, since they can't.
The folks at TRN have already proven themselves hostile to average workers, so I don't think anyone notices when they selectively omit facts to advance their dream - mile after mile after mile of toll roads, giving upper-middle class SUV drivers an uncongested path from gated development to office park.
UPDATE: There is one thing I forgot to mention in the initial vitriol-filled post. Notice that he compares the number of vehicle-miles travelled and the number of mass transit riders. Does this mean people are moving to cars? No. It is likely that a similar number of people made longer trips over the period the study looks at. The one thing keeping the economy going (until recently) was the housing market. Sprawl in New Jersey, as in elsewhere, continued apace throughout the recession/jobless recovery-thing we just went through. The increased vehicle milage is mostly because the same people are going farther to work and the decrease in mass-transit ridership is due to a closed transit hub. How hard is that to understand?
A Yahoo! News article reports that one assault, two murders, and two burning buses may be the product of battling transit operators:
Police fear a turf war between operators of bargain bus trips between Philadelphia and New York City may be to blame for two killings, an assault and two bus fires.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office declined to comment on a report in the New York Post that prosecutors were investigating possible Chinese organized crime links to Today's Travel Inc. of New York and New Century Travel Inc. of Philadelphia.
"In order to make the big money, they have to put away the competitor first," said Robin Mui of the Sing Tao Daily, a Chinese-language newspaper in New York.
At least when you take Greyhound it's the other passengers who try to hurt you, not the bus operator.
The Associated Press (printed in this article on KnoxNews reports that Tennessee is beginning to face issues that most of the larger urban areas in the country faced early last century -- massive population growth. They're trying to prepare for it by pushing for transit now, before it gets too out of hand. Unfortunately, they're facing a state that's entirely pro-car, a $30 million transit budget (compared to a $1 billion road budget), and no innovative ideas to push transit forward.
"Strapped for cash, our subway moguls are planning to abandon the quiet, calm look of their trains and stations. Here come TV sets inside each car, spewing ads 24/7/365. Here come swoopy, animated commercials along the outside of each previously sleek and simple train. If the Metro board has its way, our subway will soon look as if Disney took it by the throat and said, 'Bor-r-r-r-ring.'"
Well, everyone involved should humbly apologize that Metrorail will no longer be the gray palace you're used to, but it's crunch time. Perhaps passengers will have more time to soak up the "cathedral-like" stations when more frequent breakdowns keep trains out of service. Maybe we can appreciate our pristine subway from the highways, where more and more people will go if service deteriorates.
I wouldn't mind if some local, state or federal government agency comes to its senses and gives Metrorail enough money to operate without more ads, but that's not going to happen -- I'd rather have a cluttered functional Metro than a clean system that doesn't work.
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Metro Magazine has an interesting 
