Suburban commuters often complain that while they are served by rail service into the center city, there are far too few trains running far too infrequently. Why risk missing the 10:05 last train home on the MARC between Washington and Baltimore? Why would you bother paying higher fares on the Virginia Railway Express when your station gets only seven trains per direction per day and the sluggers are waiting in the parking lot? They have it even worse in Seattle, where the Sounder train runs but once a day. At that level of service, it's about as viable a commuter service as an asteroid.
It would appear that the U.S. rail network is fundamentally underutilized, with most tracks empty most of the time.
Well, it turns out that our rails are stretched to the brink at the moment, so much so that there is barely any room left for passenger service. Trade in raw materials and manufactured goods with booming economies such has China has driven the need for trains and trucks to get goods from port to market, with predictable tie-ups. The congestion is getting in the way of profitable service in North Carolina:
"One of Amtrak's worst performers is the Carolinian, which passes through Raleigh on its way from Charlotte to New York. During the same 10-month period, the Carolinian's on-time performance was only 30 percent. Its delays are blamed mostly on freight congestion in Virginia."
It's hard to underestimate the severity of this problem for Amtrak and the commuter lines. People don't take the trains because they're both slow and infrequent, both of which are freight-related (or freight-worsened) problems.
If trains could run at the speeds they were designed to operate, they could pose a real challenge to low-fare airlines, especially with business-related day-trips and short-notice excursions. But since it's more profitable to run freight, passenger service gets cut. Unlike trucking companies, railroads can speed up their own traffic by Is this unfair? Not really, since the companies who own the track would be negligent in their responsibility to their shareholders if they didn't try to maximize profits.
Theoretically, if the government nationalized the tracks, they could allocate use based on a variety of factors, including traffic reduction. But that's not going to happen, since Congress would never allow it, and experience in other nations has shown separating track and train owners is a very, very bad idea.
So here's what's left:
Build new tracks. This is very expensive and an eminent domain nighmare of the highest order anywhere you have enough riders to build new tracks.
Add more tracks on existing lines. They're doing this in some places already, along with upgrading signaling. It costs less money, but doesn't improve service as much.
Improve trucking. All over the country, ideas for truck-only highways, bridges and tunnels are being considered as a way to move trucks away from the gridlock. As a secondary result, you'd think rail traffic would decrease, allowing for more room for passenger service. But track owners may still want to minimize Amtrak and commuter line runs out of a desire to increase their own flexibility, which has its own economic benefits.
Do nothing. Better stock up on the books on tape, because drive time radio isn't getting any better either.
What ever happened to Interstate 495? You remember I-495 -- the belt in the boondocks beyond Route 128 that was billed in the late '90s as the new center of gravity, the suburban template for the future where people would work and live far from the ominous skyline of Boston?
It's still there, and people continue to flock to it. Its explosive growth has caused horrific traffic congestion and the herniation of town budgets obliged to provide expensive services like schools and sewer systems for the hordes. But that's not where the action is now. That's not where the buzz is. The buzz is back in our much-maligned urban core.
[...]
Foy produces a statistical map drawn by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council of multifamily housing starts from 1997 to 2002 in suburban Boston based on US Census data. In communities inside Route 128, the percentage of starts routinely tops 40 percent. It tails off dramatically, with a few exceptions, moving out to I-495 and beyond. Some 87 percent of housing units produced in Massachusetts between 1991 and 2000, he notes, were single-family dwellings, putting the Commonwealth fifth from the bottom among states in terms of multifamily starts.
Some might argue that, lacking a public transportation infrastructure, the I-495 corridor was always doomed to the automobile-driven sprawl that eventually eats itself. People moved there because they like 2-acre zoning. If so, there is every reason to believe that, absent mass transit, the same destructive phenomenon will repeat itself when the next belt further out, Interstate 290, is developed.
And The Award for Best Tourist-Gouging Mass Transit Goes To....
The Venice Water Bus, operated by ACTV. For a mere €3 for off-canal routes, or €5 (US$6.16) for grand canal routes, you get a one-way ticket on the waterbus -- granting you access to a very full, very infrequent water taxi moving up and down the canal. If you have luggage, you have to purchase a separate add-on for the luggage. A rather expensive system, wouldn't you say?
Because Venice is dedicated to screwing tourists out of as much money as possible, however, they have an alternative for locals -- the "CartaVenezia" fare. A card can be bought for €8 for local residents, similar to the "Young Persons' Railcard in London, expect for all residents, regardless of age. With a CartaVenezia card, both grand-canal and non-grand canal tickets are €9 for 10. Meaning a resident can ride for €.90, while a non-resident pays €4.10 more. While I'm all in favor of gouging tourists (I am from D.C., after all), that strikes me as a little extreme, even for them. But I guess it's a good way to boost fare box recovery rates....
Via a Transport Blog sidebar link, I found a link to this Heritage Foundation report on the costs of "sprawl." Never a group to bite the hand that feeds it, the conclusion isn't too surprising, but the lenghths to which the writers were willing to ignore inconveinent facts is staggering. I have neither the time nor the patience to refute every point, so I'd just like to highlight this study's two main problems.
"Current Urban Planning Assumptions"
[...]
"Lower spending per capita will be associated with older municipalities. It is assumed, for example, that the existing infrastructure of older municipalities has latent capacity, can be expanded, or can be used more intensively for less than the costs of building infrastructure in newer, more sprawling municipalities (which are virtually always suburban). At least partially as a result of this belief, current urban planning theory places a priority on construction within highly developed areas (referred to as "infill" development) instead of in undeveloped areas (referred to as "greenfield" development)."
One way to make your argument look good is to put words in the mouths of your opposition. This is what is called a "straw man" argument, one that is very easy to knock down. Of course infill development is more expensive. Even not counting land costs, the cost of ripping something out and replacing it with something new is higher than the cost of just putting in something new. The question is not whether, under current tax law, incentive structures and the like, it's cheaper to put up a house in an empty field than it is to put up that same house in a city center, but whether the incentives that make it cheaper are worth it. Entire books are dedicated to how the mortgage interest deduction favors new construction over renovation.
"Based upon an econometric analysis of data from the year 2000 for more than 700 municipalities, we conclude that none of the Current Urban Planning Assumptions is associated with any practically significant variation in local government expenditures per capita. In addition, the econometric analysis is able to account for less than 30 percent of the variation in local government expenditures per capita. This indicates that other factors, not accounted for in the econometric formula, are more important." (Emphasis mine)
A ha! Could it be that there are a wealth of services subsidized by the federal government that make sprawl cheaper and don't show up in municipal spending? Let's brainstorm:
Water. Actually, water and sewer costs were the one service the Heritage report found cities had an advangage in. But what they neglect to mention is the extent to which the federal government has subsidized overuse of water, especially in the West. Over the last century, the Bureau of Reclamation has poured billions of dollars into water diversion, dams and other projects that provide water to farmers and cities at fees below cost, shifting the burden to urban eastern taxpayers who don't benefit from their relatively water-thrifty ways. That's why we have green lawns in the middle of the Arizona desert that cost billions to make possible but don't show up as a drain on municipal coffers. For an in-depth history of water waste in the West (but without the illiteration), read Marc Reisner's Caddillac Desert
Highways: Does the gasoline tax go through municipal government? No. Do cities and counties manage transit? Yes, most of the time. Roads, in their ever-increasing size and scope, make exurbs unworkable without state and federal help (help that I assume doesn't show up as "federal aid" in the Heritage calculations). The Hertiage report pays very little attention to roads. I wonder why.
Construction: Did you know that, a recent three-year break aside, the government subsidizes construction by building roads into forests so logging companies can get at wood they can use to build new homes in places like Loudoun County? Shouldn't that count as a subsidy, or at least a cost of new construction? Not to Heritage.
I'm sure that there's more, but I have to get back to work.
They're giving Metro employees "brush-up" classes on being nice to customers:
Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said yesterday that one station manager faces "very serious disciplinary action" after a pregnant woman and her husband complained that he screamed at them, brandished a broom and pushed the husband because they inquired about a broken escalator last week.
He put his brush up, but I don't think that's what they meant.
As you can see in the "recent comments" section on the left side of the page, this site is getting spammed with ads for medications we do not endorse. We do use MT-Blacklist, but it doesn't seem to be working. I try to delete spam as soon as it goes up, but I find myself deleting 50 comments per day, something I don't want to continue. Any ideas?
A problem on buses with automated speaking stop-announcers that I had not encountered until last night on the 42 to Adams Morgan: something caused the voice to slow down until the chipper female voice started to sound like HAL-9000 singing "Daisy." It's a good thing the longer-haul Metrobuses don't have suspended-animation pods.
I'm surprised that it's taken this long before a baggage-screener scandal surfaced.
What's even more shameful is that it took celebrity complaints to bring this to light. Besides, ia regular guy like me takes a far greater financial hit when he gets relieved of his belongings; Chevy Chase can always get a new watch and Aaron Sorkin can always get some more 'shrooms.
From the home of the London Underground on the internet comes two macromedia shockwave games to get you through your workday until its time to hop back on the train.
There's something that prevents me from understanding the motivations behind people who move to Charles Town, W. Va., an hour and a half away from their jobs in Washington and its closer-in suburbs. Yes, you can get much more house for your money, but will you ever see it?
I once had an hour-and-a-half commute -- it only lasted for two weeks before I moved down here from Baltimore, but it was unbearable. Leaving the house at 7:10, I would spend 20 minutes in a car, an hour on a train and 10 minutes on foot to get to my job. Leaving work at 5:30, I did the same thing in reverse, and I was lucky to make it back home by 7:15. Allowing for 7 hours of sleep, I had to get to bed by 11, which left me with a little under four hours to run errands, do housework that couldn't wait for the weekend and have a social life. If I had chlidren, they would have never seen me.
Among long-haul commuters, I was one of the lucky ones. With the train taking me most of the way to work, I could sleep on the train if I wanted to go out the night before, or I could do some of the reading that would have been done during my precious few hours awake at home. Had I drove, I would have been at the mercy of the traffic, ranting and cursing at other drivers, unable to relax and let someone else take charge.
Maybe I am one of a very few people who think this way, but I would pay more or settle for a smaller home closer in if I actually got to spend time in it. It's not a schools issue in the same way that it is for people leaving the city proper - Fairfax and Montgomery counties have some of the best schools in the country, while West Virginia, aside from the fact that new commuter towns' schools are buckling from the stress, has large swaths of Kreationism Kountry who vote for the people who buy the books.
Part of the problem with finding room in close-in areas for families is that outer-ring development takes away from funds that could be used for inner-ring suburbs in places like Virginia. It happens like this: developers put up a few thousand houses in Louduon County, once an outlying part of the Washington metroplex. People coming in on Loudoun's country roads start noticing congestion, so they demand the roads be widened. The state alleviates Loudoun's traffic, drawing more development and starving existing suburbs of the money they need to modernize and increase density to handle a growing population. Continue this for a few decades and you have people driving to work farther than they used to drive to go camping. It's madness.
ADDENDUM: The owners of property in Tyson's Corner, where they want to expand mass transit, show the benefit of "if you build it, they will come" over "if they come, you had better build it" transportation spending.
The interurbans, which connected small cities and towns with metropolitan areas, were so commonplace that most large cities had were connected to one by the early 1920s. However, by the late 1930s virtually all of the interurban services were extinct. Many fell victim to GM and other auto-industrial companies, as did the street cars in Los Angeles. Others simply became redundant as the automobile proved more flexible and versatile modes of transportation across and around America's vast interior.
The book argues that the interurbans represented much of the first mass transit in middle America and points out that Chicago's South Shore railroad (which connects South Bend, Indiana with Chicago's South Shore) is among the lone survivors of the Interurban era.
And the award for most random transit system yet encountered in Europe goes to: the transit system in the park behind the palace in Caserta, Italy. The grand palace in Caserta plays host to the longest man-made waterfall in the world (which, incidentally, was the setting for the final scene of Star Wars (1977). The park in which the waterfall resides is 3 km in length and, apparently, people get exhausted walking from one end to the other. So, the tourist office offers a bus ticket for 1 euro. Unfortunately, you have to buy the ticket before entering the park, so you don't know if you'll be able to walk it or not. It is, however, very surreal to see a random city bus driving around this park full of horse drawn carriages and bicycles.
"Metro managers have ordered a refresher course for the operator who abandoned her crowded Red Line train during rush hour, choosing not to suspend her or dock her pay."
Yes, I too am one of those people who have trouble finishing projects. My guitar sits under my bed, waiting to be played by someone who has learned how to play it. My computer sits half backed-up, waiting to be reformatted and upgraded. But seriously, driving a train requires a certain minimum amount of rectitude my little dabblings don't.
Has anyone else noticed that airport security guards have stopped asking whether you've packed your bags yourself and they've been with you at all times?
Yes, I know that line of questioning was dumb, slowed down the line and never caught any terrorists, but one would think they would keep it if only to calm paranoid right-wingers who freak out at the first sighting of olive skin.
The Washington Post reports on an amusing--yet rather startling--occurance on Metro's Red Line on Monday. According to the Post, the train operator hopped out of the cab of her train and got aboard a train traveling in the other direction, "leaving behind hundreds of bewildered homebound commuters."
Fortunately for everyday riders, Metro "procedure does not permit operators to leave trains idling."
"[A spokesperson" said Metro 'made a mistake' when the train operator was allowed to leave the train." (emphasis mine)
For some reason, people just love bizarre subway station names. London has nearly made a niche industry out of this, with games like Mornington Crescent, parties where people dress up like their favorite stations and even books. When I visited London earlier this year, part of me wanted to visit places like Barking, Elephant and Castle and Canada Water just to see what was there.
Washington, with its modern subway and planned grid, lacks any personality in its station names. "Federal Center SW" generates a fairly accurate and boring image in the map-reader's mind -- concrete and marble buildings in which bored-looking middle-aged people with ID badges pretend to work all day.
But Boston is different. Is Alewife home to drunken spouses? Are Ruggles a dime-store knockoff of the Muppets?
My personal favorite is at the end of the Blue Line. Soon after you land at Logan, you get on the subway (or 'T,' as they call it) to wait for your train into town. But barrelling towards you in the other direction is a train clearly marked for "Wonderland." Makes you wonder whether if you'd rather not be going the other way.
As part of my recent Boston vacation, I spent a sunny afternoon on Revere Beach, a somewhat scuzzy but decent enough strip of sand just north of the city. One of the advantages (or disadvantages) of Revere is that it's also just north of Logan Airport, which means that most flights from Europe and points north fly low over the water, far enough out to mute the noise but close enough in to get a good look at the planes.
Watching the 747s arrive from Europe and the Turboprops buzz in from Maine, one airline in particular reminded me of a Transport Blog post on awful railroad company names.
Northwest Airlines, in a bid to appear "cooler," shortened its name to its stock symbol and airline code, NWA. Their planes look like this:
But to most people of a certain age, NWA brings to mind the violent, offensive, but groundbreaking gangsta rap group NWA, which is short for some words I'd rather not print on this blog. They look like this:
Good job, NWA (the airline). I'm just waiting for United to come out of bankruptcy as Public Enemy Express.
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