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Chicago's transit authority had a very good year in 2005, posting a 4.5 percent ridership gain:
The L system -- which benefitted from the return of more frequent service on the Blue Line's rehabbed 54th/Cermak Branch -- posted 186.8 million boardings (155 million station entries and 31.8 million transfers).
And the bus system provided 303.2 million rides, 9.2 million more than in 2004. The CTA's increase in rides since 1997 alone amounts to more than half Metra's total ridership and more than all the rides Pace provided in 2004, officials said.
according to the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), national transit ridership increased 3.3 percent during third quarter 2005 over the same period in 2004.
According to the Census, the U.S. population increased by 0.9 percent, which means a net gain for transit.
...If only that translated into a net gain for our site traffic.
You can try to apply makeup in your mirror or butter your toast with your shifting hand, but beyond those dangerous activities, there isn't much in the way of productive activity that you can do behind the wheel of a car apart from driving. One of the big benefits of taking the train over driving is that the commute is transformed from a waste to an opportunity to get work done or sleep. The Chicago-to-Indiana South Shore Line has a new plan to make riders even more productive:
CHESTERTON, Ind. -- Commuters on the South Shore rail system may soon be able to use their laptop computers and cell phones while riding the line between South Bend and Chicago.
Officials at the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District say they're working on a deal to bring wireless service to commuters through the same technology used for communication in NASCAR racing.
Riders would be able to access wireless service through a mesh network managed by Concourse Communications Group of Chicago, South Shore General Manager Gerry Hanas said.
The South Shore Line claims to be the first commuter line to offer WiFi, but Amtrak has tried this before.
The voters of King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties may have to decide (at some point in the future) whether or not they want to tax themselves up to an additional $120 a month for a $7.2 billion package of Highway improvements (and a little bit of transit) in their transit district. Sounds like an awful lot of money to spend on roads in such a developed area. I am very not convinced that Seattle needs to rebuild the Alaskan Way, though I'm sure some of the other roads or HOV lanes are beneficial. I guess Seattle is getting a new light rail line and maybe some new monorail, but I think the region could probably use some of that big billions in transit funding.
Now, I like biking in good weather as much as any other red-blooded urbanite, but this is perhaps the dumbest urban planning idea since Robert Moses went up to that big cloverleaf interchange in the sky. Some concerns:
How do you get in or out? With those winds, it could be rough.
What about accidents? I'm sure we've all see those big Tour de France pileups - could you imagine the legal liabilities?
Everybody can drive at the same speed (assuming adherence to the speed limit), but not everyone can bike as fast as the fastest bikers. How can you pass people in a narrow tube?
How can you win over senior voters to fund a transit system only usable by healthy people?
Still, this reminds me of the New New York transit system from Futurama:
I wonder if that's where the inspiration came from.
The Connecticut DOT (which runs the New Haven Metro-North lines with the MTA) might upgrade the cafe/bar cars for its next round of purchases. Wouldn't it be great if all commuter railroads had cafe/bar cars?
For the second time in a few months, workers have uncovered a stone wall that archaeologists believe has stood near the southern tip of Manhattan since New York was a British colony. Like the one found in November, this wall stands in the way of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's plan to replace the South Ferry station, where the No. 1 train turns around to head back uptown.
Without fanfare or ceremony - and with no way for riders to notice - two subway trains on the L line rolled out of the Rockaway Parkway station in Brooklyn just after midnight yesterday and became the first in the system's 101-year history to be controlled by computers.
No word yet from the MTA on when the homeless people sleeping in stations will be replaced by robots that can urinate and swear.
A woman in Melbourne, Australia has been breaking into empty train conductor compartments and making special announcements, news.com.au reports:
The woman broke into a cabin on a peak-hour Frankston train on Tuesday night and broadcast X-rated praise of the driver to stunned commuters.
The husky-voiced intruder is believed to be the serial seductress behind a similar break-in and announcement on the Sandringham line last week.
"There was a woman on the address system. It was very graphic about how she was going to have sex with a driver for about three minutes," said Angela, a passenger on the Frankston-bound train.
Passengers on the trains during both incidents believed the woman was in the cabin with the driver or was a voice on a 1900 sex call.
Melbourne's trains, similar to those in DC, have extra conductor compartments. The woman has been breaking into those unused compartments and broadcasting her message to fellow train riders.
WMATA has fired longtime general manager Richard A. White. He had held the post since 1996, making him the agency's longest-serving GM. His tenure started out well, but the past few years have been very rocky for him.
The 53-year-old White's finances won't suffer: his severance package gives him a six-figure income for life. How fitting that during his tenure he insisted that "CEO" be added to his title: just like his private-sector counterparts, he's got his golden parachute. Even his wife will get $58,000 a year after White dies. He also gets free travel aboard Metrorail and Metrobus for life. (Will he use that?)
White's interim replacement is Dan Tangherlini, who is (and I guess now, was) on the Metro board and whose main claim to fame with me is launching the D.C. Circulator, a bus line that usually runs empty. Hopefully as GM, Tangherlini will put money into the heavily crowded bus routes that serve District residents, rather than buying shiny new buses that carry no one. On the bright side, Tangherlini often rides buses and rail. White rode Metro he first took the top job, but then his Metro-issued SUV tempted him into driving. Let's hope the spoils of the job don't put Tangherlini into a car for his commute to Metro headquarters.
I'm glad to see White go. I would have canned him years ago when millions of dollars went missing from Metro parking collection booths. But then, I'm not on the board.
This weekend I'm off to New York, which has an interesting tie to Washington: former WMATA GM Lawrence G. Reuter left DC to take the top transit post in New York.
The Bring Back New Orleans Commission, established by Mayor Ray Nagin, has a boatload of transit wishes:
The commission report, several members said, will also advocate building a 53-mile light-rail system crisscrossing the city, connecting neighborhoods with the airport, downtown and other commercial centers. That system would be in addition to a separate heavy-rail system that would link New Orleans with Baton Rouge and the rest of the Gulf Coast.
The light-rail system, estimated to cost $3 billion, is intended to help spark redevelopment in areas of the city that were flooded.
New Orleans will get this stuff as soon as every six-year-old girl who wants a pony gets one.
Since my posting as of late seems to consist mostly of pictures, I'll continue the trend. Pictured below are two trams from Hong Kong. They're the only double-decker streetcars I've ever seen. And yes, they run on overhead power.
In an interesting indirect sort of way, the new Orange Line in Los Angeles comes out ahead - barely - in a cost/benefit analysis by a group at Berkeley.
If you did the responsible thing and stayed over instead of trying to make it back to the burbs on dangerous highways following a New Year's Eve party, your bleary-eyed bus or train trip back home for a shower and some Alka-Seltzer came at a higer cost if you lived in these places:
- Chicago, where CTA fares rose from $1.75 to $2.00
- California, where BART and CalTrain riders will cough up some more change.
- Denver, where the RTD's base fare rose $0.25. I love the super-frowny photo of the fratty guy at the bus stop - it's how you know he's sad.
- England, where Virgin Trains bumped prices for 2006.
- Adult riders in Portland, Oregon, will probably not cry in their microbrews over a 15-cent price hike.
- Wilmington, NC has more sad bus-riders.
But in Uganda, where upcountry bus fairs nearly tripled during the holiday season, prices have declined of late.
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