Two stupid questions about the Chicago El

1. Why are they bothering to split the 54/Cermak branch off the Blue Line, run it through the non-revenue Paulina Connector and into the loop? While making more productive use of the connector, it congests the loop and cuts service to the northern branch of the Blue Line (including, ahem, the gigantic international airport at its terminus). Who does this benefit?

2. When exactly is it time to switch from a transit system that identifies lines by color to one that uses letters or numbers? Since the Silver Line is somehow unacceptable, the CTA is running a contest for a new line color. Given that Blue, Green, Red, Purple, Yellow, Orange and Brown are already taken, the choices are fairly slim. Pink? Black? Clear? If they ever build that Circle Line, It'll have to be some sort of holographic sparkly gold if they don't switch to letters or numbers.

Next stop, Ripened Fish Thighs

The meme of the moment is "remixing" transit maps, or replacing station names with anagrams. The Baltimore version has particular resonance, since I had a bit part in an Ill Dorm FIlm (Milford Mill) and a certain blogger I went to college with used to live closest to Smiling Owls (Owings Mills), and she likes Owls, smiling or otherwise. I was one Mad Minnow (Mondawmin) getting my drivers' license at the MVA location there. Next-More Talking (Lexington Market) is among the closer stations to the Talking Head, formerly the Ottobar, before it moved uptown.

Also particularly good are the maps for DC (pdf), LA (very apt local names) and London (of course).

BoingBoing has a more complete list.

Outrage fatigue

When the Bush Administration screws Amtrak, the world yawns. When the Bush Administration tries to scrounge some money for Amtrak by screwing over the commuter rail lines that share its tracks, it just gets worse:

The administration has proposed deducting the amount of the additional fees from its own grants to the states, raising further ire among some rail advocates. "They're fixing to garnish Federal Transit Administration grants, much in the manner you'd hit up somebody for failing to pay child support," said Ross Capon, executive director of the National Association of Rail Passengers.

It's robbing Peter to pay Paul. Or, more accurately, robbing MARC to pay Hiawatha.

FCHV Bus

From the "pictures are easier than bloggin" archives, a picture of the Toyota FCHV Bus, a fuel-cell powered hybrid bus that was used during the World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. The bus runs on "motors powered by high-pressure hydrogen-supplied fuel cells and a nickel-metal hydride secondary battery. Unlike gasoline- and diesel-fueled vehicles, it does not emit carbon dioxide or other toxic substances during operation and is highly energy-efficient."

The buses ride like, well, buses -- which is more or less what you'd like to hear. The ride is very smooth and except for the blazing logos on the side of the bus, you'd never know they're running on fuel cells/batteries. Mind you, they're running a small loop and they never get very fast, so who knows how well they'd perform in the heavy conditions of city transit use. At the moment, however, it's not even worth speculating. They're so expensive that they're not at all feasible for transit use (estimates are upwards of US$1 million for each bus). But it's a cool idea that may have its day once prices come down.

Tenafly here we come

Which way Connecticut?

The governor of Connecticut is proposing transportation plans with more transit, the Connecticut House speaker is proposing transportation plans with a bias towards automobiles. The Hartford Courant (and I will go out on a limb and speak for this blog) prefer the former. Now let's see if the politicians can get together and figure out a sensible future for transportation in Connecticut.

WMATA riders to be delayed for the installation of advertising

Evening riders on D.C.'s Red Line will suffer delays every day for six straight weeks so that Metro can install advertising in the tunnels between Metro Center and Judiciary Square.

Here's an idea: Metro is CLOSED for five hours each night. Why not have prospective advertisers pay whatever money is needed in order to conduct all construction while the system is CLOSED? Riding at night already takes long enough. An additional fifteen minutes for the installation of something so trivial as advertising is an absolute disgrace.

This is part of a pattern of Metro management's complete disregard for the needs of late night riders. Awhile ago they cut night trains to two cars each, an outrageous move that led to predictably unbearable crowding and left-behind riders.

In other Metro news: interim general manager Dan Tangherlini appoints a team to improve MetroAccess service. The poor quality of the service has been shameful. Also, new natural gas buses are on the road in D.C. Care about clean air. Thanks, wayan.

"Dan the Man"

New WMATA interim General Manager Dan Tangherlini mingles with the rank-and-file. What a concept! I hope he keeps this up: it seems to me that what the system really needs right now is a top manager who is intimately involved in the nuts-and-bolts of the operation.

Previous GM Dick White was great at working with politicos to advance Metro's funding agenda. Unfortunately he wasn't so good at mingling with the workers and riders. He would have been fine if he had a good #2 person at the agency to do that, but apparently he didn't have that.

The article suggests the board might pick Tangherlini as a permanent GM, but at 38, he seems a bit young to me...of course it would depend at least in part on how he fares as the interim man.

WMATA Riders Advisory Council meetings begin

The WMATA Riders Advisory Council has begun its meetings. The RAC has also established committees; I attended the first meeting of the rail committee last night. All meetings are open to the public.

Committee chairman Steve Cherney has many ideas for items the committee might address in the coming months. One of the items on his list pleasantly surprised me: he suggested bringing up the idea that Metro begin charging market rates for parking at rail stations. You might recall that I brought this up several months ago.

Committee member Patrick Sheehan, who is also a member of an Elderly and Disabled Committee that has advised the WMATA board for some time now, gave an informative run-down of the items that the E&D committee has worked on before. A big issue is, of course, elevators. Many Metrorail stations have only one and, if I'm not mistaken, there are only three stations (New York Avenue on the Red Line; and Morgan Boulevard and Largo Town Center on the Blue Line) that have redundant elevators. Thus, out-of-service elevators are a huge hassle for wheelchair riders and others who require elevators, as one must catch shuttle buses. (However, an interesting workaround using center-platform stations can sometimes be employed.) Out-of-service escalators at transfer stations are an even bigger hassle.

Thus, plans have been drawn up to add redundant elevators in several key Metrorail stations. This would of course cost millions of dollars. Also, Sheehan said that, in an effort to save money, people planning the extension of heavy rail transit to Washington Dulles International Airport had eliminated redundant elevators in several stations. Not only was the E&D Committee against this, but Metro was as well (Metro is not doing the planning the extension; this is left to folks working for Virginia.)

Plans are underway to inform members of the RAC of how Metro works, and RAC chairman Dennis Jaffe was to meet with interim general manager Dan Tangherlini, who incidentally was sworn in today. Tangherlini will host an online chat this Friday, continuing a practice established recently by his predecessor, Dick White.

Back to the RAC Rail Committee meeting: members of the public were given time to comment. Discussed at length was Metro's management culture that tends to treat both riders and line employees as enemies. Someone also proposed using material other than carpet to cover the floors of Metrorail cars, because the carpets get so icky.

Committee members also floated ideas for how to involve the public with the Riders Advisory Council. I certainly encourage all D.C. area riders to get involved! The next meeting of the entire RAC will meet on March 1 at Metro headquarters at 5th and F Streets NW; please stop on by.

Transit news update 2/13

- Wanna be my Valentine? Buy me an old D.C. Metro Bus at auction. I'll take care of installing the jacuzzi in the back.

- Subway expansion in Bulgaria.

- Will they ever stop issuing gigantic new subway plans in China?

- As if getting hit by a bus wasn't enough punishment for violating pedestrian laws, Houston is giving out tickets.

- Speaking of H-Town's transit woes, blogHouston highlights some problems with Metro's FTA funding application. Apparently, government agencies don't care if it comes with a "Chopped & Screwed" double-disc.

- Michigan politicians bicker about funding for a Detroit-Ann Arbor rail line. They can barely make cars up there anymore, so a train might just be the death knell (we're kidding, UAW readers).

- LA's Gold Line gets express service. Angelinos and Pasedinans can expect to save five minutes, which they will likely waste at home watching car chases on TV.

- What's worth more if $400 of electronics hits the subway tracks: your iPod or your limbs? The 'Pod, apparently.

- Denver gets federal light rail bucks. The Broncos still suck.

- Think the age of slug tokens died with the introduction of cards? Not so in Toronto. Are token suckers poised for a comeback?

- Boston commuter rail to go deeper into Rhode Island.

LA Times on transit

The LA Times has a couple good features on transit:

In Taking the rapid out of transit, Dan Turner attempts to take public transit from Hollywood Hills to LAX and is actually successful after nearly three hours. it's a good thing he didn't actually have to catch a flight or carry any luggage. The article is filled with some great quotes, and has daily passenger boarding and miles of track statistics for all the major US cities with transit as a bonus.

Mass Transit Hysteria by Mimi Pond is a great cartoon about the ridiculousness in public opinion over building public transit in Los Angeles. Nobody wants it built near them, but once it is done, functioning and a selling point for the neighborhood, everybody loves it...

Hudson-Bergen light rail expanding

The Hudson-Bergen light rail line is getting two more stops on the 25th on the north end and expanded service as of Saturday.

Coming soon to the Lake Street El... NOT!

Check out this video of a Japanese test maglev as it whizzes down the track at 501 km/h. It's pretty boring until about 3:45, where it switches to an outside view.

Northwest of Hudson commuter rail plans

Walden, a small town in Orange County, New York, northwest of New York City about an hour and 15 minutes is considering some (more) downtown revitalization/transit oriented development and a new commuter link via Metro North to New York City.

If actually proposed for funding, it would be competing regionally with some other projects, the most favored at this point being a rail link to Stewart Airport, which I am assuming would link from the airport to the Metro-North station at Salisbury Mills-Cornwall. (This Google map shows the airport, the town of Walden to the Northwest, and the directions are there to point out the airport and the Metro-North station.)

The Orange County -- Hudson Valley area has been the fastest-growing area in the state for a couple years, hopefully these transit-based transportation plans will all come to fruition, including a rebuilding of the Tappan Zee Bridge that includes transit in the design (I am not sure that light rail is a good idea for that corridor, the distances are too far and the communities already too spread out for it to be effective, I think. A well executed BRT would probably be better.)

Airport-style screening for Jersey rail commuters

Our U.S. Department of Homeland Security has launched security screening for Manhattan-bound rail commuters from New Jersey. There are metal detectors and X-ray machines. You can, however, keep your shoes on (it's sad that this has become extraordinary) and not remove change from your pockets.

Fortunately the checks did not take long.

They are just as pissed off as we are

Via CTA Tattler, we learn that transit workers are also none too happy when the system backs up:

"During the am/pm rush, all anyone cares about is moving the trains. When a delay (a delay is considered to be 10 or more minutes) happens, everyone wants to know when they will be moving. I just wish that the passengers could hear what the radio chatter is like during a delay -- it can get personal and heated."

At least when riders get through a delay, they get to leave a system. These guys just turn around and do it again.

Reuse your MetroCard?

I recently returned from a trip to New York, the country's transit capital. The Metro in D.C. is a toy train set compared to the subway in New York. This is despite the fact that the D.C. Metro is the second busiest subway in the country. It's a distant second, though: according to this not-perfectly-reliable source, the ridership of a single line in New York--the one beneath Lexington Avenue--exceeds the traffic on the entire D.C. system.

The subway seemed quite lively to me. It teemed with vendors and performers who would roam from one car to another. People also performed in the stations; I saw some good breakdancers in Grand Central.

Speaking of Grand Central, I didn't know that MTA practically owns the place. It is spectacular, and there's a restaurant--Junior's?--on the lower level with some great cheesecake. Pennsylvania Station, on the other hand, seemed to be a big basement.

Most appalling to me were the piles of MetroCards in many stations, on the floor. Still more MetroCards littered the trains. The MetroCard is a sturdy piece of plastic, so I'd think it could be reused for at least a year. But people have no incentive to reuse them: a new MetroCard costs nothing, so when one's MetroCard runs out of money, only a conscience for the environment keeps him from tossing it aside. I'd bet that if MTA put a minor deposit on the Metro card--even as little as a quarter--they'd be reused a lot more. I wouldn't be surprised if they considered this but rejected the idea because New Yorkers were used to tokens--they might have had a rebellion on their hands if they suggested that people had to pay for the card!

Overall I was surprised by the subway, and by New York. I found both to be very welcoming and hospitable, in a unique sort of way. I wouldn't mind commuting or working in New York. Whether I could squeeze myself into a tiny New York apartment is another question.

Putting the PRT myth to rest for good

Like gold standard crazies, intelligent design ideologues and cold-fusion enthusiasts, Personal Rapid Transit nuts see something the rest of the world doesn't see and think they are visionaries as a result. Since there is no "true" PRT system anywhere in the world for these people to spend all day riding around in, they spend their time comment-spamming blogs like ours. A similar blog, publictransit.us, had enough of it and decided to fact-check the PRT claims. They found claims of systems that don't exist and studies that were never conducted.

I think that pretty much ends the discussion.

Ridership up!

Check out more stats from around the country, courtesy of Rip Track.

Transit news update

- Some folks in Bentonville, Ark., otherwise known as the home of Wal-Mart, are considering light rail. Instead of going to Washington for federal funding, they could just get Chinese knock-off trains for half the price and pay illegal immigrants $7 an hour to drive them.

- Turin's new subway won't be ready for the Winter Olympics. Commuters are directed to the bobsled track as an alternative.

- Pity the poor NYC transit strike scab. Who would have thought that crossing a picket line would make your co-workers angry at you?

- Hudson/Bergen light rail to expand by two stops this month. Unfortunately, the stops will be in North Jersey.

- Georgia Republicans want to give every municipality along a proposed commuter rail corridor a veto. Would sticking a Confederate flag on the train make them feel better?

- No little island nation is going to tell subway riders to break the hallowed one-seat-per-rider rule!

- Much maligned (by us) Charlotte is getting some transit-oriented development along its future light rail line.

- BRT and LRT to solve the traffic nightmare in Lagos, Nigeria. Get your bribes in now, folks.

- More light rail in Buffalo, or just lake-effect daydreaming?

- BRT proposed for Chennai, India. Men with mustaches are apparently happy about it.

- Pittsburgh rail extension could start as early as this summer.

- Commuter rail in New Mexico?

Diamond Geezer's rules for tube escalators

12) Walk swiftly off the escalator, moving away from the crest with good speed. Do not stop at the very top in search of thy tube ticket, nor to mop thy brow, neither to read any newly-delivered text messages.

Keep in mind, you dirty Americans, that Londoners are just as furious about people standing on the left side as we are about standing on the right side. It has something to do with how they drive their dinky little Euro-cars on the wrong side of their narrow little streets.

To think that the English colonized this country at one point...

Department of Duh

Stay off subway tracks:

According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, there were 702 cases of people on the tracks between 1990 and 2003, the same period as the study. Roughly half of them resulted in death.

Suicide and "subway surfing" are the main causes of death. Pushing deaths, while tragic, are more rare than your paranoid aunt from Phoenix thinks:

Perhaps one reason the number of subway accidents is relatively low is because of increased vigilance following the case of Renee Katz. Ms. Katz, an honor student at the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan who sang soprano and played flute, was 17 in 1979 when she was pushed onto the tracks at the West 50th Street station.

She was able to dodge death by rolling to her left, but her right hand was severed. It took 16 hours of surgery to reattach the hand.

Today, she is raising a family, working as an occupational therapist and still singing. She has even recorded an album of cabaret songs, called "Never Been Gone."

Ms. Katz thought the topic of Dr. Guth's study was intriguing, if a bit strange. "If it raises awareness about safety, that is good," she said. "That was one of the few good things to come out my experience."