First, let me say that I’m not a New Yorker, and never have even been to New York. But, as someone who hates suburban sprawl and poor mass transit, I’ve always looked to NYC as the one place in America that got it right. Even if you do have to commute in 60 miles, if you’re lucky there’s a train. How cool would it be to relax in a train and read, or work, or play cards, instead of creeping down a freeway at 15 mph, behind the same car for an hour and a half? I can’t even imagine it. (Fortunately, though I live in L.A., I’m actually pretty fortunate as far as my commute goes).
Last night (on CNN, I think), there was a brief feature on how the heartland’s perception of New York City has changed since the terrorist attack. Though everyone was very complimentary regarding the way New Yorkers have supported each other through the crisis, one woman said that NYC had “too many people in too little space” and “too much mass transit and commuting”. WTF??? “Too much mass transit”? As opposed to stringing yet more office parks along the interstates? One assumes she thinks that urban mass transit is inherently bad. This attitude is the reason my city can hardly get away with a dedicated bus route across the San Fernando Valley, let alone real rapid transit. We can’t have subways because they’re too expensive–though strangely enough they were well within the scope of early 20th century technological and financial capability. We can’t have at-grade rail because some dipshits are unable to comprehend the fact that they shouldn’t try to drive around the barriers when a train is coming. We can’t have elevated rail because it would be an “eyesore”. Fuck me. How is a well designed monorail system an eyesore any more than a street or freeway clogged to capacity with cars, buses, and trucks? The NIMBY (not in my back yard) and BANANA (Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone) ethics seem to determine our lifestyles, and it seems that the further west you go in America, the worse it gets (San Francisco excepted).
What’s worse, here in L.A. it seems that we can’t have any of those rail projects anyway, because the Bus Riders Union has somehow managed to convince the media that only rich suburban whites ride the few rail lines that we do have, so the fact that the MTA built them was an affront to the principle of civil rights. The reality is that the ethnic mix is about the same for both buses and trains.
Um, what does that have to do with Kansas City? I’m assuming that the mass transit comment lady was from KC. I’m assuming the reason she said so was because KC is currently in the midst of a city-wide debate on whether they should build a very large, very extensive mass transit train system from the suburbs into the city.
Personally, having had grown up there, I think it’s a great idea, because the downtown area is currently a wasteland. Sure, there’s a few elements of excellent regrowth and renewal, but for the most part, it’s not a place I want to be past 4:00pm (save Crown Center).
And your statements are even truer, considering KC’s overabundance of office parks. Currently, I’ve been told that the Sprint megacomplex is the second largest building project in the world, the first being that gumongous dam being built in China.
Hey, one of my favorite subjects. I’ll ramble a bit too.
I’m generally with the OP, but unfortunately more than fifty years of dispersing our residential and business activities to auto access-only sites makes it difficult for even a subsidized heavy rail system to get off the ground, much less cover operating cost through the farebox. At the current level of dispersion, in many locations, it would be difficult to set up station stops where the majority of users are within walking distance, which I think is a key to heavy usage of a new line. If you have to drive to the station to go to the store, why bother? Why not just drive to the store instead? Unless or until something begins to force higher population densities, this is unlikely to change.
Living outside of Philly, I have been following the debate over restoring passenger rail service to the Norristown- Reading corridor with interest. The last Philly-Reading service was dropped in 1981; now SEPTA wants to spend several billion dollars (with the assumption that the federal government will magically provide 80% funding) to electrify the line, add two more running tracks, and build the equipment necessary for service on 15-minute headways during rush hours. Oh, and BTW, pay for another route for Norfolk Southern freights that NS says could not possibly share the line with passenger service, even though only about 20 trains a day use the line, with the majority running at night.
I’m wouldn’t be surprised to find that if SEPTA had maintained passenger service on this line, any losses they might have absorbed from 1981 till now would have been less than the amount they now face for starting over again more or less from scratch.
I am all for mass transit. My father was a huge “train geek”, and loved subways, trains, streetcars, and cable cars. I grew up with an appreciation and love for them. He loved to bitch about how L.A. got rid of their “red cars”, and told us how much easier it was to get around town with them. Too bad he didn’t live long enough to see MetroRail finished. (Damn.)
I wonder if this woman from Kansas City has either 1) ever been to NYC for any substantial time, and is qualified to judge its mass transit system with any knowledge 2) has a clue that different cities are different, and what might work for one, wouldn’t work for the other, and so forth.
Kansas City is a nice town, but dramatically smaller than NYC. I’m sure her input was just a flea-bitten, half-baked opinion, unless she’s some expert on mass transit, and is well-traveled. (Which may be so, I don’t know!)
I’ve spent a few days in NYC, I admired the mass transit system there. But I was only there for a few days, I don’t consider myself an expert on the area!
One of the BRU’s complaints is that the buses are too crowded. They seem to think L.A. is the only city with crowded buses, yet it’s in the nature of big-city bus systems to be crowded. The difference is that in a city like New York or San Francisco, you usually don’t have to stay on the bus very long before you can transfer to a high-speed subway or suburban train. The problem with taking a bus in L.A. is not that the bus is too crowded, but that the bus ride is too long.
Even if settlement patterns preclude a dense, New York or London style rail system, I think you could still do a lot of good with a sparse network of rail with bus feeder lines.
One of the candidates in our last mayoral election advocated building light rail along the freeways. It made a lot of sense to me, because it seems logical to assume that if you build a rail line where people are already going, people will ride it.