(bolding mine)
Missed that - and in any case, that means BART isn’t relevant to BrainGlutton’s question, other than demonstrating that heavy rail is too expensive for urban situations.
This is true only if it’s new heavy rail, requiring the obtaining land (usually via condemnation), paying to move the current residents or businesses, demolition of the buildings, and then clearing the land and building your trackage.
But many urban areas have existing heavy rail lines running thru them, often unused or very lightly used nowdays. If one of these can be adapted for transit use, it will be much cheaper. Probably cheaper than any other system. Certainly cheaper than building or expanding a freeway.
Very true, but if so, it’s reclaiming infrastructure and property for light rail - which is a major part of all the schemes I gave costings for earlier.
I said in an eariler post that I would ask my son for a web site that compares costs. Here is his reply:
It sounds like BART is somewhat on the high side. But maybe that $100M/mile doesn’t include the land acquisition costs.
Even if it does include land costs, I’d like to see how on earth they arrive at that figure, given my examples earlier.
I just got this from my son. He read the thread, but could not post. The omitted chart claimed, among other things, is that with park & ride, you don’t need high residential density for a rail system to make sense, but you need a very high emplyment density. Lacking park & ride, even bus systems required fairly dense residences.
Is there such thing as a Libertarian approach to mass transit? Most Libertarian writings I’ve seen on the issue seem to fervently deny that sprawl is a “problem” and even more strongly deny that mass transit (or any other public policy) can provide a solution to it. E.g., The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths: How Smart Growth Will Harm American Cities, by Randal O’Toole – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/097064390X/qid=1136751154/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/104-0764394-7859165?n=507846&s=books&v=glance.
Why does your son think monorail is a bad idea?
Libertarianly speaking, were we a libertarian country, the problem would take care of itself. “Urban sprawl” left to the pure libertarian government either wouldn’t happen, or the free market would regulate to the point that it works perfectly. People not counting on the government and counting only on themselves would make decisions to that respect.
OK, we’re verging onto GD territory now. (And if the Mods choose the move the thread there I have no objection.) But you are aware, I hope, that the “free market” does not always “regulate” things, let alone cause things to “work perfectly”? Mainly because the market is fundamentally incapable of taking a long view, defining “long” as anything beyond the next quarter’s statement. Government-employed urban planners, OTOH, take account of the fact that automotive transportation depends mostly on resources that we’re not exactly running out of just yet, but which are ultimately and finally non-renewable; also, that it involves “externalities” (air pollution, etc.), the long-term cost of which does not necessarily show up on the quarterly statement of the parties producing them.
No, I’m not trying to get us moved or argue Libertarianism right here, right now. It was suggested that there may be a libertarian approach to mass transit. Mass transit today is mostly a government or at very least heavily government subsidized. The natural position of a libertarian, of course, is that the government shouldn’t participate in that kind of stuff. So how does that apply to urban sprawl? Potentially urban sprawl wouldn’t happen without the mass transit infrastructure to support it. Of course that’s particular to regional behavior, because here in SE Michigan there’s all kinds of sprawl with no mass transit, which segues into: -or- urband sprawl would still happen, but if mass transit isn’t needed or wanted, then there’s no “problem” per se. The next possibility, of course, is that urban sprawl happens (it’s a choice, after all), and mass transit is wanted. In a libertarian world, then, either private enterprise will meet the mass transit needs, or the sprawl will not occur because of the lack of mass transit. Or the sprawl will occur anyway by people that don’t want or need mass transit.
I think I just convinced myself that we don’t need mass transit at all. Screw the poor – they shouldn’t sprawl anywhere anyway, and just stay in their ghettos.
And of course I forgot the smily to indicate that that’s to have been read with a sense of humor rather than any literal sentiment.
Here in Belfast, Northern Ireland, there doesn’t really seem to be much money to invest in anything but bus lanes on the roads. The city (from what I’ve seen on maps and living and working here) has most jobs in the city centre and roads stretching from there to the outskirts covering most residential areas.
The bus lanes that have sprung up are hard enough to squeeze into the streets we have, so I’m not sure where light rail, buses on rails etc could fit in
No. Yes, sprawl is made possible by infrastructure government builds – but that infrastructure is in the form of paved roads and highways, not light-rail lines.
Hari Seldon, you never answered: Why does your son, who apparently knows a lot about mass transit, oppose monorail? What are the disadvantages?
The question is what are the advantages, other than sounding futuristic in a 70s way?
It involves heavy infrastructre, at least as heavy as for light rail. Mostly this will be of a unique design, unlike light rail which is virtually off-the-shelf in many cases. It’s impossible to have crossings with roads or pedestrians, everything has to work at two different levels. And there’s a huge mechanism for each change of route (switch, point, whatever they’re called in your locale), whereas light rail needs smaller installations, and non-rail solutions need nothing.
An alternative answer: Look here, and we’ll rebut most of the pro-monorail comments.
Firstly, ignore ‘heavy rail/subway’. That’s not the competition, light rail is.
The comments on ‘aesthetics’ are bullshit. Nothing created for a monorail cannot be created for light rail.
Construction: this is where the ‘light rail’ arguments start to focus entirely on street running, even though modern light rail doesn’t use street running unless there’s no alternative. In any case, pile-driving is a horribly unpleasant thing to live near.
‘Cost’. I can’t make head or tail of the entry under light rail.
‘Efficiency’. Again, a big ‘huh?’ Modern light rail does not spend extended periods sharing lanes with regular traffic. The comments about maintenance are also bullshit.
‘Safety’ - the implication here seems to be ‘light rail is dangerous because our drivers don’t know what they’re doing’. Errrrrrrrrrrr, the problem is the rail system?
Here’s an interesting bit from James Howard Kunstler’s latest “Clusterfuck Nation” editorial, 1/9/06 – http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary16.html: