Actually, a great deal of money was spent on laying new track since the former track was laid with, oh, about 60 lb rail (60 lbs per yard) in 39’ lengths bolted together and has since been replaced with 90+ lb welded rail. Most, if not all, of the wooden ties have been replaced with cast concrete ties and the the entire run realigned and leveled.
In addition, grade crossings have been upgraded from timber and asphalt to concrete and rubber. The Wiki article is good in most other respects but misses the boat in saying “using the existing rail line.” What *The Sprinter * started with was a decently graded and ballasted right-of-way with some serious demo work to clear the way. I searched for some good cites before posting, but then I realized I’m a big rail geek and commuted and worked next to the construction for nearly three years…
I would agree that they aren’t a total solution. Unless you’re building a completely new urban area from scratch (which is pretty rare, although it does happen), you can’t lay out lines every 6-8 blocks for an entire city. Especially a sprawling city. Just can’t be done.
But I disagree with the “next to worthless” assessment. Like I said, the single Hiawatha line purportedly carried 20% of all mass-transit rides in the Twin Cities (MN) in 2006. For one 12 mile run in the middle of the city, that’s pretty phenominal. The fact that you can come in to the south end, park for free and ride into downtown (where you’d have to pay to park) makes it pretty attractive for that purpose. Yes, it becomes a park-and-ride thing rather than walk-and-ride, but then again, most buses are park-and-ride from the suburbs too.
But no one is going to lobby for mixed mode transit. It favors no single private interest, and the only thing that makes for radical change in this country is single private interests competing against one another - winner take all.
It’s unfortunate, because your assessment is obviously pretty much on the mark. But nobody ever made money acting in the public interest when there was an easier way.
Thanks for that info. As you say, most sources say “used existing track”. If what you say is accurate, then they should say “used existing right-of-way”.
If I recall, most sources also say that the rails are used after hours by freight trains. Is that correct?
It is correct, though I’d guess it’s just one train pulling a consist to Escondido to be switched out there during the day.
And I’d think that the mis-use of the phrases you point out was spinnage to sell the project, which I hope flies, by the way. Kind of, “Hey! It’s already in place! Let’s use it!”
But there is no context in this. How many passengers are carried by automobiles? What are the percentages of traffic flows to and from downtown as compared to point to point travel in the suburbs where there are no mass transit connections? How fast is mass transit use growing compared to auto use? How does Minneapolis compare to St. Paul in terms of use?
Funny - as all of this is being hashed out, private initiatives seem to be heading forward on their own and actually making a difference.
Carpooling in the DC area actually works - and one reason it does is because of an innovation that allows people not to be tied to the schedules of other people. The only thing you have to get used to is the fact that you’ll generally be riding with a complete stranger.
Call it hitchhiking if you must. Most people here call it slugging. And it works - in thirty years there has never been an incident, apart from accidents, serious enough to report to the police.
Meanwhile, for riding between cities, bus travel seems to be making quite a comeback. My wife just booked round trip tickets from DC to New York for about fifty bucks to visit a friend - on a new bus that includes movies, power ports and wi-fi.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have transit policies - just that perhaps we ought to encourage some more of this sort of private initiative. It seems to help.
You know very well that’s not the way it works around here. You made the claim, you say it’s important, you provide the cites. If you can’t be bothered saying something actually meaningful, nobody else is going to do the work for you.
No, YOU made the claim that the ridership must be small. I pointed out that it was 9.4 millon riders, which was 20% of the total ridership in the area. Now you’re asking me to do the work for you to create a larger context so you can understand, perhaps because your google-fu is weak, perhaps because you’re just lazy. But in any case, your opinion isn’t worth my efforts, especially when you’re not willing to do anything but sit back and demand numbers from other people. So please, feel comfortable in your opinion, which is based on willful ignorance.
For the impared, go back to post #9 and click on the links. This will provide more information for less energy than whining about wanting other people to spoon feed you the information.
Top 10 in Ridership by Mile (from the linked article);
1 Boston 9,196
2 Houston 5,333
3 Buffalo 3,063
4 Minneapolis 2,533
5 Seattle 2,385
6 Los Angeles 2,285
7 San Diego 2,213
8 Portland 2,173
9 Salt Lake City 2,089
10 Tacoma 1,982
Top 10 overall systems (edited from list, figure is daily ridership);
1 MBTA Green line and Ashmont–Mattapan High Speed Line*
Boston 257,500
2 Muni Metro and F Market* Muni cable car
San Francisco 132,500
3 Los Angeles County Metro Rail Blue, Green, and Gold lines*
Los Angeles 127,300
4 SD MTS, San Diego Trolley, Blue, Orange and Green Line
San Diego 118,400
5 SEPTA Subway-Surface Lines, Suburban Trolley Lines, and Girard Avenue Trolley*
Philadelphia 106,900
6 MAX Light Rail Portland Streetcar
Portland 104,300
7 MetroLink
St. Louis 73,200
8 DART: Red and Blue lines MATA streetcar
Dallas 63,400
9 Denver RTD, The Ride Light Rail
Denver 62,900
10 Sacramento Regional Transit District Light Rail
Sacramento 53,500
I find it interesting that the Hiawatha Line in Minneapolis is #15 on the list with only one 12 mile run (and #4 in riders per mile in the chart above).
Yeah… I think that holds true for the lobbyists, but there is a glimmer of hope - if governments won’t bite the bullet, it might be for somebody like Richard Branson to come along and do it (in the UK he owns rail and air, for example) - he’s not going to be tied to a single mode, but if there’s a buck to be made in a combined system, then somebody like that might be what we need.