By Frank on March 31, 2008
To follow up on serial catowner’s post below, one thing I’ve not mentioned enough is the federal Dodd-Hagel bill to create a National Infrastructure Bank.
Obama’s on board, and Hillary Clinton’s a co-sponsor as well. The Campaign for America’s Future has a good overview of the legislation:
Perhaps most importantly, the selection criteria required by the National Infrastructure Bank would encourage the federal government to undertake projects that are significant to the country’s long-term well-being: rather than stop-gap measures to repair existing problems, such projects would take into account new challenges like climate change, the growing importance of urban areas, and the need for more affordable housing, while at the same time confronting the more typical concerns associated with economic growth (increased air, highway, and port traffic). A database with details about each infrastructure project and its funding would provide at least some public oversight.
Posted in bicycle safety, Sound Transit, tickets
By serial catowner on March 31, 2008
A throw-away line in a Seattle P-I comment thread says the bus system in Seattle achieves 10% farebox recovery. In Toronto, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer the transit system achieves 75% farebox recovery- a rate they attribute to aggressively promoting service and comfort, achieved in part by using streetcars instead of buses wherever they can.
“All else being equal, we get more riders on streetcars than on buses,” said Scott Haskell, route planner for the Toronto Transit Commission. “Some people who wouldn’t ride a bus will ride a streetcar.”
Certainly, if farebox recovery actually is only 10%, Seattle would be justified in simply dropping the fare. Collecting fares costs money and time. Alternately, Seattle could aggressively replace electric trolley buses with streetcars, and use the liberated trolley buses to electrify other routes.
After all, it’s not like there will be less people riding transit in the future.
Posted in GUI, policy, streetcar extensions, streetcar system
By serial catowner on March 30, 2008
This might seem really obvious, but railroads are really big. And this has a consequence- the capital base of the railroad is too large to ever return more than 2-3% on the investment, and that’s if the road doesn’t go bankrupt, which almost all of them did with clockwork regularity.
Consequences have actions, and in this case the action is the so-called PPP, or Public Private Partnership. If you’ve been watching the rail mess in England, you might think ‘PPP’ was an acronym for ‘blood-sucking vampire’, and if you were Ken Livingston, you’d be right to think that.
So, be afraid, very afraid, when Arnold Schwartzenegger brings the depth of his economic expertise to building a high-speed rail system in California. If something goes wrong, it would hardly be the first time that a ‘public private partnership’ turned into a feast at the trough for the ‘private’ part and a snafued boondoggle for the public.
There are exceptions to the rule of railroad unprofitability and they are generally exceptions that prove the rule. The exceptions are worth all the study you can muster, as they chronicle a century of adaptation to the challenges to the railroads. In general, though, railroads are too big to be privately financed.
Posted in ATIS, Gmap, Google Map API, Real-Time Information
By Frank on March 25, 2008
After watching Who Killed the Electric Car? the other night, I’ve posted some thoughts about electric vehicles here.
This comes just as Subaru and the New York Power Authority have commenced testing on Subaru’s new R1e for potential sale in the US.
Posted in inter-agency compacts
By Frank on March 25, 2008
The “reverse-commute” Seattle-to-Tacoma Sounder train has posted pretty tepid numbers thusfar, but it has other benefits:
[ST Spokesperson Linda] Robson said the reverse commute allows the agency to offer a fifth northbound train in the morning despite having room to house only four trains at a time in Tacoma. The fifth train starts in Seattle and picks up passengers on its way to Tacoma before heading north again.
Robson said the train gives commuters another option besides driving or taking the bus. And she said Tacoma’s growing economy was a factor in the decision to begin the service.
The number of passengers heading south is relatively small.
In January an average of 38 people boarded the southbound train each morning. By comparison, the new northbound train departing Tacoma at 5 a.m. saw an average of 509 passengers in January.
Robson said the number of reverse-commute passengers is about what the agency expected. But she thinks it will grow as the agency expands service.
Sound Transit will launch another reverse-commute train – along with a sixth northbound morning train – in September. Early next year it plans to add a seventh northbound morning commute trip.
We’re still far away from the 30 trains a day that we were originally promised, and both BNSF and ST share some of the blame for not being able to meet that promise.
Still, Sounder’s making great strides. If, in fact, we’re not going to build light rail to Tacoma, it makes sense to really invest in the Sounder system, with more dedicated rights-of-way, switches, and grade-separation. Clearly that’s a big piece of the so-called “ST2.1,” so we’re getting there.
Posted in public investment
By Frank on March 24, 2008
New photographs suggest that the support plates on Minneapolis’ I-35W bridge may have been bending as early as 2003, but the regular inspections missed it. Something to think about after last weekend’s routine viaduct maintenance…
Posted in sr520, taxes
By Frank on March 21, 2008
Being a real estate developer/transit agency might be shady, but it sure is profitable:
The subway’s underlying net profit, which excludes any changes in valuation of real estate properties, rose to 8.57 billion Hong Kong dollars (1.1 billion U.S. dollars) for 2007. A large chunk of MTR’s profits comes from the developing and selling of real estate properties. MTR has built residential real estate surrounding train stations, selling 7 billion dollars worth of units last year. The construction of these flats, however, were accounted for in 2006 books, so the profits in 2008 are suspected to be less than the previous year. Ridership remains to be at a high for Hong Kong’s subway. About 948 million rides (an increase of 8 percent) were taken last year.
Posted in Sound Transit, taxes
By Frank on March 20, 2008
Mayor Nickels stopped by the Friends of Seattle post-prop-1 event tonight to spread the news that Sound Transit is planning to go to the ballot in 2008 with a new, smaller package. I say, Huzzah!
Mike @ CIS has a good wrap-up.
Posted in sr509
By Frank on March 20, 2008
So… I’ve never really publicized it, and you’d have to know about it to get it, but we have message boards — forums — on this site. I added a link on the top nav bar to make them more visible, and you can find them at:
http://www.orphanroad.com/forum
Let me know what you think… or… better yet… post a message on the boards!
By serial catowner on March 20, 2008
For most of my life, longer than I care to admit, I passed over the Narrows Bridge occasionally, thinking no more about why it was built than “to get to the other side”.
Shortly after starting a job in Tacoma, the little light bulb came on- when Galloping Gertie was built, there was no “other side”. Even today you can plainly see that Tacoma is a sparsely settled suburban city, and the architectural styles make it plain that in the 30s there were miles of open countryside between downtown Tacoma and the Narrows.
The bridge could not possibly have been built to support the suburbanization of Port Orchard and Gig Harbor- even in the 50s these areas were almost entirely rural and no building to speak of was happening there. The only industries on the Kitsap Penninsula are naval bases, and you don’t normally load parts of ships on a truck to ship them to another port.
In short, Galloping Gertie was built because the Narrows are narrow, and the bluffs are high, allowing the construction of a suspension bridge high enough to allow ships to pass underneath. It truly was built to “get to the other side” with no regard for the fact that there was nothing there.
Flash forward 60 years. Again, the highway department is building a Narrows bridge. Public opinion on the west side is overwhelmingly opposed to the new bridge, in spite of the highway department using their best efforts to create congestion and make the public demand more roads.
And build it they did, just in time to exacerbate global warming by encouraging sprawl, and to mulct the bridge users for the benefit of a private company that owns any profits, but lets the state keep all the losses.
There’s a lesson in there someplace. Or at least something to chat about if you ever drive over the new bridge. Which you probably won’t, because it’s still not a very good way to get to where you want to go.
Posted in LID, public process
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