Maximize transit, minimize traffic

The Oregonian ^ | 05/06/03 | editorial

[Willie Green]

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.

Some simplifying force in human nature loves to set up false dichotomies. You know what we're talking about. As in: You're a cat person, I'm a dog person. You're a wine person, I'm a beer person. You're a bus person, I'm a car person.

Some of the criticism of two new light-rail extensions, planned for Clackamas County, stems from this kind of black-and-white thinking, carried over into the realm of public policy. Exaggerate the "transit vs. car" quarrel via a talk show or two, and before you know it, a thick layer of rhetorical asphalt has paved over all the complexities of our transportation system.

If you champion light rail, you're falsely painted as anti-highway. But our light-rail system -- in addition to helping the 36,500 or so people who use it every day -- is a huge help to everyone who loves to drive.

Some people in Clackamas County have discovered this for themselves over the past few years, as they studied the best transportation alternatives to connect them to downtown Portland. They didn't necessarily start out hospitable to light rail. Indeed, in 1997, Milwaukie voters ousted their mayor and two city council members in part over a planned light-rail route.

But after exhaustive public meetings and an in-depth look at other options -- including river transport -- light-rail re-emerged victorious. Part of the credit goes to Metro Councilor Brian Newman, a planner by training, who helped forge a new consensus during three years of meetings, first as a private citizen, later as a member of the Milwaukie City Council and finally as a Metro Councilor.

Recently, the Metro Council approved plans for two light-rail extensions, one along Interstate 205 from Gateway to Clackamas Town Center, which would open in 2009. A second extension is planned from downtown Portland to Milwaukie, which could open by 2014. These would cost $1 billion, and they aren't done deals (the second route would likely require a public vote). Something may change along the way, of course, but based on what we know now, it appears prudent to keep moving forward with these plans.

Just consider what a difference light rail makes at rush hour on Interstate 84 and U.S. 26. Figures collected by Metro's transportation planners indicate that, between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., roughly 10,000 people are headed eastbound from downtown Portland. Another 9,000 are headed westbound. In both directions, at rush hour, about 26 percent of the total number of people traveling are on light rail.

Freeway travel is bad enough, but just imagine the congestion if all those light-rail travelers, eastbound and westbound, were added to the road.

Although it's true, and nice perhaps, that Portland has become synonymous with the success of its light-rail system, that's not why Portland should keep pursuing light rail. The reason has nothing whatsoever to do with Portland's image. It has everything to do with keeping up a smoothly running transportation system.

[WOSG]

http://kinetic.seattle.wa.us/getonboard.html

More on Why Trains Dont Relieve Congestion and why there is a better way! ...


" ... Put simply, trains don't go where enough people want to go, when they want to go. Put another way: Transportation is a market like anything else, and trains are not the product the market is demanding. And yet when the market demands alternatives, the answer that has come back is "let's put in some trains". The line of reasoning seems to be trains are what other cities have; the world's great cities have Tubes, Metros and Subways, and WE are a great city, right? An analogy: Suppose you go out to a restaurant and order a juicy, rare steak with fries. But when the waiter returns he's carrying a plate with a hot, sizzling... soy loaf with non-dairy coleslaw on the side. "This is not what I ordered," you tell the waiter. "But it's food," he replies. "It may not have the taste you wanted, but you won't starve. Get used to it." So the question is: How hungry are you?

Most people would rather go to another restaurant. In Seattle, despite a bus system with rush hour express routes that emulate train service, roads are crowded and the rush "hour" just keeps getting longer. Clearly, even buses are not a close enough substitute to the car. So what has been put forward by Sound Transit, the agency charged with giving the region a new mass transit system? A train system. Specifically, light rail. Sound Transit won't consider a technology like Personal Rapid Transit , and it is also resisting the popular monorail alternative. This is hardly surprising, as Sound Transit has invested millions of dollars and countless hours in planning and fighting for light rail. They are invested in it financially and emotionally. To return to the restaurant analogy, soy loaf is the only thing the chef knows how to make. In fact, the chef is telling you it's not worth his time to learn to cook anything else.

But would a menu boasting Monorail Cordon Bleu stand a better chance at actually relieving our traffic problems? I would submit that the answer is a resounding No. A monorail is just another type of train , with the same service characteristics as light rail. People would NOT choose to ride monorail for the same reasons they choose NOT to ride the bus and WOULD NOT choose to ride light rail. At this time monorail has a capital cost advantage over light rail, and that is all.

Personal Rapid Transit , a technology designed in response to the way people actually use transportation, is the common-sense alternative to trains, offering the best hope of a mass transit that people will really use AND therefore ease traffic congestion.

...

In Part I we found that conventional transit doesn't go where you want, when you want, as fast as you want. The root reason is that conventional transit only goes back and forth along a corridor, and it only stops at stations that have a fair amount of distance between them. And it can't really be any different: today it is too expensive to have very many train corridors within a metropolitan area, the construction cost is too high, the right of ways and stations claim too much land. And then comes the clincher: The people who are supposed to use the system do not all live in those corridors, and nor are all the destinations to which they wish to travel. Dr. Martin Lowson, designer of the British ULTra personal rapid transit system, characterizes modern urban transportation patterns this way:
"...demand in a modern city is anywhere to anywhere. It would be almost impossible to devise a conventional collective transport system to meet these very diverse needs." Source
From anywhere, to anywhere. No wonder transit restricted to corridors lacks appeal, and no wonder they make little or no impact on traffic congestion. A corridor simply cannot serve a city that spreads out north, south, east and west. This is especially true in the low density, spread-out cities of the western United States.

...The chasm between what people want and what transit planners are offering is key to any public debate on selecting a rapid transit technology. A system may be capable of carrying enough people to relieve traffic congestion, but actually getting them to use it is an entirely different matter. Given the expense of conventional rail and monorail, and the poor performance of recent light rail systems, is any kind of train system a fiscally responsible choice? Now are you ready to..."


"

[dixiechick2000]

I'm a passenger and freight rail activist, having addressed the State Transportation Commission and the Washington State Senate Highways and Transportation Committee on rail issues.

Publius, I read your homepage and this is very telling.

B Knotts posted this early in the thread, and it was ignored:

"We, the people, voted on this light rail project.

We, the people, voted NO.

So, they're building it anyway."

WaterDragon also questioned the wisdom of the city fathers, as do I.

Does it not bother either Willie Green or Publius that the people of Oregon did not, and do not, want LR?

I don't believe that I am the only person in Oregon who is thoroughly pissed off that the wishes of the voters were ignored.

I have lived here for over 11 years, and I can't recall a single major road being built in my area during that time. Nothing has been done to ease congestion, which doesn't surprise me in the least. They are trying to force us to use public transportation, and it's not working. Traffic is worse, but I reach my destination faster and with less hassle than I would using MAX.

Tailback, thank you for calling attention to this thread on the Oregon Message board.

[dixiechick2000]

Thank you so much for all of your posts on this thread.

They are much appreciated.

[WOSG]

you are welcome.

[Tailback]

No problem. I've seen this guy spewing his choo-choo agenda before, his M.O. hasn't changed. He uses the Clinton legal defense form of debate. Delay, Deny, Divert, and Denigrate.

[Jack Black]

Don't make me laugh. All light rail does in increase urban density. That's a holy obligation of city planners but normal people don't care. Roads always jam up, then people stop using them. If they jam up faster fewer people travel in that direction. The people riding the rails are not part of the game.

Being a Republic is about having limits on government. When the elected officials over rule the citizens, drive the state in bankruptcy (your paying attention, right?), so overspend their budget they can't keep school in session and criminals in jail to build TOY TRAINS only a total freakin' idiot calls this a triumph of the Republic.

Do you even live in Portland? The current administration is litterally killing this city and state. It's not funny, and neither are you.

[jimt]

You can easily prove me wrong. Show ONE operating light rail system that is not taxpayer subsidized. A real one - not the one at Disneyland.

Has anyone risen to the challenge?

In short, no.

[Willie Green]

Does it not bother either Willie Green or Publius that the people of Oregon did not, and do not, want LR?

The NIMBY technophobes in Kalifornia don't want solutions to their infrastructure problems either. It doesn't stop me from advocating nuclear power plants and desalination facilites to alleviate their electricity and fresh water supply problems.

I don't believe that I am the only person in Oregon who is thoroughly pissed off that the wishes of the voters were ignored.

Whooptie-do.
So you have your panities all knotted in a bunch. So what?
It only demonstrates that you prefer cursing the darkness than lighting a candle.
Until such time you come up with a viable alternative to truly alleviate urban traffic congestion, you can sit and stew in your road rage all you want. Sooner or later it's going to dawn on you that "somebody shoulda done something about it."

[TexasCajun]

We'll have a little choo-choo train in Houston soon.

But you'll have to drive in from the suburbs to the Astrodome to catch the choo-choo train the Medical Center.

...ya better git there early, you'll be making 20+ stops before get to your destination.

[Willie Green]

But you'll have to drive in from the suburbs to the Astrodome ..

I thought that dismal eyesore was demolished 9~10 years ago.

ya better git there early, you'll be making 20+ stops before get to your destination.

It'd still be better than being stuck in traffic all day,
then not being able to find a parking spot once you do get downtown.

[B Knotts]

What would be better is to not go downtown in the first place.

The answer lies, not in trying to figure out some way of better moving people around, but in figuring out how not to move as many as possible.

More permissive zoning regulations, telecommuting and the encouragement of traditional families are more effective solutions to traffic congestion.

[WaterDragon]

I don't know why Williegreen is trying so hard to get people to agree with him. The fascist Democrats running this state could care less what the people of Oregon want. Williegreen just likes to argue. He knows we have nothing to say about how thorougly our pockets are picked, or what the money is spent on.
'
The ONLY thing that will save this state is to throw the Democrats out of every office. And we'd better get cracking because the state is filling up with nutbrains like Williegreen who'll vote Democrat, regardless.

[EBUCK]

Don't sweat it. Big Government tax-payer funded socialist boondoggles are A-OK if it satisfies somebody's pet peeve.

And keeps their paycheck coming.....as is obviously the case here.

[EBUCK]

Yupper.....the libofascists created the problem with gobs and gobs of "engineering" and now want us to pay for the results (that were long ago predicted). The only way to truly relieve the traffic and tension is to remove the arbitrary bounds set upon development and freedom in the first place.

[jagrmeister]

Are you playing stupid or is this your usual charade? The recovery costs are important with mass transportation because the mechanism to use it requires public funds whereas people spend their OWN money for the automobiles (and gasoline) that traverse highways. Therefore the issue of recoverable fees for public trans is not exportable to highway development.

[lugsoul]

Whose being stupid? I guess those highways are free, right?

[jagrmeister]

Insofar as the public pays the lion's share of the transportation- ie: the method of transportation and the fuel, then recovery costs are relevant. People BUY their own cars and fill their own cars with fuel. Therefore, the need for cost recovery with highways is not directly comparable with that of public transportation where people are entirely leaching off the public dole.

[lugsoul]

Okay - I get on a train, pay my $1.75, and I am completely mooching off of the government. I get off of the train, get into my own car, and pull out onto a road built by the state. I pay nothing to enter the road. But now I am footing the bill for transportation.

Sure, that makes sense.

[Lefty-NiceGuy]

London's public transport is not a good example of a privatised rail. To get from A to B you may have to buy tickets from different companies and then change over between thier trains in strange out of the way stations. It blows. In Frankfurt or Paris you've got nice well organised systems. They were set up by the government and then privatised. There is of coarse always going to be local government involvment as communities decide wether or not they want to subsidise rail just like roads.

Think of it this way: we build roads so we're subsidising the competition.

[Lefty-NiceGuy]

Yeah, I'm with you. Personally I think the only fair way to it is to pay for roads with fuel taxes. Then the guys doing all the driving pay for all the roads, and the guy that walks doesn't get taxed unfairly. Pay for what you use.

Does anyone have any numbers to compare fuel taxes vs. highway/road funding?