BIKE: Commuter Rails with Trails

[Mike Dahmus]

alan_drake wrote:

>Although I agree that the proposed Red Line in Austin will generate no
>TOD, there are few errors and omissions.
>
>Florida TriRail does have at least one TOD, a Ramada Inn at the Deerfield
>Station and I suspect a couple of others.
>
>TriRail is nearing the end of a massive track improvement, etc. program
>which should (and I believe that the projections are accurate) raise
>ridership to 90,000 daily and close to breakeven operating economics. 
>There were severe operational issues with sharing heavy freight traffic
>and Amtrak service on a single track before double tracking, etc.
>
>Will these much higher ridership #s generate more TOD in South Florida ? 
>I suspect so.
>
>Alan
>
>________________________________________________________________
>The best thing to hit the Internet in years - Juno SpeedBand!
>Surf the Web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
>Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!
>
>_______________________________________________
>Get on or off this list here:  http://BicycleAustin.info/list
>
>  
>
Alan,

I don't know where you're getting either one of those statements from.

1. The Ramada Inn is TOD? A _hotel_? You must have a definition of TOD 
quite different than the standard one. There's nowhere useful to go from 
there - this is 5 minutes from my old home - I know the area quite well.

2. I've never seen a projection even coming close to 90,000 daily 
ridership. From one of Patrick's links, and note the word 'wants':

"Tri-Rail wants to boost ridership to 68,000 a day by 2015, which would 
reduce the cost per rider from a current $8.81 to $5.06. Back in 1999, 
the agency's then-director, Linda Bohlinger, gave the commuter system 
five years to accumulate 20,000 riders a day, opining that if that goal 
weren't reached, "either we don't know what we're doing or the public 
doesn't really need it.""

They didn't hit their goal. Note that current ridership is disappointing 
even to them:

"With the help of a GPS, the trains usually run on time nowadays, but 
that may be a hollow victory. "For a billion-dollar investment, you'd 
hope for more than 10,000 people a day using it," Polzin says. "The 
numbers aren't where they hoped they'd be.""

Also, the length of Tri-Rail far exceeds the Red Line - it runs for 72 
miles. I don't know what factor one can reasonably divide their 
ridership by in order to fairly compare to the Red Line, but it's 
definitely more than 1.

- MD