BIKE: Commuter Rails with Trails

[David Foster]

So,

I do not have time today to respond to all the interesting emails that have 
been coming in about commuter rail, TOD, rails-with-trails, etc. I just 
want to make one quick point: tonight's visit from Mia Birk is about the 
feasibility of rails-with-trails along Cap Metro's proposed commuter rail 
line (maybe we can also address MoKan and UP). It is not about monorails 
vs. light rail. etc. These are certainly important issues to discuss, and I 
hope we can (I'll be happy to supply the kool-aid), but tonight, out of 
respect for Mia's time and in deference to her expertize (though she may 
also be an expert on these other matters for all I know), the discussion 
should be focused on the issue at hand. All I want to add here is that I 
doubt seriously that Patrick's idea of removing the rail along the red line 
is viable. This line is used to carry freight now, and we could ask Cap 
Metro how many freight trucks are being removed from the roads as a result. 
I am not even sure that federal rules would allow for this line, a 'common 
carrier', to be removed, nor can I understand why we would want to part 
with a piece of transportation infrastructure that is already in place. So, 
the notion of rails-TO-trails, valid in other contexts, is not valid here 
in my opinion.

I look forward to tonight's meeting and our continued shared work towards 
making Austin a better place for bikes.

At 09:13 AM 8/18/04, Patrick Goetz wrote:
>Eric Anderson wrote:
>>RwT may add yet another bankable element to planned and proposed Transit
>>Oriented Developments (TODs), a building block of the transit vision and
>>Envision Central Texas. To begin with, imagine building out the -red-line-
>>commuter rail WITH trails (RwT): On day one linking the Saltillo District,
>>the Featherlite tract and Mueller TODs (by then each likely under
>>development).
>
>I'm deeply disturbed that otherwise sensible individuals like David Foster 
>and Eric Anderson have drunk so deeply of the commuter rail 
>kool-aid.  Like crack, commuter rail promises to solve all our 
>(transportation) problems.  Unlike crack, the illusions of which are 
>dispelled in roughly 30 seconds, waiting around for commuter rail to prove 
>itself ineffectual is going to set us back another 2 years before we get 
>started on really solving our transportation problems.  If the peak oil 
>experts are correct, this might very well be too late.  The US dollar is 
>already hovering around 80 Euro cents; we might not be able to afford a 
>real solution by the time local politicians come to their senses.
>
>On a brighter note, at least we might get a few trails out of it this time 
>around; last time all we got was "I'll take the A Train!" baseball caps.
>
>People on this list should know by now that if Mike Dahmus and I actually 
>agree on something, you can probably take it to the bank, and we agree 
>that the All Systems Go! proposal is not going to solve any of the 
>region's transportation problems.
>
>At Monday's UTC meeting, a Cap Metro representative talked about TOD - 
>transit oriented development - in the context of the Red Line, and Eric 
>Anderson repeats this misleading juxtaposition.  Certainly TOD is what 
>makes a rail system financially viable.  Unfortunately, there is no 
>evidence whatsoever that commuter rail is going to result in *any* 
>TOD.  As far as I know, there isn't a single commuter rail system in the 
>entire country that has resulted in any significant TOD, and there are 
>plenty -- South Florida's Tri-rail, for example -- which were supposed to 
>stimulate TOD and haven't, after 15 years of operation in the case of 
>Tri-Rail.  The proposed Red Line is a train that run 4 or 5 times in the 
>morning and 4 or 5 times in the early evening to destinations no one wants 
>to go to.  This is not going to lead to TOD.  Unless, of course, we count 
>urban sprawl as TOD; commuter rail does facilitate urban sprawl by 
>allowing people to live further out while still having a convenient way to 
>get to their jobs in the city every day.  One of the big selling points of 
>the Red Line, according to Cap Metro, is "all the new development" in the 
>Leander area.  Note in passing that Austin's urban core provides 94% of 
>Cap Metro's operating revenue, and our proposed rail system is designed to 
>accomodate "all the new development" in the Leander area.  Wow, Excellent 
>-- I can certainly get behind that!
>
>The Cap Metro representative told us that they were anticipating eventual 
>ridership numbers for the Red Line of around 17,000 per day, but, 
>surprisingly, was unable to provide any comps from other regions. Let me 
>take the liberty of providing a few comps:
>
>
>The Everett to Seattle Commuter Rail Line:
>http://www.soundtransit.org/sounder/RiderInfo/RidershipReport/RiderReport2004/July5/RidershipReport.pdf
>
>Everett is about 25 miles outside of Seattle, and Seattle has a much 
>healthier downtown than Austin, i.e. Seattle area residents have a lot 
>more reason to go downtown than Austin area residents do.
>
>Here are the comparative populations:
>
>Everett-91,488  Mukilteo-18,019  Edmonds-39,515  Seattle-563,374
>Leander-7,596 Cedar Park-26,049 Round Rock-61,136 Austin-656,562
>
>AFTER 4 YEARS OPERATION, HERE ARE THE AVERAGE DAILY RIDERSHIP NUMBERS FOR 
>THE EVERETT-SEATTLE COMMUTER RAIL LINE:
>
>       1 morning train-150 and 1 evening train-150
>
>150 people a day.  And Everett has more than 12 times the population of 
>Leander.
>
>South Florida's Tri-Rail:
>After 15 years of operation, Tri-Rail, which is supposed to be providing 
>rail service to 3 counties in the Miami area, is averaging fewer than 
>10,000 passengers per day, has resulted in no TOD, and is currently 
>costing taxpayers $9 per passenger per ride to operate.  Here are some 
>comments from the press:
>
>============================================================
>Deriding the rails
>www.clo-sfl.com
>
>In its 10th year, Tri-Rail tells its suffering riders that things will 
>soon be on track. Sound familiar?
>
>By Jane Musgrave
>
>If the number of people riding Tri-Rail doesn't double in five years, 
>Linda Bohlinger says it will be time to declare South Florida's experiment 
>with commuter rail a colossal and extremely expensive failure.
>
>"If we can't do something in five years, either we don't know what we're 
>doing or the public really doesn't need it," says Bohlinger, the new 
>executive director of the perennially underachieving and constantly 
>criticized rail system.
>...
>Since 1994 when ridership peaked at 2.9 million riders, passenger counts 
>have steadily declined. Today, an estimated 8,400 people ride the train 
>each day - roughly the same number who used it in 1991 during its second 
>year of operation.
>
>By comparison, traffic on I-95 along Tri-Rail's 80-mile corridor through 
>Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties is burgeoning. In southern 
>Broward County, there are 74 percent more cars on the road today than 
>there were when Tri-Rail sputtered to life with the hope that it would 
>relieve congestion on South Florida's main artery. In northern Broward and 
>southern Palm Beach counties, I-95 traffic has increased between 32 and 47 
>percent during the same nine years, according to figures from the Florida 
>Department of Transportation.
>
>So, it's not as if there aren't potential riders out there. Daily traffic 
>jams on the Interstate are a testament to that.
>===============================================================================
>
>http://www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/2004-04-15/news.html
>
>Next Stop, Nowhere Just wait till you see what this bad boy can do out on 
>the open track BY JEFF STRATTON
>jeff.stratton
>
>A week's worth of trips on the Tri-Rail, South Florida's poky, 15-year-old 
>commuter railway, recently confirmed the conventional rat-racing wisdom: 
>The train serves not the region's most populated areas but the fringes. It 
>doesn't offer riders destinations they truly need or desire, nor 
>convenient times to get there. It's underutilized, even during rush hour. 
>It's not located where people like Nick -- an unemployed construction 
>worker who says he's "between cars" -- are most likely to use it.
>
>It might be preferable to walking, but it sure ain't cheap: The sparsely 
>traveled line is costing taxpayers plenty. County figures put the public 
>subsidy for Tri-Rail at nearly $9 anytime anyone boards it. And it may be 
>about to get a lot more expensive than that. Officials of the South 
>Florida Regional Transportation Authority are considering a plan to open a 
>new north-south line -- at a cost of at least $800 million.
>
>
>
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