BIKE: Re: Rail Issues

[Nawdry]

At 10/27/2004 07:47 , Patrick Goetz <pgoetz> wrote:

It's fascinating to observe Patrick's capacity for mega-rants.  Such 
oratory, however, is not only cheap but far lighter than air and virtually 
impossible to pin down to anything.  I will only point out that Patrick's 
credibility should be judged by the similarly magnificent orations he was 
delivering until the last few months on behalf of the virtues of Bombardier 
monorail technology, the supposedly indisputable advantages of driverless, 
automated operation, and the miraculous operational and financial 
performance we were to expect from the Las Vegas Monorail.  (In case you 
haven't been following this sad fiasco, the LV monorail has been shut down 
for approximately the past month due to parts falling off the trainsets, 
and a resumption of operation is currently not in sight).

I will further point out that Patrick's latest offering is virtually devoid 
of any factual substantiation of his abundant claims.  I'll comment on just 
a couple of issues which Patrick raises which are susceptible to factual 
evaluation.

Patrick writes:

   The problem with this is most people have been to Chicago, New York,
>Tokyo, or Europe and they have seen what kind of transportation system
>works there, and it ain't LRT.

Well, of course, in the heyday of the Transit Holocaust LRT was ripped out 
of New York and Chicago - a debacle which, I would argue, contributed 
immensely to the staggering decline of public transport quality and 
ridership in those major cities.  However, I won't press that case at the 
moment, but rather will focus on Europe, which Patrick presents as an 
outstanding case of LRT's failure and, presumably, rejection.

Well, now, that should come as quite a surprise to the Europeans, who are 
operating more than 300 separate light rail systems across the 
continent.  It should also come as quite a surprise to major capitals like 
London, Paris, Berlin, and Rome, all of which not only are operating light 
rail systems, but have major expansion programs under way.  In fact, London 
and Paris within the last decade or so have reintroduced surface light rail 
systems from scratch, and are embarking on programs to build more.

This does not mean that LRT is a substitute for these cities' core rapid 
transit systems, but it does suggest that, even with grade-separated rapid 
transit, modern European cities recognize the effectiveness and usefulness 
of surface-based LRT systems - in these cases, as supplementary 
high-quality public transport systems.  The same is true of a wide swath of 
other European world-class cities, like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, 
Hamburg, Lyon, Lille, Marseilles, Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo, Prague, 
Budapest, Milan, Bucharest, Sofia, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, etc., etc. 
- where LRT lines and networks supplement metro, regional rail, and bus 
services.

In other major European cities, like Frankfurt, Hannover, Cologne, Dresden, 
Leipzig, Stuttgart, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Den 
Haag, Zurich, Geneva, Nantes, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Orleans, and many 
others, the LRT systems ARE the core rail transit systems.  I'm sure 
Patrick will try to disparage the role and importance of these systems, but 
anyone who has visited places like Frankfurt, Cologne, Zurich, etc. will be 
fully aware that LRT (running in part as the downtown U-Bahn in many 
Germany cities) functions as the central pillar of the public transport system.

In just about all of these cities, LRT has either been recently upgraded 
and expanded, or is in the midst of current expansion programs - not 
exactly an indication of failure, or public rejection.

Once again, on a key FACT (i.e., whether LRT "works" in Europe), one can 
palpably gauge the depth of substance of Patrick's abundant outpouring of 
rhetoric.

I could similarly point to Japan, where Tokyo not only has several LRT 
systems, supplementing the city's extensive metro and regional railway 
systems, but over 40 separate LRT systems of one kind or another operate 
throughout the country - serving as the major rail transit systems of some 
major cities such as Hiroshima.

Another of Patrick's vacuous contentions, this one wrapped in a semblance 
of "citation":

...Houston was slated to get a monorail system in
>1990 with what I understand was considerable public support
>(http://users3.ev1.net/~forbus/monorail/HoustonMonorail.html) only to
>see the project killed by a politician (not public opposition).

This is simply a page sponsored by Daniel Forbus, a Houston anti-LRT, 
pro-monorail enthusiast, and it reproduces one of several responses to 
Metro's RFP in the early 1990s.  What Metro actually asked for was bids to 
install an elevated rapid transit system - without specifying the 
technology.  This was commonly referred to as "monorail" - but so 
what?  The Vancouver Skytrain (a standard-rail system) is commonly called a 
"monorail".  In addition to the bid document Forbus posts, there were two 
other bids - one from a consortium proposing the automated light railway 
system used for the Docklands Light Railway in London.  And it's true all 
these proposals became worthless when a local political kingpin strongarmed 
Metro into dropping the whole project.

In a sense, it's somewhat breathtaking to observe Patrick carrying on his 
crusade against light rail, and his unflagging grandstanding on behalf of 
the Great but Untapped Monorail Miracle, in view of recent circumstances - 
especially the debacle in Las Vegas.  (Houston's LRT has its problems, but 
it's carrying 30,000+ rider-trips a day in a much lighter-traffic corridor, 
and it sure ain't shut down.)  The Seattle monorail project, down to a 
single bidder after the Bombardier team just dropped out, is faced with a 
community backlash and a revote in a few days.  We'll see how that comes 
out ... but even if the project proceeds, it still is troubled, and facing 
widespread community animosity.  Amid all this disarray and controversy, 
Patrick valiantly waves the example of monorail projects in a handful of 
fairly wretched, dirt-poor Third World countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, 
and Kazakhstan (do American cities like Austin really have much in common - 
in terms of demographics, transport issues, or otherwise -  with Kuala 
Lumpur or Almaty?).

Patrick reminds me of that knight in 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' - 
the undauntable, feisty one with the intrepid stream of threats and 
bombastic bravado who's cut down and sliced up in combat until he's nothing 
but a shouting, cursing head on the ground - but he still keeps up the 
threats and bombast.  Monorail may be shut down in Las Vegas and the 
project in Seattle may be hanging by a thread ... but monorail is the ONLY 
possible mode for guided transit, it's advancing across the globe, it's 
vanquishing its nefarious naysayers and the Parsons Brinckerhoff cabal, 
just you wait and see.  Meanwhile, 19th-century rail fanatics will try to 
tell you about all that new light rail which you think is a raging success 
in places like Dallas, Denver, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Diego, 
Portland, Minneapolis, etc., etc., and those new-start projects that are 
under way in Phoenix and Charlotte ... but, whatever you do, don't believe 
your lying eyes.

LH