Highway's of Yore

Matthew said:
The $30 billion I spoke about earlier is only a small piece of a massive amount of subsidy necessary to maintain roads and highways. If gas tax revenue is devoted entirely to highway maintenance, then what money goes to mitigating gasoline externalities and pollution? And don't forget about non-interstates, either. They are 97.5% of roads.

There was a hugely comprehensive study on this last year, actually, which covers this in way more detail than I have energy for: Do Roads Pay For Themselves?

I also would prefer to see the Big Dig and other roads funded by tolls, at least to a much larger extent. Certainly that would be more fair to I-90 users. Note that the TFC identified a funding gap for the Western Turnpike as well as the Boston extension, though.

MBTA's budget is $1.62 billion. Of that, $405 million is due to debt service, not operations cost. Of the $1.2 billion remaining, about $300 million goes to the Commuter Rail subsidy. $400 million to wages. Notably, the RIDE costs about $84 million, but should really be considered a state aide service that for historical/arbitrary reasons is provided by the T.

The method of counting cost per user is not a bad one for purposes of analysis, but it is far more complicated than what you have presented. Marginal operating cost per rider for the T is negligible and goes down the more people ride it. Increasing the number of vehicles commuting into the city of Boston increases the operating costs of the roads, and accommodating all those cars costs the city tremendously in terms of pollution, space on the road and parking lots. The T has lots of problems, but the city couldn't function without it.
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I should probably clarify, that I'm not pro-car unless it makes sense-- there's no kind of transit that can effectively serve anywhere built after WWII, (128, 495) but where areas were built before WWII, transit should be put into place. I'd love to see real high-speed rail going to areas that it makes sense and provides a real time advantage over a car. If I lived in say, woburn, and drove to Boston it would probably take an hour door to door, but if I took the train it would take a lot longer-- get to the station, wait for the train, take the train to north station-- then walk or take the T to my job. The timing gets even worse for the commuters that are further out-- so they don't even consider living close to the city and the sprawl gets pushed out to Leominster and Fitchburg.

Being in Boston, it's easy to forget, but 90% of Americans drive to work. Building transit out to single family homes and two story apartments in an area like Columbus or St Louis makes absolutely no sense.
 
I agree that sprawl-to-sprawl will never be served efficiently by transit. That's why it's important to serve the older, more traditionally built areas well. It's also important to allow density to increase and population growth in those areas -- else we end up with skyrocketing rents as everyone tries to crowd into the most desirable spots. For the record, I don't consider what the MBTA provides to be "good transit."

For your hypothetical ride from Woburn to Boston, are you counting the time spent finding parking? Not to mention all the relative costs. The only way to make a Woburn to Boston commute as similar to a Woburn to (say) Peabody commute would be to build massive parking lots in downtown Boston. We tried that. It nearly destroyed the city.
 
Matthew said:
I agree that sprawl-to-sprawl will never be served efficiently by transit. That's why it's important to serve the older, more traditionally built areas well. It's also important to allow density to increase and population growth in those areas -- else we end up with skyrocketing rents as everyone tries to crowd into the most desirable spots. For the record, I don't consider what the MBTA provides to be "good transit."

For your hypothetical ride from Woburn to Boston, are you counting the time spent finding parking? Not to mention all the relative costs. The only way to make a Woburn to Boston commute as similar to a Woburn to (say) Peabody commute would be to build massive parking lots in downtown Boston. We tried that. It nearly destroyed the city.
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Mathew -- the reasons why rail is always the second option over driving:
1) its the call from the school nurse in the early afternoon
2) the overtime that stretches late into the night
3) early morning session to connect with a key customer in Europe

Trains and buses just don't work as well as cars when the hours are not the standard 9:00 to 5:00 -- and there really is nothing that can be done to change the situation once the commute extends beyond the range of high frequency service -- i.e. the subway or LRV in dedicated ROW
 
Those are some examples of the reason that good transit has reasonable all day frequencies.

Please do not use "peak hour commuter rail/bus" as your reference point. It's a failure, and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to use it.
 
Matthew said:
Those are some examples of the reason that good transit has reasonable all day frequencies.

Please do not use "peak hour commuter rail/bus" as your reference point. It's a failure, and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to use it.
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Mathew -- that is my point

Subways typically operate in dense enough districts to support running them 20 or more hours per day even though they may well be thinly occupied from late evening on through closing hours

On the other hand much of the Commuter Rail Network extends out so far into the suburbs that to fill the lots during the daytime the station draws on people who drive significant distances to/from the station and home. Outside of normal working hours when traffic is an issue -- its very hard to justify: driving to a station; waiting for a train (possibly in inclement weather); riding the train; conducting your mission; and then returning. Its especially a hard-sell to the suburbanite if on the city-end the timing is unpredictable and there is the possibility of missing the "last train"

No matter what legerdemain you use -- you are not going to change that aspect of Commuter Rail
 
I think you've basically described why I don't support Commuter Rail extensions (as mentioned in the other thread). We should instead work on improving their service into dense areas immediately surrounding Boston, and making them useful for bi-directional travel at all times of day. As I mentioned in a post a while ago, this includes ending bad land-use regulations surrounding the stations, and also not subsidizing gigantic parking lots.
 
Matthew said:
I think you've basically described why I don't support Commuter Rail extensions (as mentioned in the other thread). We should instead work on improving their service into dense areas immediately surrounding Boston, and making them useful for bi-directional travel at all times of day. As I mentioned in a post a while ago, this includes ending bad land-use regulations surrounding the stations, and also not subsidizing gigantic parking lots.
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Mathew -- are you aware of what used to be called the Budliner?

It was a diesel powered single unit rail vehicle which broke the 19th Century model that you needed a big humongous huffing and puffing steam engine pulling a "train of cars"

Now we have the Internet which broke the mold that you needed wires going point to point to communicate -- all you really need are packets addressed properly and routers to put you on the right track (er wire)

Well here's my concept of "rail of the future"

1) all electric - -either wire, rail or if way-out batteries or fuel cells
2) all packets -- i.e. small single unit vehicles
3) all point to point with few intermediate stops
4) fully-automated switching at the branches -- i.e. vehicle routers
5) the units can be very small -- i.e. short packets -- just big enough for 10 to 15 people such as the Lexpress bus that loops around in Lexington
6) as much as possible dedicated lightweight rails -- no need to be able to haul mega-transformers and giant steel girders -- just people and possibly Fedex-type deliveries
7) these can run from stations with very short easy to locate platforms
8) you can build these stations in many small cities, large towns and tech clusters on the highway if needed
 
Matthew said:
For your hypothetical ride from Woburn to Boston, are you counting the time spent finding parking? Not to mention all the relative costs. The only way to make a Woburn to Boston commute as similar to a Woburn to (say) Peabody commute would be to build massive parking lots in downtown Boston. We tried that. It nearly destroyed the city.
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Drive to a garage in the financial district-- minimal time involved and relatively close to I-93. I can't speak to exact numbers, but there is a pretty significant volume of traffic inbound on I-93, the mass pike, and surface roads in the morning and all those cars seem to find spots hidden away in parking garages-- the few exceptions being the govt center garage and by the aquarium. When the seaport is built up there will probably be a net increase in parking because the buildings will feature multistory garages.
 
whighlander said:
Well here's my concept of "rail of the future"
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We haven't been able to master "rail of a century ago" (electric multiple units) much less something that sounds a lot like PRT.

Kahta said:
Drive to a garage in the financial district-- minimal time involved and relatively close to I-93. I can't speak to exact numbers, but there is a pretty significant volume of traffic inbound on I-93, the mass pike, and surface roads in the morning and all those cars seem to find spots hidden away in parking garages-- the few exceptions being the govt center garage and by the aquarium. When the seaport is built up there will probably be a net increase in parking because the buildings will feature multistory garages.
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This document was produced to try and promote the benefit of the Big Dig, in 2005 or so: http://www.edrgroup.com/pdf/mta-economic-v1.pdf

4437 vehicles CA/T southbound per-peak-hour morning
5269 vehicles CA/T northbound per-peak-hour afternoon

A bunch of other numbers are also available there.

Anyway, I don't suppose that your average commuter has the means to afford to pay for parking in Boston every day.
 
Matthew said:
We haven't been able to master "rail of a century ago" (electric multiple units) much less something that sounds a lot like PRT.



This document was produced to try and promote the benefit of the Big Dig, in 2005 or so: http://www.edrgroup.com/pdf/mta-economic-v1.pdf

4437 vehicles CA/T southbound per-peak-hour morning
5269 vehicles CA/T northbound per-peak-hour afternoon

A bunch of other numbers are also available there.

Anyway, I don't suppose that your average commuter has the means to afford to pay for parking in Boston every day.
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Marhew -- where are those counts supposed to be

Those numbers are totally at variance with the oft quoted numbers around 200,000 vehicles / day for the flow at South Station in the old pre-BigDig tunnel

Now we know that the flow was not uniform -- being highly peaked for a few hours around 8:00 AM and a few hours around 5:00 PM -- but just assume that the flow was evenly distributed around 24 hours that would be about 8,000 per hour - average

You also said: " I don't suppose that your average commuter has the means to afford to pay for parking in Boston every day " -- well that's a bit illogical -- if they couldn't pay for the parking why drive into city -- its also at variance with the thousands of parking spaces which are full everyday
 
The counts I quoted are per-peak-hour for I-93 south and north-bound via the Central Artery/Tunnel. The document has the rest, including the turnpike interchange and traffic heading to the airport, and totals.

Let's see: 154000 vehicles use the Central Artery per day in 2005 compared to 168000 in 1995. Their reasoning is that many vehicles have been diverted to the Ted Williams tunnel that formerly had to use the Artery. Approx 9500 vehicles per-hour use the CA/T during morning peak, and 8900 vehicles per-hour during afternoon peak (in 2005).

You also said: " I don't suppose that your average commuter has the means to afford to pay for parking in Boston every day " -- well that's a bit illogical -- if they couldn't pay for the parking why drive into city -- its also at variance with the thousands of parking spaces which are full everyday
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Well, the implication is that many commuters into the downtown core don't drive into the city and park: only the ones rich enough to afford driving and parking in the city can do so.
 
Matthew said:
Anyway, I don't suppose that your average commuter has the means to afford to pay for parking in Boston every day.
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I think that the inbound congestion that starts at 615 (and doesn't end until after 10) on I-93 north of the city and the SE expressway speaks volumes as to the people that can afford to pay for parking and choose to do so.
 
^ True, although it can't be taken for granted that all of those commuters have Boston as a destination. Some are commuting through the city.
 
Right. Parking where I work is about $125/month and I imagine it gets worse as you get closer to the downtown core area.

Suppose all 9,500 vehicles were commuting to the downtown core per hour. That's still under 40,000 vehicles looking to park there. Surveys find that about 70% of those vehicles are single occupancy. Now, Boston apparently has a daytime population approx equal to San Jose, a much larger city. So, clearly, even if 50,000-60,000 people are car-commuting, there's a lot that aren't.
 
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