Reasonable Transit Pitches

[Matthew]

Go anywhere on the planet outside of the places still practicing subsistence agriculture and living in the pre-industrial era -- what do you find -- the first thing that someone moving into the modern era purchases - an old broken down motor (bike, scooter, car, 3 wheeler, etc.) -- this is true even for burbs whose density and total population are hard to conceive of in the US

Really, many people living in Boston, NYC, SF and other cities around the world are practicing subsistence agriculture and living in the pre-industrial era?

Cars need space. Space is expensive in cities (hence the choice of bikes and scooters instead). People who demand free or subsidized parking are essentially demanding free or subsidized space. Cars need space at origin and destination: so the amount of parking supply is typically at least 2-3x the number of cars.

The idea of handing out expensive land for free is pretty radical.

Except, of course, when it's for cars.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

Go anywhere on the planet outside of the places still practicing subsistence agriculture and living in the pre-industrial era -- what do you find -- the first thing that someone moving into the modern era purchases - an old broken down motor (bike, scooter, car, 3 wheeler, etc.) -- this is true even for burbs whose density and total population are hard to conceive of in the US

I'm not going to address the parking issue since we're all probably going to have to agree to disagree over what the correct amount of parking space is.

I'm trying to move into Boston partially so that I can offload my car for the duration of my college schooling and become Residential Boston Student.

Plenty of people are offloading their cars for a number of reasons - priced out, don't drive much, don't need to be anywhere accessible via car only, etc.

Plenty of people don't have cars for those same reasons.

This kind of all-or-nothing, black and white thinking is insanely hyperbolic and helps nobody.

 

[whighlander]

Really, many people living in Boston, NYC, SF and other cities around the world are practicing subsistence agriculture and living in the pre-industrial era?

Cars need space. Space is expensive in cities (hence the choice of bikes and scooters instead). People who demand free or subsidized parking are essentially demanding free or subsidized space. Cars need space at origin and destination: so the amount of parking supply is typically at least 2-3x the number of cars.

The idea of handing out expensive land for free is pretty radical.

Except, of course, when it's for cars.

Huh??
Yo missed the structure of the sentence -- Outside of the places where such is still the dominant existence

You also seem to be opperating under a false economic model -- last time I checked one way or another people pay for parking:

1) deeded parking space -- $300,000 or so in the Back Bay
2) rented parking space -- $300 or so in a garage per month
3) meters
4) daily use of a garage
5) single family home with some amount of floor space devoted to garage -- generally taxed
6) global real estate taxes when the parking on the street is "free"
7) getting paid less by your employer for "free parking"

I'm sure I left one or two out

People are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to accomodate cars because of the freedom and convenience.

I travelled from my house to Worcester a week ago Saturday morning to sing in a memorial service for the mother of a member of our choir in Lexington -- the church was well within walking distance of the Worcester Railroad Station

If I chose to take public transportation all the way -- I would have been severely constrained as to my schedule -- on Saturday there are no buses through Lexington so I would have to walk 10 minutes to Arlington Heights to catch the #77 bus to Harvard, then the Red Line to South Station, CR to Worcester and finally about a 15 minute walk to the Church.

I needed to be there by 9:30 AM to reherse -- To make sure of the connections -- I would have probably had to leave my house at 5:00 AM. By driving I left at 8:30 AM, arriving in 45 minutes after leaving the front door of my house. Driving cost me less money (about 10$ for gasoline and $2 for tolls on the pike and it took much less time -- why would I ever want to have taken public transportation for this journey?

 

[whighlander]

I'm not going to address the parking issue since we're all probably going to have to agree to disagree over what the correct amount of parking space is.

I'm trying to move into Boston partially so that I can offload my car for the duration of my college schooling and become Residential Boston Student.

Plenty of people are offloading their cars for a number of reasons - priced out, don't drive much, don't need to be anywhere accessible via car only, etc.

Plenty of people don't have cars for those same reasons.

This kind of all-or-nothing, black and white thinking is insanely hyperbolic and helps nobody.

Commute -- do you know how many cars are registered in Massachusetts?
3,255,216 (US DOT 2007)
that's 1 car for every 2 people statewide average
I'll bet while the average for Boston and Cambridge is less its probably still more than 1/3

 

[Matthew]

1) deeded parking space -- $300,000 or so in the Back Bay
2) rented parking space -- $300 or so in a garage per month

I don't have any problem with this.

3) meters

Meters are usually woefully cheap when they should be expensive and expensive when they should be cheap.

Example: near my home there is a block filled with meters that go empty almost the entire day when they are enforced. In the evening they fill up because they are free and people like to go out in this area. If the city was sensible, they would reduce the price during the day and enforce it during the evening so that people don't squat on the spots.

4) daily use of a garage
5) single family home with some amount of floor space devoted to garage -- generally taxed

Generally, with off-street parking, the business or home in question has no choice. It must supply parking, or else be sanctioned by the city zoning board, thanks to minimum parking requirements. If a property owner would prefer to use that land for some other use, they are out of luck. That is one of the ways that the city forces subsidization of parking -- through regulation that takes away freedom of choice.

6) global real estate taxes when the parking on the street is "free"
7) getting paid less by your employer for "free parking"

"Free" street parking as supplied through zoning mandates and "paid" for by taxes is practically the definition of subsidized parking.

Employers can currently subsidize parking costs of their employees through tax benefits. One of the issues up before the Senate right now is to equalize those existing parking benefits with the usage of public transportation.

I'm sure I left one or two out

People are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to accomodate cars because of the freedom and convenience.

If some people wish to make that sacrifice, then they should have that option. Right now, however, in many cases we do not have an option. We are all forced to subsidize parking through zoning codes that force minimum parking requirements, and tax codes that subsidize parking. Those costs get passed on even to those people who do not use parking.

... why would I ever want to have taken public transportation for this journey?

Yes, the Worcester line sucks and I agree that there's no reason for you to take public transportation for this journey from Lexington to Worcester. And what does that have to do with anything we are discussing?

...

Maybe there's some confusion here? I'm not opposed to car travel, even though I don't do it much anymore. What I'm opposed to is subsidization of car travel (which includes parking). And only in-so-far as it destroys cities.

The necessary infrastructure to enable large scale automobile usage in cities is too destructive. We've seen pretty convincing (IMO) examples of that for the past 50 years in American cities. Building urban highways devastates neighborhoods. Building massive parking lots kills downtown vitality. But without alternatives, there will be no other option. The demand for parking will grow so high that it will overwhelm any other uses of downtown property and crowd out everything but the business sectors that it serves.

That would be a perfectly acceptable outcome if you don't have any interest in cities outside of 9-5 business. But as someone who prefers cities to be lively places, I cannot accept it. And I believe that there are enough people who share my viewpoint that cities should be for more than just one use.

The provision of efficient public transportation means that the market for parking can stay within "sane" pricing levels while still accommodating all the different needs and plans of all the different people who come into the city. It also means that the "market" for car and truck travel in the city can stay "sane" as well. In this case, the price is not dollars but rather time spent in congestion. Public transit can't really alleviate road congestion but it can move large volumes of people who then don't have to rely on the road network.

However, the subsidization of car travel and parking tilts the market towards more parking lots and more highways, while simultaneously hurting the revenue of public transportation and crowding out other uses of cities.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

Commute -- do you know how many cars are registered in Massachusetts?
3,255,216 (US DOT 2007)
that's 1 car for every 2 people statewide average
I'll bet while the average for Boston and Cambridge is less its probably still more than 1/3

All I wanted to say was that the above statement is a far cry from the below statement.

Go anywhere on the planet outside of the places still practicing subsistence agriculture and living in the pre-industrial era -- what do you find -- the first thing that someone moving into the modern era purchases - an old broken down motor (bike, scooter, car, 3 wheeler, etc.) -- this is true even for burbs whose density and total population are hard to conceive of in the US

 

[whighlander]

All I wanted to say was that the above statement is a far cry from the below statement.

Huh?

I was pointing out that if you take the number of registered cars and divide it by the population in MA you end up with a car for every other person -- that means 1+ car registerered for every adult.

How is that inconsistent with:
" ...the first thing that someone moving into the modern era purchases - an old broken down motor (bike, scooter, car, 3 wheeler, etc.) -- this is true even for burbs whose density and total population are hard to conceive of in the US "

The point of the 2nd quote was that people consider ownership of a car (or some sort of personal motorized wheels) somewhere between a very very good thing to be worked for most assiduously and an absolute necessity for the modern lifestyle

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

Huh?

I was pointing out that if you take the number of registered cars and divide it by the population in MA you end up with a car for every other person -- that means 1+ car registerered for every adult.

How is that inconsistent with:
" ...the first thing that someone moving into the modern era purchases - an old broken down motor (bike, scooter, car, 3 wheeler, etc.) -- this is true even for burbs whose density and total population are hard to conceive of in the US "

The point of the 2nd quote was that people consider ownership of a car (or some sort of personal motorized wheels) somewhere between a very very good thing to be worked for most assiduously and an absolute necessity for the modern lifestyle

Yes, the underlying point is the same in both quotes, but the first quote reads like stating facts and the second quote reads like a value judgment - "if you don't have a car, you're not living the 'right' modern lifestyle."

We're going around in circles at this point, and I'm sorry for jumping down your throat about this, but I read that as 'how stupid are YOU giving up your car while you're getting your college education?' and felt insulted.

 

[whighlander]

Yes, the underlying point is the same in both quotes, but the first quote reads like stating facts and the second quote reads like a value judgment - "if you don't have a car, you're not living the 'right' modern lifestyle."

We're going around in circles at this point, and I'm sorry for jumping down your throat about this, but I read that as 'how stupid are YOU giving up your car while you're getting your college education?' and felt insulted.

Commute -- Au Contraire mon amis -- non, nyet, nien ... What I was trying to get across was that much of what you were saying was anti - road and pro rail

As I pointed out in another thread with respect to the #77 bus in Arlington -- successful public transportation doesn't really much depend on the vehicle type -- it depends on frequency, dependability and easy acccess -- buses often do just fine.

For all of the arguments about density, rail and vibrancy -- I doubt that anyone would deny that Austin TX lacks vibrancy -- yet its mostly a car culture with the only public transportation being buses.

When I moved from Cambridge to Austin TX for graduate school in 1974 -- I drove with all of my possessions to Texas in a recently purchased used 1970 Lincoln Continntal. Even in Texas in 1974 gasoline was expensive so after I arrived in Austin and settled in to live at an off-campus private dorm -- I parked the car on the street -- perhaps took it for 1 or 2 drives over the next 8 months or so.

Then in the summer of 1975 I moved about a mile to a room of my own in a multifamily victorian house and used the Lincoln to move. It then sat for another year, before i sold it for $500 and bought a used VW bug for a $150.

For nearly 2 years, I biked, took the UT shuttle buses, and occasionally a City of Austin bus and walked. You didn't need a car for much of anything living right by the UT campus. Of course I didn't do much cooking and hence didn't do much grocery shopping.

In 1977, I moved to an apparment complex several miles from the campus, and while I continued to bike, I was virtually out in the sticks and needed a car -- plus I was cooking and needed to go grocery shopping.

So, I appreciate the fact that there are places and lifestyles where a car is optional. However, unless you are an incurrable romantic -- while "busses ain't trains" -- they can provide the connectivity sufficient in urban environments.

Beyond the urban core (and some extensions along key corridors where there is high density) -- most people need a car to be able to function -- and this will not change.

Overall -- Cars (and other motorized personal transit) are here to stay. Instead of 'railing" against them and pining for the days when rails went all over in streets, we need to develop ways to accomodate cars and at the same time not destroy the vibrancy and dynamism that our successful urban cores are famous for delvering.

PS: for the first time - early last week i saw a Seqway being ridden by someone not part of a tour -- there is apparently a Segway rider in Lexington living near to me.

 

[HenryAlan]

Posted in wrong thread, whoops! Re-posted appropriately.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

Overall -- Cars (and other motorized personal transit) are here to stay. Instead of 'railing" against them and pining for the days when rails went all over in streets, we need to develop ways to accomodate cars and at the same time not destroy the vibrancy and dynamism that our successful urban cores are famous for delvering.

For the record, I don't disagree with you here.

Anyway, someone (F-Line, I think?) informed me a while back that bridging rail through Jamestown was extremely cost-prohibitive.

Does this hold true for rail Providence-Newport via Bristol-Warren and the Mount Hope bridge as well?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

For the record, I don't disagree with you here.

Anyway, someone (F-Line, I think?) informed me a while back that bridging rail through Jamestown was extremely cost-prohibitive.

Does this hold true for rail Providence-Newport via Bristol-Warren and the Mount Hope bridge as well?

Oh hell yes. It's another one over a deepwater navigable shipping channel on a bay. If it were a river, simple drawbridge would suffice. If it were a navigable canal like the Cape a lift bridge would be fine. Hell, if it were a shallow body of water you could simply do a squat span with piers as far as the eye can see, like Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana with its 23-mile long causeway with one drawbridge section. But when the water's deep you have to limit the number of piers to just a few, which means the bridge has to go higher and can't have movable sections (which means higher still for a channel that can take the biggest ships). And if the shoreline geography is irregular like it usually is around bay inlets, it's got to have huge approach spans. On a road you can defray some of the cost of that with a suspension or cable-strayed bridge, which is why that's the preferred method. But you can't do a rail suspension bridge of any appreciable length because the natural swaying and twisting motions that are fine for a single-occupancy vehicle start wreaking havoc with continuous welded rail in one unbroken string the whole length of the bridge...and then driving a passenger train of 8-10 cars, or freight train of 10-100 cars over it.

Those bridges simply don't exist over crossings like Mt. Hope Bay. It would have to be a solid truss construction, which means lots more piers in deep water. And that's where a rail bridge can cost $B's more than a road bridge done as suspension across the same waterway. Look at what the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement is going to cost NY State. Because of the unique geography of that crossing they have to stick with a solid rather than suspension design. $6B is the latest projected official price tag. Unofficially they fear it could very likely be double that, and a max of $16B if they do road + rail. Now, granted that's 2-1/2 times longer a bridge than Mt. Hope and will be built as a twin span because it'll carry 8 lanes + ped + potentially 2 tracks. But if you have to have a truss design, you start counting with 9 zeros...and go up.


At least Bristol has a landbanked ROW downtown (terminating at Independence Park...getting from there to the bridge might be hard w/o a tunnel because of density). And on the Portsmouth side the active line runs literally underneath the bridge. But I can't foresee any scenario where a direct from Providence that crosses any one of those bays will come close to justifying itself. I mean, they could make the around-the-horn route 100 MPH track from Attleboro to Portsmouth for a couple hundred mil and get pretty close to the same travel time for bridges costing $2.5B each. $2.5B x2 if going by Jamestown. $2.5B x1 but + about $700M in ancillary cost to reconnect the East Providence tunnel to the Amtrak station, rebuild that derelict drawbridge, and restore the Bristol Branch.

Four-fifths of RI's population currently resides within 10 miles of a proposed stop on the NEC or P&W mainline to Woonsocket...the two they are building commuter rail on in the next 12 years. Newport's an ancillary benefit, but little bit of perspective here. Their focus is rightfully on the Woonsocket-Providence-Westerly corridor and intercity to Boston, Worcester, and CT. Newport's importance is dwarfed...microscopic...vs. all that. They're considering around-the-horn because it's easy if the trackage in MA is passenger-grade. They only have to rebuild an $85M drawbridge, re-lay a couple miles of tracks in Tiverton to the state line to join the active ends of the line back together...then signalize and rehab on Aquidneck Island so the dinner train's leisurely 25 MPH is a commuter rail-like 60-80.


How much is 15 minutes worth? $3B-$6B or $150M-$250M?

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

How much is 15 minutes worth? $3B-$6B or $150M-$250M?

I just can't see a scenario in which commuter rail EVER reaches Newport where it's beholden to the whims of those jerks in Fall River, but you're right, there's no way a Providence-Newport Line is worth $6B.

Oh well.

 

[Kahta]

Look at what the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement is going to cost NY State. Because of the unique geography of that crossing they have to stick with a solid rather than suspension design. $6B is the latest projected official price tag. Unofficially they fear it could very likely be double that, and a max of $16B if they do road + rail. Now, granted that's 2-1/2 times longer a bridge than Mt. Hope and will be built as a twin span because it'll carry 8 lanes + ped + potentially 2 tracks. But if you have to have a truss design, you start counting with 9 zeros...and go up.

The Tappan Zee Bridge is in that spot to escape the reach of the Port Authority.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/30/w...t-of-urban-sprawl-unplanned-obsolescence.html

 

[Matthew]

The Tappan Zee doesn't need to be replaced, it's functionally obsolete but safe. If anything, it should be torn down and never rebuilt, it's in a retarded location for pointless political purposes.

It's a $6-$10 billion boondoggle in waiting. You would think they'd have learned by now...

Anyway, let's aspire not to blow $6 billion on stupid shit.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

Anyway, let's aspire not to blow $6 billion on stupid shit.

I thought that's what it meant to be American these days?

 

[JonFrum]

This is the 'reasonable' thread?


Bwahahaha!

Just sayin.'

 

[Kahta]

If anything, it should be torn down and never rebuilt, it's in a retarded location for pointless political purposes.

Yeah, that would really improve things for everyone that lives in that area...

 

[bigeman312]

I'm reviving this thread.

Reasonable transit pitch:

Sometime after the Worcester Line CSX deal is complete this October, one daily "express" train from Worcester to Boston and back (I assume this means Worcester-Back Bay-South Station) will be added. I think this will be fairly successful.

Here is my transit pitch:

One daily express train in each direction (Providence-Back Bay-South Station) from Providence. Part 2, one daily express train in each direction (Lowell-North Station) from Lowell. I guess seeing if this Worcester express train is successful will give us an idea of how successful these express trains would be, but I think it's a good idea.

I don't know the technical details. How fast could the fleet go? What would travel time be from Providence to Back Bay and back or Lowell to North Station and back? What are the track limitations? What effect would it have on other trains' (including Amtrak) timetables?

Some fact:

Track length:
Providence to Back Bay = 42.5 miles
Worcester to Back Bay = 43 miles
Lowell to North Station = 25.5 miles

Travel time at an average speed of 50 mph:
Providence to Back Bay = 51 minutes
Worcester to Back Bay = 52 minutes
Lowell to North Station = 30 minutes

Travel time at an average speed of 60 mph:
Providence to Back Bay = 43 minutes
Worcester to Back Bay = 43 minutes
Lowell to North Station = 26 minutes

Travel time at an average speed of 80 mph:
Providence to Back Bay = 32 minutes
Worcester to Back Bay = 32 minutes
Lowell to North Station = 19 minutes

EDIT: spelling

 

[Riverside]

^^ I'm sure F-Line will have a more comprehensive answer, but my first thought is that it matters when this express happens. Rush hour? Mid-day? Early morning, returning late night?

Also, in the PVD-BOS market, an MBTA express would be competing against Amtrak. The T could try to sell their service by doing it cheaper, but I'm still not sure it would really do much.

(Actually, they'd also be competing with Amtrak in the WOR-BOS market as well, so maybe I'm wrong.)