Rail Ridership Breezes Past Other Cities

The Rail is worth it purely for my entertainment in these dumbass threads.

Vik, I think I would add the city and county of San Francisco to places that transit are "probably" worth while (not necessarily BART, but in the city I'd argue for it, based on my daily empirical experience*. There seems to be scores of thousands of people who constantly ride public transportation and cannot afford cars). Your book sounds interesting at any rate. I hope you're taking into account that most American cities experienced the bulk of their growth with an automobile model in mind.

To the few of us that find parking lots and fat people waddling 10 ft to buy more merchandise a brew of existential nightmare, bring on the rails please.

* another interesting angle, book-wise, would be the history of rail removal in San Francisco, when the streets cars originally left.

 

I don't have the statistics handy but I'm willing to bet that most of those people without cars live within the inner city and are at or below the poverty level don't own cars, or if they do don't have insurance. Therefore the neediest people who are willing to work the service jobs can't get to them without transit.

But here is where rail is superior to other transit alternatives because you can build dedicated lines off of regular traffic. That said I understand that in the short term for a city like Houston it will cause more congestion. Over the long term as more infrastructure is built it will reduce it. Its not just NYC where transit is needed. Consider SF, Boston and Chicago and many of the older eastern seabord cities.

This is only based on a static view of development and fails to consider that in many cities like Minneapolis and St. Paul its economically unfeasible to add more freeways within the central city because of property costs and development. The only way to add more transportation capacity is to develop dedicated transit lines.

 

I wonder how many of the people in this thread actually ever rode the Metro bus system before they implemented light rail. On a consistant basis, not once or twice.

 

I did, when I lived in Sugar Land, I took the bus to downtown to work. There were many people using it, too.

 

You know, it's really sad that the same old harris county party hacks we have on here always seem to take the side their peers do.

The notion that people on this board are independent thinkers with their own objectives is fastly becoming myth.

 

Max, no offense buddy but whether you're riding a bus or train, neither one is going to affect your coolness factor too much with this look you've got going on:

 

I'm getting really tired of all the same players here taking sides based on what their respective county thinktanks tell them.

You'd think that on a local issue, that should have nothing to do with party politics, we'd see a little more deviation and splintering amongst personal opinions.. but no, same old song, same old dance from the same old folks.

[sarcastic local debate to national debate comparison]

It's not like you can undo the light rail. Houstonians have spoken, light rail supporters are the majority. If you oppose lightrail, you oppose Houston. Why do you hate Houston? If you don't like it then leave.

[/sarcastic local debate to national debate comparison]

 

At various times, I have ridden the bus regularly. When I was 16, I rode from Clear Lake to work at Astroworld on a pretty consistent basis.

When I worked downtown, I rode the bus every day that I could (I taught two nights a week, so only rode three days a week). I love being able to take a nap, read the newspaper, or whatever during the times I normally stress out driving on the freeways.

If we had rail to Clear Lake, I would aggressively pursue employment downtown.

 

You liberal pu$$y.

 

Very good.

It seems that every time a thread pops up about light rail, the same ol' sour grapes come out of the woodwork.

I guess they're just fighting for their pride now..

 

B-Bob left it at my apartment last year. Don't think I don't recognize you when you try to go incognito as a Klingon either; the Teddy Bear is a dead giveaway.

 

If I'm not mistaken, BART alone had over $.5 billion dollar subsidy for operating expenses alone in the last fiscal year. Let's not even talk about capital costs, or the other huge subsidies given out to SF Muni and Santa Clara Valley TA. There are a lot of transportation experts that studied at UCBerkeley and/or are faculty members there that have studied this thing extensively. Look at some of the work of Winston, Keeler, Small, Train, McFadden etc.

There's a reason that most American cities have grown with the automobile in mind. It's because Americans tend to prefer the automobile to other forms of transportation. Look at McFadden's studies on modal choice that got him a Nobel prize.

I'm not saying don't build rail. All I'm saying is that we should build rail only when it is an efficient option (in the welfare sense). Furthermore, users of rail should bear the entire cost of rail ridership. In other words, don't make Average Joe taxpayer pay for costly and inefficient transit systems elsewhere. You want to ride BART in to work? Go for it. But bear the full cost of your trip.

If you can't afford it, then at least get subsidized in a non-distortionary way. Rail is simply an incredibly inefficient (in both a welfare and accounting sense) method of redistributing money from rural and suburban taxpayers to urban dwellers and from wealthy taxpayers to low income folks. Are we worried about low income individuals? Well privatize rail, and cut these folks a check for a few grand (federal transit budget/population living under threshhold). Everybody will be strictly better off. Poor people will have more choice, and more money, rich people will have lower taxes.

Max, if you're worried about looking cool, take a limo everywhere you normally take the train to with your federal transportation voucher. It'll be cheaper on the American taxpayer, and your teddy bear can have his own seat

 

Hi Vik,

I said "not necessarily BART" and I should have elaborated. There are a number of surface and underground trains around town (J, K, L,M and N lines, I love 'em). These lines can still be used for about $1. BART is increasingly expensive and is obviously not economically viable (for riders or for government), especially for all points outside SF. BART's SF-to-east-bay tunnel alone will now require some ungodly bit of multi-scores-of-$-millions maintainance.

At any rate, I fundamentally agree with you about American preferences, but my snobby personal point would be that Americans never sat down to chat about what a world of strip malls, parking lots, and tedious four-way traffic signals would be like to live in. Preferences can change, sometimes within a generation or two. That said, the basic infrastructure of most American cities is predicated on autos or something similar.

And Max, do NOT believe SamFisher. I never went to his apartment. Whether or not he stole one of my outfits and kept it there in delicto flagrante... I shudder to imagine.

 

FYI...took the rail downtown on Saturday night. My brother was in town from the East Coast and he had never been on it. Parked at Fannin South at 7PM Saturday night. Crowded from the parking lot to Reliant mainly with Dads taking kids to the Motocross (or maybe the gun show ). Filled up a bit at Smithlands with Med Center workers heading for the overnight shift at the hospitals. Filled up again at Rice U stop with downtown partiers. Train stopped at Ensemble/HCC for a ticket check. Averaged about 40-50 going downtown, most seats taken.

Rode it back at midnight after bar-hopping. About 20 people got on with us at Preston. Added a few more people along the way...added 10-15 more at Med Center. They got off at Smithlands. A few motocross stragglers got on at Reliant. Averaged maybe 35-40 going back.

Not putting in any two cents worth....just giving you my observations from riding it last weekend. I do enjoy having the ability to sober up on the train home before I get back into my car at Fannin South. It helps.