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The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

nytimes.com

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Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#141

Post by naravara »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #134
hapless wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MTA and Port Authority are the best funded systems _in the world_. The problem is that they waste money profligately. What takes other cities millions of dollars and tens of weeks takes New York billions and decades. The reason no one wishes to add billions to the MTA’s already large capital budget is that 99% of the money disappears into a black hole

That's because only 50% of the money goes towards things you expect it to go toward: labor costs, operations, and maintenance. The other 50% goes to unfunded pensions, debt service, and health care (mostly unfunded). http://interactive.nydailynews.com/project/mta-spending/

Man, it's almost like we could suddenly afford to do a lot of big projects if we just nationalized healthcare and pensions so it wouldn't have to be factored into labor costs.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#142

Post by ummonk »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #113

Ugh classic hype machine bullshit confusing the derivative with the function itself. West coast is still total shit in land use, other than parkland allocation sometimes , and until they make the hard choices to undo a century of mistakes, can they catch up with the east coast's century of stagnation.

Not just derivative, but relative change (derivative normalized by current value). There are transit systems on the east coast growing faster in absolute terms - they just have large existing systems so the relative growth is lower.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#143

Post by Tiktaalik »

For years and years Seattle and LA doubled down on a automobile oriented infrastructure system that clearly wasn't working, but voters finally gave up and got tired of it. Given that referendums are so difficult to win, especially ones that impose higher taxes, this is a commendable achievement.

Not mentioned is the other west coast success story, Vancouver, which has lead North America transit growth, with ridership up 5.7% in 2017. This has been driven by major government investments to drive expansion and improve services across the board. Additionally the system has not been hindered by ride share competition.

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/translink-ridership...

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#144

Post by naravara »

marssaxman wrote: post #135
francisofascii wrote: post #71

For the West Coast, the simplest solution is electric buses with dedicated lanes. Buses better serve the existing low density sprawl than trains. Lack of infrastructure is not the problem, the roads are already built. The real problem of course is lack of political will. Every road with two lanes gets at least one dedicated bus lane. Single occupant traffic would slow to a crawl making the buses faster. Buses would r…

Simplest solution for the transit planner, maybe; but for people who want to get around, who wants to be stuck in a bus? Why should we settle for a crappy, minimally-functional experience? Let's build good transit that people will actually want to use.

. . . I like riding the bus though. You get a window instead of being stuck in an underground tunnel. It's quieter than the train. And the drivers can actually make detours and improvise if there are problems.

The only issue is traffic, which dedicated lanes and automatic right of way takes care of. There is also the issue of having to wait outside in bad weather for it, but if you keep headways low that's not so bad if you're already committed to having to walk to the bus shelter.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#145

Post by naravara »

leetcrew wrote: post #126
balthasar wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"paid for by significant increases to gas taxes." Enjoy your yellow coats :)

I guess "paid for by the ridership" is out of the question?

Infrastructure can't be sustainably paid for by usage fees. There are too many externalities for any individual person to have to shoulder.

The benefits of a transit system accrue to people who aren't using it as much as to people who are. A bus that transports 60 people means you just took at least 30 vehicles off the road (and that's a super conservative estimate). That extra capacity is a benefit to people riding bikes, walking, and driving. So why would you expect only the bus rider expected to pay into the system while everyone else benefits?

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#146

Post by edaemon »

francisofascii wrote: post #71

For the West Coast, the simplest solution is electric buses with dedicated lanes. Buses better serve the existing low density sprawl than trains. Lack of infrastructure is not the problem, the roads are already built. The real problem of course is lack of political will. Every road with two lanes gets at least one dedicated bus lane. Single occupant traffic would slow to a crawl making the buses faster. Buses would r…

Ottawa managed this by building a massive BRT system with its own roads and off grade bypasses, as well as dedicated lanes in the downtown area. They're beginning to implement light rail [1], which is fairly simple for them as they can upgrade the existing BRT lines with rail, increasing the capacity and decreasing maintenance costs. As you said, they faced initial political opposition, but I think the political will problem is a one-time cost -- once you have the network in place and the benefits are realized it becomes easy to change or upgrade it.

Both BRT and LRT don't necessarily solve the first- and last-mile problems, though. Many US cities are using park-and-ride stations, but that can just spread traffic out instead of eliminating it. It's important to create networks for short trips to and from transit stations with things like bikes and scooters.

[1] https://www.stage2lrt.ca/

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#147

Post by naravara »

flexie wrote: post #10

The article doesn't really mention that most of these expansions will be ready 20-40 years into the future (if not delayed). If you buy a house in an LA suburb hoping that you will soon get subway nearby, you might get it once the mortgage is paid out and the kids have left for college. What will the technology be like in 20-40 years? Everybody surely have cheap electric scooters and bikes or other electric devices a…

>Everybody surely have cheap electric scooters and bikes or other electric devices and airbag helmets. Few, if any, combustion engine cars are left on the streets. Truly self driving cars are likely too.

None of those are mass transit. Personal vehicles are fine and dandy, but they can only move one person at a time and will always, by definition, take up more space and resources per person than a solution that can ferry tens or hundreds of people at a time.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#148

Post by amyjess »

influx wrote: post #92
guitarbill wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle is okay for US standards, but still a disaster and embarrassment compared to other first world cities. And everything that can be done to make biking or walking more awful is being done. Many cross-walks have a very short walk timer, so even able-bodied people like myself struggle to cross in time. Police don't ticket drivers blocking intersections and crossings [0], so almost every crossing is blocked in the…

One simple fix Seattle could do downtown would be to make all the crosswalks all way, and increase the walk times. At the same time, make it illegal for cars to turn right on red and you’d dramatically increase pedestrian safety and increase car throughput. However it won’t happen with our current city council.

As a pedestrian, I would be happier if cars could only turn right on red.

I have nearly been run over multiple times by some jackass who doesn't look where he's going making a right turn when I have a walk signal.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#149

Post by naravara »

chrisseaton wrote: post #45
foota wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't a bus have similar throughput to a subway though, with no traffic?

No - subway trains can travel 50 mph or more - a bus can’t do that on city centre roads.

>No - subway trains can travel 50 mph or more - a bus can’t do that on city centre roads.

If you have really comprehensive coverage in a densely built area you'd be stopping too often for those top speeds to matter.

This is the problem with the Acela. It can technically go up to 150mph, but it has to stop so often that it averages 60mph for the journey.

For longer distances with limited stops, the speed and shigh capacity of a train are good. But to really fill out coverage in a dense area, short wait times and short distances between stops and destinations should be your chief considerations. Buses and streetcars just do that better. Though really, once you get past a certain level of density you need all of the above.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#150

Post by francisofascii »

marssaxman wrote: post #135
francisofascii wrote: post #71

For the West Coast, the simplest solution is electric buses with dedicated lanes. Buses better serve the existing low density sprawl than trains. Lack of infrastructure is not the problem, the roads are already built. The real problem of course is lack of political will. Every road with two lanes gets at least one dedicated bus lane. Single occupant traffic would slow to a crawl making the buses faster. Buses would r…

Simplest solution for the transit planner, maybe; but for people who want to get around, who wants to be stuck in a bus? Why should we settle for a crappy, minimally-functional experience? Let's build good transit that people will actually want to use.

If buses arrived every five minutes and had a dedicated lane, people would not be stuck anywhere and people would certainly want to use it. Here is a thought. Walk to your nearest busy street. Assume you could convert half the number of cars to buses and that a bus would have about 20 riders. When you count 40 cars go by, that is how often the bus would arrive.
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