Sunday, March 3rd, 2013
The Weekly Standard Blows It On Transit
I’m not generally in the habit of picking on interns, but a recent article written by one in the conservative magazine the Weekly Standard deserves at least a quick critique. Called “Railroad to Ruin?,” it’s a hyperbolic attack against the proposed transit system investment in Indianapolis.
I certainly think there’s room to vote against the transit plan, though I’ve generally supported it. But as I noted, opponents have yet to articulate anything remotely resembling a credible alternative development plan for Marion County. This piece is no exception.
Also, in its attempts to score rhetorical points, it misses some basic facts. First, it refers to the governors of Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida turning down high speed rail funds. While the author tacks on an “and new public transit projects” (though without any specificity as to what those are so I’ll have to take his word he actually has some in mind), by picking only the three states that turned down HSR money, the intent is clearly to link the Indianapolis plan with high speed rail (which I’ll be the first to tell you has been completely bungled by President Obama and its advocates) even though the Indianapolis system is in no way, shape or form even remotely related to high speed rail.
Beyond that, describing the proposed Indianapolis system as a “railroad” is a gross mischaracterization. The system is almost entirely a much more cost effective bus system. There’s only one light rail line, and it may well be dropped in the final plan.
Taking a plan that is majority bus, mislabeling it as a railroad, then trying to smear it by linking it with high speed rail might work in the snark department, but doesn’t give the reader much confidence this is a serious analysis.
I find it amazing that a national political magazine would take time away from bashing Obama to take on a local transit project in Indianapolis. (Maybe Mayor Ballard’s goal of Indy becoming a “world class city” is becoming realized after all…).
The Weekly Standard advocates fiscal conservatism, yet their outrage at spending seems to disappear when it comes to highway projects. For example, why aren’t they calling on new Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to revisit the massively over-scaled and overpriced Ohio River Bridges project near Louisville? That $2.6 billion project is a poster child for my maxim that there’s no highway boondoggle big enough that even the most fiscally conservative governor is willing to cancel it. It’s also a disaster for Indiana motorists and taxpayers, especially since there’s a better alternative available at half the cost (see here, here, here and here – this project includes a $795M road segment that will cost Indiana over $100,000 per foot!). If Pence wants to prove his bona fides as a fiscal conservative, staging an intervention to save Hoosiers several hundred million dollars here would be a good place to start. If he won’t do that, it will be hard to take him seriously elsewhere.
I’ll eager await the Weekly Standard’s article taking the bridges project to task. In the meantime, there’s no need to bother with their subpar take on Indy’s proposed transit system.
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In the interest of disclosure to your readers, Aaron, can you share with your readers whether you have been paid any consulting fees by any of the proponents of Indianapolis’ metropolitan mass transit system?
I know that you have been paid by other communities to provide consulting services on mass transit. You are typically more critical in your analysis of public projects than you’ve been with IndyConnect’s grandiose plans, which will initially be funded with a 20% increase in our local income tax.
The money raised by that initial tax increase doesn’t come close to maintaining the minimal system envisioned by the IndyConnect folks, who seem to revise their plans on a day-to-day basis to minimize the concerns raised by opponents. Nobody really knows exactly what it they are proposing; we only know that they want to raise a lot of taxes to tap free money from Washington. They’ve even determined they will need $17 million to build a state-of-the-art transportation hub in downtown Indy, which only makes sense if a rail system is a cornerstone of what they are proposing.
What I know is that a comparable mass transit system in Austin, Texas costs at least $275 million annually simply to operate compared to the $65 million Indianapolis currently spends on its IndyGo bus system. The one light rail line running 27 miles from downtown Austin to its northern suburbs is connectible to a relatively small percentage of the population, and those who choose to ride it experience considerably longer commute times–in some cases twice the time–than if they commuted to work by automobile. It takes 50 minutes to go from one end to the other, and that’s if you don’t miss the train that runs every 30 minutes, not counting the commute time and distance to and from the rail station nearest your home and place of work.
The entire focus of this plan is driven to make mass transit available to people who live in Hamilton Co., most of whom have no need for a public transportation system. The wealthiest amongst us reside in Hamilton County. They moved there in search of better schools, less crime and lower taxes. Businesses are choosing to locate there and other locations in the suburban counties, not within the inner city.
Exactly who is it we are trying to move with this multi-billion dollar public transit system? A train might come in handy for wealthy suburbanites to ride downtown to attend a Colts or Pacers game, but these folks aren’t looking for public transportation to commute to work. If businesses in the suburbs complain that minimum wage workers from the inner city can’t afford to commute to their places of work, then perhaps they should consider locating their businesses where their workers are located, not looking to the rest of us to pay huge tax increases to subsidize transportation for workers to whom they’re not interested in even offering a living wage.
For the record, I don’t do consulting on either public transit or public relations and haven’t been paid anything to advocate the transit system. (My consulting work is in the technology field, but I’ve never done tech work in Indy though).
With articles like “Why I Don’t Live in Indianapolis,” as well as my relentless opposition to things like the parking meter lease, don’t assume I’m that much more popular with the powers than be than you are.
So, Gary, tell us about yourself. Why is this so important to you?
Gary is a lawyer and blogs at Advance Indiana. His blog is actually quite good, though from a very libertarian type perspective depending on how that floats your boat. He’s one of the very few people actually doing deep research on public corruption issues and such in the state. And a polemicist, which makes him perfect for the blog genre.
Thanks for clarifying, Aaron. I have to ask the question because so many of the people pining for it in the local news media here in Indy have a financial stake in the proposal’s outcome. The advocates even used lobbyists, attorneys, consultants and IndyGo employees in their TV ads that are paid for by a federal grant they received to sell the public on this proposal. Yes, the feds gave them $2 million to blanket the local airwaves with slick ads promoting the legislation. It also doesn’t help that our local newspaper and TV stations will only air the opinions of one side of this issue with very few exceptions.
One time I remember that IndyGo paid $300,000 for a survey to ask riders what they wanted. $300K for a survey! I can tell you what the riders want without a survey. They want buses, that come, on time, more frequently than they do today.
I see the staggering sums people rake in from playing ball with various factions (not per se talking about Indy here – it’s the entire country, national and local) and realize I probably badly screwed up by not going into the shill business. The return on investment for blogging has clearly been massively negative for me.
Why do so many “systems” have to built out at once? It seems like there’s a huge drive to make things as expensive and complicated as possible. It reminds me of this all or nothing budget joke we have in Washington. “Vote for all of this or your against transit.”
Well, because in Indiana at least, if you want to build something, you need special legislative approval at the state level. Why put yourself through that gruelling process more than you need to? Also, you need enough projects spread around to rally community support, otherwise those who don’t directly benefit will oppose. Plus with transit a lot of the value comes from the network.
Obviously, some kind of network has to develop, but things like the early NYC subway lines were built out line by line- according to the perceived economics of that line- which is why development and investment were connected.
We can’t honestly expect systems that were put together according to politics, to work economically. The end result is that people consider transit itself to be a joke.
It’s a cycle- to get money, you develop lines that can’t break even- which then requires more political deals to get more subsidies- requiring more money thrown down the rabbit hole.
This isn’t a theory. Dollar van lines in Brooklyn make money operating some of the same routes, the MTA says they can’t make money on. Whatever subsidies the MTA gets don’t make up for the imposed costs.
I’ve got an even worse example, Aaron. One time someone asked each of IndyGo’s board members if they rode the bus and if they did, how often. Not a single one of them had ever rode a bus in the transit system they oversaw.
The thing is that nothing you are saying here acts to create a conversation about the basic dynamics of the core.
A much better idea might be to take a small area of say, 20-40 blocks in a core area with potential and think about changing the zoning, height limits, parking requirements etc and start a low cost shuttle service in that area. If it starts to work, build more little by little outward or add new lines.
This is one thing that made Cincinnati seem great was that it was part of a conversation about zoning and development patterns along the line.
Indy, just sounds like it’s doing this because all the cool kids have it. Is there any conversation about the type of design that would make this worthwhile?
One thing that made Cincinnati Street Car seem great was that it was part of a conversation about zoning and development patterns along the line.
Actually, John, there is a thorough review and revision of the zoning code underway. It is generally understood that the 1968 suburban zoning code doesn’t do the denser areas of the city justice. Part of the review includes how to incorporate transit-oriented design in the code.
I stopped following it but it seems like the same insane political dynamics that turned California HSR into a disaster wrecked the Woodward light rail plan in Detroit.
The original, short Woodward plan was tied to building densely along that stretch to create a viable, transit oriented area. Soon this was distorted into a sprawling plan to cover 25% of Michigan.
Was amount of money the Feds offered worth destroying the basic viability of the system?
Why not just start the routes in one or two clear areas where they have the greatest chance of working?
A good plan might be to rool out routes in planned stages based on development benchmarks.
No transit oriented zoning must mean- no transit for that area.
A good plan might be to roll out routes in planned stages based on development benchmarks.
Sorry but the Transit oriented design must come first. No transit system can be expected to be worthwhile without those changes.
Only areas with clear cut transit oriented zoning should get transit, period. (give or take an historic block or two)
John, it may be hard for a non-resident to get, but “old Indanapolis” (pre-WW2 and pre-Unigov) grew up around streetcar lines. It wasn’t not subway or suburban rail, but it was transit-oriented. That built form persists, even if it is somewhat ragged.
The proposed BRT and high-frequency bus in the Indy Connect plan would put lines back where the streetcars once ran. (The commuter rail piece is by no means a foregone conclusion, and is a bit of a red herring.)
Highways are for Jesus… think about it how easy to to build a highway however transit gets sent thru the ringer? Does anybody ask the cost that come with highway building and maintenance? Who cares, peak oil is going to make many cities like Indy find religion on transit regardless when it stats affecting the city bottom line. I’ll never move to Indy because I know it will take a decade for the region to get transit somewhat right.
I could see online that some of the built form downtown was pre WWII and could work well. I’m not just talking about the buildings but all the car oriented zoning, parking minimums etc..
What has to change is the mentality of an entire city which can’t happen overnight. The best plan is to build out lines only in areas with clear zoning changes that are already seeing demand for that type of development.
Small line by line growth also makes it easier to provide really good service. Frequency & reliability are critical- and the main reason dollar vans are chosen over MTA buses.
This is also why small buses or vans might be a good idea.
Aaron has talked about the absurd “historic community” claims that are made to resist zoning changes. Only communities that make those changes can support service.
John Morris STOP Commenting. Have one comment with all your points laid out and then stop. Almost all these comments are yours. You look like an idiot.
A scheduled roll out with benchmarks is could also work with additions based on the performance of the earlier lines and the extent to which transit oriented development is progressing.
First a potential route would get a zoning change- and a date for potential service- if a certain amount of TOD construction is planned. Service can be beefed up according to demand.
This also allows time to work out the bugs in service and change equipment as you go along.
I noticed Austin was given a shout-out by Mr. Welsh, so I want to provide additional insight into Austin’s high-capacity transit initiatives for the discussion. The inaugural MetroRail commuter line (the Red line) was implemented within existing ROW to dampen initial costs… Austinites were skeptical of the line and did not immediately embrace it (“It doesn’t go anywhere! It’s too slow! Not enough stops! Too many stops!”). But as the skepticism wore off, some residents gave it a chance.
In two years MetroRail ridership has tripled (http://capmetroblog.com/2013/01/31/capital-metro-moved-more-people-than-ever-in-2012/). Granted, when initial ridership numbers are low, does tripling that number really indicate success? The verdict is still out for many. However, with each passing festival, marathon, or F1 race which bring hordes of hipsters, hippies, and health nuts into the city, the trains fill to capacity. There are some people who will never attempt to jump on the train… but that mode of transportation was never an option for them due to personal preference or location. Transit isn’t the be-all and end-all for congestion woes, but it provides a transportation alternative for those willing to use it. That is how it is touted in the ATX. And while the commuter rail may take 50 minutes from downtown Austin to suburban Leander, many Austinites can attest that using the alternative Mopac highway during rush hour can put that commute around 1.5 hours.
The initial commuter line is just one initiative in a regional transit discussion. Central Texas is coming together to discuss additional transit opportunities including High Speed Rail, additional commuter lines, Bus Rapid Transit (first lines scheduled for implementation next FY), and urban rail (the proposed downtown glue that binds the transit system together). http://www.connectcentraltexas.org/. It’s quite possible that many of these ideas will never come to fruition, but I applaud Austin’s regional collaboration and public involvement efforts. In a society where it is so easy to say “no,” many more Austinites are starting to say “yes.”
As a Hoosier born and raised, I have a love/hate relationship with the ornery Hoosier fear of change. I love the fact that Hoosiers use common sense when analyzing a situation and refuse to jump into something because it’s sexy or trendy. However, all too often that inflexibility stalls real progress. Whether rail turns out to be viable for Indy or not, I hope the regional players approach the table with an open mind, transparency, potential alternatives, and that adorable ornery common sense. Meanwhile, I will watch it unfold during my commute on the wifi-friendly MetroRail in Austin.
If you ask me, the only Indianapolis route that can possibly attract non-commute choice riders would be a very high quality service between Broad Ripple and downtown, probably via College, 38th Street, and Meridian, possibly supplemented by an intersecting IUPUI-Circle-Massachusetts Avenue line. It’s kind of a shame about the Monon Trail, as nice as it is, because that would have been the natural right of way.
For commute service, reasonably frequent gridded bus service seems like the only sane thing to do.
Why are big buses or light rail the only options? You can start with vans.
Good ideas can come from looking at how informal transit operates in South America and Brooklyn. Start small and keep it flexible, upgrade as demand develops. Frequency is critical.
Oil is a finite resource. With India and China coming online at a rapid clip its a resource in rapid depletion. Peak oil, a reality whose math is used by exploration companies looking to quantify returns on investment, is going to force per gallon prices of fuel into the stratosphere. I rather wish Washington DC had let the Big Three hoist themselves up on their own petards and NOT mandate any CAFE standards. The “conservatives” (they’re not conservative as the only thing that really makes them smile is profligacy in everything but the public social services sector) scream “Stalinism” every time someone brings it up.
The only thing that is going save the inner-cities, with their walkability, serendipity, livability, beauty (yes, you have look beyond the 90 years of disinvestment and active destruction) is $10 a gallon gas. The poor suckers who bought “Freedom Cars” and drove till they qualified are going be sucked dry. The folks in the middle and slightly upper middle classes are going to notice that their static incomes are positively eroded as they’re forced to pay MARKET prices for their gas and they’ll seek some sort of alternative (before exhausting everything else like blaming poor people, corrupt pol’s, the terrorists and their neighbors – derned librls).
I’m curious what sort of “value” bus lines build vs. fixed rail lines. As anyone can see, real-estate close to rail lines is much more expensive (and pretty unambiguous market signal) than those areas not close. With bus lines that are easily rerouted, will it be hard to plan for future value?
Anyway, its quite likely Indy and every other 3rd tier city in a dying region is using something like light rail as a poor catalyst for growth in a society that prefers diffuse investment in “place”. Entice the people into the city THEN build transit. Heck, what are the roadblocks, from a legal, regulatory, framwork preventing someone with capital to buy a bus from starting ACME Transit Company and picking people up at distinct bus stops? I know it was done before. When America was a vastly more corrupt society by vastly more corrupt American (thing Tyson Yerkes in Chiacgo – he bought the City Council in return for multi-decade concessions for use of public streets).
Our highways are going to strangle us. I’m of the opinion we deserve it and we’ll be unable to come to any sort of agreement that avoids the day of reckoning. Only gas at its natural market price will save the inner-city and re-build mass-transit infrastructure (if that).
“The Weekly Standard Blows It On Transit”
Mr. Renn,
You simply need a truncated version of the headline to make your point.
“The Weekly Standard Blows” would have sufficed.
Furthermore, I would recommend that you leave the detritus of the Weekly Standard to the know-nothings at New Geography.
Aaron – The article mentions rail because IndyConnect’s long-range plan is heavy on rail:
“The plan has rail from Union Station, running north to Noblesville and south to Franklin. In addition, rail is proposed along Washington Street and northwest through Pike Township to Zionsville.” Quoting from: http://www.indyconnect.org/pages/Questions/
That makes 4 rail lines:
1. Downtown to Noblesville
2. Downtown to Franklin
3. East-west along US 40, from airport to Cumberland
4. Downtown northwest to Zionsville
So the Weekly Standard article is correct. The rail lines may not be in the first phase, but they are in the plan. (Of course, local transit backers have downplayed the initial rail line (Downtown to Noblesville), to the point of removing the analysis documents from their website.)
As for transit naysayers not proposing a plan, it may be because it’s so obvious that the first thing to do is provide a subsidized, usable bus service in neighborhoods where people cannot afford cars. IOW, make IndyGo work, and make it work where people are in need. (I’d like to augment or replace this with a van service staffed by volunteers, this is how meals on wheels works, and this is how Dr King beat the Montgomery bus system).
People who live in Carmel and work downtown, and complain about rush hour, should either move downtown or pound sand. The transit bill in the House is nothing but taxpayer funded sprawl, it has very little to do with helping people in need.
Gary, re,
The Austin Red Line is a peak-only commuter line that doesn’t go inside the CBD, and requires people to transfer to a bus to get to the CBD. It is unpopular with transit activists, who preferred a real light rail line, running on the street, frequently, going into the CBD and serving urban neighborhoods rather than the suburbs.
I’d like to add that Aaron has did a post on Carmel a while back which does show the city attempting to move towards urbanist development. If this succeeds it builds the case for eventually supporting transit links.
From what I can tell, Carmel was interested in urbanism long before Indy itself was.
http://www.urbanophile.com/2010/05/23/next-american-suburb-carmel-indiana/
Anyone have a progress report on Carmel? Has this type of growth expanded? Does the city itself now have a local transit system of some kind? How much mixed use has developed and how much office space & light industrial space is in Carmel?
1. Carmel does not have its own transit system.
2. Carmel’s main employment district really is a linear suburban office park stretching from the northern boundary of Indianapolis north along Meridian Street/US31. It features traditional Euclidean zoning, separating uses. It includes big new hospitals and health-care facilities. And lots and lots of surface parking.
There is large-lot suburban residential as well as apartments nearby but those are separated from the office core. There is no residential within the corridor and only one retail cluster, a Meijer (think SuperTarget or SuperKmart or Walmart) store with acres of parking and an Office Depot-anchored suburban strip. It is not unlike the corporate corridor along US202 west of King of Prussia Mall in Greater Philadelphia, and the demographics are similar (BMW/Benz suburban with a good public HS, at least by Indiana standards).
3. The “New Suburbanist” development core (fronts the street with plenty of parking out back) is largely limited to “downtown Carmel”, a created redevelopment district along the Monon Trail and Range Line Road. It was built on the site of 50′s strip malls and formerly industrial ground along the former Monon Railroad.
Those office towers along Meridian have lots of the white-shoe law firms’ suburban outposts, as well as lots of other office-service type firms and the aforementioned health-care cluster. (Those offices moved out to be closer to decision-makers’ homes.) From a transit viewpoint, it seems unlikely Carmel will produce many inbound riders.
There is currently express-coach service from Carmel, but the ridership levels haven’t been publicized lately.
This sounds about what I expected. I assume the new urbanist development is pretty recent. Is there any thought of expanding it?
The so called “design district” implies something beyond just retail and residential. Is there any thought to integrating more offices into the core? Is there any thought given to a van shuttle service connecting the Carmel core to the strip of offices?
BTW, the economics of transit are obviously vastly better if you can develop two way demand in both directions. If a two way flow can develop with Indianapolis itself, it would be great.
One of the big economic reasons transit typically loses money is that lots of capacity is packed in one direction and returns almost empty.
This one of the big reasons rezoning for offices in the outer boroughs of NYC is so important.
Of the three lines being proposed by Indy Connect for new transit in Indianapolis, only one (the green line) is being considered for light rail. The other two lines will be Bus Rapid Transit. I’m not sure where others have gotten their figures about the tax increases, but the legislation in the Senate simply allows for a referundum to be put on the ballot in Marion and Hamilton County for a .3% tax increase. If the bill passes through the Senate, the public may vote in 2014 whether or not they want to have a .3% tax increase to help fund these lines.
People who live in Carmel and work downtown should have an alternate choice of driving their own vehicle through rush hour traffic. That goes for any individuals in the suburbs who work downtown. Time on public transit would reduce the personal costs of rising gasoline prices and car maintanence, as well as improve productivity as people could work, or relax, while they are riding vs. having to concentrate on their commute.
I would guess that some suspect the lines are not well planned, will lose lots of money and higher taxes will be asked for in the future. Once a system is up and running it will be hard to kill or change.
I’m not trying to oppose this but it there are lots of warning signs. Transit, should if at all possible be paid for by either by fares and or development revenues or taxes from properties near a line that will benefit from it.
The way we fund transit in America through general tax revenues provides no incentive to plan lines properly, or to develop land so that it supports and benefits from transit.
As for the way we fund roads- it’s a disaster, but two wrongs don’t make a right.
People who honestly want transit to work must start to oppose the many poorly planed systems. Lines that lose money, and fail to attract riders, take capital away from lines that could work and make the idea of mass transit a joke.
We all know about this from Amtrak. We see the same thing, with California HSR, where the San Francisco to LA route is chained to money losing routes for political reasons.
The Indianapolis region will need many more people before any train system is worth building. Buses will do for now.
For example, Tucson Arizona is being told the operating cost of it’s streetcar will be 4X what was first projected.
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/city-told-streetcar-operating-cost-will-be-times-earlier-estimate/article_b5454cb9-a420-5b14-879a-1aba0dc39f45.html
We see this process over and over with almost every government project. The “surprise” comes a year or two later and the community is forced into all or nothing deals to throw in more money or see massive cuts.
Given that Indy does not have lots of transit oriented growth- or even transit oriented zoning, building out very carefully is a much wiser course.
Doing this wrong will damage prospects for transit more than doing it right.
So, hey, how about that Bridges project in Southern Indiana? Anybody concerned about that being a big waste of money for something that isn’t needed?
All this nitpicking and complaints over the potential cost to build Indy’s transit plan, and yet these same phony “fiscal conservatives” seem to think it is perfectly A-okay for local, state, and federal government to spend billions in the Indy metro area alone on roads and highways. If I were to see the same scrutiny applied to highway and road construction, I would at least be able to say the critics were principled (even if wrong on the issue of the need for improved public transit).
And, what nonsense from the critics with respect to providing alternatives–it is either just maintain the status quo or else stupid suggestions. LIke vans. Really? vans? If by vans, you mean shuttle-buses, they are fine for short-distance routes with small groups of riders that frequently have to be carried from one spot to another (such as from an airport or classroom building to a far outlying parking lot), but they are not designed for carrying people over long routes where you have more passengers. And, neither a van nor a traditional bus solves the problem of having to deal with traffic congestion.
I agree that light rail is not necessity for a successful transit plan (and why the endless harping about rail when the plan is mainly a bus plan and may very well have no rail lines for the foreseeable future if the General Assembly see to it??). But, I believe the city should definitely build up a robust bus system with BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) lines on a few key routes. A good system that will actually attract riders must have several routes to take people all over town and it must have enough buses running frequently and punctually so individuals can get to work or get to shopping or wherever they want without having to plan their entire day/life around a limited bus schedule. Also, the most heavily traveled routes should be built as BRT. This means specially designed bus routes that have quick boarding platforms and prepaid tickets, fewer stops, dedicated/semi-dedicated lanes for at least a significant portion of the route, and buses with the ability to preempt at least some traffic lights). A BRT provides many of the benefits of light rail with more scheduling/routing flexibility, and it generally does it at a much lower cost. I believe this is the direction the IndyConnect Plan is taking and it is a good one.
As for building up, yes, density should be encouraged by revamping the city’s building code to encourage higher density along transit lines (and as mentioned, the zoning code is being revised). But, density will only get built if transit is available. If there is no transit, then you have to add in the great expense of providing parking for every resident (and also enough for their guests). And, if there is no transit, then all the surrounding development has to be built to accommodate automobile traffic and parking. So, if you have no transit, and the added expense of required parking, along with a surrounding auto-oriented built environment, then any rational person is going to say, “Why would I live in this dense expensive place where I have to drive everywhere? No thank you! This is Indianapolis, if I have to live in a place where I have to drive everywhere, then I can afford to buy a nice single-family home with a big yard.” Simply put, if you want higher densities, then you have to offer transit. You cannot just change the zoning and expect to get a bunch of residential towers popping up (and even under current zoning there are various places where high-rises could be built, and yet they aren’t being built, so zoning changes alone do not bring about density. (Perhaps, some version of a metropolitan urban boundary growth control scheme might encourage higher densities to be built in the city, but I am uncertain if it would be possible, as least in the near future, to get a measure like that passed).
I strongly agree, that the sprawl highway construction is the core problem and the source of the others.
Why don’t folks like Alon who suggest things like banning fossil fuels play an active role in opposing this wasteful construction? Where are the “fiscal conservatives when it comes to one of the biggest, destructive socialist schemes out there?
However, Rome was not built in a day and the goal has to create a transit system people actually can use- and that can be supported financially over time.
The way to create that type of system is to build it out gradually, in the areas where densities can be raised to support it. This is done block by block with short routes like downtown to Broad Ripple. New York’s Transit system was not built out at once.
As to the van shuttle suggestion- you just don’t know what you are talking about. Private van operators run thousands of dollar vans on NYC routes the city underserves. These vans provide what people want- frequent service. Would you rather have a big bus that comes along once an hour or vans that run every 5-10 minutes? No doubt, you would like a big bus that operates 24 hours a day just in case someone might want to ride it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/the-illegal-private-bus-system-that-works/246166/
This isn’t a theory. Pittsburgh’s transit system was choked with the cost of operating hundreds of confusing routes to small outlying towns- resulting in massive losses and poor service for everyone.
This is a direct quote from the article I linked to.
“Transit ridership peaked during World War II, but the transit companies slid into bankruptcy afterwards, as they were expected to serve greater suburban areas, service declined”
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/the-illegal-private-bus-system-that-works/246166/
Requiring bus companies to provide service to low density suburbs was one of the main things that drove lines into insolvency and destroyed service for everyone.
For clarity’s sake, the Chris who wrote comment #42 is not me.
But I generally agree. (Except as regards the metro growth boundary concept. I’d favor Aaron’s “mother of all impact fees”…let people build and live where they want, but make the new development internalize all the externalized and time-shifted costs of new development and growth: roads, sewers, schools, police, fire, library, etc. That alone would make urban and first-ring suburban housing more competitive, as those municipalities are already facing those “kick the can down the road” costs of their own expansions.)
John, the main operating cost of a bus or van is the driver and fuel, plus maintenance and depreciation. There isn’t a significant enough operating cost differential between an airport-style shuttle bus and a full-size bus to make it a worthwhile alternative. 15-passenger gasoline vans are not a practical bus alternative due to the door/loading constraints. (I know this because I’ve had the discussion with Indy’s transit operator.)
I’m in the middle on IndyConnect: I support a bus-only plan, with BRT as the sole “rapid transit” conveyance systemwide. No northeast corridor/green line train in the first 10 years, until BRT ridership justifies it.
Sorry, but does the bus operator run the Indy system at a profit? Does it come remotely close? My guess is they are just not experts.
The link I gave was for NYC area van services that have popped up on their own and do manage to make enough profits to keep going with no subsidies. (In fact they see enough profit in this to operate in spite of police harassment) They use vans- with some routes using airport type shuttle buses.
http://therumpus.net/2012/02/hailing-in-flatbush/
First- there is the capital cost of buying the bus. Clearly smaller vans cost less and you can buy more. It’s takes fewer passengers to fill up a van, so that frequent service is more profitable.
Almost every poll and study I have seen, and actual data from services, shows that frequency of service is the biggest driver of transit use. (along with clear routing, affordability and extensive service hours)
One of the great myths is that there is no operating record of people making a profit at this. But, there is- the Hong Kong system operates at around break even from fares and makes money developing real estate along transit routes.
We can add to this the large number of informal transit systems that have functioned all over the world for decades- often taking over from bankrupt state systems.
The Dollar Van operators in NY, are often from Caribbean countries where services like this are common.
If we want to know the factors that make transit sustainable, we should actually learn from these operators.
Urbanophile, I have a question about routing high-speed tracks. Is there a reason the tracks can’t be laid down the median of 65?
We already have a divided highway, on government-owned land, that is the fastest way between here and Chicago. The median is wide enough to lay tracks both ways and maybe even include a platform in certain places. You wouldn’t have to worry about NIMBY problems or the debate on what to do with small towns along the route, and the actual buying of land for a right of way would be kept at a minimum.
Whenever I hear high-speed rail plans, this approach is never mentioned – is there an obvious reason I’m not understanding? Just wondering