Milwaukee opened a new streetcar line at the beginning of last November, and it is attracting fewer than 2,300 trips a day. Since it makes 144 one-way trips a day, that’s an average of fewer than 16 people per trip.
Fares are currently zero, so if they ever start charging fares — they’re supposed to after a year, but some that were supposed to eventually charge are still free — ridership will fall even lower. Despite this, the city has already committed $20 million to extend the line (though the Federal Transit Administration rejected an application for matching funds).
Meanwhile, in St. Paul, momentum is growing to have a streetcar there as well. “I’ve never met anyone who is nostalgic for a bus,” says an official with the St. Paul Streetcar Museum. Of course, if you were nostalgic for buses, you wouldn’t go to a streetcar museum, would you? Instead, you might go to the Museum of Bus Transportation in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Or, closer to St. Paul, you might go to Hibbing, Minnesota, birthplace of Greyhound and home of the Greyhound Bus Museum.
Doesn’t this make you feel at least a little nostalgic?
Most common side-effects cheap viagra generic that a person after taking kamagra medication for the first time. The external stress of the office atmosphere round them affects the low price viagra http://www.devensec.com/ internal mind. Treating erectile problems: Today, treating erectile purchase levitra online discover now dysfunction is no more than a new method of email spam only it’s permission based. In fact, they contribute around two-third cheap cialis pills of the whole lot. In any case, nostalgia is another name for ignorance. People today forget that streetcars disappeared because buses were faster, more flexible, and far less expensive. Moreover, they can move more people per hour in the same amount of space.
Not satisfied with 2.1-mile line like the one in Milwaukee, St. Paul is talking about building an 8.5-mile line from downtown to the airport, which is expected to cost $1.5 billion to $2.0 billion. That’s $175 million to $235 million per mile, far more than the Twin Cities has been spending on light rail.
The 1927 Twin Coach bus made streetcars and light-rail obsolete. Contrary to the General Motors streetcar conspiracy hoax, it wasn’t built by GM, and GM itself didn’t invest in National City Lines until 1937, by which time hundreds of cities had already converted from streetcars to Twin Coach and similar buses. GM only invested in National City to enable it to compete with Twin Coach and other manufacturers.
Let me repeat: buses can move more people, faster, more flexibly, and at a far lower cost than either streetcars or light rail. That has been true since development of the Twin Coach bus in 1927 which, as it happens, was first used in Milwaukee. Streetcars and light rail are good for one thing and one thing only: spending lots of money. Contrary to what some politicians think, that’s a defect, not a virtue.
An 8.5 mile streetcar line? Why not just build a sidewalk from the airport to downtown? Walking would be just as fast as a worthless streetcar. But as Mr. O’Toole noted, the streetcar is an excellent way to pour federal grant boodle into the pockets of local rich developers, who are the most nostalgic of all for these boondoggles.
(though the Federal Transit Administration rejected an application for matching funds)
Hooray! As a federal taxpayer, I applaud this rejection. Aside from my own, I don’t care how localities decide to spend their money. Just leave federal taxpayers out of it.
“Let me repeat: buses can move more people, faster, more flexibly, and at a far lower cost than either streetcars or light rail.”
You can repeat it as many times as you like, Antiplanner, it’s not even remotely true.
The correct strategy is to use the transport system which delivers enough capacity, to an acceptable standard, at the lowest price. So, metro for New York City, buses most other places.
Francis King,
Which part is untrue? Where is your evidence? The Istanbul BRT line outperforms any light-rail line in the world. I can list several more.
Which part is untrue? Where is your evidence? The Istanbul BRT line outperforms any light-rail line in the world. I can list several more.
Typical planner spews out a lie and then scurries away like a rat when asked to back it up.
Nationalized health care in other countries ALSO outperform health care results in the US but I have yet to hear a libertarian promote those policies in the US.
Flexibility is the key.
If people don’t use the streetcar because it doesn’t stop or go where they want, you need to spend another $2 billion and (several construction years later ) hope it works out.
If the bus lines aren’t getting to or stopping at where people want, you change the route at very low cost, primarily signage for the bus stops. Can be changed in weeks, not years. (Unless, of course, if the buses are controlled by the same departments who run the street lines–then it takes years to move a route.)
Finally, the train people believe and try to mandate that life is static and people don’t move, businesses don’t change, and areas don’t develop differently than anticipated. When these things happen, as they do quite often, the train people blame society etc for moving from their trains. But they still operate in the same way and keep the same salaries for an obsolete enterprise.
Teahadi’s aren’t against socialism when it comes to roads.
Anyways regarding BRT, there was fatal bus crash in Ottawa today :$
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/bus-crash-westboro-station-ottawa-1.4975385
AP; “The 1927 Twin Coach bus made streetcars and light-rail obsolete. Contrary to the General Motors streetcar conspiracy hoax”
THWM; That’s bullshit, the USA has had 100,000+ miles of rail line stolen since WWI.
Government policy is anti-rail, roads are not expected to be profitable to survive. GM just took advantage of the situation.
Even a regressive leftist Democrat like Bernie Sanders is anti-rail :$
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/photos/lamoille-valley-rail-trail
According to the assburgers patient from Montreal, not spending $2 billion on a worthless toy train is being anti-rail. Got it.
Issac Hayes is a liar. His claim is a shameful pile of crap. The circles he travels in include thousands of people with a deep love of our history. Many of them volunteer at the Minnesota Transportation Museum.
The MTM has restored and runs vintage buses. They use them to raise money by renting out the vintage buses and running special events, like a tour of MPLS’ Swedish history from a vintage bus.
Haye’s trolley museum was part of the Minnesota Transportation Museum not so long ago. The circles he works in included thousands of people who love all things historical including vintage bus. There’s something darkly wrong with Haye’s brain.
Nationalized health care in other countries ALSO outperform health care results in the US but I have yet to hear a libertarian promote those policies in the US.
The United States is a large, ethnically and racially diverse country. It’s a very different country than the very homogeneous countries like Japan or Germany or Canada. We drive a lot so we get in lots of fatal accidents. We have a lot of disagreements that we sometimes settle with violence. If one removes deaths from fatal injuries from the life expectancy tables it turns out that the US has the best health care system in the world.
Why would anyone, libertarian or otherwise, want a health care industry run a statist bureaucracy? If we had that in the US then going to the doctor would be like going to the DMV.
Metrosucks, I’ve always been against crooked contractors. Yet you’re not asking as to why costs are being so excessive. So if anyone has autism, it’s you, not me! :$
”
Nationalized health care in other countries ALSO outperform health care results in the US but I have yet to hear a libertarian promote those policies in the US.
”
a) Promoting government doing something, especially a massive centralization of that is the antithesis of libertarianism.
b) they do not outperform. that is patently untrue. there are some metrics proponents cling to that appear to be “better”. The problem is when you dig in further you realize they’re deeply problematic.
Not only that but if you compare apples with apples, such as Germans with Americans of German decent, you find that the same DNA, the same culuture performs better in America. Wisconsin men of German descent on average outlive German men by 3 years.
Or look at women. German women average about 16 euros per hour. Women in Wisconsin not only outlive their German counterparts but out earn them by 20% . When you control the Wisconsin group for German ancestory, it’s 1/3 more and they out live them by several years.
These data are 10 years old but no doubt still relevant:
If Sweden’s Big Welfare State Is Superior to America’s Medium Welfare State, then Why Do Swedes in America Earn Far More than Swedes in Sweden?
The 4.4 million or so Americans with Swedish origins are considerably richer than average Americans, as are other immigrant groups from Scandinavia. If Americans with Swedish ancestry were to form their own country, their per capita GDP would be $56,900, more than $10,000 above the income of the average American. This is also far above Swedish GDP per capita, at $36,600. Swedes living in the USA are thus approximately 53 per cent more wealthy than Swedes (excluding immigrants) in their native country (OECD, 2009; US Census database). It should be noted that those Swedes who migrated to the USA, predominately in the nineteenth century, were anything but the elite. Rather, it was often those escaping poverty and famine. …A Scandinavian economist once said to Milton Friedman, ‘In Scandinavia, we have no poverty’. Milton Friedman replied, ‘That’s interesting, because in America, among Scandinavians, we have no poverty, either’. Indeed, the poverty rate for Americans with Swedish ancestry is only 6.7 per cent: half the US average (US Census).
”
The correct strategy is to use the transport system which delivers enough capacity, to an acceptable standard, at the lowest price. So, metro for New York City, buses most other places.
” ~Francis King
Mr King, the corridor at hand has 3,500 trips per day. Less than 400 / day of those are to the airport. I would welcome you writing in to the local St. Paul and Minneapolis news sources ( Streets MN, MN Post, Star and Tribune, Patch, Pioneer Press, etc ) and explain to them why it’s important to follow this.
Just up the road from Hibbing is Eveleth with the US Hockey Hall of Fame
https://ironrange.org/attractions/ushockeyhallhoffamemuseum/
Andrew, why have you been trolling this blog for a decade?
Frank, there’s nothing wrong with “trolling”, Mr.O’Toole is a blatant fraud :$
“Highways are there regardless of economic conditions” – Randal O’Toole
there’s nothing wrong with “trolling”
Yes, there is. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-online-secrets/201409/internet-trolls-are-narcissists-psychopaths-and-sadists
You didn’t answer the question.
Why why have you been trolling this blog for a decade?
Particularly when he doesn’t even LIVE IN THIS COUNTRY.
@Antiplanner:
“Francis King,
Which part is untrue? Where is your evidence? The Istanbul BRT line outperforms any light-rail line in the world. I can list several more.”
Untruths:
1. buses can move more people,
2. faster
3. and at a far lower cost than either streetcars or light rail.
Buses has a capacity of 50-100 people per vehicle. Light rail has a capacity of 300 people per vehicle. Both run line-of-sight. For the same frequency of operation (often called headway, although there is a difference) light rail has a higher capacity. That’s just maths.
Light rail, on street or on a dedicated route can move as fast as a bus. A bus can skip stops, light rail doesn’t, but once you have enough passengers to justify light rail then few stops will have no-one alighting or departing.
The cost metric is operating cost divided by passenger numbers. Once you have enough passengers the cost for each is very small indeed. Light rail is seen by passengers (particularly existing car drivers) as being nicer than buses, too. That’s important.
Once you have a major corridor, flexibility of service doesn’t help.
The reason for so much streetcar and light rail activity, even in very doubtful conditions, is two-fold:
1. The behaviour that because people prefer light rail, the benefits are exaggerated until light rail becomes the ‘no-brainer’ option. Take the city of Bath, UK, population 100,000. Make some educated guesses: 3 person trips per person per day; 10% of trips in the peak hour; modal share of 10%. Total mass transit trips = 100,000 x 3 x 10% x 10% = 3,000 trips/hr. That’s across all routes, and both directions, so if 10 routes, 3,000 / 2 / 10 = 150 trips ~ 4 buses per hour. Is that 3,000-30,000 trips per hour per direction, typical values for effective light rail operation? And believe me, I have had enough of trying to educate our arrogant member of parliament about this.
Hint: watch the local bus company like a hawk. If light rail would have a 12% return on investment, as predicted, why is the (private finance backed) bus company still running buses? Why haven’t they invested in light rail?
2. Even where the advocates are more reasonable, the smart strategy is a two-step. Firstly, run buses, count demand, and where demand is high enough, run light rail, and move the buses to the next route. The problem is politics, the immature behaviour exhibited by attention seekers who have never really grown up.
“Last year I gave you a brand new bus service. Now you’re demanding a light rail service as well?!??!?”
So, the smart move under these circumstances is to make a move for light rail now, and hope it doesn’t bounce like a dead cat. Particularly if the government is paying for much of it.
Yes?
Your agenda is political, not economic.
You teahadi’s have a lot in common with SJW’s, you all want despotism! :$
Andrew, why have you been trolling this blog for more than 10 years?
@Antiplanner:
“Francis King,
Which part is untrue? Where is your evidence? The Istanbul BRT line outperforms any light-rail line in the world. I can list several more.”
Untruths:
1. buses can move more people,
2. faster
3. and at a far lower cost than either streetcars or light rail.
One has to remember when reading this drivel that FrancisKing is a planner, so his natural inclination is to lie and obsfucate.
From the planners at Metro themselves:
“Light rail “is not worth the cost if you’re just looking at transit,” says Metro’s John Fregonese. “It’s a way to develop your community at higher densities.””
https://www.ti.org/transit.html
Btw, the “light” in light rail doesn’t stand for lighter vehicles; it stands for light capacity. Remember that the next time a lying planner like FrancisKing tries to plansplain you about how light rail capacity is equivalent to a typical LA freeway.
@FrancisKing, west 7th is a street with a bus carrying 3,500 trips / day. Capacity is a distraction from the reality that there is ZERO need for rail.
Wow, you teahadi’s are just like feminists going on about “male privilege”! :$
.
Not to mention the fact that the proposed streetcar line would be slower than the existing limited-stop bus route. $2 billion for slower travel and the inability to manoeuver around (or out of the way of) any existing traffic. What a deal…