Unlike light rail, which means low-capacity transit, heavy rail is supposed to be high-capacity transit. But Virginia politicians effectively reduced the capacity of the DC Metrorail system when they demanded, over the objections of the Federal Transit Administration and Secretary of Transportation, the construction of the multi-billion-dollar Silver Line to Tysons Corner. Now Virginia politicians want taxpayers and auto drivers to spend tens of billions more rectifying that mistake.
A Yellow Line train crosses the Potomac River on an underutilized bridge that was ignored in WMATA’s analysis of alternatives to deal with the congested Blue-Orange-Silver lines river crossing. CSX’s Long Bridge is in the foreground. Photo by Ron Cogswell.
When the Silver Line opened, the Blue Line was already running at full capacity. Since the two lines, along with the Orange Line, use the same crossing of the Potomac River into DC, adding Silver Line trains meant cutting Blue and Orange Line trains. The number of Blue Line riders lost probably exceeded the number of Silver Line passengers gained.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has been studying several alternatives that might solve this problem. If rail ridership grows as WMATA predicts, it is likely that the only real solutions would be to build a new tunnel under the river for either the Blue Line or Silver Line. WMATA planning documents admit that a new tunnel could take 20 to 25 years to plan and build and that the cost would be “high.” Eight years ago, WMATA estimated that the tunnel and other improvements needed to meet demand would cost $26 billion; the cost is no doubt much higher today.
One alternative that WMATA doesn’t seem to be considering would be to reroute all Blue Line trains to cross a bridge that is now used only by Yellow Line trains. Since the Yellow Line uses the same tracks as the Blue Line for part of its route, the bridge clearly has enough capacity to support the Blue Line. Blue Line passengers headed downtown would have to change trains at L’Enfant Plaza, but those headed to the capital area would save time. As I recall, Blue Line trains have used this route before (during construction periods), which means the connections already exist and this alternative would cost almost nothing. That may be why it was excluded from consideration.
It is advised to eat generic levitra 4hours prior to the sexual activity but you can take it even 1hour before. You still have early-morning erections and are able to have a relaxing time at home buy viagra without consultation but somewhere your partner might be expecting more than the word beyond relaxing. The physician usually starts with the treatments which are least invasive and further starts giving more invasive loved that soft generic viagra therapies when there is no reaction to the former treatments. In another words, intercourse is the most pleasurable http://djpaulkom.tv/watch-dj-paul-kom-x-drumma-boy-ft-jellyroll-cocaine-official-video/ price of viagra activity for a couple.
Meanwhile, another rail crossing of the Potomac is a bridge that carries CSX freight trains, Amtrak, and Virginia Railway Express commuter trains. Ridership on these commuter trains bottomed out at 2.5 percent of pre-pandemic levels in April and May of 2020, but by August 2021 it had recovered all the way to 13.0 percent. Nevertheless, Virginia was running at least as many trains in July 2021 as it had in July 2019, filling up the railroad bridge to 98 percent of its capacity during rush hours and creating a major bottleneck for CSX freight trains.
A Virginia Railway Express train crosses the CSX bridge. Photo by Leandro Neumann Ciuffo.
Instead of cutting service to make room for vital freight trains, Virginia politicians want to pretend that the pandemic never happened. They’ve decided to spend $3.7 billion building a new bridge across the Potomac that would solely be used by Amtrak and commuter trains, leaving the existing bridge for freight trains. This would allow them to continue to run nearly empty trains for another 30 or more years. Most of the money would come from tolls on northern Virginia highways, which was also the source of much of the funding for the Silver Line.
Transit has become such a sacred cow that politicians no longer count the costs. Instead, the only question they have is which taxpayers they are going to squeeze to pay those costs.
.jpg){kind=link}
Advocates push for a U.S. transportation system as it existed in about 1920s when trains were the dominant mode of intercity transportation. Trains were not the dominant mode of transportation, the horse and buggy were. Now they want to use the taxing and regulatory powers (rather than logic of convenience) of government to return us to those blessed days. What they fail to realize was train utilization was a very limited affair, back then was a profitable enterprise in lieu of lack of competition of anything else. Despite this, Very few people rode trains, average American only rode a train a few times in their lives.
Airlines, railroads, and rail transit systems are all very labor intensive, which makes them vulnerable to a loss of fares and, where subsidized, tax revenues during a recession. By contrast, airlines and roads receive subsidies but account for small minority of it’s operating expenses and declines in travel numbers can be netted out without catastrophic financial consequence, one can liquedate fewer flights.
Highway operations/maintenance are not as labor intensive, because it’s just a slab of concrete/asphalt. Maintenance, can be deferred for a time without slowing down traffic, because ridership declines place less wear and tear. Maintenance of infrastructure is proportional to use, maintenance of a highway system funded from user fees can fluctuate with user fees without any degradation; the less you use it, the less it occurs damage; the materials used to build roads are concrete and asphalt which unlike stell Do not rust, corrode or suffer from thermal shock. Rail by comparison needs HUGE inputs of capital and labor to keep in a sturdy working condition, whether you use it or not.
Whenever transportation infrastructure is financed thru a myriad of various financial methods there’s the invitation for graft, waste, fraud and just plain fiscal incompetence. Also when projects derived from a multitude of financial sources, you run the risk of the source depleting or funding shortages along one of those revenue streams regardless; if it’s no longer valid or substantial. When transportation infrastructure is paid for out of user fees or at least majority user fees, there’s an incentive to keep it simple and functioning. When transportation funding is paid for out of tax money derived from some sort of scheme; cost controls fly out the window because more ambitious schemes are already being dream’t up.
Rail transit benefits organized heavy labor and you the taxpayer, since “Completion” is more sacred and paramount than what it costs to make it. Trainsets don’t apply to economics of scale either, dedicating industrial infrastructure to something that’s Not mass produced is a waste of resources. Vs. a car you can sell hundreds of thousands of them, refit the factory easily enough to make a new vehicle.
The other issue with using car drivers as a source of revenue..
1: It sends the wrong political message, in essence, they’re saying/admitting “We need auto drivers” to spend as much money as possible so we can stay afloat
2: If they succeed in reducing drivership rates, it doesn’t leave much for transit if revenue declines.
3: Transit infrastructures overall maintenance debacle is not result to lack of funds. States pilfer 20 percent of gas taxes and highway toll, other user fee revenues to pay for non-highway activities. If ticket fares and tax revenue and Highway user fees are insufficient to pay for it’s upkeep……..what more can we do?
”
They’ve decided to spend $3.7 billion building a new bridge across the Potomac that would solely be used by Amtrak and commuter trains,
” ~antiplanner
Unless I’m misunderstanding something, the $3.7B is for the huge rail plan Virginia has, not just a single bridge over the Potomac.
In fact, that $3.7B may include the $1B that Amtrak says they’ll spend on track & infrastructure in Virginia to add a few new daily trains from DC to Richmond + some other new end destination.
The new two-track bridge will be owned by DRPT and will run parallel to the existing bridge, which will be used solely for freight trains. “Separating passenger and freight traffic will help alleviate the rail congestion,” Glynn said in a statement.
Mitchell estimates that with the addition of the new tracks, the corridor will serve 18,000 new freight and passenger train crossings annually — which could take 1 million trucks and 5 million cars off highways each year.
…
The federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which passed the U.S. Senate in August but had an uncertain future in the House as of mid-September, included $66 billion for passenger rail — money that could help fund the Long Bridge project, according to U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine’s office. “Federal funding is still critically needed for this project to move forward,” Kaine says.
https://www.virginiabusiness.com/article/long-bridge-expansion-to-speed-up-d-c-va-rail-traffic/
Prediction is hard except when asking for federal taxpayer money. Accountability is impossible when projects take years to complete.
Japanese trains: apologizes for leaving 20 seconds early
American flights: lol your flight is delayed 7 hours too bad
LazyReader compares the on-time performance of Japanese trains with US Airlines — an apples vs. guacamole comparison. Railroad schedules are seldom bothered by weather whereas aviation is largely at the mercy of weather. And while we are pretty good at predicting weather, controlling it is still pretty far in the future.