The Economist published an article claiming that traffic is worse in the United States than Europe and lamenting that the U.S. was not building high-speed rail. Wendell Cox responds with a data-filled article basically showing that everything The Economist said was wrong.
John Charles of the Cascade Policy Institute just published Light Rail, Streetcars & the Myth of “High Capacity Transit,” showing that light-rail has a market share of about 2 percent of travel to so-called transit-oriented shopping areas along Portland light-rail lines and a 20 percent market share to major events such as Trailblazer basketball games and other major events. Curiously, despite the title, he never actually compares light-rail capacities with bus capacities. “Light rail” is not short for “light-weight rail” but “light-capacity rail”; a bus lane can move far more people per hour than a light-rail line, which is why light rail makes no sense anywhere in the world unless your goal is to waste a lot of money.
This is especially true in Portland where short blocks limit trains to just two cars. Moreover, four Portland light-rail lines–to North Portland, the airport, Gresham, and Clackamas–must all cross the Steel Bridge, which can only handle 30 trains an hour each way. That means most of these lines will get just eight trains an hour; at 300 people per train, that’s just 2,400 people per hour. A bus lane can move ten times that many people (600 buses per hour times 40 people per bus) without even requiring any of the passengers to stand in the aisles.
It looks like those evil Republicans in Wisconsin are going to eliminate the regional transit agencies that have been pushing for ridiculously expensive commuter trains in the Madison and Milwaukee-Kenosha-Racine metro areas. Kudos to Cato Institute board member Fred Young and local Tea Party activists for saving Wisconsin taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, many people expect Florida Governor Rick Scott to cancel Orlando’s SunRail commuter train project after the state legislature adjourns in the next week or so. Florida’s previous governor, Charlie Crist, twisted legislators’ arms to get them to approve this high-cost, low-benefit project in the hope that it would lead the Obama administration to give Florida funds for the now-cancelled Tampa-Orlando high-speed rail project.
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Predictably, one of the articles closes with an assertion that Cato, Heritage, and Reason oppose high-speed rail because they are funded by oil companies. In fact, these groups get most of their support–98 percent in the case of Cato–from individuals and foundations, not corporations. If any of the remaining 2 percent comes from oil companies, I don’t know about it.
Someone is bound to say, “But Cato gets money from the Koch family, who made their money in oil.” Perhaps so, but today Koch Industries is a conglomerate with interests in a wide range of fields. Before working for Cato, I once received a grant from the Koch Foundation to lecture at UC Berkeley. The foundation official who gave me the grant offhandedly commented that Koch’s only interest in transportation stemmed from Koch Industries’ recent purchase of a company that provided asphalt for road construction. Apparently, they didn’t consider their oil to be a transportation-related business. Like Cato, the Koch Foundation is mainly interested in promoting free markets and reducing the size of government.
In my four years at Cato, I’ve never been asked to study any particular topic or to reach any specific conclusion (though I’ve been nudged occasionally in the direction of smaller government). Cato’s only goal is to reduce the size of government–if that helps the oil companies, okay; if it hurts them, tough luck. Two of my fellow Cato scholars recently wrote an Crossroads GPS (Grassroots Policy Strategies), a fiscally conservative group, did a Freedom of Information Request to the Federal Railroad Administration asking for any benefit-cost analyses done for high-speed rail. The agency’s response: It hasn’t done any. Why bother with analyses when you have $10 billion to spend–especially if the analyses might show that you shouldn’t spend it?
Although, O’Toole, you’re a Koch funded crook who works against transit and advances the agenda of your Teabagger handlers.
“Light rail†is not short for “light-weight rail†but “light-capacity railâ€; a bus lane can move far more people per hour than a light-rail line, which is why light rail makes no sense anywhere in the world unless your goal is to waste a lot of money.
Oh c’mon…this is just demonstrably false. In the US you’re probably right, but there are plenty of private, tax-paying, profit-seeking, relatively-deregulated mass transit companies in Japan that run light rail lines. If it were cheaper for them to motorize their fleets, I’m sure they would.
The Antiplanner wrote:
Curiously, despite the title, he never actually compares light-rail capacities with bus capacities. “Light rail†is not short for “light-weight rail†but “light-capacity railâ€; a bus lane can move far more people per hour than a light-rail line, which is why light rail makes no sense anywhere in the world unless your goal is to waste a lot of money.
Case in point regarding passenger moving capability of bus (or in this case, HOV lanes, with some exemptions for so-called hybrid vehicles) is Northern Virginia’s I-395, the Henry G. Shirley Memorial Highway two HOV (HOV-3) lanes, which (in 2009) carried over 43,000 persons northbound (toward downtown D.C.) in over 400 buses and just under 14,000 private motor vehicles (including van-pools) from 5 A.M. to 10 A.M. (the HOV-3 requirement is only in effect from 6 A.M. to 9 A.M.).
Antiplanner:
the Steel Bridge, which can only handle 30 trains an hour each way
This is a simple artifical limit created by the system engineers through the signalling system to create the false perception of enhanced safety (obviously false when you consider the failure of “fail-safe” signal systems on, for example, Washington Metro). A two car light rail train running at 15 mph takes just 9 seconds to move past a point. Even allowing for a very generous cushion between trains, there is no reason headways could not be below 1 minute on a brief common section of line.
When trolleys and elevated operated on line of sight prinicipals, capacity was far higher and the rail lines more utilized. See for example, the book “Cooperation Moves the Public” about the west Chicago El and CA&E interurban.
http://www.shore-line.org/_pdfs/SL_BackIssues_0211.pdf
Most freight and commuter railroads still operate on these principals via the restricted speed and stop and proceed rules which allow trains to move past a red signal at low speed.
The entire argument about “capacity” is a sideshow. The major limit on surface or bus capacity is intersection capacity and timing of traffic signals. In general, any bus OR rail line running more than every 3 minutes on surface streets, or twice typical traffic signal cycles of 90 seconds, will suffer significant delays as vehicles catch up with one another, and many have to sit through a signal cycle waiting for the next green light. Evenly-spaced headways are difficult to provide under such conditions, particularly when slow-moving riders such as seniors and persons with disabilities show up.
Randal is correct that an off-street busway can handle 600+ buses per hour. But the problem with this figure is that huge terminal facilities are required to handle such volumes. Buses need to stop to board and deboard passengers, which requires terminal time of several minutes in busy destinations such as a downtown. The Portland bus mall can effectively handle 150-180 buses and trains per hour each way from several dozen bus lines, facilitated by the fact buses can pass one another, e.g., two bus lanes each way on each street. Overall mall capacity is limited by the time it takes buses to stop and pick up or discharge riders, travel between the closely spaced stops, as well as signal timings. You’ll note that average speeds on the bus mall are well below 10 mph mainly due to these terminal limits.
rationalitate,
I should have written that it makes no sense to build light rail anywhere in the world. It may make sense to operate legacy systems, such as the few remaining streetcar systems in Japan, until the equipment and infrastructure are worn out. It probably makes no sense to replace that infrastructure even in Japan.
Andrew,
There is a very good reason why light-rail headways cannot be below a minute: they don’t spend all their time in motion and station times can approach a minute at busy locations. While buses can pass one another, light-rail trains can’t, so the trains can’t be run closer together.
Antiplanner:
Light rail headways in the trolley tunnel in Philadelphia are scheduled under one minute and have operated that way for decades.
In Philly, peak headways on the five lines entering the tunnel lead to the scheduling of 68 trolleys per hour through the tunnel in center city. This is a signalled tunnel now to boot, as a result of receiving a free signal system from a liquidated damages settlement on another contract. In the past (pre-1955), a 6th line used to operate into the tunnel, and all lines were on closer headways. The various lines exit the tunnel into streetcar tracks in mixed traffic, so these 68 scheduled trolleys per hour often enter the tunnel a bit randomly due to delays or faster running depending on street conditions.
If Portland could split the rail lines over the bridge to operate on seperate transit malls or in street tracks off the bridge, capacity could obviously be significantly higher. The real limitation as msetty have pointed out is capacity on the streets in Portland through intersections. This limits schedules to 2-3 minute maximum scheduled headway due to traffic signal cycles.
You GOTTA LOVE how Truthers Birthers, Deathers, Triggers and Racers still have 20 IQ points over Professional Planners, because their crazy conspiracy theories are at least mildly consistent.
Professional Planners believe in “peak oil apocalypse” is a few years away, yet they think oil companies are somehow wanting to block transit projects. Transit projects will burn a great deal of oil to construct and even biased greenies say they will save a tiny amount when operating — thus they will increase oil use beore the “peak oil apocalypse”, which is just want oil companies would want (if they cared).
Professional Planners believe increasing transit capacity is worthless because the “induced demand conspiracy” will just add more traffic and keep congestion constant. Yet if the “induced demand conspiracy” doesn’t decrease auto use, then oil companies would support the increased use of oil for transit + same auto use (if they cared).
Professional Planners think oil companies or the Koch Brothers deeply care about the 0.000001% reduction in US oil use that transit is projected to result in at Never-Never Land. Yet considering the wide variety of demands for oil, and the fact that a 0.1% increase in auto use in China or India would easily overwhelm whatever oil is saved in Never-Never Land, the Koch Brothers probably would only lose $1.69 in annual income if all the $500 billion in U.S. rail projects were built, and that would be after earning higher income for the next 20 years as the rail projects burn all that oil on construction.
The Truthers, Birthers, Deathers, Triggers and Racers must go to much better schools than the Professional Planners.
Randal,
You sure about that? It’s the year 2011…that means that these light rail lines have been in operation for almost a hundred years. Of course the Japanese had trouble getting rubber for tires during WWII, but surely the tracks have worn out at some point between the end of WWII and now, and yet a fair number of the systems haven’t been motorized yet. (In fact, the Nagasaki Electric Tramway hasn’t abandoned any of its original lines, though it is admittedly the only company to retain them all.)
Furthermore, the only two places in Asia that seem to still have largescale tram systems – Japan and Hong Kong – also have the most free market transportation policies. In fact, given that they pay taxes, it seems that these systems are in fact much more free market oriented than the American Interstates that you love so much (and I’d bet it took a considerably less eminent domain [or threat thereof], if any at all, to assemble the rights-of-way). I don’t want to pretend that they operate in a totally free market, but the tax breaks, subsidies, and gov’t intervention that they do get pale in comparison to those of urban roads/parking/etc.
All in all, what I’m saying is that it seems a bit unfair to denigrate light rail as totally unworthy anywhere in the world, when they operate in a much freer market in Japan than the American road-based systems that you champion.
Randall:
Streetcars in Philadelphia carry 25% more people per vehicle on vehicles that last 3-4 times as long as a bus (current vehicles are 30 years old and are no where close to needing replacement) and are only slightly more expensive to operate. They end up being in the top 15% of routes by financial performance. When you throw in a sunk asset like a tunnel into center city, it makes plenty of sense to continue operating and replacing the street infrastructure of the lines.
You GOTTA LOVE how the only people talking about the Tea Party, Birthers etc. are metrosucks and Andy. You guys should start your own blog and stop spamming this one.
@metro: There have been dozens of research articles in regards to transit. Rail transit is largely heavily subsidized and automobile related transport can work without subsidies in the near future. Rail is very expensive (by diverting funds from otherwise cheap bus services and using funds to build expensive rail lines) and carries far to few people to make a significant difference in peoples travel habits. Even carpooling is limited in the U.S. because people assume that there’s half a dozen people that live in the same neighborhood that want to go to the same place on a daily basis. Transit is government carpooling with few destinations of significant importance. Transit centers are usually found at famous streets, large central business districts and sports centers (after some serious lobbying) and those job markets only account for a fraction of the jobs in those areas.
Great idea, bennett, but just a little late! We have already started a blog on MoveOn.com called “Dan, the Planning Man” where we reproduce and mock every post by the dumbest Professional Planner on the internet.
We started it after the Antiplanner told us he likes and protects Dan’s crap because it drives up internet traffic. We chose MoveOn.com because you can say anything about white males over there without censorship. Just go along with the story that we are Jamaican-Kenyan musicians who raise money for GLBTQ causes and are taking donations to prosecute Bush, Gordon Ramsay and Seals Team #6.
Andy;You GOTTA LOVE how Truthers Birthers, Deathers, Triggers and Racers still have 20 IQ points over Professional Planners, because their crazy conspiracy theories are at least mildly consistent.
Professional Planners believe in “peak oil apocalypse†is a few years away, yet they think oil companies are somehow wanting to block transit projects. Transit projects will burn a great deal of oil to construct and even biased greenies say they will save a tiny amount when operating — thus they will increase oil use beore the “peak oil apocalypseâ€, which is just want oil companies would want (if they cared).
Professional Planners believe increasing transit capacity is worthless because the “induced demand conspiracy†will just add more traffic and keep congestion constant. Yet if the “induced demand conspiracy†doesn’t decrease auto use, then oil companies would support the increased use of oil for transit + same auto use (if they cared).
Professional Planners think oil companies or the Koch Brothers deeply care about the 0.000001% reduction in US oil use that transit is projected to result in at Never-Never Land. Yet considering the wide variety of demands for oil, and the fact that a 0.1% increase in auto use in China or India would easily overwhelm whatever oil is saved in Never-Never Land, the Koch Brothers probably would only lose $1.69 in annual income if all the $500 billion in U.S. rail projects were built, and that would be after earning higher income for the next 20 years as the rail projects burn all that oil on construction.
The Truthers, Birthers, Deathers, Triggers and Racers must go to much better schools than the Professional Planners.
THWM: Andy, if the Koch brothers didn’t feel that their business interests were some how threatened by public transit. They wouldn’t be giving O’Toole $50K a year to write up bunk about public transit.
Highwayman, I feel your pain, but the Koch Brothers make $50K in ten minutes. They pay the Antiplanner just to keep Dan busy and away from hanging out on the corner begging for transit coins. Seeing Dan’s butt crack when he bends over to pick up coins makes them hurl in their limo, so ten minutes of interest on their money is well-spent.
Andy, you just told that O’Toole is bogus.