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I tried to "Walk the walk" last night at a community meeting regarding DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit). I talked about finite (and now declining) crude oil supplies and Alan's proposals for electrification of transportation with a board member.
One interesting thing I learned is that the main north-south light rail line is at 100% of capacity already during rush hours.
I advised the DART guys to take their highest ridership estimate for five years hence and double or triple it.
I recommend that we all start trying to follow Alan Drake's lead and push for electrification of transportation in our local communities. As Alan has noted, if we did it more than 100 years ago, we can do it today.
At least we can be ready with suggestions for transportation alternatives, when gasoline prices start skyrocketing.
Thanks for the effort ! (and the plug) :-)
One nice thing about rail is that more cars can be added cheaply up to the capacity limit of the stations (and then the stations can be lengthened to accept longer trains, usually at reasonable cost).
A short explanation of some of the issues involved in planning for doubling or tripling ridership.
When built originally, I would like all new expansions to accomadate longer trains (i.e. longer platforms, 6 instead of 4 for DART from vague memory). Delete "Art in Transit" (1% of cost for federal projects !) and spend it on longer platforms and more rail cars. And make provision for future grade seperation and even express service (3rd track through station to allow express trains to bypass station, and reduce operational problems with future maintenance).
AFAIK, DART could run more trains with shorter headways if they just had more cars (perhaps electrical supply might need to be upsized as well).
ATM, DART Park & Ride lots are clogged. Should resources be spent expanding these or on more rail ? IMVHO, unlimited bicycle parking should be a priority (build as much as needed, without limit, so there is ALWAYS available space) but people should be encouraged to take a bus or walk to the rail station.
This is a question of priorities and judgment. People that I respect believe that Park & Ride expansion is a cost effective way to increase ridership and ridership density (higher pax density > lower unit costs).
In Minneapolis, adding more cars would increase capacity by 33% at 8% to 9% of total line cost.
Trains every 2.5 minutes should be doable (except for clogging at-grade cross streets). A train every 90 seconds can be done with superb organization and grade seperation (see Moscow as one current example and many examples from 1930s).
Current new Urban rail designs economize on future capacity expansion, an issue that will bite us in the future.
It is VERY cost effective to build longer platforms, make provisions for higher electrical demand, and even make unbuilt plans for future grade seperation "in case" pax demand doubles or triples.
Washington DC built 8 car stations for their subway and opened with mainly 6 car trains (some 4 car AFAIK). Today, they can see the need for 8 car trains on many routes, and these will be packed within a decade or two EVEN WITHOUT PEAK OIL. Would that they had built 10 car stations.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Double Decker Trains?
These are very common in the Netherlands, and a joy to ride.
Nearly all RER around Paris is Double Decker (Réseau Express Régional, medium range transit).
Several US commuter rail lines use double decker cars. Tri-Rail in South Florida (West Palm Beach to Miami) is one that I have ridden.
However, they are only used on commuter rail lines. The overhead wires (and tunnels & underpasses) of light rail (tram) are too low for this solution for, say, DART (Dallas).
More pax/car is good, except when it slows operations. It takes time for people to board and get off, and much longer when they line up to use the stairs up and down. Delays are acceptable at the beginning and end of the line but not in between.
Tri-Rail has people getting off & on all the time, there are few "busy" stations where a third or more of the people get on or off, so double decker works for them.
A very good solution in some places :-)
Alan
Please note the electric trolley wires to power the French train.
In the US, the Long Island Railroad is electrified as is the Northeast corridor (and Philadelphia-Harrisburg) although Boston's MBTA runs diesel locos down to Providence, RI under electric wires.
Caltrain is about to electrify a few lines and hopes to do more.
Electric commuter trains run faster due to faster (and smoother) acceleration and braking as well as reduced operating expenses. BUT electrification is a "frill" that is hard to justify when the lines are built.
Best Hopes,
Alan
I've always wondered why Japanese style communter trains, electrified, good acceleration, lots of standing space, aren't more popular in the rest of the world.
In England there has recently been an outcry about there not being enough seats on commuter trains. If they had to run enough trains in Tokyo to make sure most people had a seat, there would have to be a train every couple of seconds during rush hour...
Metra in Chicago (is it still Metra? they keep changing the names as politics & funding change) has doubledecker cars. I grew up in the 60's riding the upper deck on the Chicago & Northwestern line and those same cars are still in use. In use and in good condition.
Yep, still Metra. We had to wait for one on the Amtrak out of Chicago yesterday. The doubledecker cars are cool. The kids almost extracted a promise to take the doubledeck Amtrak trains sometime. I figure in a few years, that will be the only we we can afford to get to the west coast. It will take longer than flying, but the extra legroom and electric outlets at every seat, and seeing the fantastic views that you fly over by air, will probably make it worthwhile.
We took Amtrak doubledeckers cross-country almost ten years ago. I didn't want the toddler stuck in a car seat for 6000 miles. It was great but after they ran out of food in the snack bar, the club car was mobbed. I'd do it again, though.
One thing I notice every day in Stockholm Subway is that "the art how to exit and enter" the trains have deteriorated.
The doorways fast becomes clogged with people that tries to enter while others are exiting. I estimate that a lot can be done in this regard for a better capacity. Perhaps different doors for exiting an entering with those areas marked on the platform will be useful? I havent seen this anywhere i Europe, but perhaps it exists in countries like Japan?
I've noticed that technological solutions, i.e. trains and subways, are coming to the forefront. I would like to propose that every technological solution be packaged with a plan for its own demise. In other words, we must acknowledge that we will run out of the resources necessary to maintain current population levels and the infrastructure that enables such population growth. We must also recognize that if we continue the tech paradigm without a cogent, enforcable depopulation plan, that tech will in fact create the parameters under which population will grow thus making life all the more intolerable for everyone except the hyper rich.
I guess what I am simply suggesting is people look beyond the ten, twenty or even fifty year horizon and think in terms of two and three hundred year planning. If we cannot claim the intelligence to do so, then why are we messing with such unknowns? This all smacks of such delightful inventions as asbestos and dioxin. Sure they solved short term problems, but we did not have enough information to understand the ramifications of their use. Rather than assume that we know enough, we shoud assume we don't know enough. And, by extension, that means old, proven technologies that clearly mesh well with the environment should get top billing and preference. Since we will ultimately head towards a low-tech paradigm no matter what, we should always favor low-tech over the unknown or unknowable consequences of high-tech.
The answer to the question should not be, "Trains will help us continue this unlimited growth paradigm," but "Trains will help us transition to permaculture, local economies, and population reduction."
Personally, I love trains. I miss them. The sound of trains whistling past Kaiserslautern will forever haunt my dreams. The beautiful Washington D.C. stations remind me in some ways of Moscow's stations. Then there is the Metro in Paris. You gotta love it.
As long as we realise that when we make such logical statements as "Busses are better than cars and that trains are better than busses," we must remember there is something better than trains when considered in light of where technology is ultimately headed on a finite planet.
people look beyond the ten, twenty or even fifty year horizon and think in terms of two and three hundred year planning
I used an 1897 subway to daily get to & from the ASPO Boston conference. I daily used (and should again shortly) 1923/24 built streetcars on a line opened in 1834/35.
To compare trains to dioxin & asbestos as some unknown baffles me !
I see no conflict with an up & running electrified train system and virtually any sustainable future out there. Such a rail network will work with a "Business as Usual" scenario or a localized permaculture system (there will ALWAYS be some trade).
I am NOT a romantic "who loves trains" (aircraft would be my greater love). I see their functional utility under virtually any future option.
They are a "silver BB". They are not the totality of all that we should do by far. But to condemn part of the solution because it is ONLY part of the solution seems wrong to me.
Best Hopes,
Alan
very good point. considering that even if we increases our efficiency to squeeze by this problem, we won't make the next one. simply because these solutions will foster more growth and more resource depletion. also facto into this that many if not all the raw materials of these systems require a functioning industrial base to mine them or make them would say that all it does is buy a few more years to continue the party only to have a much worse crash after it.
though i must warn you. by posting this we have now put ourselves on the 'black list' of a good portion of the posters here using the firefox plugin and as recent history has shown those who are put on it are eventually purged from the site for having too different of views. this is ironic though since the person who made the script says he hails form the same viewpoint as we do.
Hey, I resemble that remark!
You are more or less expressing Jevon's Paradox, but you probably knew that.
There is technology, and technology.
One of my objections to nuclear technology is that I don't think we will maintain the sort of technology infrastructure that will allow us to continue building and operating plants, and handling wastes, but those wastes will still be around. Regardless of whether you think wastes can be safely entombed for geologic time without further monitoring or maintenance, those spent fuel rods are currently sitting in water pools at plant sites. If, 50 years from now, they have not been safely entombed, and the last nuclear engineers retire or pass away, how long until those pools evaporate, monitoring systems break down, and radiation released? Will we even have monitoring equipment to notice? Or do people just start sickening and dying, maybe without knowing why?
PV solar is great. This post is being made with solar energy. Will we still have a technology infrastructure to produce PV panels 100 years hence? Thermal solar generators can be made with 1900's era technology. Windmills are relatively low-tech. Hydropower is 18th century technology.
The Archdruid has some interesting things to say on the subject. He offers a slide rule as a great example of the level of technology we might want to shoot for. We basically went to the moon with slide rules (OK, they had some mainframes, but the guys double-checked everything with their slip sticks).
"though i must warn you. by posting this we have now put ourselves on the 'black list' of a good portion of the posters here using the firefox plugin and as recent history "
Just for the record, I for one have not installed or used the Firefox extension, even though I run Firefox browser....I love trains, and planes and automobiles, but an "opinion blocker" is one piece of technology I do not need....besides, I already have one...it's called the scroll bar at the right side of the screen....If I can't take what your sayin', I just scroll down past it...:-)
RC
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom
I can't prove it, but...
I'm pretty sure that Kaiser is just a sock puppet for Freddy.
The current standard procedure in Chicago seems to go something like this:
I find myself having to throw the old shoulder frequently just to forge a path through the bodies. Even though there are windows in the doors and the trains come to a complete stop and sit there for a few seconds before opening their doors--so everyone outside can see you are facing the door waiting to get off--no one ever moves.
I ride that train. I live near the track and love the sound. Mercifully I don't have to participate in the a.m. rush, it's brutal. A reason for many to drive. CTA plain needs more rolling stock. If they provided more cars and made them more comfortable ridership would go up. But the pols are still living in the mental universe of Richard I.
I do, infrequently, take Lake Shore Drive to jobs during the a.m. rush. Always bad, it's become worse. North LSD is now at walking speed from 7:30 to 9:30, from Hollywood all the way in. Many of those drivers would happily take a train if the train was not a 1950s cattlecar.
Metra does not have a great reputation for maintenance and I think some of their rolling stock is over 40 years old.
Poor maintenance + Advanced Age = Not Good.
But let Israel bomb Iran and those old cars will be SRO.
Best Hopes for more rolling stock !
Alan
I think the problem is they're already SRO. There's very little margin in most of these old systems, so they're simply not going to help us much in a sudden crisis. The sleepy, comfortable bureaucracies take decades, not days, to do even the simplest thing.
Cattle car, you say? Like this:
http://www.tokyu.co.jp/railway/railway/mid/oshirase/6door.htm
Yes, they do not seem to be in the habit of making good decisions. Witness their recent answer to overcrowded trains and slowdowns due to track work: more buses. I work out by O'Hare and live downtown, and it is a complete hit or miss whether the train has enough room to stretch out in or is a sardine crush. More than once their interminable slowness has caused me to think about getting a car, but not only does the cost of keeping one downtown deter me, it's not exactly the best commute either way. Oh, and just for the record--for Alan--Metra and CTA are not the same. Metra--so I hear--makes a profit and has a better reputation all around than the CTA.
Please don't even think of downtown to O'Hare by car during rush periods. You will watch the train fly by.(Ihad thought before you were Red Line)
The road system is operating way beyond capacity. The transit system is operating way beyond capacity. Essentially nothing further can be done to stretch carrying capacity of the roads. Trains could carry more people simply by adding cars. In this particular case many commuters are completely prepared to switch from one to the other.
It's a complete no-brainer. Unless you're a bureaucrat or a pol.
My "-10% US Oil Use" plan has item #5, establish a "Strategic Rail Reserve" i.e. buy more rail cars for an "oil supply interuption". No reason not to use them whenever they coulod reduce US oil use, like today !
However, this SRR is better politics to get the feds to pay for more rolling stock in the name of national security. Use as needed.
http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2006-05a.htm
Best Hopes,
Alan
Hello Adamschneider,
Install an RFID chip inside the RailPass ticket: that way it will auto-penalize a person, who wants to board, who is standing too close on the platform during the exit time. Paint a semicircle on the platform where the pickup scanner is buried. Make people pay for being rude during peak periods by docking them $10 for being inside this area during the exit period. Buzzer then sounds when it is cost-free to enter the train. Safer, faster, and more polite for all involved. My two cents.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Nah, just move to NYC, where there is a 'straphanger culture'.. there are some buttheads, but at least in the 19 yrs I was there, people like to keep their momentum, so they have workable systems for getting on and off the trains. (Won't speak for the F train, however. My best lines were the N and R, where I could totter home at 3am to Astoria and doze on the train.)
Bob
Hmm, but wouldn't that just make the semicircle farther out from the door? On some platforms they have lines painted to show you are supposed to wait beside the door so that outgoing traffic can proceed down the middle while you swoop in from the sides, but people rarely pay attention to them. They already don't provide a very high level of service for the money. If they introduced punitive fees, I don't think it would have a very positive affect on ridership.
Install an RFID chip etc...
LOL, techno-drunks never get off the hook, eh?
Compare to exit-only & entrance-only doors!
(Plus of course a bit of DESIGN about the crowd flows)
Kevembuangga said it, the hated word he said it, I heard him!
DESIGN
DESIGN! nah, what a bunch of egg headed crap....:-)
RC
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom
DESIGN!
Well, Yeah! Of course, it's a long story, stone axes were designed too.
But the successfull stone axe designer should not overestimate his capabilities when designing a Space Shuttle, that's my point about "techno-drunks". :->
That packing in near the door making it hard for people to exit and enter at stations can be aleviated by car design. Compare DC to NYC. The design of the DC Metro system was based on a flawed commuter model, part of which involved (carpeted?!) train cars with forward/aft facing individual seats and narrow aisles. People crowd by the doors because that's where the space is. Compare that to the NY Subway, which has bench seating running the length of the train, making it easy for people to move around and stand in the middle.
If DC's crowding problems ever begin to overshadow it's service delays and union wrangling problems, all they need do is overhaul the interior of the rolling stock to get a sizable amount of extra capacity.
WT, same here in far away Perth Australia. Numbers on public transport up 10%, orders for new train carriages bought forward several years... One thing we surely will have to consider is getting businesses to change their working hours, to spread the morning & afternoon peak hours? Easy to do, doesn't need new capital invetsment.
"I advised the DART guys to take their highest ridership estimate for five years hence and double or triple it."
Right you are. When the new single light rail line opened in Minneapolis in April 2004, the ridership was double that projected by the end of the month. MN DOT and many folks in the legislature who promoted it saw it less as public transit for them, and more as a way to decrease conjestion so that they could have an easier car commute (and get fed funds). Once it opened, I think many people saw the light.