While I chew through The Image of the City, I've started searching out online communities where I can get some more contemporary exposure to the planning world. One such site is Planetizen. It's sort of like Slashdot for planning.
Anyway, I found this article today which talks about Qatar's plans to build a new 140km light rail system. Unless my friends at the CIA are mistaken, Qatar's primary economic resource is oil.
If a country like Qatar, which has plenty of oil, sees the benefit of light rail, why are libertarians using sketchy stats to smear light rail in Kansas?
The libertarians argue instead for increased bus service. The busses are supposedly cheaper, however, I'm skeptical that this is the direction cities should go. Busses ultimately compete on the same infrastructure as cars. Though busses have their place, I think there are certain types of commuting that are much better served by light rail and their relatively dedicated infrastructure.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
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5 comments:
Many places have had issues getting traction with light rail, San Jose for example.
Rail has much higher capital costs than busses, and it also isn't flexible from a coverage standpoint. In established cities that are already relatively densely populated with commuting patterns that fit well with rail (hub and spoke for example) rail can be an effective solution.
At the same time roads with dedicated bus lanes or even parallel gated roadways with busses can sometimes be a much more economical approach, especially if demand can't be predicted and/or populations are likely to shift around in the capital lifetime of something like rail.
The CTA in Chicago did a study of economics of a way to connect Midway and O'Hare airports and one of the best options was a dedicated roadway on existing right of way that would do bus-trains rather than rail, because the capital costs were so much lower...
So, I suppose it depends on the situation...
Many thanks for the thoughtful comment, Andy!
You are indeed correct that light rail has higher capital costs than busses and that the transit corridors are more fixed with rail.
Nevertheless, I still think that LRT has its place. I remain cool on the idea of using busses--even on dedicated roadways--in place of LRT where LRT can be viable.
Light rail may typically require subsidy to run, and capital costs may never be recovered. I've read some libertarian think-tank types posit that it would be cheaper to buy a new Prius for each poor rider of a given transit system.
Unfortunately, many of these financial analyses ignore the idea that even big public expenditures can create measurable non-monetary benefits that may well be worth the monetary cost. I don't hear the libertarians whining as loudly about public parks, for example. (Of course, maybe I just am not listening hard enough.)
In my world, more people would ride public transit because of the gazillion health, environmental, social, and psychological reasons for doing so.
The reasons why light rail still wins out in my opinion are:
- People are more inclined to abandon cars for light rail than busses.
- Light rail in a city tends to increase public transit ridership across the whole transit network
- The static infrastructure tends to encourage growth along the rail lines in ways that fickle bus routes do not.
- Light rail still gives busses a beat-down in terms of capacity
- Electric light rail is cleaner than busses, and the pollution that may result from the power generation isn't concentrated in the urban core where it has its greatest public health impact.
- LRT doesn't actually do as bad at recovering operating costs as many bus lines do.
I also disagree that light rail necessarily has to be put in along already strong commuter patterns. Traffic tends to follow a path of least resistance in many cities.
That effect can be both good or bad. I remember reading about Missoula's Reserve Street, which was build to accommodate the 20 year traffic predictions. In a few short years after completion, the road was nearly full to capacity with long queues.
I'm not advocating for rail lines to nowhere, but even planning the light rail infrastructure can have a profound effect on how development takes place. And I do think that cities have a right (and a responsibility!) to shape how they want to grow. I don't see busses aiding that to the extent that LRT does.
While bus lines might allow for more ad hoc routing, I'd prefer to see them augment a more solid backbone made of some sort of rail.
Finally, I think the example of connecting Midway and O'Hare is somewhat atypical. Bus ridership isn't a problem because you've got a huge number of people with largely no other options for getting between the two points. I would anticipate that most travel would be point to point with a few stops in between. That said, my feelings about pollution still remain.
We shouldn't support boondoggles, but we should be willing to spend money to improve the quality of life that our cities afford.
I think your discussion is largely bullshit! Sorry, but both of you are playing into pork barrel solutions to problems that are better solved on a smaller scale. Big fixes are just big. By their nature they create more fixes to fix through unintended consequences.
The place to start is in developing communities. A well developed community has lots of goods and services and employment within walking distance. This relieves the necessity for lots of transportation of any kind and fosters community involvement. It also developes destinations that matter to people.
It is only AFTER you have distinations that it becomes meaningful to talk about transportation modalities. the Hiawatha Light rail in Minneapolis is very successful because it connects a densely polulated and well developed community rich in jobs, amenities and services with the airport - which is located by necessity away from the core.
The Hiawatha LIne passes through a somewhat blighted area. The access to inexpensive transportation has resulted in growth and redevelopment along the track along with aleviation of trafic on a much over used arterial road. In addition Light Rail stops have become hubs of activity to which people commute for rapid transit via bus or car.
On the other hand, feeder light rail into the Hiawatha line makes no sense at all. The lower cost and flexibility of busses are all that make sense for less dense surrounding communities. Again the bus system works well because they connect places with places rather than trying to make something of nothing.
the bottom line is that big ticket solutions always get innitial support from those who expect to make money from them. The bigger the ticket, the bigger the support. As a society (maybe as a specis) we have tended to be seduced by big and flashy hucksterism rather than focusing on the small scale, fine grained work that actually achieves desirable results.
I disagree with your disagreement, COG, but it's obvious from your confrontational tone that you're just baiting. You could probably accuse me of pork barrel solutions--certainly the folks at the Cato Institute would--but your accusation probably wouldn't apply to Andy's argument.
Anyway, you and I agree that busses are good feeders for a light rail network.
As for when to move to light rail, there is probably some optimally calculated threshold for when it makes sense. However, my sense is that other factors such as pollution, desire to accommodate future growth, desire to spur future growth, etc might all lower that threshold lower than what a strictly financial model might call for.
Finally, I disagree with the notion that large scale developments are somehow inherently negative. Yes, they have the capacity to enrich some people at the taxpayers' expense. But looking at development, you can't just look at one scale. I agree that small scale development is hugely important, but you'd be committing a great disservice by ignoring all the scales of development that mesh to create interconnected livable spaces.
When a simple model can explain and predict phenomena, and then later be used to engineer a desired effect, that is elegance. When a model becomes complex, it become unwieldy. When a model is oversimplified, it becomes ideology.
Yes, small is beautiful, but medium and large can be too. A system that is beautiful at all scales of resolution is fractally beautiful--the coolest kind of beautiful. Now excuse me while I go meditate and contemplate the nature of the universe and consciousness.
One thing Chicago is experimenting with is multi-modal stations where buses pull-up almost to the same platform at the trains. So, you hope from bus to train where the train goes the longer-haul into downtown and the busses come into the train station via the more dispersed neighborhood.
COG is right that neighborhoods with destinations, etc. are great and they do make a lot of sense from an urban planning perspective, but you're still going to need to move lots of people large distances and in cases where you can run the trains as a reasonable capacity, they make a lot of sense.
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