The Transportation and Mass Transit Megathread

[titanhog]

An "L" actually makes a lot of sense for Nashville.

[nashwatcher]

Is there much of a difference between a tunnel and the L in terms of noise? I'm guessing downtown is going to be dense with residential one day and having less noise is probably advantageous

[nashwatcher]

http://www.nashvillepost.com/business/development/article/20980225/soccer-stadium-backers-detail-redevelopment-plans

Also, new street realignment with Wedgwood with the MLS proposal. Are they finally connecting Wedgewood with Fesslers like was talked about years ago? Doesn't sound like it. It says Nolensville Rd but it seems like this would be short sighted. Hopefully they connect it all the way through.

[ClintonHillion]

On 10/22/2017 at 2:11 PM, PruneTracy said:

"New York's MTA spends something like $1.5 billion per year on its subway tunnels and rail lines, and they allegedly have a maintenance backlog ten times that. Transport for London's overall operating cost for the Underground is £2.2 billion, not sure how much of that goes to maintenance on fixed assets."

I don't understand the point of the above statement - building and maintaining infrastructure of any sort does actually cost money. 

NYC DOT (Department of Transportation, not the MTA) spends about $1 billion a year on roads, bridges, and the Staten Island Ferry (which is free), and our roads also have a maintenance backlog - anything used as much as our roads, bridges, and transit are going to have those issues in a low-tax environment. 

Anyway, the NYC MTA total agency Maintenance budget line for 2017 is $712 million, materials and supplies another $627 million.  But, the NYC subways alone (not including buses or para-transit) carry almost 6,000,000 people per day.   Overall daily ridership is about 9,000,000, which still doesn't include PATH or NJ Transit.  And of course the city (and region) would choke if we were without it all for any significant period of time.  Same with London.  So infrastructure is also important, vital even.

As above, the backlog here is in part a function of the drive for decades to lower taxes (at state and federal levels) which has starved infrastructure and other programs, state control of the MTA, and still-needed repair of damage from Super Storm Sandy.   However, the MTA passed a 5-year $32 billion capital budget in 2015 to both address the existing $15 billion capital shortfall and get ahead.  It's driving us nuts as lines are shut down in whole or in part, but it has to be done.

 

[nashvylle]

Welcome to the forum. 

[donNdonelson2]

48 minutes ago, nashwatcher said:

Is there much of a difference between a tunnel and the L in terms of noise? I'm guessing downtown is going to be dense with residential one day and having less noise is probably advantageous

An elevated train generally makes a street’s pedestrian experience considerably less enjoyable. (And having stayed six weeks in a corporate apartment 15 floors above Chicago’s L, it makes one’s sleep experience miserable! But it did teach me to embrace sleeping with earplugs for some relief.)

[Neigeville2]

45 minutes ago, nashwatcher said:

Is there much of a difference between a tunnel and the L in terms of noise? I'm guessing downtown is going to be dense with residential one day and having less noise is probably advantageous

The amount of noise you hear on the street from subways seem to range in my experience from none to some-but-not-a-lot.  I think the noisy ones are probably running in shallow cut-and-fill tunnels, I don't know if this current plan envisions cut-and-fill or boring.  Overhead trains as in Chicago and NYC are noisy as hell, but those are old systems.  Does anyone have experience of a more modern one?

That said, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I love me some elevated trains.  They are fast, traffic free, accident free and a pleasure to ride, giving you a 2nd story view of the street and architecture as you go by.  And if the whole system is above or below grade, current technologies allow total automation, which greatly reduces the costs of adding more frequent or late night service.  Plus they look cool, although I've heard some  trains-in-the-street advocates claim they "mar the urban landscape", I think they enhance it.    And I think visitors are probably more likely to use them since they're so visible.  

[BnaBreaker]

I can hear the L from my place, and I wouldn't have it any other way!

[ClintonHillion]

1 hour ago, nashvylle said:

Welcome to the forum. 

If that's for me - thanks!  My mom lives in Nashvegas, so i try to keep up with things there.

2 hours ago, nashwatcher said:

Is there much of a difference between a tunnel and the L in terms of noise?

With old elevateds (Chicago, New York, Philly, Boston) they can be very loud - especially Chicago for some odd reason...  But the newer ones (DC, BART, etc.) are really quiet.

[smeagolsfree]

Absolutely for you Clinton. Welcome to the forum. 

[PruneTracy]

14 hours ago, AronG said:

Deciding what to spend on based on current traffic (i.e. 'link capital to utilization') works great when you have a good system and all you want to do is expand it. That's the opposite of the situation Nashville is in. There's no mystery where that mindset leads; you can call it the Atlanta strategy.

There's nothing wrong with building transit infrastructure based on projection of future growth and associated ridership. The catch is that those projections have to be realistic; it doesn't do any good to spend billions on transit infrastructure to serve development that never materializes. There isn't really an incentive for transit agencies to make realistic projections about ridership unless their revenue is tied to ridership.

4 hours ago, ClintonHillion said:

I don't understand the point of the above statement - building and maintaining infrastructure of any sort does actually cost money. 

The point is that complicated infrastructure not only costs more to build initially, it costs more to maintain. If you opt for ten miles of subway over ten miles of surface transit, ten miles of bus service, etc., then you've increased your maintenance costs for a given mileage of service. If you're not getting the full benefits of that service then you're just putting more fiscal pressure on the agency, where you have to spend more money just to keep things running.

[titanhog]

I'm telling you guys...GPS controlled hovercraft (similar to drones) is what I'm hopeful someone like Tesla is working on.   Think of the savings on infrastructure.

[fieldmarshaldj]

23 minutes ago, titanhog said:

I'm telling you guys...GPS controlled hovercraft (similar to drones) is what I'm hopeful someone like Tesla is working on.   Think of the savings on infrastructure.

We're gonna get our Jetsons cars and they'll be able to fold up into a briefcase.

[titanhog]

54 minutes ago, fieldmarshaldj said:

We're gonna get our Jetsons cars and they'll be able to fold up into a briefcase.

It's gonna happen.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.

[fieldmarshaldj]

1 hour ago, titanhog said:

It's gonna happen.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, herhonor is gonna spend $5, er, $10, er, $15, er, hmm,  billions of taxpayer dough on tunnels and trains which will be outdated by the time it's ever complete.

[smeagolsfree]

Article from the TN about how the Charlotte rail line would stop at 440. This is a waste for sure. It needs to go at least to White Bridge.

What the hell are they thinking! That stretch would be the least used stretch in the system if built.

 

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2017/10/24/nashville-transit-plan-charlotte-avenue-light-rail-sylvan-heights-the-nations/790204001/

 

 

[nashwatcher]

The lines can be expanded in the future (phase 2, phase 3, etc). They have to have a fiscal line to draw for phase 1 I think. Asking for more taxes for phase 1 might cause us never to get started.

[smeagolsfree]

That line should go further as a Phase I, IMO. There are flaws in the plan for sure and I do thing the tunnel could be one. Not running this past 440 in the first phase is two and not planning ahead for Dickerson road and keeping it BRT is another. The Dickerson Road line could be a major line if there is a lot of construction to the north. Lots of potential and it has already started.

[Flatrock]

4 hours ago, fieldmarshaldj said:

In the meantime, herhonor is gonna spend $5, er, $10, er, $15, er, hmm,  billions of taxpayer dough on tunnels and trains which will be outdated by the time it's ever complete.

I reckon you and I may not always be on the same page re: transit....yet I really enjoy your perspectives and this point resonates big time.  IF transit technology/methodology experiences a sea change with autonomous vehicles or other disrupter - we need to keep our options open. This plan is going to take a long time to materialize. A long time before detailed plans are completed, eminent domain /rights of ways nailed down, dirt is moved, trains purchased, track laid, etc.  Could we, as a city, have the flexibility to pivot if needed? Walking away after spending $1b is far better than spending $6b needlessly. If this plan proceeds, I don't think that'll happen, but I always like a plan B....and C. 

[AronG]

There's a case to extend it to white bridge to catch sylvan heights/parks, the nations, and commuters from briley. There's also a case against it, which is that it's not clear whether those neighborhoods will provide enough density to put a significant population within walking distance of any given station location. Single family zoning is not enough for light rail, and every giant park-and-ride parking lot occupies land that would be key for potential new low-rise development. And the tough part of this, as the mayor's office guy says, is that adding to the Charlotte Pike line means you have to remove service from one of the other corridors and/or raise taxes more.

A really funny part of that article is Roberts' idea that it needs to go another two miles to include Nashville West shopping center. At $100-$125 million per mile that would be $250 million to run light rail out to a giant big box strip mall. Which is a total joke. Nashville west is literally designed with the assumption that if you want to visit Target on one end and then the book store on the other end, you would get back in your car and drive a half mile through the parking lot. I suppose with light rail you could maybe take a train.

[ariesjow]

Is the current density of the Charlotte Pike corridor to White Bridge that much lower than the far reaches of the light rail lines through other corridors? I would love to see a comparison. 

I will support the plan regardless, but I am a bit disappointed to see that West Nashville will be so underserved given the current growth taking place along Charlotte Pike. I don't see the value in extending it to Nashville West at the moment, but not extending it to White Bridge seems like a missed opportunity to me and is somewhat visually jarring even just looking at the map. 

For me personally, it's a bit disheartening to have pushed for a better transit system for years and committed to living in a close-in Nashville neighborhood only to see that the first major viable plan will essentially ignore your burgeoning area.  So, I'll be supporting a line that will likely end up being impractical for me to frequently use unless I move. 

Edited October 24, 2017 by ariesjow

[Rockatansky]

Does anyone know how much extra maintenance an elevated train system requires because its out in the elements (vs. a subway)?

[PillowTalk4]

5 hours ago, fieldmarshaldj said:

In the meantime, herhonor is gonna spend $5, er, $10, er, $15, er, hmm,  billions of taxpayer dough on tunnels and trains which will be outdated by the time it's ever complete.

You guys really think flying cars are around the corner?  Maybe the technology of it (though I doubt it).  But not the practical use of them.  We don't navigate on the roads very well.  You really think we're ready to start flying all over the place?  Even with flying cars there will still need to be major changes to our infrastructure.  Especially in a place like Nashville that still utilizes above ground utilities even in new developments.  With power lines practically everywhere, who do you propose people navigate them?  Especially at night when they are practically invisible.  And, I'm not talking about just those between street lamps.  Also, do you really want people flying over your home?  Your kids schools and playgrounds.  Of course there probably will be significant no fly zones established, which more than likely would limit where people can fly to the same degree of where people can drive.  Which of course means we'll be stuck in air traffic as opposed to ground traffic.   

I think we're more likely to see some type of modular transportation system that combines multi passenger pods connected to one another that are programmed to specific destination and travel on a grid that minimizes both travel time and traffic congestion.  Pods will attach and detach based on length of travel between destinations.  Such systems are already in the early stages of development.

Personally, I think they should just take a page out of the amusement park industry and build electromagnetic track systems with pods that seat 25-50 people.  Imagine going from Whitebridge Road to downtown in about 5 minutes.....  If people are afraid of the high speed they can be programmed to go at a slower speed.  Kinda like the Tomorrow Land Transit at the Magic Kingdom.  But today's technology allows for a major reduction in the size of the transporters and the rail system.  Not the large monorail system you see in Disney.  Though it really isn't that big.

On a serious note, I really hope Nashville takes this first real opportunity to move forward with establishing a mass transit system.  You have to start somewhere.  DC's metro rail is actually pretty quiet by the way.  It's mostly above ground once you get outside of DC proper.  It has lines that travel into each of the major counties in both Maryland and Virginia that surrounds DC.   I know someone who lives in a building that is literally next to one of the raised platforms in Alexandria, VA.  Even with the windows open it's not a major disturbance.  You hear it, but it's not like a train roaring through.  I don't even recall having to adjust the TV volume when the windows were open.  The traffic noise from one of the nearby busy streets was actually more annoying than the metro rail train.

[Pdt2f]

Does the density of Charlotte between 440 and White Bridge warrant a light rail? It's mostly single family homes, with a few apartment complexes scattered in around 40th-46th avenues. Traffic issues in that stretch aren't too bad, and it's kind of built up so there's not much stock behind wanting to spur additional development. The lack of high density, the lack of developable space, the lack of office space that commuters are trying to reach, the lack of bad traffic issues, and the relative lack of large numbers of lower income residents who need access to public transit makes it kind of unnecessary to me to add rail just for symmetry or whatever. 

[PillowTalk4]

1 minute ago, Rockatansky said:

Does anyone know how much extra maintenance an elevated train system requires because its out in the elements (vs. a subway)?

I don't know the costs, but quite a bit of the DC areas Metro system are raised platform stops.  Only the stops in DC proper are all below ground.  Once you get into the surrounding counties that are in MD and VA, the majority are  raised platforms and those lines typically terminate at a major terminal that is enclosed and has parking garages and parking lots and bus stops.  Some of the raised platforms are like the one at National Airport are only partially enclosed or have shed like structures.  As far as maintenance goes, they seem to have ongoing daily maintenance throughout the system.  Some stops will be temporarily shut down during those times, so shuttles are provided when necessary.  Sometimes they do what is called single tracking which still allows the platform to be open, but only one side is being used.  This reduces the arrival times of trains but it at least minimizes passenger disruption.  Also, most maintenance is done on weekends or overnight.  Clearly maintenance is an ongoing investment.  DC didn't always maintain its system very well and it's being hit hard with a major maintenance program that has shut down lines altogether for extended periods.  But, once it's all done, it will improve the safety and efficiency of the lines.  At least that's the goal.  The main thing would be to stay on top of maintenance and not cut corners to avoid what is happening in DC right now which has been a year long plan that is estimated to cost $60M.  Again, I stress this is a MAJOR repair project to take care of serious problems caused by neglect and improper fixes over the years.