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CATS Long Term Transit Plan - Silver, Red Lines


monsoon

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There is real engineering time being put into this field for the first time in a long time.  I wonder when's the last time this industry has seen this much attention (even if some of it is hype).
So, I am eager to see the first few projects move forward, if only to get enough attention (light) on the subject of tunneling, and some of the drama wrt Elon Musk could possibly shake some of the complacency off the established boring "expert" companies to innovate or at least keep up.
I'm with you on all the above. I am glad to see some R&D going on in this space. I do wish they were working on cheaper ways to excavate stations rather than car elevators, but improvements to tunneling tech would be welcome.

My comment on "salvaging" was in response to@Matthew.Brendan's post, since I do indeed think that TBC itself is doomed to failure as long as they are planning on running cars through their tunnels.
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Here is a thorough article published today about NYC transportation infrastructure and the extravagant costs. Some pertains to NY specifically but some to the US problem of competing organizations compared to several European cities with far more centralized structures for such projects. A point is that the cost of any infrastructure must be recouped by the improved efficiency that it provides. Once costs exceed any reasonable efficiency gain it is burning money. Take this article and apply to other US cities and even, with a squint of the eyes, Charlotte.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/new-york-infrastructure-costs.html

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20 hours ago, Scribe said:

I am curious though, while Musk always creates new aspirational goals for the media to go crazy over, can you point to which goals has he not met from 2008? 2010? 2012? 2014?

So, I think you and I actually share a similar viewpoint on Musk, TBC, Tesla, etc., but here you go:

1) Fully autonomous driving capabilities was originally promised by summer of 2016.  It has not yet been delivered.
2) Solar roofing options at a viable scale was promised by 2018.  It has not yet been delivered at scale (I could be wrong but I understand there are less than 100 Tesla solar roofs in existence.)
3) Production of Model 3 cars exceeding 5k per week.  They hit this but have not routinely achieved it.  Current production scale is roughly 4,500 per week, so they are close.
4) Powerwall life expectancy in excess of 10,000 cycles.  Promised 2-3 years ago.  Powerwall 2 still has a life expectancy of about 10k cycles.

These are the ones I remember off the top of my head but there are literally dozens more.  In fact his success rate is probably <30%.  There is literally a tracker if you want to see all the undelivered promises: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/elon-musk-goals/

That said, I am not a Musk hater.  These goals are exceptionally hard to achieve.  If you are not striving for something you will never achieve anything.  People attribute way too much to TBC because of Musk's inventive and optimistic views.  All they want to do is tunnel well.  They are leaving it up to other people to figure out how to maximize those tunnels.  The elevators, autonomous vehicles, pods, etc., are just Musk hypothesizing what can be done with those tunnels.  They will not be TBC projects.  TBC will bore the tunnel, and leave it to someone else to handle.

 

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TBC will bore the tunnel, and leave it to someone else to handle.
 


What makes you think that? Elon does not like for his companies to be just a cog in a machine. He always moves towards vertical integration. Every project that TBC has bid on or proposed so far has been a turnkey solution.

I expect that, like SpaceX selling launches to third party customers like commercial satellite operators, NASA, and the military, he may offer to dig tunnels for others for a profit for some time, but at most, the point of this would be to bankroll development and construction his real vision, which is his ill conceived car-elevator-and-tunnel-from garage-to-parking-lot system.
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28 minutes ago, orulz said:

What makes you think that? 

 

Because the stated goal on TBC's site is, "increasing tunneling speed and dropping costs by a factor of 10 or more..."  Admittedly, I am making an assumption based on that stated goal.  They have been awarded one contract - Las Vegas.  They have been awarded the right to negotiate on a contract with Chicago and explore a tunnel between DC and NYC.  Their method of execution of these projects is completely unknown to all.  I would bet they will bring in third parties to manage some of the other details beyond boring the tunnel. 

To my knowledge the extent of Tesla's vertical integration is unknown.  It has been reported that Tesla makes significantly more of their parts than traditional US auto companies, but that is not hard to believe given the lack of vertical integration in US auto manufacturing.  All we really know is they produce their own batteries, motors, and drive train.  Tesla's vertical integration for batteries was the result of a need.  They had to build the Gigafactory to get battery production and storage to an economic scale.  Literally, this is life or death for Tesla.  The Solar City acquisition is not a step in vertical integration because Tesla's don't have solar panels.  It was at worst a nepotistic favor to his cousins and at best an attempt to use the Tesla brand to drive a secondary stream of revenue to help float the vehicle production and add to the demand for the Powerwall which further helps lower the cost of batteries.  I have no insight into the percentage of part in their cars that they make, but I bet it is fairly low.

I have no idea how much of a SpaceX vehicle is made by in house versus outsourced.

Sorry to all for continuing to be off topic...

Edited by pgsinger
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The April MTC meeting minutes are posted, and there's a mountain of information in it. They presented the proposed budget that will be voted on in June.  https://charlottenc.gov/cats/about/boards/MTC Agendas/MTC_Agenda_Summary_190424.pdf

I'll let others help pull out highlights, but notably there is a strong urgency to get design work on the Silver Line started. They want to stay ahead of development and work with NCDOT on projects in the alignment to help save on project costs down the road. 

There is also a slide on the cost of "completing" the envision my ride project and meeting their bus frequency goals across the system, 

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11 hours ago, kermit said:

This is the first I have seen of what I believe is the new 'official' 2030 Plan transit corridor map: https://charlottenc.gov/cats/transit-planning/2030-plan/Pages/default.aspx

A couple of things surprised me a little:

1) The Red Line commuter rail is on the map. I suspect this is just a political decision to suggest to folks that they still hope to build it, but there have not been any changes WRT NS attitude towards the commuter line yet AFAIK.

1a) The lack of station locations on the BRT map really bugs me. As I understand it all the buses will run express with only one park and ride stop in each N Meck community (e.g. a bus will run from Davidson to Uptown with no intermediate stops and a different bus will run from Huntersville to uptown with no stops, etc.)

2) There is a slight suggestion (or just a cartographic fauxpaus) that the Silver Line may continue beyond Belmont (again a political ass-covering rather than a firm plan). There is no indication of any Union County stations.

3) While there is no discussion of funding streetcar phase 3 I will say that the Gold Line a) provides rail transit to two areas of town that really need it (from a density perspective) and b) Is a critical connection through the center of uptown due to that wacky Silver Line routing

4) I know that they are still searching for a locally preferred alternative route but I am surprised to not see the Btyne extension (also to drum up political support)

5) There is no sign of the proposed station at Publix in Southend

6) I guess the Sprinter is dead (and eventually replaced by the Silver line). But older 2030 maps had a Sprinter route planned for Freedom Dr out to I-85 in addition to the airport route.

7) Not a fan of the total neglect of the rapidly changing Graham st corridor (seems like I-85 Graham to I-85 Freedom BRT via Gateway might be useful)

image.thumb.png.3d1c7b58f742b0f95fea9d09479a52fd.png

On top-left uptown map, they draw the red line over I-77

Edited by XRZ.ME
typo
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55 minutes ago, kermit said:

Commuter rail can more effectively and cheaply serve all three of these communities.

Can commuter rail get the needed frequency though to make it compelling? Even on the red line, the last time I saw the proposed schedule, it was three trains in the morning rush and three in the evening rush. Has it changed to service throughout the day and weekends?

I think our commuter rail offerings will look more like Sound Transit's  Sounder service than CalTrain's service.

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3 hours ago, kermit said:

1) LRT is just not comfortable for long rides (I say that as someone who rides the blue line 40 minutes twice a day)
2) LRT (with all of its stops) is just slow. No one will want to ride transit for nearly an hour from Concord to Uptown when they can still drive it in 35. You can make it a bit faster with limited stops (about 62mph max), but commuter rail can easily get to 75 mph (maybe 90 in some outlying areas) and has many fewer stops.
3) Extending LRT will further reduce its reliability. since CATS is struggling with reliability on a single, shiny new 18 mile long line no one want its to get worse.
4) LRT is expensive (we paid $100 / mile for the BLE). I bet we could built double-track commuter rail in existing corridors for 25-50% of that -- and the majority of this infrastructure (except stations) has already been built on one of our corridors (the NCRR). Having said that, cheap commuter rail is dependent on NS and CSX playing fair on the other commuter corridors. Both RR's do cooperate with commuter rail in places like DC, Boston, Philadelphia and both NJT and Metro North.

1) that has more to do with the interior layout and seat design than the technology.
2) agreed.  But we need a BLE and commuter crossover stop, besides Uptown.  However top speed is much less important than average speed.  
3) depends on how it is implemented.  
4) LRT would be less expensive in the same corridor than heavy rail, but that would preclude using the same tracks for freight.    BLE was so expensive due to ROW purchasing, and road rebuilding (that's also why it has so many level crossings)

Has anyone done any sort of study to see what type of ridership numbers Charlotte to Salisbury with new stops could generate?  Say Gateway Station, Parkwood(ish), University, Harris-Houston (or there about), Harrisburg,  three of four stops in Concord, Three in Kannapolis, Landis, China Grove, Salisbury, and Spencer.  Or maybe just stop at Kannapolis.  

Edited by DEnd
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^ I don't believe their have been any travel demand models built for NCRR commuter rail. I suspect one will be commissioned within the next year by the Centralina cog as part of their work to start regional transit planning.

The only corridor where I am aware of a TD model is for the Red Line, and those numbers are nearly 20 years old.

 

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on the topic of length and reliability.... It appears (from reading this forum) that the length has become cubersome as it relates to reliability.  Would it be possible to shorten the Blue line by creating two separate overlapping lines?  Basically  a "South line" that overlaps the "North Line" in uptown and spurs off to terminate somewhere like Camp NorthEnd,  and the "North line" overlaps the "South line" in uptown to terminate somewhere like Charlotte Pipe and Foundry?   Seems like maybe they could fix the length issue and add service at the same time.   someone responded to a similar comment from me in the past by explaining that overlapping lines are too complicated, but REALLY?  It doesn't seem like rocket science to me.

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15 minutes ago, archiham04 said:

 Seems like maybe they could fix the length issue and add service at the same time.   someone responded to a similar comment from me in the past by explaining that overlapping lines are too complicated, but REALLY?  It doesn't seem like rocket science to me.

That could improve service, but it adds additional complexity and cost.  It still wouldn't solve the actual root causes of the delays though so there would still be issues.

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20 minutes ago, archiham04 said:

on the topic of length and reliability.... It appears (from reading this forum) that the length has become cubersome as it relates to reliability.  Would it be possible to shorten the Blue line by creating two separate overlapping lines?  Basically  a "South line" that overlaps the "North Line" in uptown and spurs off to terminate somewhere like Camp NorthEnd,  and the "North line" overlaps the "South line" in uptown to terminate somewhere like Charlotte Pipe and Foundry?   Seems like maybe they could fix the length issue and add service at the same time.   someone responded to a similar comment from me in the past by explaining that overlapping lines are too complicated, but REALLY?  It doesn't seem like rocket science to me.

With the discussions of extending the blue line, I always thought of splitting the existing blue line into 2 separate lines that meet at CTC. Similar idea but no overlapping: everything south of CTC is the blue line and everything north is the green line.  

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^ Splitting the line might help a bit to compartmentalize delays a bit (less so when they overlap). The problem is that turning trains adds inefficiency to the system (trains are only providing mobility benefits while they are moving), so adding turns where they are not absolutely necessary reduces equipment utilization and slows down the ride for people who might be traveling through.

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This is interesting the cities with mass transit and what has happened since 2010.  Charlotte ridership is down but by far not the worst.  Look at Miami and Atlanta.

Seattle has had the most growth but look at #2 Houston.  Houston with its Metro light rail which goes on its tracks and sometimes down streets is growing.  Houston has a very extensive Rapid Bus Transit system too with huge park and ride lots in the suburbs for express trips downtown.  

https://www.us.jll.com/en/views/snapshots/seattle-snapshot-6-4-19-jll

In other transit oriented news office buildings in Atlanta near MARTA lines are outperforming the rest of the market in rents and occupancy.

https://www.us.jll.com/en/views/snapshots/atlanta-snapshot-6-4-19-jll

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Adam Conover of Adam Ruins Everything has a new podcast. His second episode is titled Transportation, Autonomous Cars and Nerdy Commuter Fantasies (w/ Seleta Reynolds).

Seleta Reynolds, General Manager of the LADOT joins Adam this week to talk about Elon Musk’s boring tunnel, the “vomit rule” and induced demand. Plus, learning from The Lord of the Rings, the issues with Uber and Lyft and being a subway boy vs a bus boy.

https://www.earwolf.com/episode/transportation-autonomous-cars-and-nerdy-commuter-fantasies-w-seleta-reynolds/

I'd imagine it's what UrbanPlanet might sound if it were a podcast.

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On 5/30/2019 at 2:45 PM, tarhoosier said:

Here is a thorough article published today about NYC transportation infrastructure and the extravagant costs. Some pertains to NY specifically but some to the US problem of competing organizations compared to several European cities with far more centralized structures for such projects. A point is that the cost of any infrastructure must be recouped by the improved efficiency that it provides. Once costs exceed any reasonable efficiency gain it is burning money. Take this article and apply to other US cities and even, with a squint of the eyes, Charlotte.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/new-york-infrastructure-costs.html

The cost problem in NY relates to extreme union corruption.  There are scores of articles about Long Island Rail Road workers who make a base salary of $115,000 per year (which is excessive in and of itself) who make an extra $300,000 per year in over time for a total salary of over $400,000 per year.  Google it.  It's real.  Suburban cops in towns with no crime generally average $160k-$180k per year with overtime, and then they retire at 40 with a $100k per year pension.  Steel workers in NYC get over $100/hour.  Unions are an utter anathema in NY.

Edited by SydneyCarton
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