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Red Line Regional Rail


thetrick

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^ I understand what you are saying and don't disagree. However I was dismissive of the Nashville model until I rode myself. What I saw was:

  • Worn, but perfectly fine equipment. Seats were comfortable, the PA system worked. It felt exactly like riding METRA (it is former METRA equipment)
  • Service that was fast enough to feel productive and worth taking rail. Average speed (including stops) was just under 40mph -- how much faster can the Red line be?
  • Clean and functional platforms, large park and ride lots
  • FULL cars in the peak direction (granted there were only two bi-level gallery coaches on my train, the other set has three bi-level coaches)
  • Ridership that has been steadily (but slowly) rising month to month over the past year so its a stretch to say the budget approach its turning people off transit. My impression of low-ridership is that 1) there are limited peak hour trips (last train out of town is at 5:30!) and 2) the service has a very tenuous feel -- it seems that funding could be pulled at any minute which likely discourages people from changing their commuting habits.

In short, the Music City Star wasn't perfect, but it was functional and useful. I know folks may disagree but I would much prefer an imperfect and functional starter project for $40 million over a perfect but unaffordable (and thus non-existent) commuter system at $400 million.If such a system got 1/2 of the projected Red Line ridership for 1/10 the cost wouldn't the bean counters consider it to be successful and worth additional investment?

 

I'll stop evangelizing now, I know that its a pointless argument. I just find myself discouraged that CATS appears to be unwilling to consider ways to build our transit system more quickly.

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Kermit, what you're saying definitely makes sense.

 

My only thought at the moment is that some funding sources may be available for a "deluxe" Red Line that triggers significant residential real estate development (e.g., resulting in housing density) and minimum ridership thresholds; those sources may not be available for a "budget" Red Line that doesn't meet those criteria, even though the capital cost per rider would be lower.

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There is a danger in comparing Nashville to Charlotte.  Take a look at office space in the core:

 

Nashville CBD Class A: 4 million sq ft

Nashville: 5.2 million sq ft

Nashville Total: 9.2 million sq ft

 

Charlotte CBD Class A: 16 million sq ft

Charlotte CBD Class B: 5.5 million sq ft

Charlotte Total: 22 million sq ft

 

There is more office space in Cool Springs, roughly 15 miles south of downtown, than downtown Nashville.

 

Additionally, the Music City Star runs on general path, far away from a freeway that is widened for roughly 20 miles away from the core. With few people going into the core of the city for fewer jobs, housing aligned near the freeway, plus massive capacity on the freeway, it isn't a mystery nobody is using the Music City Star.  Compare that with I-77, upgraded for 10 miles to Huntersville with a rather direct rail connection that parallels the freeway for most of the journey.

 

If anything, Nashville should provide a warning in transportation and land use planning for Charlotte and other cities wishing to provide actual transit alternatives, without spending millions on capacity improvements to the one corridor.  The number of people using the Music City Star warrant a bus line, not a full rail line. 

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^Great Points.

The other thing to keep in mind is the existing Blue Line (with extension) and likely connecting Streetcar.   Workday commuters are more likely to use the Red Line if it doesn't just dump them in the CBD without the ability to catch other lines.

 

Granted the LRT is currently not at the planned Gateway station, but with the connecting Streetcar planned it would be feasible to do it.

 

Edit - Though the city really needs to start thinking about one card transit passes that work for bus and rail with Commuter rail add-on options

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I too live on the blue line and work in Huntersville.  Our business has a HQ in Atlanta about a mile from a MARTA station that they run a shuttle to before and after work.  With a campus of probably 300 people I think there could be enough interest to do the same here.  If not then I just leave my car at the park and ride during the week :dontknow:

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^ same here, but how do you get from Huntersville station to your place of business? That's going to be the challenge. But I, for one, would LOVE to never drive on I-77 Northside again ever again.

 

That's a good point.  Huntersville is such a pedestrians delight to begin with.... :ermm:

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I work in Huntersville and live on the Blue Line.  I can tell you for fact that if they ever do get the Red Line going, I'll be a daily rider.

 

I bet you will be disappointed with the schedule.  16 trains a day means ~45 min frequency/wait time, plus the frequency/wait time for the Blue line, plus traveling the mile or so between the two corridors plus the actual travel time to Huntersville.  You may be idealistic and plan to ride, but a reverse commute to Huntersville is bound take 1/3 of the time of all that.  

 

The transportation from the station is not a small problem, as just mentioned.   It is part of the problem with this line to begin with, that it has very little support networks for pedestrian/bike/transit distribution.  That is highly necessary in order to distribute riders when the area is not dense.   As a result, the Red Line pretty much is 90% for park and ride people heading to the CBD, which is arguably already handled with more flexibility by the express buses.

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I bet you will be disappointed with the schedule.  16 trains a day means ~45 min frequency/wait time, plus the frequency/wait time for the Blue line, plus traveling the mile or so between the two corridors plus the actual travel time to Huntersville.  You may be idealistic and plan to ride, but a reverse commute to Huntersville is bound take 1/3 of the time of all that.  

 

The transportation from the station is not a small problem, as just mentioned.   It is part of the problem with this line to begin with, that it has very little support networks for pedestrian/bike/transit distribution.  That is highly necessary in order to distribute riders when the area is not dense.   As a result, the Red Line pretty much is 90% for park and ride people heading to the CBD, which is arguably already handled with more flexibility by the express buses.

 

This is very true.  I take one transit line two stops in DC on a daily basis, and that maxes out my appetite to commute.  Granted, I lived in Uptown before leaving Charlotte, most folks simply do not have the patience to have to plan their entire day around 20-45 minute intervals. 

 

That said, I know folks who travel in from Baltimore who drive to a light rail stop, light rail to MARC train station, MARC train to Union Station, Red line from Union Station to the Blue/Orange to the stop in downtown near our office.  Someone always has the patience for a lot of transfers, but that's given the alternative of driving from north of Baltimore down 95 through city traffic (no freeways in DC).

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The Service would consist of 20-30 minute headways during the morning and afternoon rush hour period and hourly service during the remainder of the day.  Source

 

Ah, that's right, 20-30 minute headways for for banking rush hours, and nothing for other people.  So then back to AH, do you commute only during banker's rush hour?   Wait, ride, walk, wait ride, call a cab, wait, ride, pay cabfare is all hard to overcome a lightly trafficked reverse commute.  But yes, this will serve traditional 9-5 commuters driving from their suburban homes and sitting on a train to walk 10-20 minutes to their uptown office towers, just like the current express buses do.  

 

It is nothing like the hop-on-and-off short trip service of an urban rail transit line where people are jumping between home, nightlife, work, and friends all walkable to a transit stop.  That's why the other corridors in our plans have 4-5x the ridership estimates.   It isn't that it will not serve people, and that 20-30 minute waits during rush hour isn't reasonable, it is that they are going for only a niche and the entire line is to serve that niche to that single destination.   It is great that we have 2x the office space uptown Charlotte compared to Nashville, but a lot of those offices are not as full as they once were with layoffs and telecommuting.  

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Dubone - I get a lot of what you normally say but you got me scratching me head a bit in this thread.  We're talking a commuter rail line which by name alone is not an urban ethic/sensibility rail line.  

 

It's not light rail, streetcar, or even BRT for that matter- but a commuter line intended mainly (and in Charlotte's case planned almost exclusively) to alleviate the normal rush hour commute on the highways to and from the CBD via rail to/from destination points North.

 

I don't see the problem with their planned scheduling myself (both during conventional rush hours and non).

 

Charlotte has a way to go before we've got a significant inner city mass transit feel.  Until we are there - I don't understand the issues with the existing plans for commuter rail which seems to have pragmatic understanding of who will ride it and when.

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Ah, that's right, 20-30 minute headways for for banking rush hours, and nothing for other people. So then back to AH, do you commute only during banker's rush hour? Wait, ride, walk, wait ride, call a cab, wait, ride, pay cabfare is all hard to overcome a lightly trafficked reverse commute. But yes, this will serve traditional 9-5 commuters driving from their suburban homes and sitting on a train to walk 10-20 minutes to their uptown office towers, just like the current express buses do.

It is nothing like the hop-on-and-off short trip service of an urban rail transit line where people are jumping between home, nightlife, work, and friends all walkable to a transit stop. That's why the other corridors in our plans have 4-5x the ridership estimates. It isn't that it will not serve people, and that 20-30 minute waits during rush hour isn't reasonable, it is that they are going for only a niche and the entire line is to serve that niche to that single destination. It is great that we have 2x the office space uptown Charlotte compared to Nashville, but a lot of those offices are not as full as they once were with layoffs and telecommuting.

I don't care what other people do, I was simply referring to myself bud.

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Yeah, I know. Maybe the Red Line will end up surprising us and being some benefit for reverse commutes. I just am skeptical of this project. I want it to work, I'm just concerned that it won't.

I hear you. I agree that I'm idealistic. The general population is barely willing to walk from their couch to their car, let alone CTC to Gateway once complete.

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^ way too much.

 

BLE is roughly $100 million per mile (I think) and about a third it runs in existing ROW. So for the red line were talking about the neighborhood of $3 billion. (my cocktail napkin calculations may be off)

 

The route is also too long to be well served by LRT -- think about 1) limited top speed, 2) uncomfortable seats (and wasted standing room) 3) no restrooms, 4) wasted acceleration (due to wide spacing of stops). Then there are other issues like FRA restrictions that prevent LRT and real rail from sharing tracks.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Charlotte could take a page from the Dallas Trinity Railway Express. They started that system with rebuilt Budd RDC DMU cars. The Budd cars were built in the 50s and used in Canada. Dallas bought 13 of them, and had them refurbished. The TRE has since upgraded to full new trainsets and leased the Budd cars to another area commuter rails system to get it started in the same manner.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Railway_Express

 

 

NCDOT has done the same with the Piedmont, it's all refurbished equipment. 

 

Refurbished equipment looks and works very good and most people would have no idea of the age. 

 

There is simply no money for large gold plated projects, these things need to be built more incrementally. 

 

Todd

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Charlotte could take a page from the Dallas Trinity Railway Express. They started that system with rebuilt Budd RDC DMU cars. The Budd cars were built in the 50s and used in Canada. Dallas bought 13 of them, and had them refurbished. The TRE has since upgraded to full new trainsets and leased the Budd cars to another area commuter rails system to get it started in the same manner.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Railway_Express

 

NCDOT has done the same with the Piedmont, it's all refurbished equipment. 

 

Refurbished equipment looks and works very good and most people would have no idea of the age. 

 

There is simply no money for large gold plated projects, these things need to be built more incrementally. 

 

Todd

 

I think that's all great, and I'm all in favor of saving costs - but I don't think the cost of the actual train/passenger cars is a significant factor in the overall costs.   Actually, I don't even think the costs themselves are the major issue here in my mind.

 

Edit - Just found the reference I was thinking about re: cost.  Of the $452m dollar cost of the project the cars were expected to be about $58 million.  Source: Red Line Regional Rail Project Overview (Dec, 2011); Page 20

 

Again - I would agree with the idea of saving money if possible - but I don't get your point/implication that this is a "large gold plated project"

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I think that's all great, and I'm all in favor of saving costs - but I don't think the cost of the actual train/passenger cars is a significant factor in the overall costs.   Actually, I don't even think the costs themselves are the major issue here in my mind.

 

Edit - Just found the reference I was thinking about re: cost.  Of the $452m dollar cost of the project the cars were expected to be about $58 million.  Source: Red Line Regional Rail Project Overview (Dec, 2011); Page 20

 

Again - I would agree with the idea of saving money if possible - but I don't get your point/implication that this is a "large gold plated project"

I would much rather spend just a little bit more and get brand-new train cars and locomotives.

 

Riding on new ones, such as Metro-North's M-8s from Grand Central Terminal, is much more pleasant than old ones.

 

NC has done a good job with the Piedmont, but those cars are old, and newer ones would be nicer. Compare them to the Acela Express ones, which are snazzier (regardless of speed).

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The O line needs a lot of work, the line is stick rail and speeds are very slow. The trains I have seen on the line crawl, and the track seems strained at even those slow speeds.

 

No matter how bad it is, it can't be as bad as the P&N Main, hah... and I imagine sometime in the next few decades they'll want to be running commuter rail to Gastonia along that.

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Again - I would agree with the idea of saving money if possible - but I don't get your point/implication that this is a "large gold plated project"

 

Gold plated is probably a poor choice of words. I think unimaginative is more like it. The city has been very flexible and creative in their effort to fund the red line, but has not really done anything creative in the design to get it built. I think they are just risk averse and fear that may cause this to never happen.

 

What pisses off a lot of fiscal conservatives is this sort of indifference to the cost of the project and only focusing all your efforts on the funding side. What about staged construction, fewer stations at first, use leased equipment at first, contract out equipment maintenance, reduce station area improvements. Hell even if these are all bad ideas at least show that you are thinking about cost.

 

Todd

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