Comments on: San Jose Plots a Renewal of Its Struggling Light Rail Network

By: Woody

Woody — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:03:46 +0000

Steven’s claims are stale, very outdated, and probably ideologically determined. Beginning back in the 70s, some quasi-experimental transit efforts were over-hyped. Jacksonville, FL, Morgantown, W Va,, that loop-de-loo in Detroit, a couple others. Some right-wing propagandists ate well off those failures for a decade or more. In fact, I believe Wendell Cox and one or two others still make a good living off the old-time mistakes.

But in THIS century, new rail systems are doing damn well overall. More recent and better facts:

The light rail system in Phoenix is running about 30% ahead of projections.

http://dancody.org/archives/new-phoenix-light-rail-system-exceeding-ridership-projections.html

Houston is running a decade ahead of its forecasts.
http://www.progressiverailroading.com/news/article.asp?id=17943

In the Twin Cities, the Hiawatha line beat it’s 2020 projections two years after opening.

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

And Denver is doing well.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5418506,00.html

“Early new light rail project ridership estimates were greatly exaggerated during the early and mid 1980s, as highlighted in the Urban Mass Transit Administration-financed report, Urban Rail Transit Projects: Forecast Versus Actual Ridership and Costs (1989). This is to be expected when there is little upon which to base estimates.

“New regulations and oversight by the Federal Transit Administration, and experiential data has solved this problem, and in most cases, have caused underestimates of ridership levels. For example, Baltimore’s light rail has seen their ridership increase seven-fold since 1992.

“When planned and implemented correctly, projections and estimates are very accurate. For example:

“Salt Lake City’s light rail system, TRAX, projected initial weekday ridership of 14,000. Actual ridership for first four months was 19,000 per weekday. Saturday ridership was even higher at 25,000. TRAX also came in a year ahead of schedule and $23 million under budget.

“When Portland’s MAX system opened in 1998, critics argued the 2005 ridership projections were overly optimistic. MAX surpassed it’s 2005 projections by its second anniversary, carrying 71,000 riders per day.”

http://www.cfte.org/critics/what.asp#1

Pardon me if I’ve left out a few — St Louis and others.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:10:52 +0000

Steven, I’ve read otherwise – that the 1980s ridership projections were overblown, but more recent projections often aren’t. For example, the light rail systems in Phoenix and Charlotte, which were opened this decade, both exceeded expectations.

By: EngineerScotty

EngineerScotty — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:12:58 +0000

Cite?

Not that I disbelieve you–overpromising to obtain funding is a common practice in both public and private sector project planning. But if you’re gonna cite “the Department of Transportation, Harvard Economists, and Danish scholars”, it’s a) useful to read the research ourselves, and know b) who, exactly, you are talking about. While the DOT (which one, BTW?) may well speak with a uniform voice and have an institutional opinion, its unlikely that this is true for either the Harvard Department of Economics, or the country of Denmark. Quoting in this manner might lead the unwary to assume that all “Harvard economists” and “Danish scholars”, or a significant fraction thereof, are in agreement on this issue–a state of affairs which I seriously doubt.

Since you mentioned Jacksonville specifically, that city is a horrible place to put mass transit of any sort. It’s a huge, low-density sprawling mess; with a significant number of residents who view public transit as a form of communism or similar nonsense.

By: Steven Dale

Steven Dale — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:00:13 +0000

The article begins with the claim “VTA, unlike most other modern systems, has had trouble attracting ridership.”

Where do you get your numbers to support that claim? Research by the Department of Transportation, Harvard Economists and Danish scholars all demonstrate that the vast majority of modern rail lines rarely attain forecasted ridership numbers.

In fact, ridership is perilously low compared to forecasts, on average around 50-60%. In the case of Jacksonville, FLA, that number is as low as 5%.

By: zweisystem

zweisystem — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:29:42 +0000

There is a confusion in North America for the role of light-rail and metro, with planners designing expensive metro type systems (Seattle) and wanting them to operate as trams and tram systems/LRT systems and wanting them to operate as metros!

http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/05/20/is-lrt-becoming-the-new-light-metro/

Metro is built, or should be, when ridership on a transit route demands long trains, operating short headways, necessitating grade separated routes.

Light rail is built, or should be built, when ridership on a bus route exceeds about 2,000 persons per hour per direction. This is because one modern streetcar/LRV (1 driver) is as efficient as six to eight buses (6 to 8 bus drivers) and not forgetting that for every bus it LRV operated, one must hire 3 to 5 people to maintain, drive, and manage them.

The idea of building extremely high density housing at LRT stops or stations is counter productive because only a small percentage will use the light rail, with the rest using cars.

This precisely what has happened in Vancouver Canada, where the SkyTrain light-metro system (subsidized by over $280 million annually) has create high density nodes at some stations, but has not stopped car use.

80% of SkyTrain’s ridership first takes a bus to the metro and ridership modal share has remained at 11% to 12% for almost two decades, with ridership increasing at about the rate of population growth. There has been no modal shift from car to metro and the SkyTrain system seems to give existing bus customers a slower overall journey time by forcing transfers.

To be successful LRT must serve the ‘burbs and major transit destinations, it must go, where the customer wants to go, if not the car just becomes a simpler transit solution.

http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/commuting-is-harder-now/

It’s time that North American transit planners start building LRT for what it is, an affordable transit mode that bridges the gap between what bus can carry and the ridership that demands a metro, not as a poor-man’s metro or subway.

By: jon

jon — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:47:39 +0000

theres some shots of the VTA LRT route around Great America circa 1987 in this video, its a real shame that this area was completely undeveloped when the LRT line went in and that despite that they built standard issue auto-centric office parks. hell they hadnt even built the adjacent roads that the LRT line would run down the median of. talk about a missed opportunity to design from the start a transit oriented community, but then again that was the 80s. the other thing that hurt the LRT line was that the route south of downtown was originally going to operate in the median of an at-grade expressway, unfortunately that expressway turned into a full fledged grade separated freeway.

By: Dave in KY

Dave in KY — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:06:23 +0000

On a recent trip to San Jose, I found the VTA light rail to be the perfect solution for briding locally-walkable areas that were just too far apart from each other to walk. I also reject the notion that downtown Joser is unwalkable – it certainly beats the carp out of any midwestern CBD I’m familiar with. And what’s more, even tourists from non-transit communities all over the country were willing to use it: http://cartky.org/node/335

The only walkability deathmarch that went a little sour for us was a walk from the VTA express bus to our semi-unwalkable hotel, a distance of ~3mi on a busy multi-laner. We should have taken the light rail like google transit told us to.

For crying out loud, even walking to the AIRPORT was a success! So I just don’t buy these “San Jose is unwalkable” or “VTA Light Rail is not good” arguments. They were tools that work hand in glove, and by my midwestern standards the result is a grand slam.

By: Steve T

Steve T — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:55:09 +0000

Yonah, Downtown SJ is not as tenuous as you believe. Downtown has exploded and grew way, way faster than anyone ever thought. Just go to your main library’s California history room and look at vision of downtown SJ in the future back in 1980, and surely enough, downtown is even better than imagined back then. We thought we would have 7 million sq. ft. office space downtown but got 9 million, and we thought we would have 1,000 housing but got 8,500 instead. Before lightrail downtown, downtown was a wasteland. Get your facts straight and stop being ingnorant.

By: Daniel Krause

Daniel Krause — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:48:57 +0000

The City of San Jose is planning for significant new transit-oriented development along a good portion of North 1st Street (where two LRT lines currently operate). May not happen as soon as planned due to the economy, but should help increase LRT ridership to a certain degree.

By: Jarrett M.

Jarrett M. — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:16:27 +0000

I echo the comments regarding SJ’s weak transit oriented development. As others have mentioned, the VTA light rail system was built for a dense urban environment. This is especially true in the North San Jose area where trains run in the median of roads and must face traffic signals when crossing streets. Unfortunately, the nearby development doesn’t mesh with what the system was designed for. For instance, Cisco Systems has many large buildings along the Tasman light rail corridor, but the buildings are surrounded by acres of free parking and massive, multi-lane arterials with pedestrian-unfriendly light cycles and street design. If these areas were designed on a smaller, pedestrian-oriented scale, the system would serve it very well with frequent stops and relatively rapid service. Unfortunately, light rail operates like a streetcar in these most sprawling, pedestrian-unfriendly areas imaginable.

As others have mentioned, VTA seems to be giving up on light rail. Many of the new transit priority corridors are slated for Bus Rapid Transit instead of rail. While the extensions to Eastridge Shopping Center and Vasona Junction will likely happen, the Santa Clara Street and San Carlos Street corridors will probably be BRT. As the Downtown-East Valley project advances, VTA defined the Santa Clara rail option as “single car light rail” and the train will not have dedicated lanes downtown. This is unfortunate because these two corridors are already dense, have high bus ridership, and support the kind of service light rail provides.