Comments on: Fort Worth Wins Grant for Streetcar, But Whether It’s Ready Is Another Question

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 06:06:00 +0000

Off-NEC it’s about 50 mph-ish, but the urban segments are excruciatingly slow. A lot of it isn’t actual slowness as much as schedule padding, but it means you can’t rely on the trains being any faster.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:35:01 +0000

It varies a lot based on route. I don’t know what the average is across the whole system; obviously the NEC runs faster, while the Vermont trains run much, much slower.

By: Woody

Woody — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:43:02 +0000

No doubt I misread the schedule! But I was also thinking of the typical Amtrak speed, more or less 50 mph, no?

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:18:00 +0000

Woody, you’re right that if the plan for Milwaukee hinges on the HSR line then it’s doomed. However, there’s another way to look at it: since the money is already committed, a local transit connection would improve the HSR ROI.

Bear in mind that it’s all on the margins – other issues like average speed, station placement, competing highways, etc. are much more important. But it means that deliberately spreading the money around is definitely not the best strategy.

The “money is money” rule applies in general. Some places get more money for mass transit, some places get more money for missile launchers. The Appropriations Committees are very good at distributing pork among members in a way they believe is fair. The trick is to choose the balance that best maximizes social ROI. It’s a political version of comparative advantage. And I don’t think Fort Worth has any comparative advantage in transit over Milwaukee.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:18:44 +0000

I’m wondering if you misread the Texas Eagle schedule. (1:35 from Dallas to Fort Worth is pretty impressively awful, and I can see how your brain might have imagined that it was 35 minutes.)

Anyway, the doubletracking is hoped to both speed up TRE and create capacity to move Amtrak onto the TRE line (cutting at least 35 minutes off the Amtrak schedule).

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:16:57 +0000

“The TRE takes an hour to get from Dallas to Ft Worth, about 32 miles distance. Worse than Amtrak. ”

Au contraire; Amtrak takes an amazing hour and 35 minutes to get from Dallas to Fort Worth, though it only takes an hour in the reverse direction! And remember Amtrak has *no stops* between Dallas and Fort Worth.

So no, NOT worse than Amtrak. Amtrak is trying to move to the TRE tracks in order to speed up.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:14:18 +0000

“But I thought it was you who schooled me here long ago that the network effects of intercity rail and transit are small.”

Actually there’s a massive asymmetry. Good local rail connections improve the performance of intercity rail massively. Good intercity rail doesn’t improve the performance of local rail much.

By: Woody

Woody — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:55:49 +0000

As every politician knows, money in one place is the same thing as money in another place, for whatever purpose. So every Congresscritter took note when one state got $823 million in one round of grants while the second biggest state in the US got a whopping $4 million (sorry, above I misoveremembered Texas’ share of the HSR funds).

If on the next round of grants, LaHood’s DOT leans over a bit to make the headline cities more geographically diverse, I can forgive them. Especially since from a transportation-planning standpoint, it’s so much better they give the $823 grants to the most deserving projects, and if necessary concede a few of the lousy $25 million grants to be politicized.

More politics lurking in this matter? The counties containing Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin now go Democratic. Fast-growing Ft Worth’s county is hotly contested. When redistricting follows the Census for the 2012 elections, the Dallas-Ft Worth area is sure to get another US House seat when Texas gains four more.

Last, not least. I love network effects, and I think they are an under-appreciated aspect of any effort to improve the conventional and High(er) Speed Amtrak system. And train stations have a great symbolic importance on transit maps. But I thought it was you who schooled me here long ago that the network effects of intercity rail and transit are small. As I recall, you said then that the Amtrak passengers using Penn Station were far fewer than those using anyone of the four subway lines serving the station. Of course. Amtrak has four trains per hour from Philly; a rush hour subway line carries about 12 tph.

If Milwaukee’s streetcar depends on the H(er)SR line from Madison, or if Ft Worth’s line depends on the hourly TRE from Dallas, they are doomed. Fortunately I think they both will stand on their own, no matter what happens with intercity rail.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 21:15:51 +0000

Local transit and intercity rail aren’t the same thing. In fact, you could argue it the other way: because of network effects, the places that get the most money for local transit should get the most for intercity rail and vice versa.

By: Woody

Woody — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 20:36:43 +0000

Sorry about Milwaukee; better luck next round. But here’s another way to look at it. LaHood & team has already given Wisconsin hundreds of millions for higher speed rail between Milwaukee and Madison. The considerably larger state of Texas got less than $50 million, iirc, to install new signaling from Ft Worth to the Oklahoma border to speed up the Heartland Flyer. Looking at those figures for the HSR grants, I’m not sure how you say Ft Worth is over-privileged, however sprawling it may be.