[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh 7-Charles Street abandonment

[Jim Holland]

> Shirley Tennyson wrote:

>    I see light rail today as the best and least costly way to move
> people in corridors with enough passengers, but not too many.  New York
> City (Manhattan) would be too many.

	What form of transit would be best in this situation?

> In San Francisco that may mean only ten
> miles per hour with lots of passengers and traffic, so it mmeans that it
> costs $ 80 per hour to provide bus service, . . .  If we can get a
> light rail right-o-way that will make possible 15 miles per hour by
> keeping traffic out of the way, and LRT costs $ 150 per car hour, it
> will cost $10 per mile, 25-percent more than bus, but with room to carry
> 130 passengers with the same crowding as 62 on the bus. The cost per LRT
> passenger will be only $ 100 for the trip because it does nt take an
> hour and it carries 130 people at a cost of only 77 cents per passenger.
> Huge saving with LRT.

	Do you think that is really the case with SF?  The  K--L--M--lines 
might be good haulers and get a good average speed, but the J- and
N-lines have much slow surface running.  The J rarely carrys anyone
beyond the old terminal on Church at 30th!
              I
> realize you asked about interurbans, and so let us look at Saint Louis,
> with Metro-Link LRT the same mileage as Pittsburgh to Charleroi and
> Roscoe. It is a tremendous success, very low cost to operate, and runs
> through cornfields on the Bellevue extension.

	Charleroi  *might*  have the density necessary for lrt but would need
to be totally prw.  Surely the parallel RR lines have excess capacity
and lrt could be built there.
	We have briefly discussed this on the list before and it would seem
that the former Washington line would not have the necessary density to
continue, even if more grade separation could be provided and speed
could be improved.

> Portland LRT )MAX) is also almost as long as the Charleroi line in a
> city ad counties smaller than Pittsburgh, but it is not too much in open
> country. 

	I personally really like the Portland MAX system - will probably be up
that way late this year to see it again - try to go once a year.  I
compare it to Pgh.  Willammette River would be Monongahela with the
Columbia being both the Allegheny and Ohio.  Downtown Portland is
located on the South Side and Mt.-Washington tunnel area.  Population
density on MAX is not great, even on the eastern leg, but buses feed
into the sytem on both sides.  And the western leg does have a
spectacular tunnel and does run through open fields with a little street
running into the terminal in Hillsboro.  The MAX is well received and
does carry people!

> I am sure a light rail interurban would
> be highly successful if it could operate like San Diego or Baltimore.
> Baltimore is as long as the Pittsburgh-Washington line and has some open
> country along the way. It is not as successful as Saint Louis or
> Portland but it is less costly (per pass- enger-mile) than bus to
> operate and draws more riders.

> E d   T e n n y s o n

	The present Pgh. lrt is quite slow.  Have you crunched any numbers for
cost comparison here?

	Overbrook seems to make much sense since schedule speeds can be greatly
increased which should lower costs overall.
	Wouldn't surprize me to see the present  ({[pat]})  lrt system revert
to routes similar to PRCo when  ({[pat]})  took over  --  Library and
SHV to downtown via Overbrook with the 42/38 extended to Castle Shannon
as the outer terminal at all times - maybe an occasional thru train to
SHV!!  They could change the track configuration at Castle Shannon so
the 42//38 could terminate here with a direct across the platform
transfer to Library//SHV cars.

	What surprizes me about Pgh. and the PCC is that, while the cars were
still running to Washington and Charleroi, the running time between
Castle Shannon and Pgh. was 30-minutes.  This was cut to 25-minutes with
Library and Drake service, but don't know what year.  Probably about
1958--1960.  Even then, the cars were running at liesurely speed, not
pedal--to--the--metal!  Ridership was down by this time but the cars
really hauled in the rush hours!  That is a considerable savings of time
in such a short distance!!

-- 
James B. Holland
        Pittsburgh  Railways  Company  (PRCo),   1930  --  1950
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