[PRCo] Re: (no subject)

Sat Nov 1 18:16:34 EDT 2008

No question about it that the average transit patron goes a greater  
distance today.   We moved to the suburbs.   The word suburb can be  
taken to mean anything beyond where we lived before.   The suburbs in  
1900 were a ring of new homes in Lawrenceville or starting up  
Perrysville Plank Road.   In 1920 the new suburbs were Squirrel Hill  
or East Liberty or farther out Perrysville Avenue or Emsworth.   In  
1930 the new suburbs were Dormont or Mount Lebanon.   In 1945 it was  
Brentwood Motor Coach or Mr. Deere's buses that were delivering the  
wives to the new suburbs (if they didn't have a car) or the interuban  
lines.

If you want to look out in the Pacific Northwest where you live  
Phillip, I can think of a picture that my old friend Bill Middleton  
took of an interurban car on the Gresham line of Portland  
Traction ... Bill took it from a bridge showing the car coming  
through a woods.   More recently I took the same picture with a light  
car but around the woods the area is filled with suburban homes that  
were not there when WDM took his picture a half century ago.

Sure we are going greater distances.   And we expect a cheap fare too.

The transit companies made a lot of money when the could collect a  
nickel to haul you two miles from downtown to Manchester.   They  
don't make money on $2.00 moving you ten miles into the burbs.

And the public probably thinks that there is no reason to be serious  
about saving energy now that gas prices are down again.   Lowest I've  
seen in Lancaster this week was $2.459 yesterday.   Last week it was  
$2.599 here and typically 2.859 in Pittsburgh.    Curiously ... if I  
should want to drive out to the Phoenix LRT ... what are gas prices  
in the southwest now?

On Nov 1, 2008, at 4:24 PM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:

>> Schneider Fred <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>> What has given me utter amazement is how dense
>> the human and industrial (job) population had
>> to be in Manchester in the teens and twenties
>> in order to support routes 16, 17, 18, 19 and
>> 20 in a one-square mile area.  That was not
>> the era of government operation.   It was
>> private enterprise.   You did not run empty
>> streetcars.   You ran routes because you
>> could fill the cars.
>>
>> The same applied to the Strip District.
>> Can we imagine today that the area along Penn
>> and Liberty Avenues from 11th to 33rd had so many
>> jobs that it warranted an incline down from
>> Herron Hill, a separate route from Manchester
>> over the 16th Street Bridge,  the Spring Hill
>> and Spring Hill and Spring Garden lines over
>> the 16th Street Bridge, and rush hour trippers
>> on East Liberty routes that didn't go downtown
>> but only went to the strip district to service
>> the factories?
>
>
> Maybe the following provides a clue or piece of evidence in this  
> "puzzle:"
>
> "The "historic examples" of high passenger traffic densities carried
> by street tramway lines come from cities such as San Francisco, Los
> Angeles, Chicago and New York. Such high traffic densities are
> conspicuous by their absence from Seattle "historic data." This, we
> admit, came as something as a surprise, because we did not anticipate
> such "low" annual traffic density statistics. For Seattle data, see
> http://www.publictransit.us/ptlibrary/trafficdensity/data/SSeattle.htm
> For
> example: at 1923, Seattle Municipal Street Railway street tramway  
> lines
> (electric and cable) carried 88.9 million passengers (the sum of
> "revenue" and "transfer" passengers, equivalent to "boardings" as used
> today).
> Nearly 90 million annual boardings is is an impressive
> figure by today's standards - but there's a "catch." The average  
> travel
> distance "back then" was significantly shorter than it is today. That,
> in other words, means that transit systems carried many more
> "short-distance" trips than they do today."
>
> The above from:
> http://www.publictransit.us/index.php? 
> option=com_content&task=view&id=173
>
> The real key here is this sentence isn't it?
> "That,
> in other words, means that transit systems carried many more
> "short-distance" trips than they do today."
>
> From our perspective of minimal if any transit usage in 2008, so  
> many lines in one area seems like overkill doesn't it.  Standing in  
> their shoes to look at the number of lines available may seem quite  
> normal or maybe not even enough since they possibly rode shorter  
> distances (reference above) and possibly much more often daily.   
> This would dictate more service than known today whether increased  
> frequency or number of lines.
>
> This is only one factor to consider; there are probably many more  
> but it seems like a very reasonable observation.
>
>
> Phil
>
> PS:  I went to the 'home' page of the url provided by Mr.Barry:
> http://www.publictransit.us/
>
> I find it interesting - odd - that an 'About' tab is not listed;  
> i.e., it lacks identification as to who operates the site and  
> purpose although the basic approach is pro-transit.  The site seems  
> to have a northwest bias - observation, not criticism.
>
>
>
>
>
>