[PRCo] Installment 3 Modern North American Light Rail / Subway

Mon Feb 28 22:43:59 EST 2011

>From this point onward the subject will be treated pretty much geographically instead of chronologically.  In the last installment, we came down the Pacific Coast from Seattle to San Diego.   In this one we will touch on the remaining new lines west of the Mississippi River except for strictly isolated heritage lines like San Pedro or that glorious little Sunday-only operation in Fort Collins run by the railfans.
Most of the inland western cities had no population to speak of 75 years ago.   I remember my late friend Donald Duke giving me a history lesson in Railroading, i.e. that the railroads in the west ran trains from Chicago to the Pacific Coast and most of the passengers rode rode all the way through between the midwest and west coast because there wasn't anything in between.  Most railroads had perhaps two trains; some had more. There was a train for the luxury trade (on the Santa Fe it was the Chief and later the Super Chief) and one for the tourist sleepers and the mail (the El Capitan on the Santa Fe).   Yes, there were exceptions but that pretty well summarizes it.  The NP had the North Coast Limited and a lesser train.   The GN had the Empire Builder and a maid of all work.  The Milwaukee ran the Olympian and the Columbian but few would have gotten off in Harlowton or Mobley or Butte.  You get the picture.  

But many of those little cow towns have now mushroomed beyond anyone's expectations.   Even since I first start driving across country forty years ago, many of them have doubled in size.

Donald Duke, who died last September, could remember in his lifetime the change from a corduroy or plank road across the desert east of Yuma in the 1930s (he dragged me into the sands to find traces of it) to Interstate 8 in the 1970s.   Yes, I have slides of the planks.   

SHOULD WE ALSO CONSIDER MONRAILS IF THEY ARE FOR PUBLIC USE?   SINCE 2004 THE LAS VEGAS MONORAIL COMPANY HAS OPERATED A PRIVATE, NON-PROFIT 3.9-MILE-LONG SINGLE-TRACK RAILWAY LINKING THE VARIOUS CASINOS, HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS ALONG THE STRIP.  I've seen numbers ranging from 18,000 to 24,000 passengers a day.   I rode on a Saturday morning and the cars were relatively empty as one would expect; in that environment I would expect heavy loads in the evenings.   The Monorail video suggests they want to extend to McCarren Airport .... ain't going to happen ... the taxi lobby will kill it.   By the way, there are 583,000 living in the city and 2 million in the metro area all because of gambling.  

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8c_wLenjNI&feature=related

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO doesn't have light rail yet but they keep talking about it.  Now this is a city that had a small trolley line back in the teens ... it had 11,020 people in the 1910 census.  In 1930 it had 26,570.   Today Albuquerque is home to 541,615 people ... well more than that ... that was the 2010 census.   It is probably closer to 552,000 today if the rate of growth has continued.   And that's just the city.   Take all of three county area along the Rail Runner commuter train line from Belen to Albuquerque to Sante Fe today and you have about 8/10s of a million people.   Of course the far right wing conservatives want to get rid of those trains but 4500 riders a day on a commuter train isn't bad.    Notice in this tape the logic that voter approved taxes are not government funds ... only the 25% that the voters didn't approve are government funds.  This is probably the only commuter railroad I'll mention and it is here only to exemplify that this is a typical mountain city that has grown from a water stop on the railroad to a real city.   How many would still ride if the fares were raised?   Don't know.   Every seat was filled the Saturday I made a round trip in 2009.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjAchzGSUTw&feature=fvsr

PHOENIX was one of those cities that was expanding all over the map even when the municipal railway suffered a carbarn fire which justified abandonment of the streetcars in 1948.   It was a trolley system built to service a city of about 50,000 with some lines stretching well into the suburbs.  By 1950 the census showed 106,818 people and the carlines served only a fraction of the population.   Today?   It is the most populous state capital with 1,638,283 in the 2010 census and Maricopa County is home to over 4 million people  --- that's about the same as the five county Pennsylvania portion of the Philadelphia metropolitan area (ignoring the three New Jersey counties).   One county in the middle of the desert has as many people as Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania.   The first revenue operation in Phoenix was December 29, 2008.   The opponents claim it has been totally unsuccessful ... it hauls about (their numbers) 43,509 passengers on a weekday ... that's about 2,200 per route mile.   It goes out of downtown in two directions so it is basically a two trolley lines hauling 22,000 people a day and it's only in its third year.  If is unsuccessful, then there are a lot of others ...
SEPTA hauls 80,000 to 90,000 riders on 9 light rail routes (includes Norristown), which is about 10,000 per route.   Pittsburgh hauls 25,000 on three routes or about 8000 per line.   I would say that Phoenix is an unqualified success!  

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUM_h_resGI&feature=related

TUCSON HAS A LOCAL HERITAGE TROLLEY LINE THAT IS ABOUT TO MORPH INTO A FULL FLEDGED LOCAL TROLLEY LINE.   The city is home to 543,000 and Pima County about a million.   This is the Arizona's second largest city. Since 1993 the Old Pueblo Trolley has been running a heritage line in the city streets.   Tiger stimulus funds in the amount of $653 million were announced last year to enable extending it south to the convention center and north to a hospital and buying Skoda-style trolleys made in Oregon.  

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYF3z6YgsDM
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RG-MC420gE&feature=related

SALT LAKE CITY HAS ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE SURPRISINGLY SUCCESSFUL LIGHT RAIL OPERATIONS.   The city itself is very small ... only abolut 186,000 people and its population dropped since 1950 and then came back up.   But Salt Lake County grew continuously by 15 to 70 percent in every census over the last century.  Total it is home to 1.1 million people.   The Wasatch Front, including Ogden, is home to 2.3 million.   Utah Transit Authority claims its lines from Salt Lake City's intermodal terminal (Amtrak, commuter rail to Ogden and Greyhound) to both Sandy and University of Utah haul 60,000 people a day.   Maybe.   If true that's 60,000 divided by 23.8 miles or 2,521 passengers per route mile.  I've seen figures as low as 42,000 but still commendable.   The parking lots are always full.   West Valley and Mid Jorden lines may open this August.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTA_TRAX

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1LxQ_v-ccc

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS8xPEPZCPE&NR=1

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIzjNbix8t0&feature=relmfu

DENVER WAS THAT ONE CITY BETWEEN ST LOUIS OR CHICAGO OR OMAHA AND THE WEST COAST THAT EXPANDED EARLY ON BECAUSE THERE WAS GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS.   It grew from 5000 in 1870 to 35,000 in 1880 to 107,000 in 1890 and then the bubble burst.   But the Front Range continued to grow, just more slowly.   The 2010 census showed 600,158 people in Denver City-County.   The metro area contained 2.5 million.   Weekday average passenger counts are somewhere in the 60s ... lowest number I find is 61,000, highest is 67,000.   

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWl2HV7ktQ4&NR=1

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEXmq47G5kU

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFIERAcH5kM

SINCE 2004, HOUSTON OPERATES THE MOST PRODUCTIVE 7.5 MILE LIGHT RAIL LINE IN THE UNITED STATES ... The highest weekday average before the recession was 39,700 people or a whopping 5,293 passengers per route mile.   Was the count correct?   Metrorail counts passengers breaking a light beam as they pass through the car doors; that's as good as it gets.   Why so high?  Like the first San Diego line, the first Houston line was a case of location - location - location.   It serves one major city park, two universities, a multitude of hospitals and a major sports venue (the former Astrodome).   Someone is always going somewhere.  Of course the Republican oil barons are not the least bit happy with its success!   Twice the referendums were placed on the ballot demanding more light rail lines and twice the Republican power structure told the public that they would get busways regardless of a favorable light rail vote.  Today there are several extensions under construction but there have been bi-American violations that set the project back.   

Personal opinion:  Location on streets, perhaps a Texas belief that I have a right to be where I want to be NOW, and the unique traffic lights in Texas (horizontal instead of vertical) help to give one of the highest accident rates too.  I think there might be a lot of Texans who have trouble getting over the fact that the wide open spaces are past tense and that it has two of the top five or six cities in the United States today.   The second tape is like a Max Sennett comedy.  

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UOoRTBrtrA

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwcYcedLxZc

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzJ-o3WdXqY&feature=related 

DALLAS OPENED THEIR FIRST LIGHT RAIL LINE IN 1996.  There have been nine subsequent openings including the Green Line opening last December which was probably the most significant single opening in the USA in terms of mileage.   That one opening in December 2010 involved 28 miles of track at one time.    That opening pushed DART up to the largest light rail operator in the United States with 72 route miles and 58,000 daily riders.   (That's 805 passengers per mile compared to Houston's 5293.)   (I did not check their belief that they are largest ... certainly not in North America when you look at Toronto.)   There are six more extensions on the drawing boards.  In addition, the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority, a railfan operation, operates seven days a week and if enough volunteer operators cannot be found, paid operators are used.  DART subsidizes any MATA losses so it is included here with the other DART lines. McKinney Ave appears at 3:30 on the third video.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llcEHVOXpTY

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGSd_ZyhuJw&feature=related

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC-tcBjHhZ4&playnext=1&list=PL60B0487292FDD076

BACK IN 2004 THE CENTRAL ARKANSAS TRANSIT AUTHORITY BUILT A LOOP HERITAGE LINE IN LITTLE ROCK WITH A BRANCH TO THE CARBARN IN NORTH LITTLE ROCK.   THREE YEARS LATER IT WAS EXTENDED TO THE BILL CLINTON LIBRARY.  This is one of those "We looked at Tampa and Memphis and it worked there so it will work here pipe dreams."   In the video you will be able to count four people on the replica Birney!   CATA claimed they hauled 200,000 people in the first 365 days of operation ... that's 548 people per day.   With 744 trips a week, that resulted in an average load of 5 passengers per trip!    The number dropped from 200,000 to 154,000 in the second year or about 3 riders per trip!   The Mayor of North Little Rock was on it the day I rode.   He explained that it was hoped it would bring tourists to town.   North Little Rock had more empty buildings and for sale signs on its main street than I had seen in a long while ... it also had the biggest area mall within its corporate limits but it was downtown.   If you look at Google or Bing maps, downtown Little Rock is a cluster of parking lots hunting an anchor.   Replica streetcars do not an anchor make.   

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rll3Cu2q_5Y

BI-STATE TRANSIT AUTHORITY OPENED ITS FIRST LINE IN 1993 AND WITHIN ONE YEAR THE AGENCY WAS OPERATING CARS OVER 16.5 MILES OF TRACK IN MISSOURI AND ILLINOIS.   Another 17.4 miles over the L&N (or was it the Southern) east to Belleville opened in 2001 ... that resulted in extreme contrasts because now we could photograph trains passing through corn fields and past barns and silos.  The riding of 44,000 daily passengers was probably artificially large because the agency allowed riders to go from 17 miles east of downtown to 12 miles west of downtown for a single fare.   Today that is $2.25 but the fully allocated cost of driving would be $15 at 50 cents a mile.  Once the cross-county line opened in 2006, patronage jumped from about 44,000 to 77,000 a day.  There are several more light rail lines in the planning states and a trolley circulator.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dOC7MnLSOA&feature=related
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ph6olzQ-jc&feature=related
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN9olnv-TW8&feature=related

MINNEAPOLIS HAS THE ONLY REMAINING LARGE CITY LIGHT RAIL LINE WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI IN THE UNITED STATES.  Opened in 2004 in two stages and extended again in 2009, Metro Transit runs the Hiawatha Corridor line from Target Field (and the North Star commuter train station) through downtown to the Mall of America, a distance of 12.5 miles.   Some airports have people movers ... in Minneapolis the light rail offers free transportation between Humphrey and Lindburgh terminal buildings at the airport!   In 2010 the light rail riding surged to the highest level ever ... 202,000 a week or probably slightly over 30,000 on a weekday.  The additional 3,000 a day in 2010 probably was caused by the extension to Target Stadium and connecting passengers from Northstar commuter trains.   

As a sidebar:  Target field or stadium is the local sports venue on the north side of the city.   The major locally-owned downtown department store was Daytons.  It merged with Detroit's failing downtown department store, Hudsons and formed that second largest US suburban retailer today, behind WalMart, or Target stores.   Because Target is the local company, it makes sense that they would buy naming rights to the stadium.    

Minneapolis has hemorrhaged 27% of its population since 1950; St. Paul has lost only 9% (again, a capital city).   But the two counties (Hennepin and Ramsey) have grown from 1.03 million in 1950 to 1.662 million today.   The light rail lines are being engineered to bring people into city jobs from the suburbs.  

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUz9f9a2Zb0&feature=related

   The future?   After many protests by Minnesota Public Radio that their peace and quiet would be disturbed by light rail cars, that has been put to rest and construction of the 11-mile-long line in the Minneapolis - St. Paul intercity corridor via Washington and University Avenues will begin this spring.   Construction of a 15-mile-long southwest line was approved by Metropolitan Council last May.   The Intercity line will probably be the stronger of the two; the southwest line is using a railroad right-of-way to avoid the hassles of going where the people are.  