[PRCo] Re: Installment 4, Modern Light Rail and Subways

[Fred Schneider]

WMATA isn't as tame to photographers as it used to be either.   When you have a flock of accidents, you don't need photographers around to see what you do wrong.


On Mar 3, 2011, at 9:27 PM, richard allman wrote:

> you did push a button, my good old friend re: Maryland MTA transit cops/ 
> goons/ fat Nazi wannabes telling Jack May. Bob Dietrich and me that Homeland 
> Security says we cannot take photos of their precious light rail trains, 
> while less than 40 miles away, Wahington Metro-that Washington-home to DHS 
> explicitly welcomes photographers. The morons will inherit the earth...
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> To: <Pittsburgh-Railways at Dementia.Org>; "peter folger" 
> <transitman at maine.rr.com>; "Alan Schneider" <alschneider2 at juno.com>; "Dwight 
> Long" <dwightlong at verizon.net>; "Dick Hasselmen" <hassel8 at comcast.com>; 
> "Bruce C. Bente" <bbente at bellsouth.net>
> Cc: "Skip Gatermann" <biker4 at sbcglobal.net>; "Holtz Holtz" 
> <atholtz at optonline.net>; "Michael Greene" <michael_t_greene at yahoo.com>; 
> "Matt Nawn" <mwntrolley at aol.com>; "Conrad Misek" <crmisek at aol.com>; "Frank 
> Pfuhler" <PFUHLER at MSN.COM>; "E Casey" <ecasey9631 at aol.com>; "Vic Gordon" 
> <lipizzansvt2 at aol.com>; "David Dillard" <jwne at temple.edu>; "John Sikorskie" 
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> <dzimmer7 at gmail.com>; "James Knecht" <railfan1 at webtv.net>
> Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 9:02 AM
> Subject: [PRCo] Installment 4, Modern Light Rail and Subways
> 
> 
>> SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO ... YES GUYS ... SINCE 1898 IT HAS BEEN PART OF US 
>> ... IT WAS THE NEXT TO LAST NEW CITY TO GAIN FIXED GUIDEDWAY TRANSIT IN 
>> THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA.   Tren Urbano, the Heavy Rail line from 
>> Bayamón to Segrado Corazón (Sacred Heart University) opened in January 
>> 2005.  They claim over 35,000 passengers a day on the 10.7 mile line 
>> (about 3300 per route mile per day).  Almost all of it is above ground and 
>> there are a lot of good places for photography.  This was the first place 
>> on U. S. soil I saw a TD Bank (Toronto Dominion) and the last place I 
>> encountered an Esso gas station.   Great place to spend a January vacation 
>> if you live in Pittsburgh, Toronto, Boston, New York or Chicago.   Try the 
>> fried plantain ... interesting eating.   OK ... the last link are Puerto 
>> Rican foods to try if you go there.   The hotel and restaurant people all 
>> speak English but most Puerto Ricans have the same attitude the people up 
>> here have ... learning that other language c!
>> ompromises our culture.
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5acmIltQi8
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkVq4BuM8DQ
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-brbxL6BWo&NR=1
>> 
>>    http://www.whats4eats.com/content/puerto-rican-recipes-and-cuisine
>> 
>> NEW ORLEANS...My first visit to the Big Easy was in 1958 on a family 
>> vacation.   The Canal line swallowed up 50 cars in the rush hour, St. 
>> Charles needed 35.   That allowed 3 spares ... one in each car house and 
>> one in the shop.   The headways then:   Canal in the peak called for a car 
>> about every 45 seconds ... closed thing I ever saw to a moving sidewalk. 
>> St. Charles was closer to 3 minutes.
>> 
>> In the U. S. census, the peak population year was 1960.   Until then the 
>> south had white and black rest rooms, white and black theaters, white and 
>> black restaurants.   The streetcars were desegregated early in 1958. 
>> Seems that we really never learned how to live with each other.   I recall 
>> a conversation in the car shops in New Orleans in 1958 where one of the 
>> white mechanics was telling us how great one his black colleagues was. 
>> But the supervisor remarked, "But if he forgets to call me Sir, he will 
>> find his f-u-c-king black a-s-s on the floor looking up at me."   Very 
>> sad.
>> 
>> Well, the folks moved to the suburbs.   White suburbs to the west, black 
>> suburbs to the east.   Then the flood hit and one-third of those in 
>> Orleans Parish never came home.   Jefferson Parish, which was higher and 
>> more suburban, was less affected, only about 8 percent have not returned.
>> 
>> The carlines?   Canal's base headway today is a car every half hour!   St. 
>> Charles, historically the weaker of the two, is now better patronized 
>> because of tourists.  The first item is a link to the Europeans managing 
>> the agency.   Riding was back up to around 13,500 on weekdays in 2008. 
>> By the third quarter 2010 APTA reports show 17,300 on weekdays.
>> 
>> Fifty years ago Canal alone probably hauled 40,000 in just the morning and 
>> evening rush hours.
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtHcxsnx4uQ&NR=1
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CEVl5oVu94&feature=related
>> 
>> The future:   We had to believe, didn't we, that Washington will continue 
>> to plow money into a sinking city.   New Orleans RTA plans to build a loop 
>> streetcar line around the French Quarter and onto the Amtrak / Greyhound 
>> Station (1001 N. Loyola).   Amtrak schedules 10 arrivals and 10 departures 
>> a week.   They Greyhound map shows New Orleans only as a stub route from 
>> Biloxi to the east with the ticket office open thrice daily for two hours 
>> each time before each bus.
>> 
>> UP THE MISSISSIPPI ON THE EAST BANK IN THE LARGEST CITY IN TENNESSEE IS A 
>> HERITAGE TROLLEY LINE WITH TWO ROUTES, ONE OF WHICH WAS SHUT DOWN IN 2010. 
>> Memphis Area Transit Authority began with a 1.3 mile line in 1994, turned 
>> it into a 2.3 mile loop in 1997 and then added a 2.5 mile branch out East 
>> Madison St. as a possible precursor to an airport light rail line in 2004. 
>> The Madison St. line was supposed to serve two hospitals, one of which 
>> closed as soon as the line opened!   Average riding on Madison when I 
>> looked was about 3 people per trip.   Riding on the north-south line is 
>> heavily dependent on tourists to the clubs as most business has moved out 
>> of downtown.    Average weekday riding is around 3,800 a day but it is 
>> quite variable by season.   The first picture shows you an run a Melbourne 
>> center door car with one-man ... passengers are then asked to walk up 
>> front and pay the motorman.     The second link shows a Madison car with a 
>> light load (2 passengers) being wip!
>> ed out by a bicycle.    Third is a former Porto, Portugal car downtown ... 
>> count the people on the street.    The Madison line was shut down in 
>> September 2010 for rail bonding work ... issues with interference with 
>> other utilities ... something we seem to have forgotten over the years.
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY0JxUTPw8M
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZRxaFtCTHI&feature=related
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeQ-VT9JxgU&feature=related
>> 
>> ATLANTA ... NOW WE'RE TALKING SOMETHING THAT REALLY MADE SENSE ... THE 
>> MARTA SUBWAY.   Between 1979 and 2000, MARTA opened 63.5 miles of route. 
>> Of the subway systems in the USA, in total weekday passengers it comes in 
>> 7th between Philadelphia and PATH.  MARTA counts around 260,000 fares on a 
>> weekday, just a little more than PATH trains into New York City.  That's 
>> about 4100 passengers per route mile ... not quite what Houston does on 
>> the light rail but good.   Atlanta city is small ... only 540,000 but the 
>> metro area is home to about 5.5 million people.   Wikipedia claims it also 
>> has the nations fourth largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies.
>> 
>> I remember a business trip I had to make to Atlanta in the 1970s which 
>> gave me an opportunity to interview the MARTA planning people.   I asked 
>> for bus statistics and then their projections for the subway.   I went to 
>> the hotel that night and started crunching the numbers.   Next day I went 
>> back to them and said, "What 'ja do.   Take all the passengers on all the 
>> bus routes running any where near where the subway would run, and then 
>> count each person getting on and back off.  And a Five Points you count 
>> him back on another vehicle and back off again in the middle town to come 
>> up with your subway projections to send to UMTA?"   The numbers they 
>> submitted were four times the bus counts.   The face was a little red.
>> 
>> MARTA did something in those days that no other agency I ever encounter 
>> did.   They went door to door and asked why don't you use our service? 
>> That's a little different from just surveying the people who ride.
>> 
>>   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiUMWsP7WV4
>> 
>> BALTIMORE AND MIAMI WENT TOGETHER, IF MY MEMORY SERVES, ON AN EQUIPMENT 
>> ORDER FOR RAPID TRANSIT IN 1983-1984.
>> 
>> THE MARYLAND MASS TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION'S LINE FROM CHARLES CENTER TO 
>> REISTERTOWN, 8 MILES IN LENGTH, WAS THE FIRST TO OPEN.    It was extended 
>> 7 miles farther north to Owings Mills in 1987 and 1.5 miles east from 
>> Charles Center to to Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1995.   This made a lot of 
>> sense when construction was proposed.   Baltimore's population peaked in 
>> 1950 at 950,000 but dropped very slowly.   It was 905,000 in 1970.   The 
>> neighborhoods through which this line were run were still strongly white, 
>> Jewish when the plans were laid on the table but by the time it opened the 
>> people who were living there were no longer people who went downtown and 
>> downtown had collapsed.   About 15% of the population had hemorrhaged from 
>> the time planning started until the line opened!   The line only carries 
>> about 55,000 riders a day ... pretty sparse for investment that involved 
>> about five or six miles of subway tunnel.   By 2010 the city was down to 
>> 620,000 with blocks and blocks of vac!
>> ant real estate.   Look at all the seats in the train in the third video.
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xWKnilGOeM
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCVwt9r7nVw
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4H61yiMm8o&feature=related
>> 
>> Baltimore also opened the Central Light Rail Line from Timonium in April 
>> 1992 and progressively extended it so that by 2006 it was double-tracked 
>> and reached from both BWI Airport and Glen Burnie on the south of 
>> Baltimore to Hunt Valley on the north, a total of 30 miles.  Included in 
>> the mileage is also a branch to Penn Station.   Their passenger numbers 
>> have always been suspect.   During the recent recession, their passenger 
>> counts increased from 18,000 to 34,000 a day but every time I drive up the 
>> Jones Falls Expressway and pass a car, it's empty.   I've crunched some of 
>> their numbers and find their fleet cannot hold the riders they claim to 
>> carry.   Perhaps that is why the transit police run off people with 
>> cameras?  The first one is a nice video inside an empty train...
>> 
>>   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvlZV_8uKGA
>> 
>>   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z140LpqipM4&feature=related
>> 
>> MIAMI-DADE COUNTY TRANSPORTATION DEPARMENT OPENED ITS SOUTH LINE IN MAY 
>> 1984 FOLLOWED BY A NORTH LINE TO EARLINGTON HEIGHTS IN DECEMBER 1984 AND 
>> AN EXTENSION TO OKEECHOBEE IN MAY 1985. A short extension of 0.7 mile to 
>> Palmetto opened in 2003 bringing the system to 22.4 miles.   Like 
>> Baltimore, it is under utilized at 57,000 riders a day for a double-ended 
>> system with a city in the middle.   An airport extension is scheduled to 
>> open next year (2012) and two other extensions that could double the 
>> length of the system are on the drawing boards.  In order to minimize 
>> costs, much of this line was built along the right-of-way of the Florida 
>> East Coast Railroad. This keeps it out of the high rent district.   A 
>> downtown distributor people mover, called the Metromover, 3.5 miles in 
>> length, was created to bring people from the heavy rail system to the city 
>> but it requires a transfer and transfers have historically deterred 
>> riding.  Metromover transports about 26,000 people a day;  I a!
>> m not sure how you count people on Metromover because it is a totally free 
>> operation.
>> 
>> There can be no easy solutions here.   Subways are not simple because of 
>> the high water table in a sandy environment.
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USavhFJvzPs&feature=related
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHf6mQ8Rs0I
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvbKx2I5heQ&feature=related
>> 
>> JACKSONVILLE TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY OPERATES A 2.5 MILE PEOPLE MOVER 
>> THAT WAS OPENED IN 1989 AND EXTENDED IN 1998.   Because of the decline in 
>> the downtown area it serves only about 2100 people a day.
>> But if you are passing through Jacksonville and have an hour to kill, it's 
>> worth riding.
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMmSJraA6qM
>> 
>> THE HERITAGE STREETCAR LINE IN TAMPA, FLORIDA, (Tampa Electric Co. 
>> operated by Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority) OPENED A 2.4 
>> HERITAGE CARLINE IN 2002.  The short downtown extension downtown opened 
>> January 11, 2011.  Note the item from the Tampa Bay News where the 
>> politicians, at the dedication of the extension, think it should be 
>> extended farther north but there is an admission that the operating 
>> endowment is running out.   The line hauls between 800 and 1200 people a 
>> day depending on how many ships are in port at Channelside that month.
>> 
>> 
>> http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/news/2011/01/31/station-opening-completes-teco-line.html
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGqh-pEVLmY&NR=1
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSBRmcxrFUk&feature=related
>> 
>> SAVANNAH (Chatham Area Transit Authority) BUILT A HERITAGE TROLLEY LINE 
>> ABOUT A MILE LONG ON THE RIVER FRONT THAT OPENED IN 2009.   It uses one 
>> former Melbourne, Australia, tram driven by an on-board diesel-generator 
>> driven off waste oil from local restaurant deep fat friers.   It does not 
>> appear in the current APTA ridership numbers but it does appear on the 
>> agency website under free services.   When I was there, the operator was 
>> stopping and getting off the car to invite people to ride.   Like New 
>> Orleans, the area can be jammed with tourists in the summer.   It was put 
>> there for tourist promotion, not to haul the locals.
>> 
>>    http://www.connectonthedot.com/
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5K3IHlwPyY
>> 
>> CHARLOTTE'S LYNX LIGHT RAIL BEGAN LIFE AS THE RAILFAN-OPERATED CHARLOTTE 
>> TROLLEY RUNNING ON THE FORMER SOUTHERN LINE THAT WENT SOUTH TO COLUMBIA 
>> AND AUGUSTA.   THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT USURPED THE RIGHT-OF-WAY, EVICTED THE 
>> RAILFANS, AND BEGAN RUNNING LIGHT RAIL TRAINS IN 2007.   The railfan 
>> equipment was liquidated.   Mr. Crawford's Red Arrow car was moved to a 
>> warehouse.   The former Norfolk Birney wound up as a second car in Fort 
>> Collins, Colorado.   The single restored Charlotte car remained for 
>> special duty. A Gomaco heritage car (no. 92) ran service on weekends but 
>> budget cuts saw it removed from service with the schedule change of June 
>> 28, 2010.    Has light rail been successful?   Light rail in the banking 
>> capital of the south hauls one-fifth of all CATS riders.   As a heritage 
>> line it moved about 500 people a day; as a full-fledged light rail, the 10 
>> mile line hauls 20,000 a day ... not too shabby for a highly dispersed 
>> southern city.   This is one of those growth areas.!
>>   Unlike the northeast where cities grow smaller, Charlotte has gone from 
>> 134,000 in the 1950 census to more than 710,000 today.     Add a million 
>> to that for the two-state metro area.  There are plans for additional 
>> extensions but no money.    Hmmm.   Wonder what the Wachovia - Wells Fargo 
>> merger will do to employment there?   It was Wachovia's headquarters.
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0BxodAMy48&feature=fvsr
>> 
>>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=789NKyzcNeA&feature=related
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
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