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  #2781  
Old Posted Jan 27, 2013, 7:21 PM
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Originally Posted by nixcity View Post
What percentage of the 2000 LR proposal's projected ridership would have been from Leander stop to Crestview?
It's not realistic to divide it like that - some prospective 2000 riders from far up north would have wanted to get off at UT, and don't take the Red Line because of the shuttle. Likewise, some prospective 2000 riders would have embarked downtown to go to UT or vice-versa. A few brave souls might even have gone from UT to IBM (college co-ops, let's say). Quite a few UT people riding the Pickle shuttle would likely have been made to switch to LRT + local shuttle up there, too.

You can make some educated guesses, though; the projected ridership for the 2000 light rail plan, which served the current Red Line passengers as well or better, was 30-40,000 boardings/day, depending on where the first segment would have started (some had it in Leander, others at Howard Lane). Now that the Red Line is operating essentially all the time, it's carrying 2000-2500 boardings/day.

By the way, in 1997ish, Capital Metro actually tried to propose true light rail on the Red Line path (never going down Guadalupe and Lamar, but building full electrified double-track and running at LRT frequency), and the Feds laughed them out of the building. That tells you the Red Line will never grow into a light-rail-like facility. Never ever ever.
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  #2782  
Old Posted Jan 28, 2013, 8:17 AM
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Originally Posted by M1EK View Post
The city was going to allow dedicated lanes in the 2000 light rail plan. We don't need to hypothesize about it; I've seen the engineering drawings, even for the very difficult stretch from 27th to 29th.

I like any proposal that goes places people want to go, and is congestion-proof. The Red Line goes to shitty places; and the city's urban rail plan (like Rapid Bus), is going to be stuck behind cars turning right downtown, and stuck behind cars going straight in other places.
I agree running streetcars in shared lanes is going to cause delays, stop lights were going to do so anyways. All that's gained by dedicated lanes is the streetcar being the first car stopped at the light, instead of being potentially last - and not having vehicles stalled or broken down in front of them. Dedicated lanes are sweeter than shared lanes.

Since you claim to have seen them, how many lanes were left on Guadeloupe Street for traffic and how many lanes were left for parking?
http://old.capmetro.org/view/News/Ye...itigation.HTML
11. Every effort will be made to design a transit system that minimizes impacts on current traffic patterns. The proposed transit system will be designed to maintain traffic capacity through affected corridors. (An exception to this goal may be along Guadalupe Street between Martin Luther King Boulevard and 30th Street (“The Drag”), where one option is to incorporate light rail into an urban redesign of that street as part of a new traffic circulation plan for the greater downtown area.)

Just wanted to point out that everyone was aware that there was going to be difficulties putting light rail through "The Drag".

I read a news story stating that CapMetro board voted to continued the PR/DEIS in December 2000 after the failed vote, but I can't find it anywhere on the internet. Do you know a good link to it, or was it ever released to the public? I have found maps of the proposed 2000 routes, but not engineering drawings.
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  #2783  
Old Posted Jan 29, 2013, 3:47 PM
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Originally Posted by electricron View Post
I agree running streetcars in shared lanes is going to cause delays, stop lights were going to do so anyways. All that's gained by dedicated lanes is the streetcar being the first car stopped at the light, instead of being potentially last - and not having vehicles stalled or broken down in front of them. Dedicated lanes are sweeter than shared lanes.
Nope - it's much more than that. Lanes on Guadalupe (note spelling) during the afternoon rush are often backed up 5 or more traffic lights (i.e. the four lights in front of you are green, and you still can't move).

And the concept that you can share with just right-turning cars and get 99% of the benefit of a true dedicated lane is ludicrous too - all you have to do is make the mistake of being in the right lane on Guadalupe when the light turns green at Dean Keeton and notice how long you have to wait behind the guy in front of you who wants to turn right but has to wait for dozens of pedestrians first.

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Since you claim to have seen them, how many lanes were left on Guadeloupe Street for traffic and how many lanes were left for parking?
South of 27th, it was 1 car lane each way, 1 bike lane each way, limited parking. 27th to 30th, 1 bike lane each way, 1 car lane 1-way (nearby streets used for alternate travel).

1 car lane + 1 transit lane similar to design in parts of Houston Medical Center with similar traffic conditions.
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  #2784  
Old Posted Jan 29, 2013, 6:51 PM
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Originally Posted by M1EK View Post
South of 27th, it was 1 car lane each way, 1 bike lane each way, limited parking. 27th to 30th, 1 bike lane each way, 1 car lane 1-way (nearby streets used for alternate travel).

1 car lane + 1 transit lane similar to design in parts of Houston Medical Center with similar traffic conditions.
Traffic conditions wouldn't be similar. Where METRO has one lane each for transit and traffic in each direction, with both directions on the same street, there's adjacent couplets on one side at least to handle through traffic. That wouldn't be so in Austin. The adjacent streets in Austin aren't through streets, they end requiring through traffic to make turns. Main Sreet in downtown Houston also has adjacent couplets to handle through traffic.

The only way I can see the urban street proposal working is routing through traffic to an immediate adjacent street couplet. Was that part of the 2000 plan?
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  #2785  
Old Posted Jan 29, 2013, 7:41 PM
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Originally Posted by electricron View Post
Traffic conditions wouldn't be similar. Where METRO has one lane each for transit and traffic in each direction, with both directions on the same street, there's adjacent couplets on one side at least to handle through traffic. That wouldn't be so in Austin. The adjacent streets in Austin aren't through streets, they end requiring through traffic to make turns. Main Sreet in downtown Houston also has adjacent couplets to handle through traffic.

The only way I can see the urban street proposal working is routing through traffic to an immediate adjacent street couplet. Was that part of the 2000 plan?
There's other streets in West Campus that can be used - but it's not quite as convenient as the Main Street case in Houston.

Here's the picture (reconstructed by me through my massive MSPaint skills) of the engineering drawings planned for 2000. http://m1ek.dahmus.org/?p=751
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  #2786  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2013, 5:26 AM
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When it comes to minimum street/rail corridor widths, the Seattle light rail line on MLK provides excellent examples. Squeezing the corridor tighter will be unsafely uncomfortable for trains, vehicles, and pedestrians. The light rail line runs down the middle of the street.
MLK in Seattle generally has 10 feet wide traffic lanes.
100 feet for 4 traffic lanes, 2 tracks, and 2 side platforms
90 feet for 4 traffic lanes, 2 tracks and 1 island platform
70 feet for 4 traffic lanes and 2 tracks.

Metro running on Main Street in downtown Houston makes a better example for running dedicated lanes in tight quarters.
It's minimum width is 55 feet for 2 traffic lanes and 2 tracks in the middle of the street, with a small 10 feet wide landscaped median between the tracks .
It's also 55 feet wide for 2 traffic lanes, 2 tracks in the middle of the street, and just 1 side platform 10 feet wide at its maximum.
The traffic lanes in downtown Houston are also 10 feet wide.
If we dropped the 10 feet wide landscaped median, the corridor width should reach 45 feet, but that requires some distance to accomplish from a station location. In Houston, north of I-45, its station on the first block, station on the second block, median on the third and fourth blocks, station on the fifth and sixth blocks, etc. That's an equivalent station spacing every four blocks. That doesn't leave much room to narrowing down to 45 feet then expand out to 55 feet again. That's why they don't do it in Houston. It's probably doable in Austin if station spacing was increased. But will 45 feet be enough considering Main Street in downtown Houston is perfectly straight, Guadalupe and Lamar Streets in Austin aren't. It'll require more clearance between the tracks because of the curves, although I don't know how much.

Looking at Guadalupe Street between MLK and 30th Street in Austin, all the lanes are generally 10 feet wide, including turn lanes and parking lanes. Where the street is 4 lanes wide, 40 feet. Where the street is 5 lanes wide, 50 feet (4 traffic lanes plus 1 turning lane or parking lane). Where the street is 6 lanes wide (4 traffic lanes, 1 turning lane, and 1 parking lane), 60 feet. Most of the route will support 2 traffic lanes and 2 tracks in the center, not all. None of the route supports any standard platforms within the street between the curves with tracks running down the center of the street. The train platforms will have to be outside the existing curbs, meaning placing the tracks in the outside (right) lanes. Exactly what bus, rapid bus plans and streetcar lanes/tracks will be located.

There aren't many places along the route where the street can be widen, although I believe the 40 feet sections can be widen to achieve a width of 45 feet for center running. Moving the tracks from the center to the outside lanes of the street only saves around 5 feet, the space needed for clearance between the trains and catenary poles.
South of MLK in downtown Austin there's plenty of room for dedicate track lanes, north of 29th Street there is to, with 60 feet to work with. But even at 60 feet street width, you wont't be seeing 4 traffic lanes and 2 tracks with stations in the center of the street until you reach Airport Blvd. North of Airport Blvd, Lamar's width increases to 80 feet. So, between MLK and Airport, were discussing 2 center running tracks and 2 traffic lanes. Or 2 tracks in the outside lanes with 4 traffic lanes in the center, with station platform placed outside the curbs on the existing sidewalk locations. Only north of Airport can you keep 4 traffic lanes and 2 center running tracks with station platforms between the existing curbs. There's 1 mile between MLK and 29th Street., where there are significant challenges providing dedicated center lanes for tracks.
Considering light rail will probably run in an outside "right" lane on the one-way street couplet in downtown Austin for 1.25 miles, in the outside "right" lane an additional mile in "The Drag", and an additional 3.25 miles in the outside "right" lane up to Airport, is light rail the best solution for Austin? It's 5 miles running in the right outside lane to maximize 4 traffic lanes as much as possible, still with just 2 traffic lanes in "The Drag" in the center of the route. I'm thinking that it might be best to share the right lane with traffic over just this one mile, and minimize the stations here as well to keep traffic moving as much as possible, even if that means the trains are delayed some. Otherwise, if you need dedicated lanes here as well for the trains, it's time to think going up and over the traffic for this mile.

Looking in the southern direction, South Congres minimum width is 70 feet wide. There are locations where it's 80 and 90 feet wide when including parking spaces. Tracks in the center with station platforms and maintaining 4 traffic lanes will be far easier to implement.

Of course, there's always the option of widening the streets by spending lots of money to buy the expanded right of way. An additional 20 feet would be nice in "The Drag" one mile section so 4 lanes can still be used by traffic while dedicated lanes for 2 tracks.

Another out of the box solution to consider is to single track that one mile of "The Drag". Not sure it will help much with traffic, but leaves options to have 3 lanes for traffic, 2 through lanes and 1 turning lane. Even averaging a slow 10 mph for the one mile, it'll only take 6 minutes for a train to transverse that mile, that would support up to 10 trains with 12 minute headways in both directions. And I'm sure a train could average faster, like 30 mph, in a dedicated lane. That would lower the elapse time over that mile to 2 minutes, allowing up to 30 trains with 4 minute headways. This would make this one mile the choke point of the rail system, but it is going to be anyways.

By the way, that drawing of yours is just a line on a street map. A preliminary engineering drawing looks like what in this link for the Oak Cliff streetcar project changes.
http://www.dart.org/ShareRoot/about/...lAppendixF.pdf

Last edited by electricron; Jan 30, 2013 at 6:08 AM.
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  #2787  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2013, 11:40 PM
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In the areas where room is limited, such as along the stretch of Guadalupe, they should put the tracks under the street in a tunnel. Sure it's expensive, but that is the correct solution. If they can do it in Austin for the massive Waller Creek flood control tunnel, and the giant downtown Austin waste water tunnel, they should do it for transit.

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  #2788  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2013, 3:49 PM
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electricron, I did not say those were engineering drawings; I said they were my recreation of the routing of the lanes.

The roadway south of 24th is quite a bit wider than you think. The parking lane is actually wider than standard, and there are wide bike lanes on both sides too. Nobody here had any major concerns about that stretch of Guadalupe at the time.
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  #2789  
Old Posted Feb 2, 2013, 4:45 PM
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Originally Posted by electricron View Post

Since you claim to have seen them, how many lanes were left on Guadeloupe Street for traffic and how many lanes were left for parking?
http://old.capmetro.org/view/News/Ye...itigation.HTML
11. Every effort will be made to design a transit system that minimizes impacts on current traffic patterns. The proposed transit system will be designed to maintain traffic capacity through affected corridors. (An exception to this goal may be along Guadalupe Street between Martin Luther King Boulevard and 30th Street (“The Drag”), where one option is to incorporate light rail into an urban redesign of that street as part of a new traffic circulation plan for the greater downtown area.)

Just wanted to point out that everyone was aware that there was going to be difficulties putting light rail through "The Drag".

I read a news story stating that CapMetro board voted to continued the PR/DEIS in December 2000 after the failed vote, but I can't find it anywhere on the internet. Do you know a good link to it, or was it ever released to the public? I have found maps of the proposed 2000 routes, but not engineering drawings.
Sorry to be jumping into the conversation so late. I've been too busy lately to participate much.

The PE/DEIS was completed under a partnership between Capital Metro and the City of Austin called The Rapid Transit Project. It was shelved in 2004, and to my knowledge, never published.

Several alignment alternatives were examined in the UT area. The most favored one was a broad one-way couplet around campus. It consisted of a single dedicated northbound track in the right had curb lane on MLK and Guadalupe, and a similar southbound track on Dean Keaton and San Jacinto. Double tracks extended south on San Jacinto from MLK, and north on Guadalupe from Dean Keaton.

UT really like this option because they saw the potential of running a separate dedicated shuttle on the same tracks around campus. This rail shuttle would replace the current bus based shuttle.

The argument that we need rail on the drag to serve West Campus does not hold much water for me. The vast majority of West Campus residents are UT students. Their daily commute consists of walking or cycling on the east-west numbered streets to and from campus. The majority of West Campus is within easy walking distance of the drag. No form of transit on the drag, whether rail or bus would serve this population's daily commute pattern. However, if you were to imagine rail extending from the campus loop down 24th to Lamar, it would be able to serve even the most remote parts of West Campus, as well as the far east side of UT.

Me1K's crude sketch of the rail configuration at 29th is fairly accurate. If you look up the Central Austin Combined Neighborhood Plan (I think that was what it was called), there is a little more refined urban design sketch of the area. It was based on the engineering plans, but rendered to be more legible for the general public. I'll look it up and link here if I can find it after posting.

ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/npzd/Austi...ombined-np.pdf
pages 205-207 of the plan.

Last edited by SecretAgentMan; Feb 2, 2013 at 4:54 PM. Reason: added link
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  #2790  
Old Posted Feb 4, 2013, 6:18 AM
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http://www.statesman.com/news/news/l...hen-hit/nWFB8/
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Posted: 4:33 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013
Weekend MetroRail a now-and-then hit

By Ben Wear
American-Statesman Staff

MetroRail weekend service, touted as potentially wildly popular when city of Austin officials agreed to pay for it a year ago, generally sees fewer riders than regular weekday trains.

The new train runs, officials said last year, held the potential of coming closer to paying for operating costs than MetroRail’s regular weekday service, which makes less than 5 cents in fare revenue for every dollar spent by Capital Metro to run the 32-mile line from Leander to downtown Austin.

But based on the first nine-plus months of service, the 40 added train runs on typical Friday nights and Saturdays are averaging about 50 passengers per run, less than half the train’s seated capacity of 108. And the $150,000 or so the added trains are estimated to generate in the first year is about 8 percent of the $1.85 million the city is paying annually for Capital Metro to run them.

Despite the low return from fares, however, MetroRail’s financial picture has substantially improved thanks to federal largess. A $9 million federal grant that Capital Metro received for the first time last year for MetroRail (and expects to continue to get annually), along with that city money and about $500,000 this year in fare revenue for weekday service, means that the commuter line is much closer to covering its $14.5 million annual operating cost than in its first two years.
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  #2791  
Old Posted Feb 4, 2013, 9:25 AM
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Sorry to be jumping into the conversation so late. I've been too busy lately to participate much.

The PE/DEIS was completed under a partnership between Capital Metro and the City of Austin called The Rapid Transit Project. It was shelved in 2004, and to my knowledge, never published.

The argument that we need rail on the drag to serve West Campus does not hold much water for me. The vast majority of West Campus residents are UT students. Their daily commute consists of walking or cycling on the east-west numbered streets to and from campus. The majority of West Campus is within easy walking distance of the drag. No form of transit on the drag, whether rail or bus would serve this population's daily commute pattern. However, if you were to imagine rail extending from the campus loop down 24th to Lamar, it would be able to serve even the most remote parts of West Campus, as well as the far east side of UT.

I'll look it up and link here if I can find it after posting.

ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/npzd/Austi...ombined-np.pdf
pages 205-207 of the plan.
Thanks for posting that link. It confirms much of what I wrote earlier. 2 dedicated lanes for tracks and 2 traffic lanes for at least a mile, more likely for more than 4 miles. Where the corridor was too tight for even that, 2 dedicated lanes for tracks and just one traffic lane.

They planned on 11 feet wide traffic lanes and 13 feet wide dedicated lanes for tracks - only 11 feet wide at stations. They were able to maintain 5 feet wide bike lanes. At the stations shown, platforms were around 15 feet wide whether an island or side platforms. From curb to curb, the 2000 plan required
<5 feet bike lane><11 feet traffic><26 feet train><11 feet traffic><5 feet bike> = 58 feet. Add 15 feet or so for an island platform = 73 feet.

The 2000 plan did not send light rail north of Airport, turning instead onto the rail corridor. If the light rail line continued on Lamar north of Airport, Lamar would need to be 20 feet wider for 2 additional traffic lanes with bike lanes, or 10 feet wider without the bike lanes. That's 78 or 68 feet between stations, and 93 or 83 feet at island platform stations. I don't see how there could be 4 lanes of traffic on Lamar south of Airport. And some sort of time or physical separation between light rail and commuter rail would be required to be built at the train corridor

So, traffic heading north of the couplet pair inn downtown Austin, which is effectively a 3 to 4 lane one way street is reduced to just 1 northbound lane. If you think traffic backs up now, imagine how much worse it would have been using this plan. Half the existing traffic on the corridor would have to disappear, reroute, or take the train.

Last edited by electricron; Feb 4, 2013 at 9:39 AM.
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  #2792  
Old Posted Feb 4, 2013, 3:01 PM
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And some sort of time or physical separation between light rail and commuter rail would be required to be built at the train corridor
Commuter rail wouldn't have existed (at least not yet) if the 2000 plan would have passed. What you need to worry about (and what I've never seen adequately explained) is the freight traffic in that corridor.

Of course, that wouldn't have been an issue to start, as I believe an extension through that right-of-way was in the "eventual buildout" plan, not the initial plan.
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  #2793  
Old Posted Feb 4, 2013, 8:31 PM
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Commuter rail wouldn't have existed (at least not yet) if the 2000 plan would have passed. What you need to worry about (and what I've never seen adequately explained) is the freight traffic in that corridor.

Of course, that wouldn't have been an issue to start, as I believe an extension through that right-of-way was in the "eventual buildout" plan, not the initial plan.
Take a look at DART's Blue Line through Garland and Rowlett and its Green Line east of White Rock Creek, for examples where freight and light rail tracks share the same corridor. CapMetro could do the same just as easily, west of Lamar crossing there is plenty of right of way for three tracks, where not check out DART's Green Line through Carrollton. Where there is a will and money, there is a way. Or, they could use temporal separation just like they do now with the non FRA compliant GTWs.
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  #2794  
Old Posted Feb 4, 2013, 8:56 PM
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Take a look at DART's Blue Line through Garland and Rowlett and its Green Line east of White Rock Creek, for examples where freight and light rail tracks share the same corridor. CapMetro could do the same just as easily, west of Lamar crossing there is plenty of right of way for three tracks, where not check out DART's Green Line through Carrollton. Where there is a will and money, there is a way. Or, they could use temporal separation just like they do now with the non FRA compliant GTWs.
Are we talking about the same section? The intersection of airport and Lamar, at what is now Midtown Commons, where the rail line continues northwest through the Crestview and Wooten neighborhoods?
There's no way there's sufficient right of way in that corridor for three lines ( freight and bidirectional light rail). It's like twenty feet, barely sufficient (maybe) for bidirectional passenger lines.

As for temporal separation, I recall even with temporal separation capmetro had to get a waiver for the noncompliant vehicles, and even then they had to do some modifications to strengthen them. I'm not sure of the odds of the FRA accepting even lighter vehicles.
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  #2795  
Old Posted Feb 4, 2013, 9:10 PM
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Now that the Red Line is operating essentially all the time, it's carrying 2000-2500 boardings/day.
You and I have _vastly_ different definitions of "all the time". The red line runs basically once a half hour in the morning and afternoon, a few times in the middle of the day, Friday evening/night and Saturday evening/night (at hour intervals).

It doesn't run:
Anything approaching frequently
Weekday evenings
Weekday nights
Saturday during the day(starts at 4pm)
Late night friday(after midnight)
Late night Saturday
Sunday

All the time?

If it did run at all those times, you can bet that the ridership would be higher than 2500.
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  #2796  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2013, 1:28 AM
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You and I have _vastly_ different definitions of "all the time". The red line runs basically once a half hour in the morning and afternoon, a few times in the middle of the day, Friday evening/night and Saturday evening/night (at hour intervals).

It doesn't run:
Anything approaching frequently
Weekday evenings
Weekday nights
Saturday during the day(starts at 4pm)
Late night friday(after midnight)
Late night Saturday
Sunday

All the time?

If it did run at all those times, you can bet that the ridership would be higher than 2500.
I don't agree. Ridership might go up some, but not as much as you hope. CapMetro and DCTA may run similar GTWs, and Denton and Travis Counties are both in Texas, they aren't identical sisters economically. But they operate in very similar fuel and labor markets when it comes to costs. DCTA runs some late night trains on Fridays and Saturdays. Here's their ridership statistics.
December 2012
Monthly: 30,474
Average Weekday: 1,409
Morning Commute: (Northbound): 3,398 (Southbound): 8,251
Midday: (Northbound): 1,948 (Southbound): 2,650
Evening Commute: (Northbound): 8,372 (Southbound): 3,568
Friday Late Evening: 170 (that's over four Fridays)
Saturday (all day): 2,287
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...34#post6001134

FYI, Denton has two state universities with large student populations. Averaging less than 43 passengers per Friday late evening service has been a severe disappointment. I don't expect late evening services to extend beyond the test period.
DCTA has a mixed environment waiver CapMetro doesn't have. CapMetro will need the late evening/early morning time availability for freight trains as midday services increase.

P.S. It sure would be nice if CapMetro provided ridership stats as nice as DCTA does on its website.
Note: December is not DCTA's best for riders, the universities aren't in session for the entire month because of the holidays.

Last edited by electricron; Feb 5, 2013 at 1:52 AM.
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  #2797  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2013, 4:31 PM
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I don't agree. Ridership might go up some, but not as much as you hope. CapMetro and DCTA may run similar GTWs, and Denton and Travis Counties are both in Texas, they aren't identical sisters economically. But they operate in very similar fuel and labor markets when it comes to costs. DCTA runs some late night trains on Fridays and Saturdays. Here's their ridership statistics.
December 2012
Monthly: 30,474
Average Weekday: 1,409
Morning Commute: (Northbound): 3,398 (Southbound): 8,251
Midday: (Northbound): 1,948 (Southbound): 2,650
Evening Commute: (Northbound): 8,372 (Southbound): 3,568
Friday Late Evening: 170 (that's over four Fridays)
Saturday (all day): 2,287
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...34#post6001134

FYI, Denton has two state universities with large student populations. Averaging less than 43 passengers per Friday late evening service has been a severe disappointment. I don't expect late evening services to extend beyond the test period.
DCTA has a mixed environment waiver CapMetro doesn't have. CapMetro will need the late evening/early morning time availability for freight trains as midday services increase.

P.S. It sure would be nice if CapMetro provided ridership stats as nice as DCTA does on its website.
Note: December is not DCTA's best for riders, the universities aren't in session for the entire month because of the holidays.
I'm not very familiar with DCTA (so I can't really speak to the location of stations and if they're close to anything), but there seem to be a few problems with the comparison (beyond the one that you mentioned, that December is the least useful month to look at, due to the lack of students.).

1. Austin is 8 times the size of Denton.

2. The late night service they run is 2 runs per night. Making it hard to rely on (if you run just a bit late you're screwed, miss the 11:55 run and you have to wait 2 hours until the next).

3. It has the same problem as the Austin "late night" service, in that it's not really late night. It ends before closing time.

4. Also like Austin, the later runs don't even run the full length.
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  #2798  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2013, 6:45 PM
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Originally Posted by Novacek View Post
I'm not very familiar with DCTA (so I can't really speak to the location of stations and if they're close to anything), but there seem to be a few problems with the comparison (beyond the one that you mentioned, that December is the least useful month to look at, due to the lack of students.).

1. Austin is 8 times the size of Denton.

2. The late night service they run is 2 runs per night. Making it hard to rely on (if you run just a bit late you're screwed, miss the 11:55 run and you have to wait 2 hours until the next).

3. It has the same problem as the Austin "late night" service, in that it's not really late night. It ends before closing time.

4. Also like Austin, the later runs don't even run the full length.
Excellent points about how poor the late night services are. But they're poorly timed for many reasons.
1) Train engineers, drivers, motormen, or whatever they are called in your city, have full time positions. They aren't part time employees. Obviously they run two shifts for these full time employees at CapMetro, not three.
2) The EIS used by the agencies avoided late night trains to avoid building more sound walls, or higher and more expensive noise abatement measures. You avoid the more noise restriction levels set by law by not running the trains when most people are sleeping. CapMetro would have to get federal approval to change the EIS.
3) Most cities with around the clock transit operations have transit in place before noise abatement regulations were enacted. They also have double track main lines so they can take one track out of service and still run trains. Austin isn't so lucky on both counts.
4) Increase costs of operations is always a huge stumbling block to step over.
5) Potential ridership just isn't there. You made the argument that there would be more later, but the fact is there isn't enough to keep the trains running until then. Diesel engines aren't stopped and restarted as frequently as gasoline engines, there is a reason why they idle for much longer periods of time to avoid frequent restarts.

I'd already admitted Denton and Travis County aren't the same, they never will be. DCTA must be doing very well relative to Cap Metro, 1400 average daily riders vs 2,400, not bad for a county with one-eight the population, Never-the-less, late evening ridership falls off percentage wise just about the same everywhere, including in cities with around the clock trains. Austin just doesn't have the population to support late night transit. If it makes you feel better, double DCTA's 170 late Friday night ridership to 340 for Cap Metro, still nowhere near enough.

Last edited by electricron; Feb 5, 2013 at 7:22 PM.
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  #2799  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2013, 8:29 PM
austlar1 austlar1 is online now
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"...not bad for a county with one-eight the population". Typo perhaps??

Fact check- Denton County population circa 2010- 686,000
Travis County population circa 2010- 1,063,000
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  #2800  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2013, 8:59 PM
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electricron electricron is offline
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Originally Posted by austlar1 View Post
"...not bad for a county with one-eight the population". Typo perhaps??

Fact check- Denton County population circa 2010- 686,000
Travis County population circa 2010- 1,063,000
Wow! Not as bad as I thought. But, I wasn't the first to suggest Austin was eight times larger than Denton. Never-the-less, late night ridership will be proportionally just as bad, which is the point I've been making over three replies now. So far, not one has counter argued that point successfully.
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