Washington DC: Rail transit

[jmecklenborg]

The public never gets upset when a sports team or skyscraper gets a $40 million handout from the city or county for a parking garage. Where I live, if you contribute to the mayor's campaigns, he will build you a free parking garage.

Yet people are appalled by every single transit-related expense.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

The public never gets upset when a sports team or skyscraper gets a $40 million handout from the city or county for a parking garage. Where I live, if you contribute to the mayor's campaigns, he will build you a free parking garage.

Oh BS, people complain about handouts to sports teams or big buisness all the fucking time. It's brought up every time a new stadium is built and is a huge political issue.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

Fair enough, then we should stop funding highways as well.

"This subsidizing of car ownership costs the typical household about $1,100 per year—over and above the costs of gas taxes, tolls, and other user fees...

The average household travels something like 25K-30K passenger-miles by car every year so that subsidy is a few cents/mile. And certainly far less than transit, where revenue usually only covers a fraction of operating costs and nothing of capital costs.

[202_Cyclist]

Originally Posted by accord1999

The average household travels something like 25K-30K passenger-miles by car every year so that subsidy is a few cents/mile. And certainly far less than transit, where revenue usually only covers a fraction of operating costs and nothing of capital costs.

The $1,100 subsidy cited in the article is only for direct costs of highways-- it doesn't include the $1 trillion annual healthcare cost from auto accidents, the cost of emissions, air pollution, value of time lost to auto congestion, etc...

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

The $1,100 subsidy cited in the article is only for direct costs of highways-- it doesn't include the $1 trillion annual healthcare cost from auto accidents, the cost of emissions, air pollution, value of time lost to auto congestion, etc...

Versus the far larger benefits that fast, reliable private motorized transport brings which has resulted in the car being the dominant form of passenger travel in the developed world.

[Busy Bee]

Figures to back it up or it didn't happen

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Figures to back it up or it didn't happen

Europe:

Passenger cars accounted for 83.1 % of inland passenger transport in the EU-28 in 2015, with motor coaches, buses and trolley buses (9.2 %) and passenger trains (7.7 %) both accounting for less than a tenth of all traffic (measured by the number of inland passenger-kilometres (pkm) travelled by each mode)



https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statis...ort_statistics

A few countries more specifically

In Japan cars have a 60% share:

http://www.nikkoken.or.jp/pdf/public...15e/2015e2.pdf

Great Britain: The car has taken over 100% of passenger travel growth since 1952 and public transit travel today is less than it was in 1952.



https://assets.publishing.service.go...-summaries.pdf

Denmark: Talks a good game about bicycles but bikes less than it did in 1990 while driving more.

[Busy Bee]

I was referring to less of the "dominant mode" (no shit) and more to "the far larger benefits."

[jmecklenborg]

Yeah much of Europe is still rural just like how much of the United States is rural. You need a car to get around the countryside.

The big difference is that the downtowns haven't been leveled for parking lots and garages. Most U.S. cities have given over huge amounts of space for parking. Developers usually get huge tax breaks on the parking garages when a corrupt administration doesn't outright build garages for the developer on the public dime.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Oh BS, people complain about handouts to sports teams or big buisness all the fucking time. It's brought up every time a new stadium is built and is a huge political issue.

People who imagine themselves to be fiscal watchdogs have a Pavlovian response to transit projects far above those other things. Transit riders are lazy "takers", after all.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

People who imagine themselves to be fiscal watchdogs have a Pavlovian response to transit projects far above those other things. Transit riders are lazy "takers", after all.

Honestly, I think you're just projecting your own views here. I certainly don't get that sense. Sure, most every transit project has opponents, but so does most every road project, or pretty much any other type of large, expensive project.

However I think it also bears noting that transit projects in the US cost several multiples of similar projects in other countries and I don't see it as unduly critical to question just how much of this expense is necessary and how much is political largesse. Surely even the most pro-transit individual must have some limit of subsidy where even they cannot justify it. Is that limit $10,000/rider?, $25,000/rider or even $100,000/rider? Give me a number that sounds fair to you?

[jtown,man]

Washington DC is doing great finishing up the Silver line and starting the Purple line, two solid lines for the metro. My question is this though...Are there any real plans to expand within the city?

If the answer is no, still impressive they are building a new line to the airport and a suburban-only route.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Honestly, I think you're just projecting your own views here. I certainly don't get that sense. Sure, most every transit project has opponents, but so does most every road project, or pretty much any other type of large, expensive project.

However I think it also bears noting that transit projects in the US cost several multiples of similar projects in other countries and I don't see it as unduly critical to question just how much of this expense is necessary and how much is political largesse. Surely even the most pro-transit individual must have some limit of subsidy where even they cannot justify it. Is that limit $10,000/rider?, $25,000/rider or even $100,000/rider? Give me a number that sounds fair to you?

I think road projects almost never get real push back though. It is almost a given that its good for people, since most people drive.

Expanding our light rail from the Virginia Beach/Norfolk border to 'downtown' Virginia beach at a cost of like 300 million was killed because of costs. Yet a new tunnel connecting Norfolk and Hampton is approved with zero push back at a cost of like 4 billion.

Now, I get it, one rail line about 5-10k will use a day vs a major highway can make those cost per rider/user diminish, but nevertheless one was vilified and the other is a given..."of course we need to expand the tunnel." I dont think cost even matters to people, they just know they are getting an extra lane.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

I was referring to less of the "dominant mode" (no shit) and more to "the far larger benefits."

If Europeans didn't heavily value the benefits of cars so much, why would it grow >80% of all passenger travel even in the face of much higher fuel costs, purchase taxes, use fees and better transit competition. Nobody would accuse Europe of being pro-car and anti-transit like the US but it's not really far off from the US.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

has opponents, but so does most every road project, or pretty much any other type of large, expensive project.

No they don't. Real estate interests push and push against infrastructure projects of all types. Washington, DC is unique in that the government is the main employer, and as such, construction of the Metro system in the district was minimally controversial.

Many mid-sized U.S. cities are still lorded over by blue blood families who control real estate values through political connections at the local, state, and national level. These people literally put their henchmen in office for the purpose of creating a moat around their business interests, which include real estate. Those forces weren't at play in Washington, DC in the 1960s when Metro was planned.

In other cities, the places where subways could most economically be built didn't coincide with the long game played by the blue bloods, and so public transportation improvements had to be smeared. Its supporters were feminized. The up-front costs were emphasized. Transit is always "subsidized", whereas money-losing expressways and garages are an "investment".

Power is sources in a mastery of emotions, not facts. The nerd knows the facts, but he has no power.

Surely even the most pro-transit individual must have some limit of subsidy where even they cannot justify it. Is that limit $10,000/rider?, $25,000/rider or even $100,000/rider? Give me a number that sounds fair to you?

The costs of road and highway construction is not limited to the roadways themselves. A rail system's capital costs necessarily include the rail vehicles themselves, so a mile of highway does not equal a mile of rail transit. Meanwhile, the owner of a automobile often naively pays $10+ per day in depreciation. The underground public parking garages built in my city in the past ten years have averaged $40,000 per space. Each car commuter that switches over to the bus or rail is a structured parking space that doesn't need to be built.

[202_Cyclist]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Washington DC is doing great finishing up the Silver line and starting the Purple line, two solid lines for the metro. My question is this though...Are there any real plans to expand within the city?

If the answer is no, still impressive they are building a new line to the airport and a suburban-only route.

It isn't the region's core but WMATA is building an infill station at Potomac Yards on the Blue/Yellow lines. The station would be located between Reagan Airport and Braddock Road. This has been a fast-growing area of Alexandria.

Here is more information for the Potomac Yard station: https://www.alexandriava.gov/potomac....aspx?id=56902 .

As for DC, one of the reasons to build the streetcar was the recognition that there will be no new rail in the region's core for the foreseeable future and the streetcar would help to fill in the gaps of the metro-rail network. The streetcar project has proceeded in fits and starts but planning continues on the Union Station - Georgetown route.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

It isn't the region's core but WMATA is building an infill station at Potomac Yards on the Blue/Yellow lines. The station would be located between Reagan Airport and Braddock Road. This has been a fast-growing area of Alexandria.

Here is more information for the Potomac Yard station: https://www.alexandriava.gov/potomac....aspx?id=56902 .

As for DC, one of the reasons to build the streetcar was the recognition that there will be no new rail in the region's core for the foreseeable future and the streetcar would help to fill in the gaps of the metro-rail network. The streetcar project has proceeded in fits and starts but planning continues on the Union Station - Georgetown route.

Thanks for the response!

Is there a particular reason for no new subway routes other than money(which is obviously the biggest hurdle)? Is the streetcar route doing good as it stands today?

[VivaLFuego]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Is there a particular reason for no new subway routes other than money(which is obviously the biggest hurdle)?

WMATA and Metro are fundamentally a regional system - the entire ~103-mile "adopted regional system" that was ultimately completed by the early 2000s was the negotiated full package "all-or-nothing" system that spread the peanut butter around in such a way as to give every participating jurisdiction what it wanted for what it considered its fair share of the local match costs of building and operating the system.

Any major expansions beyond the ARS are generally subject to the ability of the jurisdiction benefitting to get it funded - hence why MWAA and Virginia are building the Silver Line to hand over to WMATA, why DC built its own streetcar, why Maryland MTA is building its own Purple Line, etc.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by VivaLFuego

WMATA and Metro are fundamentally a regional system - the entire ~103-mile "adopted regional system" that was ultimately completed by the early 2000s was the negotiated full package "all-or-nothing" system that spread the peanut butter around in such a way as to give every participating jurisdiction what it wanted for what it considered its fair share of the local match costs of building and operating the system.

Any major expansions beyond the ARS are generally subject to the ability of the jurisdiction benefitting to get it funded - hence why MWAA and Virginia are building the Silver Line to hand over to WMATA, why DC built its own streetcar, why Maryland MTA is building its own Purple Line, etc.

Interesting, thanks for the info!

[Busy Bee]

Holy Cow! Welcome back Viva!