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  #1  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2022, 12:30 AM
lrt's friend lrt's friend is offline
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Cities Making the Most and Least Transit Progress

Share what you think are the North American cities currently making the most transit progress and which cities are the worst laggards.
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  #2  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2022, 7:28 AM
SFBruin SFBruin is offline
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I honestly have no idea.

Seattle's making progress, largely through a lot of funding.

I assume it's a little more than most.
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  #3  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2022, 2:29 PM
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Miami is currently being connected to Orlando by high speed rail and has plans to expand the metro rail (heavy rail), metro mover (downtown people mover), and add an additional commuter rail line on the east side of South Florida (same tracks the HSR run on). It's
far from being the most, but, there is hope. Hopefully it all happens.
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  #4  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2022, 5:24 PM
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The worst laggards have got to be in the Midwest. Conservative state/county governments plus stagnant populations don't lead to much popular demand for transit. It also seems to correspond with how toxic the racial attitudes are - you need regional support from cities and suburbs alike to fund and operate a major transit system, but if the white suburbs hate the black inner-city then there won't be much progress on transit.

Detroit, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Cincinnati all failed to pass regional transit initiatives, but managed to build miniature streetcar lines because the core cities could build those on their own with Federal grants. Indy is a similar story, but there the core city is building BRT instead of streetcars. And since it's the state capital, the legislature keeps trying to kill it.

Cleveland has a legacy rail system that was modernized decades ago and now is crumbling. There is no money to replace railcars or rebuild/maintain track and infrastructure.

Columbus seems to have zero interest in regional transit, despite strong growth/gentrification in inner-city neighborhoods.

St Louis built 2 light rail lines, but lost its appetite for future expansions.

Chicago has an enormous legacy transit system, but it seems the best we can do is tread water rather than expanding the system or reworking it for 21st-century needs.

Only Minneapolis really has an aggressive transit expansion program, so they would be the clear leader in the Midwest... but it still doesn't compare to what LA, Denver, Seattle, or Dallas are doing. Or even Austin for that matter.
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  #5  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2022, 5:36 PM
jmecklenborg jmecklenborg is offline
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Originally Posted by ardecila View Post
It also seems to correspond with how toxic the racial attitudes are - you need regional support from cities and suburbs alike to fund and operate a major transit system, but if the white suburbs hate the black inner-city then there won't be much progress on transit.
Throughout the Midwest, black residents are moving out to postwar suburbs and the children of white suburbanites are moving into the cities to take their place. This is happening on a pretty large scale.
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  #6  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2022, 6:05 PM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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Throughout the Midwest, black residents are moving out to postwar suburbs and the children of white suburbanites are moving into the cities to take their place. This is happening on a pretty large scale.
i would characterize that as all the poors are getting pushed out to the banlieues as whitey has rediscovered downtown.
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  #7  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2022, 1:34 PM
jtown,man jtown,man is offline
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i would characterize that as all the poors are getting pushed out to the banlieues as whitey has rediscovered downtown.
That would be false though.

In Chicago, poor blacks are leaving areas of the city that no one with a choice would move to. Its not like we are swapping out one black resident with one white resident. Whites are mostly moving to areas that are either sparsely populated (relatively) or populated with mostly white or Hispanic populations.


But the narrative sure does sound good:

Whites are moving back in and raising prices which are kicking out blacks!

Nope, whites moving to the South Loop are not causing blacks to leave Englewood. Englewoods insane crime rate and lack of opportunity are forcing blacks to leave.
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  #8  
Old Posted Jan 15, 2022, 5:55 PM
Emprise du Lion Emprise du Lion is offline
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Originally Posted by ardecila View Post
The worst laggards have got to be in the Midwest. Conservative state/county governments plus stagnant populations don't lead to much popular demand for transit. It also seems to correspond with how toxic the racial attitudes are - you need regional support from cities and suburbs alike to fund and operate a major transit system, but if the white suburbs hate the black inner-city then there won't be much progress on transit.

St Louis built 2 light rail lines, but lost its appetite for future expansions.
We've been studying a north/south line for the MetroLink for God knows how many years at this point, but there's very little movement. MetroLink ridership also has been declining for years, even before the pandemic, so I wouldn't be surprised if the line ends up becoming a BRT route instead.

That said, Illinois is funding an extension out to MidAmerica Airport, and they did it immediately. So now both local airports will be connected to the MetroLink system.

We also built a useless trolley in the Delmar Loop that Bi-State doesn't want, and we're about to have to pay the federal government back the $37 million they gave us for its creation unless we get it up and running again.
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  #9  
Old Posted Jan 15, 2022, 6:22 PM
lrt's friend lrt's friend is offline
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We've been studying a north/south line for the MetroLink for God knows how many years at this point, but there's very little movement. MetroLink ridership also has been declining for years, even before the pandemic, so I wouldn't be surprised if the line ends up becoming a BRT route instead.

That said, Illinois is funding an extension out to MidAmerica Airport, and they did it immediately. So now both local airports will be connected to the MetroLink system.

We also built a useless trolley in the Delmar Loop that Bi-State doesn't want, and we're about to have to pay the federal government back the $37 million they gave us for its creation unless we get it up and running again.
Unbelievable! I watched the development of that line in this discussion group. Why do cities invest in these minimal streetcar projects?
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  #10  
Old Posted Jan 17, 2022, 7:20 PM
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Unbelievable! I watched the development of that line in this discussion group. Why do cities invest in these minimal streetcar projects?
The Delmar Loop trolley was pitched by a private chamber-of-commerce type group IIRC. It makes sense that the public transit agency wouldn't want it. It serves a limited tourist market linking Forest Park to the businesses on Delmar, but it isn't really useful for commutes or the needs of residents at all.

As for why it was funded, I'm guessing the Obama administration wanted to send stimulus money to as many cities as possible (especially cities and states that voted for him). The streetcar projects were helpful because they were low-cost and the Federal government could basically fund them at 100% with no local commitment. In Cincinnati or KC, the streetcars served a growing downtown population of residents as well as tourists, and it was their first & only rail system... but in St Louis they already have a regional light rail system so the streetcar was built to serve an outlying neighborhood only.
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Last edited by ardecila; Jan 17, 2022 at 7:39 PM.
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  #11  
Old Posted Jan 17, 2022, 8:03 PM
Emprise du Lion Emprise du Lion is offline
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Originally Posted by lrt's friend View Post
Unbelievable! I watched the development of that line in this discussion group. Why do cities invest in these minimal streetcar projects?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila View Post
The Delmar Loop trolley was pitched by a private chamber-of-commerce type group IIRC. It makes sense that the public transit agency wouldn't want it. It serves a limited tourist market linking Forest Park to the businesses on Delmar, but it isn't really useful for commutes or the needs of residents at all.

As for why it was funded, I'm guessing the Obama administration wanted to send stimulus money to as many cities as possible (especially cities and states that voted for him). The streetcar projects were helpful because they were low-cost and the Federal government could basically fund them at 100% with no local commitment. In Cincinnati or KC, the streetcars served a growing downtown population of residents as well as tourists, and it was their first & only rail system... but in St Louis they already have a regional light rail system so the streetcar was built to serve an outlying neighborhood only.
The trolley's biggest proponent was Joe Edwards, a local businessman who owns many of the businesses in the Delmar Loop. It was his vision to have a streetcar line going through the Loop with the faux vintage cars. So many of his business ventures have been such large successes that everyone just sort of went along with it. The system had a total price tag of $51 million, which $37 million came from the Feds. That's what they're threatening to sue us for if the line doesn't get up and running again.

We have until February 1st to tell the FTA how we plan on restarting the thing. A lot of people are against the idea and would prefer that we just pay the FTA back, but that would likely hurt St. Louis' chances of landing any future grants, especially when they finally do want to start building a new MetroLink or BRT line.
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  #12  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2022, 6:07 PM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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worst laggard by far is columbus. biggest city with no rail transit and a weak to ok bus system. where the hell was cota with the ready to go rail plans when when uncle joe was handing out that infrastructure money?
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  #13  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2022, 6:20 PM
jmecklenborg jmecklenborg is offline
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worst laggard by far is columbus. biggest city with no rail transit and a weak to ok bus system. where the hell was cota with the ready to go rail plans when when uncle joe was handing out that infrastructure money?
Mayor Coleman treaded ankle deep in streetcar fever back around 2007-2010. There was a tentative plan to build a streetcar on High St. from German Village up to maybe 15th St., a little south of OSU. They didn't have enough money to build up to OSU and maybe Lane Ave. without raising money with a special tax. I don't know if they applied for a TIGER grant or not.

There have been pseudo-official proposals to build a light rail subway under High St. between the Ohio Statehouse and OSU.

Columbus has the really weird circumstance of High St. being relatively narrow but 4th and Summit being wide. So there have been various light rail proposals for parallel tracks on 4th and Summit, but that was always a bad plan because those aren't commercial corridors.

Last edited by jmecklenborg; Jan 14, 2022 at 7:25 PM.
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  #14  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2022, 7:41 PM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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Originally Posted by jmecklenborg View Post
Mayor Coleman treaded ankle deep in streetcar fever back around 2007-2010. There was a tentative plan to build a streetcar on High St. from German Village up to maybe 15th St., a little south of OSU. They didn't have enough money to build up to OSU and maybe Lane Ave. without raising money with a special tax. I don't know if they applied for a TIGER grant or not.

There have been pseudo-official proposals to build a light rail subway under High St. between the Ohio Statehouse and OSU.

Columbus has the really weird circumstance of High St. being relatively narrow but 4th and Summit being wide. So there have been various light rail proposals for parallel tracks on 4th and Summit, but that was always a bad plan because those aren't commercial corridors.

yeah i know. no tiger no nothing was done or planned for.

one big thing is campus and downtown really do not have much to do with each other.

however, unless they ever build a subway up high street, which is unlikely, then light rail has always been the fantastic idea for up and down 4th and summit. those are parallel to high street and keep the trains off of the narrow street. there is some business along those streets heading into downtown and it would be a big hit in columbus.

i do not think that will happen first though. i would bet there will be a focus on connecting downtown to the airport as proof of concept. and probably rightly so. then the city can build off of that.
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  #15  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2022, 8:41 PM
lrt's friend lrt's friend is offline
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For a city that I have visited a few times and a city that has experienced a boom, Raleigh North Carolina has failed to introduce a good rapid transit system so far. The city and area seems to be based on massive residential and business sprawl that makes planning a useful rapid transit plan very difficult. How do others feel about Raleigh's transit potential?
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  #16  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2022, 11:59 PM
Crawford Crawford is offline
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Originally Posted by lrt's friend View Post
For a city that I have visited a few times and a city that has experienced a boom, Raleigh North Carolina has failed to introduce a good rapid transit system so far. The city and area seems to be based on massive residential and business sprawl that makes planning a useful rapid transit plan very difficult. How do others feel about Raleigh's transit potential?
I can't imagine Raleigh ever achieving decent transit share. No dominant regional center, everything super sprawly and practically no prewar, walkable neighborhoods. A 1980's neighborhood is basically "vintage".
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  #17  
Old Posted Jan 15, 2022, 4:57 PM
iheartthed iheartthed is offline
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Originally Posted by lrt's friend View Post
For a city that I have visited a few times and a city that has experienced a boom, Raleigh North Carolina has failed to introduce a good rapid transit system so far. The city and area seems to be based on massive residential and business sprawl that makes planning a useful rapid transit plan very difficult. How do others feel about Raleigh's transit potential?
It's a city built around stroads, so I would say it has effectively no potential.
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  #18  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2022, 9:44 PM
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Not many US cities saw any transit progress at all, let alone most vs. least. It might be better to discuss which transit systems declined the least and which ones declined the most. Those were Milwaukee and Cleveland, each with a whopping 33% decline from 2014 to 2019. The 29% decline of Transit Authority of River City in Louisville and the 25% of Metrolink in St. Louis are also notable.

The numbers are sad, difficult to find US cities which even held ridership steady, let alone saw transit ridership growth, and Las Vegas was the biggest I could find with 5.9% growth from 2014 to 2019, followed by Houston with 4.5% growth during the same period. Of course, there is Seattle, with King County Metro and Sound Transit seeing combined 3.8% growth. Then there is Columbus and Pittsburgh with 1.2% and 1.9% growth respectively.

Columbus and Pittsburgh. As Rust Belt cities, Columbus and Pittsburgh might be the most interesting. And for Columbus, it is also a long term trend, 29% growth from 2004. Las Vegas is also unusual as a pure, post-war, sprawling Sunbelt city seeing gradual and consistent transit ridership growth, a 17% increase total from 2004. What are places like Las Vegas and Columbus doing differently? These systems never get talked about but maybe they deserve more attention.
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  #19  
Old Posted Jan 15, 2022, 2:52 AM
skiesthelimit skiesthelimit is offline
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As car dependent we are in Phoenix, our light rail is currently expanding to the North, South and soon the West. Tempe’s new Streetcar should be opening pretty soon now and talks are already occurring to expand the Streetcar further east into Mesa. There’s study for BRT on Rural (major arterial road) as well. IIRC, there’s a study for valley-wide commuter rail ongoing and Amtrak recently said they’re planning to return to Phoenix.
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  #20  
Old Posted Jan 15, 2022, 2:31 PM
Prahaboheme Prahaboheme is offline
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LA seems to be leading the pack with its mass transit infrastructure expansions between heavy rail and light rail extensions.
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