You know you want to say it like Dr. Evil. WMATA rocked it's all time high with an
exclamation point. This was forcast by many before so it wasn't too much of a surprise, but its still an achievement. On that note, Richard has
a post up about capacity and the additional costs of capacity and makes the case for those people paying more that use it at peak due to capacity built explicitly for peak travel instead of average travel.
At the same time, Ryan notes that this super ridership record should make the region
think about increasing core capacity with new subway lines and streetcars. I tend to agree. More core capacity can only increase mobility and perhaps let out a bit of a relief valve. Other cities such as Budapest are still building core lines in the central city (like
line 4, line 5), we should be doing that as well.
4 comments:
WMATA is woefully constrained as to capacity. The refusal to spend money on express tracks is now becoming obvious. Sadly although the stations were built for 8 car trains, there have been persistent stories of 8 car train failing to platform correctly.
As to rush hour surcharges, this is a class equity issue. The majority of rush hour riders have fixed schedules especially the lower wage service workers--thus no option of waiting to take a later train. As such forcing them to pay extra is inherently unfair.
"Oh, behave!" Mike Myers is from Toronto (from Scarborough, to be exact), and there's even a street named after him there (he also attended high school in Scarborough). The nominations for the Golden Raspberry Awards, or the Razzies, were in yesterday, and his film The Love Guru was nominated for seven "Worst..." nominations, including Worst Picture. Just wanted to say it - I like the Razzies, and I like seeing the nominations.
In Budapest, M5 will be a commuter train tunnel project. It's to be through routed with existing lines. M4 is a true Metro line now nearing completion.
If I could speak Hungarian this would probably tell us more...
http://veke.hu/
Pantograph - I'd like to add you to the blogger distribution list for press releases from the Action Committee for Transit. Could you sign up on our web site here with your email address.
(Any non-bloggers who want to be on ACT's general email list - we limit ourselves to a maximum of about 2 emails per month - are welcome to sign up there too.)
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