Monday, September 7, 2009

Monday Night Notes

I'm wondering if Austin ever did a real alternatives analysis for the center city line. I imagine its a no, and if so, they would do well to see where the highest ridership is. I'm guessing Guadalupe.
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Lots of people are taking light rail in Phoenix. However its not the usual work trip.
Metro found that only 27 percent of the patrons ride the light rail to and from work. In many large cities, commuters make up the dominant share of riders. The survey found that sports fans, shoppers and people going to and from the airport or cultural events form the largest group.
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Folks in Dallas are worried that the light rail line will make Richardson grow so fast that traffic will be horrendous.
Lots of development is going forward in Richardson, with much of it related to DART's rail service. But there's a downside to this good fortune: increased pressure on roadways. North Central Expressway is getting the big pounding.
I'm sure its all the transits fault.
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5 comments:

Matthew said...

Course then there's issues with Guadalupe already being packed, and whether they'll let rail take up it's own lanes or not. And if they can't get Guad, I believe UT is intent on forcing them to use San Jacinto instead of the better Speedway.

Love how there's already the requisite "trolleys are old-fashioned, maglev is the answer!!!" comment.

Rob said...

If the development does not happen in Richardson, would it not occur somewhere else? It almost makes it sound like they're suggesting the transit development is some sort of artificial growth that would otherwise not occur at all.

Pedestrianist said...

The new development will increase traffic - even if the development was spurred by a transit line - as long as that development includes off-street parking.

Even here in SF they're making the same mistake. They've rezoned Market/Van Ness to allow for tall residential buildings under the guise of TOD. But they're maxing out the off-street parking as well.

None of the people who move in there will take Muni if they have free parking included in their unit price.

The solution is to remove the parking!

Spokker said...

Arizona is also having problems because they low balled the electricity usage when they were planning the damn thing. Seems the geniuses over there didn't realize that the hot Phoenix summers would require more AC and therefore more juice.

Bob Davis said...

Not only does the Phoenix light rail go to the ball game, it serves an RV Park. This is of interest to railfans who have "rubber tired sleeping cars". On our trip from Calif. to Maine in 2007, I parked the motorhome at a Shaker Heights (OH) light rail terminal and took the train into Cleveland to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I also noticed that most railway museums have plenty of room for RV's. What many museums don't have is convenient public transit access.