What light rail will do for Detroit

[Hermod]

They should be monitored for deficiencies, yes. But so should buses. And roads. And bridges.

The fact remains that you don't have to replace rails anywhere near as much as you do both buses and roads. And I believe that rail is also cheaper to construct than roads, even when the decision is made to subway or elevate the line. Not to say that we don't need roads, but if the argument is to be made that we can't afford rails, then we sure as hell can't afford to keep as many roads as we have... So southeast Michigan would be best served by devoting more resources towards diversifying your modes of transportation.

On the contrary, rail lines require constant maintenance. If there is a dip in the road or a pothole, you can still use it or drive around it. Railroads have a constant battle to maintain the track geometry. If you don't, you have a derailment at any speed. Yes, there are badly maintained secondary rail lines and spurs, but these are "slow order" areas where the speed is limited to 10 MPH. The track is constantly getting out of level as the weight of the trains crushes the ballast under the tracks. Replacement of ties is a constant process, especially if they are wood. As the wheels of the cars wear the rail, the rail must be reground by a "rail grinder". The railroads are in a constant process of taking worn rail off the main lne and replacing it with new rail. The worn rail is then handed down and relaid on the secondary lines and the secondary line rail is scrapped or goes to industrial spurs.

METRA, the Chicago area commuter line, spent $258 million in 2009 on track and bridge maintenance to include replacement of 50,000 ties and resurfacing of 160 miles of track.

AMTRAK has a M-O-W budget of $441.7 million for track maintenance in 21010. Most of the track AMTRAK owns is in the northeast corridor. this includes the installation of 162,000 ties.

[SpartanTom]

On the contrary, rail lines require constant maintenance. If there is a dip in the road or a pothole, you can still use it or drive around it. Railroads have a constant battle to maintain the track geometry. If you don't, you have a derailment at any speed. Yes, there are badly maintained secondary rail lines and spurs, but these are "slow order" areas where the speed is limited to 10 MPH. The track is constantly getting out of level as the weight of the trains crushes the ballast under the tracks. Replacement of ties is a constant process, especially if they are wood. As the wheels of the cars wear the rail, the rail must be reground by a "rail grinder". The railroads are in a constant process of taking worn rail off the main lne and replacing it with new rail. The worn rail is then handed down and relaid on the secondary lines and the secondary line rail is scrapped or goes to industrial spurs.

METRA, the Chicago area commuter line, spent $258 million in 2009 on track and bridge maintenance to include replacement of 50,000 ties and resurfacing of 160 miles of track.

AMTRAK has a M-O-W budget of $441.7 million for track maintenance in 21010. Most of the track AMTRAK owns is in the northeast corridor. this includes the installation of 162,000 ties.

You are talking about freight/commuter rail. Light rail has nowhere near that amount of maintenance, mostly because it is LIGHT compared to traditional rail. It would also not be on wood, but in pavement. Much MUCH less expensive to maintain.


Some numbers from Wikipedia:

Over the U.S. as a whole, excluding Seattle, new light rail construction costs average about $35 million per mile. By comparison, a freeway lane expansion typically costs $20 million per lane mile for two directions. Since a light rail track can carry up to 20,000 people per hour as compared with 2,400 people per hour for a freeway lane, light rail could theoretically deliver 4 times the congestion-reduction potential per dollar as incremental freeway lanes in congested urban areas.

So, in high traffic corridors, spending our money on LRT instead of another lane of highway would be more efficient.

Combining highway expansion with LRT construction can save costs by doing both highway improvements and rail construction at the same time. As an example, Denver's T-REX [[Transportation Expansion) project rebuilt interstate highways 25 and 225 and added a light-rail expansion for a total cost of $1.67 billion over five years. The cost of 17 miles [[27 km) of highway improvements and 19 miles [[31 km) of double-track light rail worked out to $19.3 million per highway lane-mile and $27.6 million per LRT track-mile. The project came in under budget and 22 months ahead of schedule.

I believe this is what is planned for the M-1 portion of LRT in Detroit. Woodward will undergo a "long-term rehabilitation" in conjunction with the construction of the LRT. This will help keep initial costs down.

Other ways to keep costs down are to minimize underground or elevated tracks, which I think there are none proposed here. The LRT in Calgary operates at only 27 cents per ride, compared to $1.50 per ride for it's bus service.

[iheartthed]

On the contrary, rail lines require constant maintenance. If there is a dip in the road or a pothole, you can still use it or drive around it.

Have you ever hit a pothole at 70 MPH? It is a safety hazard, and just driving "around it" is not a satisfactory solution, temporary or otherwise. And rarely does ever just one pothole develop.

Railroads have a constant battle to maintain the track geometry. If you don't, you have a derailment at any speed. Yes, there are badly maintained secondary rail lines and spurs, but these are "slow order" areas where the speed is limited to 10 MPH. The track is constantly getting out of level as the weight of the trains crushes the ballast under the tracks. Replacement of ties is a constant process, especially if they are wood. As the wheels of the cars wear the rail, the rail must be reground by a "rail grinder". The railroads are in a constant process of taking worn rail off the main lne and replacing it with new rail. The worn rail is then handed down and relaid on the secondary lines and the secondary line rail is scrapped or goes to industrial spurs.

METRA, the Chicago area commuter line, spent $258 million in 2009 on track and bridge maintenance to include replacement of 50,000 ties and resurfacing of 160 miles of track.

AMTRAK has a M-O-W budget of $441.7 million for track maintenance in 21010. Most of the track AMTRAK owns is in the northeast corridor. this includes the installation of 162,000 ties.

I don't have time right now to dig through the particulars, but according to this document that I'm going to link, MDOT spent $2.8B on roads [[presumably the majority of that goes to maintenance in the Detroit area), and $307M on public transportation [[presumably the majority of that goes to maintain the DDOT and SMART all bus fleets). So Michigan spent almost as much on buses as Amtrak spent maintaining all of the tracks that it owns nationwide.

http://www.house.mi.gov/hfa/briefing...10%20final.pdf

[Hermod]

So Michigan spent almost as much on buses as Amtrak spent maintaining all of the tracks that it owns nationwide.

AMTRAK does not own all of the track on which they operate trains. The freight railroads do. AMTRAK owns the northeast corridor tracks.

AMTRAK fact sheet:
Amtrak owns and operates 363 miles of the 457-mile Northeast Corridor [[NEC) between Washington and Boston [[a total of 1,219 track miles). Two sections are owned by others: 1) 56 miles on Metro North between New Rochelle, N.Y., and New Haven, Conn.; 2) the state of Massachusetts owns 38 miles between the Massachusetts/Rhode Island border and Boston that is operated and maintained by Amtrak. Amtrak also owns 62 miles of track between New Haven and Springfield, Mass., as well as 104 miles of track [[274 track miles) between Philadelphia and Harrisburg.

The NEC is home to one of the busiest, most complex, technically advanced track structures in the world with over 1,800 trains each weekday, including slow freight trains traveling at speeds of 30-50 mph, commuter trains that travel at speeds up to 125 mph, Amtrak Regional trains that travel at 110 or 125 mph, and Acela Express trains that can reach speeds of 150 mph. This makes it the fastest railroad in the western hemisphere, and among the ten fastest in the world. These trains all share the same overcrowded, and often overwhelmed, track. The infrastructure deteriorated greatly in the years following completion of the federally funded Northeast Corridor Improvement Project in the early 1980’s. Very little was spent to upgrade the capital facilities on the NEC other than the funds to electrify the track north of New Haven in the 1990’s.

[ghettopalmetto]

AMTRAK does not own all of the track on which they operate trains. The freight railroads do. AMTRAK owns the northeast corridor tracks.

Right. And before Amtrak took over the NEC, it was owned by the bankrupt Pennsylvania Railroad--you know, the guys who demolished NY Penn Station for an office building and basketball arena that would pay rent. Much of the money Amtrak is spending on infrastructure is well beyond regular maintenance. There are sections of catenary, trackage, power substations, and bridges that are well over 100 years old, and haven't seen much in the way of maintenance during that time. Don't twist the numbers as if this level of investment is required on an annual basis.

I, for one, would hate to see how much it would cost to rebuild an interstate highway if it were left to rot for 100 years.

It is pretty sad, though, that former Eastern Bloc nations far poorer than the United States have money to do the things we allege that we "can't afford". I wouldn't be shocked if Warszovians told Detroit jokes.

[maxx]

The way you fix the buses is by adding rail.

Has anyone even determined how many people would use the three miles of rail? You fix the buses by making them on time and going where people need to go.

[maxx]

Eight hundred seventy thousand people--that's barely anyone! Might as well just throw in the towel!

And how many of them are going to use this three miles of rail? Aren't there buses that travel that route?

[maxx]

None of their customers, employees or tenants have to ride the 53 Woodward bus along exactly the same stretch of road to exactly the same locations at roughly the same speed.

And how long will traffic along Woodward be messed up putting in the rails? Businesses are dying out in Rochester from all the highway "improvements". What do the businesses along Woodward think of this proposal?

[maxx]

I recommend you search any number of previous threads on this topic for the answers you seek.

But again, with the excuses.... Yet we wonder why Detroit looks like Warszawa in 1945, and the entire region of Southeast Michigan is on the precipice of permanent and catastrophic economic collapse.

Best of luck, Michissippians.

So you're saying there are few grocery stores in Detroit because there isn't any train?

[neighbor]

And how many of them are going to use this three miles of rail? Aren't there buses that travel that route?

This is my problem exactly. This first stretch of rail to too short and bound to fail because of it. It needs to reach the suburbs to have any chance of success. 9 Mile and Woodward would be a perfect place to start it.

There is not a major demand for a slower way to get from New Center to Downtown.

9 and Woodward to 94 and Woodward should be the first stretch.

[maxx]

esp1986: Bingo. And there are inherent worries about buses. Today, buses are viewed as scummy, and most people feel above them.

maxx: I lived near Philadelphia in the 1950's, and the Reading train system was not glamorous. It was bumpy and noisy. But it was clean. And it didn't operate in the city. The trains went to the suburbs and to New York. I've traveled hundreds of miles on buses which were more comfortable and had more light than the trains. If the buses are "scummy", it is probably a question of cleaning or vandalism or the people riding it. So why do people see the buses as scummy?

[maxx]

iheartthed: I don't have time right now to dig through the particulars, but according to this document that I'm going to link, MDOT spent $2.8B on roads [[presumably the majority of that goes to maintenance in the Detroit area),

maxx: Trains or no trains, the roads still have to be maintained.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/15/smal...rail/index.htm
"Is a rail line the best way to bring much-needed shoppers into Detroit's retail zones?"
I don't think the absence of a train is keeping people from shopping in Detroit. There are plenty of parking spaces. In fact, there is much too much street space taken up with parking spaces as many critics have noticed over the years.

[Russix]

...
The real issue is that we're paying for a small-city transit system and expecting it to effectively serve what is still a relatively big city. I think many city residents would be willing to pay more for better service, but somehow nobody's ever thought to ask them.

Or we can say F#@K what the people want, let's build a microsystem and make'em pay for it anyway.

Join the "I Hate M1 Rail" facebook group!!!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gi...0362027&ref=mf

[ghettopalmetto]

Gee, you guys are right. Better not build ANY light rail unless we can afford to build a zillion miles of it all at once! Lord knows it's far better to keep demolishing buildings for new parking lots.

[maxx]

Good article which touches upon what is going on in Detroit as well as Cincy, and the differences between public and a public-private type of partnership. Also a link to the Atlantic article which, if you haven't read, you should.

http://americancity.org/columns/entry/2295/

From the article:
"...And relying on private developers to take the initiative in moving forward with new transportation projects removes the planning process from public hands, reducing the possibility of democratic involvement in setting investment priorities. By allowing the federal government to fund development-centric transit projects, it may be benefiting private land speculators more than the people who actually need better public transportation: the poor, people who are unlikely to be buying in the new transit-served developments..."

"...
Cincinnati’s streetcar, which received funding from the local city council this week, is an example of how this can be done. The line, which is planned for operations in 2012, will run from the city’s riverfront to the zoo, via downtown and the University of Cincinnati. At the river, it will encourage the further growth of a huge redevelopment scheme called The Banks; downtown, it will run past dozens of vacant or under-used blocks primed for investment; passing through the Over the Rhine neighborhood, it will serve a number of low-income inhabitants; at the University of Cincinnati, it will hit a highly transit-dependent population.
This approach gives municipalities greater control over where to promote higher-density growth. Though this may benefit certain developers owning land in the right places, it ensures public involvement in determining where to place new transit lines and the buildings that will follow them, rather than passing that power—and federal dollars—over to the private sector..."

[dtowncitylover]

I don't think the absence of a train is keeping people from shopping in Detroit. There are plenty of parking spaces. In fact, there is much too much street space taken up with parking spaces as many critics have noticed over the years.

WTF?!?!? Of course it is! Would one rather play $1.50-2 for a trip downtown for the day or pay $15 for a parking space for the day. Or a quarter for every 15 minutes [[!) [[I think it's 8 minutes in downtown Chicago) with a 2 hr parking limit. Or even park for free at the shopping mall. And no suburbanite would dare ride a SMART or DDOT to go downtown.

I don't like the way M-1 was presented, I wish they would have back DTOGS and provided some funding for that. Hopefully with a regional transit authority, M-1 Rail will be the first stage, and not be the original 12-stop plan.

[neighbor]

I don't think the absence of a train is keeping people from shopping in Detroit. There are plenty of parking spaces. In fact, there is much too much street space taken up with parking spaces as many critics have noticed over the years.

I think the absence of places to shop is hurting more than the lack of a train system.

Detroit missed the boat with IKEA big time. I know all of you big box haters are going to come out of the woodwork now but it's true.

A store like IKEA is a destination. People come from all over to shop there and maybe just maybe some smaller businesses and resturants would have followed.


If you have a retail district that is good enough people will come. People drive from here to shop on Michigan Avenue in Chicago even though almost all of the stores in Chicago have stores here.

[dtowncitylover]

Detroit missed the boat with IKEA big time. I know all of you big box haters are going to come out of the woodwork now but it's true.

I didn't realize that Detroit proper was up for consideration. Hmm...

[EMG]

For the price of the I-94 project, you could build a 100-mile streetcar network that could carry THOUSANDS more people, do it in far less space, decrease the need for useless parking lots, and boost land values, making more redevelopment projects feasible.

That is a very true statement, but I've bolded and reddened the key word.

In real life, what happens is a not-even-statistically-significant portion of the population which actually lives along the streetcar network uses it - at a greatly subsidized rate and at the expense of the vast majority of the population, who will never use it but nonetheless get stuck paying the bills to keep it running. The whole idea of "thousands more people" therefore becomes a mute point.

The wise voter, assuming he's given a choice, recognizes any proposal for "mass transit" as the scam that it is - and votes to nip it in the bud at the earliest opportunity.

[SpartanTom]

That is a very true statement, but I've bolded and reddened the key word.

In real life, what happens is a not-even-statistically-significant portion of the population which actually lives along the streetcar network uses it - at a greatly subsidized rate and at the expense of the vast majority of the population, who will never use it but nonetheless get stuck paying the bills to keep it running. The whole idea of "thousands more people" therefore becomes a mute point.

The wise voter, assuming he's given a choice, recognizes any proposal for "mass transit" as the scam that it is - and votes to nip it in the bud at the earliest opportunity.

Thousands more WOULD use it. Rail is much higher capacity than highway, and more efficient. Your "real life" situation is completely incorrect, as bus lines feed the main rail lines as well as park and ride lots, etc. It is very valid, the opposite of a "moot" point.

The wise voter will see the benefit in a mass transit system and vote for one. I just wrote my state senator today urging him to vote for the legislation for a regional transit authority. People voting to nip any forward thinking, progressive idea in the bud are why this state is in shambles. Keep with the same old ways, get the same old results.

[neighbor]

I didn't realize that Detroit proper was up for consideration. Hmm...

I don't think it was but they should have done whatever was needed to at least be in the picture.

[ghettopalmetto]

In real life, what happens is a not-even-statistically-significant portion of the population which actually lives along the streetcar network uses it - at a greatly subsidized rate and at the expense of the vast majority of the population, who will never use it but nonetheless get stuck paying the bills to keep it running. The whole idea of "thousands more people" therefore becomes a mute point.

What confidence interval did you use in your rigorous statistical analysis?

You're right--Detroit is just fine the way it is. It's the rest of the world that's wrong.

[dtowncitylover]

The wise voter, assuming he's given a choice, recognizes any proposal for "mass transit" as the scam that it is - and votes to nip it in the bud at the earliest opportunity.

What the f*** is a scam? A Ponzi scheme is a scam. Prince Ndebele of Nigeria is a scam. This is an attempt, and I dare say one of our last attempts, to finally get mass transit and a regional transit authority for Metro Detroit.

Can I yell? Allow me...
-THIS WILL CREATE JOBS
-THIS WILL CREATE INVESTMENT
-THIS CAN, AND GOD-WILLING, GROW DETROIT
-WE ARE THE LAUGHING STOCK OF THE WORLD IN TERMS OF MASS TRANSIT, let's stop building effing roads and DO SOMETHING!!

[Bearinabox]

What the f*** is a scam? A Ponzi scheme is a scam. Prince Ndebele of Nigeria is a scam. This is an attempt, and I dare say one of our last attempts, to finally get mass transit and a regional transit authority for Metro Detroit.

Can I yell? Allow me...
-THIS WILL CREATE JOBS
-THIS WILL CREATE INVESTMENT
-THIS CAN, AND GOD-WILLING, GROW DETROIT
-WE ARE THE LAUGHING STOCK OF THE WORLD IN TERMS OF MASS TRANSIT, let's stop building effing roads and DO SOMETHING!!

Don't worry about EMG; he's long gone from the region and doesn't have the slightest clue what he's talking about. The people you should be worried about, in light of the bills that need to be passed to create the regional authority, are the ones who are members of the Michigan Legislature and don't have the slightest clue what they're talking about.

[bailey]

What confidence interval did you use in your rigorous statistical analysis?

You're right--Detroit is just fine the way it is. It's the rest of the world that's wrong.

You keep coming back to that retort and for some reason what is not getting through to you is that very few people think that Detroit is just fine. The problem is the solution as proposed is a fucking joke...its a novelty that will serve very few. It's not going to make jobs in the suburbs more accessible to those in the city without cars. It's not going to cause some great migration of people or businesses from Big Beaver or Southfileld...or where ever to Woodward. It's not going to make bar-hopping any easier, because someone is still going to have to drive to the line. It's a street level people mover. It's inevitable failure as anything other than a parking shuttle will simply reinforce the damage to the idea of real regional mass transit that the original People Mover did. The only saving grace here is at least the first part [[and likely only part to get built) is getting lots of private funds.