Mass Transit
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Mass transit in sunbelt states... enjoy walking around in the summer! I spend a lot of time in TX and using public transportation in its sprawling cities 9 months out of the year is not fun.
Unless you live in Downtown Dallas, which only has a residential population of 5k people, DART is not that useful aside from trips to the airport. Per their own data, light rail ridership is flat or just up slightly in the last 2 years. Regional rail ridership has been trending down since 2008. There's a limited route trolley now that is more amusement than useful public transportation. Flat ridership despite BOOMING population means something is going wrong. Part of what went wrong is all the infrastructure investment went into the urban core of Dallas County, but the metro area's growth has been in the far northern suburbs of Collin County (Plano, Frisco, Allen).
http://www.dart.org/about/board/boardagendas/2018workshopridership.pdf
Houston tried to do light rail in the 80s and it was also a failed experiment. Finally opening in 2004 after 20 yrs, the average weekday ridership is about 60k. Out of a 2.5M person workforce - that's just 2% of the workforce. It's created a big debate in town as the metro area has been booming (aside from a brief downturn in 2015-2016 when oil prices collapsed, although that only impacted job growth - Houston's population still continued to grow at an above national avg pace) but Downtown road capacity has effectively been taken away because drivers now have to share its lanes with lightly used trains.
In preparation for the light rail decades ago, most office buildings were built with lobbies on the 2nd floor since it was expected that the street level would be filled with trains and train stations. The result is a Downtown that is very devoid of street life since there is very little retail. Most of the retail is in underground tunnels which connect the major office buildings - again, this was also in part because of the lousy weather much of the year. So in the ideal world, you'd take the metro, hop off close to work, enjoy a nice walk on the street while picking up your Sbux on the way to the office, and all is good. Instead in Houston, you get off the train and still have a bit of a hike to the office due to the limited stations, its 95 degrees and muggy (or raining), and there's nothing to enjoy on the walk because there's no street retail. It's simply more convenient and comfortable to drive, park in your bldg or a structure, and walk the tunnels to work. The city invested 2 decades into the light rail experiment and now retail and office landlords are spending billions to try to de-fortress their lobbies and create life back onto the street level of the city. But that will take decades as well. In the meantime, companies have chosen to simply move their operations out of downtown to the suburbs like Galleria, Energy Corridor or the Woodlands.
I'm not against mass transit. Proponents of it generally have their heart in the right place. It's just that automatically assuming it will work everywhere or taking a what's the harm in trying attitude often has unintended consequences.
I bet most people in Irvine doesn?t even know how to take a bus
Nope. Light rail runs on a dedicate line and thus can maintain a schedule. Buses are highly unpredictable.
Stigma also exist with buses.
Also...with the Great Park coming and the Spectrum being developed as a business center...traffic is going to get a lot worse.
I understand that it doesn't decrease traffic because it has to use the roads... and that schedules can be changed by accidents, road closures etc... but at the same time, light rail is fixed has to run at intervals and once the track is set, that's done. So if ridership wanes in one area, you can't really re-route the train.
Light rail takes much more planning and infrastructure to properly service a population and Irvine is probably very hard to guess ridership habits and needs.
That's what I mean by buses being more versatile, you can increase routes and number of buses based on need... can't do that with a set track and limited number of trains to run on that track.
Good stuff. Sand Canyon, Jeffrey, Portola, Irvine Blvd, etc have been widened for the new construction. Technology Dr. was extended to Sand Canyon, Sand Canyon was put under the railroad tracks.
I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement, but the city did require numerous improvements to help handle the additional housing.
Unfortunately, those improvements came with a lot more signal lights. In 2014, Irvine lead a signal sync project along jamboree coordinating 27 signals for an 11% improvement. Of course, that was 2014 after they had seemingly doubled the number of signals between 405/The District.
Back in 2005ish when gas prices were getting close to $5 a gallon I considered taking the bus. It would have taken me over 3 hours door to door to take a bus ten miles (including a 30 minute walk to the bus stop). I was far too lazy and not suicidal enough to consider a bicycle.
That's the whole point, if mass transit exist and operate as a replacement to vehicles, it has to be price competitively enough for people to give up their cars and convenient.
BIG DIG!
Lawmakers Reconsider Indianapolis Light Rail Ban for Amazon
Lawmakers are reconsidering a state ban on light rail in Indianapolis with hopes of landing Amazon's second North American headquarters.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-st...nsider-indianapolis-light-rail-ban-for-amazon
Lawmakers are reconsidering a state ban on light rail in Indianapolis with hopes of landing Amazon's second North American headquarters.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-st...nsider-indianapolis-light-rail-ban-for-amazon
How about Atlanta, Houston and Dallas? (light rail)
Mass transit in sunbelt states... enjoy walking around in the summer! I spend a lot of time in TX and using public transportation in its sprawling cities 9 months out of the year is not fun.
Unless you live in Downtown Dallas, which only has a residential population of 5k people, DART is not that useful aside from trips to the airport. Per their own data, light rail ridership is flat or just up slightly in the last 2 years. Regional rail ridership has been trending down since 2008. There's a limited route trolley now that is more amusement than useful public transportation. Flat ridership despite BOOMING population means something is going wrong. Part of what went wrong is all the infrastructure investment went into the urban core of Dallas County, but the metro area's growth has been in the far northern suburbs of Collin County (Plano, Frisco, Allen).
http://www.dart.org/about/board/boardagendas/2018workshopridership.pdf
Houston tried to do light rail in the 80s and it was also a failed experiment. Finally opening in 2004 after 20 yrs, the average weekday ridership is about 60k. Out of a 2.5M person workforce - that's just 2% of the workforce. It's created a big debate in town as the metro area has been booming (aside from a brief downturn in 2015-2016 when oil prices collapsed, although that only impacted job growth - Houston's population still continued to grow at an above national avg pace) but Downtown road capacity has effectively been taken away because drivers now have to share its lanes with lightly used trains.
In preparation for the light rail decades ago, most office buildings were built with lobbies on the 2nd floor since it was expected that the street level would be filled with trains and train stations. The result is a Downtown that is very devoid of street life since there is very little retail. Most of the retail is in underground tunnels which connect the major office buildings - again, this was also in part because of the lousy weather much of the year. So in the ideal world, you'd take the metro, hop off close to work, enjoy a nice walk on the street while picking up your Sbux on the way to the office, and all is good. Instead in Houston, you get off the train and still have a bit of a hike to the office due to the limited stations, its 95 degrees and muggy (or raining), and there's nothing to enjoy on the walk because there's no street retail. It's simply more convenient and comfortable to drive, park in your bldg or a structure, and walk the tunnels to work. The city invested 2 decades into the light rail experiment and now retail and office landlords are spending billions to try to de-fortress their lobbies and create life back onto the street level of the city. But that will take decades as well. In the meantime, companies have chosen to simply move their operations out of downtown to the suburbs like Galleria, Energy Corridor or the Woodlands.
I'm not against mass transit. Proponents of it generally have their heart in the right place. It's just that automatically assuming it will work everywhere or taking a what's the harm in trying attitude often has unintended consequences.
irvinehomeowner
Well-known member
What advantages does light rail have over our current bus/shuttle system?
Isn't a bus system more versatile than light rail in the ability to change routes/schedules etc?
Isn't a bus system more versatile than light rail in the ability to change routes/schedules etc?
irvinebullhousing
Well-known member
irvinehomeowner said:
I bet most people in Irvine doesn?t even know how to take a bus
sgip
Well-known member
Although NYC and IRV have only high priced homes in common, with the advent of Uber and Lyft, premiums to live near mass transit hubs are disappearing.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-01/uber-and-driverless-cars-threaten-premium-for-homes-near-transit
My .02c
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-01/uber-and-driverless-cars-threaten-premium-for-homes-near-transit
My .02c
Irvinecommuter
New member
irvinehomeowner said:
Nope. Light rail runs on a dedicate line and thus can maintain a schedule. Buses are highly unpredictable.
Stigma also exist with buses.
Traffic counts in heart of Irvine per OCTA. 2017 on left, 2007 on right. Numbers represent 000's of avg daily cars.
So what do we see? Contrary to popular believe, traffic on Culver is unchanged in the last 10 years - if anything slightly less. Its also lower on Jamboree. On Jeffrey its up 30% and Sand Canyon up 50%. In any case, 50-60K cars per day is nothing despite our complaints. If you managed to take half of the drivers off the road, 30K daily ridership is woefully light in order to justify the investment in mass transit.
In a rapidly growing and expanding city, I don't like the idea tax dollars being spent on a system that could be, at worst, obsolete, and at best, totally inefficient because it was built in the wrong place.
Ridership is also down for LA metro.https://la.curbed.com/2017/8/29/16219230/transit-metro-ridership-down-why
So what do we see? Contrary to popular believe, traffic on Culver is unchanged in the last 10 years - if anything slightly less. Its also lower on Jamboree. On Jeffrey its up 30% and Sand Canyon up 50%. In any case, 50-60K cars per day is nothing despite our complaints. If you managed to take half of the drivers off the road, 30K daily ridership is woefully light in order to justify the investment in mass transit.
In a rapidly growing and expanding city, I don't like the idea tax dollars being spent on a system that could be, at worst, obsolete, and at best, totally inefficient because it was built in the wrong place.
Ridership is also down for LA metro.https://la.curbed.com/2017/8/29/16219230/transit-metro-ridership-down-why
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nosuchreality
Well-known member
If you look at North South corridors, Irvine blvd between Sand Canyon and Jeffrey went from 15 to 27, an 80% increase.
Jeffrey just east of the 5, jumped from 25 to 36.
It's not just percentage increases, those are vehicle travel counts. That's 10,000 additional vehicles through that stretch of road. That's a lot. More importantly, those vehicle trips largely dissipate by the next intersection at Bryant, Which means that neighborhood around Trabuco and Jeffrey is absorbing 3000 additional car trips a 50% increase going from 6000 in 2007 to 9000 today.
Jeffrey just east of the 5, jumped from 25 to 36.
It's not just percentage increases, those are vehicle travel counts. That's 10,000 additional vehicles through that stretch of road. That's a lot. More importantly, those vehicle trips largely dissipate by the next intersection at Bryant, Which means that neighborhood around Trabuco and Jeffrey is absorbing 3000 additional car trips a 50% increase going from 6000 in 2007 to 9000 today.
Irvinecommuter
New member
nosuchreality said:
Also...with the Great Park coming and the Spectrum being developed as a business center...traffic is going to get a lot worse.
irvinehomeowner
Well-known member
Irvinecommuter said:
I understand that it doesn't decrease traffic because it has to use the roads... and that schedules can be changed by accidents, road closures etc... but at the same time, light rail is fixed has to run at intervals and once the track is set, that's done. So if ridership wanes in one area, you can't really re-route the train.
Light rail takes much more planning and infrastructure to properly service a population and Irvine is probably very hard to guess ridership habits and needs.
That's what I mean by buses being more versatile, you can increase routes and number of buses based on need... can't do that with a set track and limited number of trains to run on that track.
nosuchreality
Well-known member
I think the real question becomes what does a Waymo cost per mile become at mass deployment?
But again, I do think a Waymo fleet is much more efficient operating as spokes on a hub like a rail station. Otherwise rush hour is still a problem.
But again, I do think a Waymo fleet is much more efficient operating as spokes on a hub like a rail station. Otherwise rush hour is still a problem.
paperboyNC
New member
acpme said:
Good stuff. Sand Canyon, Jeffrey, Portola, Irvine Blvd, etc have been widened for the new construction. Technology Dr. was extended to Sand Canyon, Sand Canyon was put under the railroad tracks.
I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement, but the city did require numerous improvements to help handle the additional housing.
nosuchreality
Well-known member
paperboyNC said:
Unfortunately, those improvements came with a lot more signal lights. In 2014, Irvine lead a signal sync project along jamboree coordinating 27 signals for an 11% improvement. Of course, that was 2014 after they had seemingly doubled the number of signals between 405/The District.
Loco_local
Active member
Back in 2005ish when gas prices were getting close to $5 a gallon I considered taking the bus. It would have taken me over 3 hours door to door to take a bus ten miles (including a 30 minute walk to the bus stop). I was far too lazy and not suicidal enough to consider a bicycle.
irvinebullhousing
Well-known member
Loco_local said:
That's the whole point, if mass transit exist and operate as a replacement to vehicles, it has to be price competitively enough for people to give up their cars and convenient.
Kangen.Irvine
Active member
Sort of off topic, but in the interest of traffic how about adding more right hand turn lanes to get those cars through instead of scraping the curbs alongside the bike lane.
Another different suggestion would be to use tunneling technology to remove pedestrians from all major intersections. This way cars won?t have to stop for pedestrians.
Another different suggestion would be to use tunneling technology to remove pedestrians from all major intersections. This way cars won?t have to stop for pedestrians.
Irvinecommuter
New member
Kangen.Irvine said:
BIG DIG!