[Mpls] Buses

[Randall G. Cutting]

Oops, I forgot to sign my last post.  But then again this is also my third
post today.  My bad either way...

Randall Cutting
Seward


||Randall Cutting||
>
>> All of these would happen in this scenario.  Instead, they buy a train
>> for about 2/3 MORE than that $440 million, to improve things on one
>> route out of 200 in the metro area, and then the service is cut back
>> on some of the other 199 because of budget issues.  There will be more
>> cuts in the future because of lrt.  The claim was that the was enough
>> money in the long range plan to fund combined bus and train operation
>> with only one fare increase necessary in 2007 or so.  We've already
>> seen a couple of increases before the train even started rolling.
>
> Budget issues?  You mean like the Legislature and Governor reducing the
> amount of funds going to transit?
>
> Service will be re-configured on many routes in the vicinity of the LRT
> - that is true.  The reason is because busses will operate as feeders to
> the LRT not because the budget cannot afford them.
>
> Post hoc ergo propter hoc.  Bus schedules, routes, and service is
> continually changing to reflect increases and decreases in demand don't
> assume that just because a LRT is being built and service is being
> changed that the LRT is the reason for the change.
>
>>
>> Ramsey County wants to build lrt between the downtowns on University
>> Avenue because it envies Minneapolis.  Costing "only" $880 million for
>> an even shorter length of track with no additional maintenance
>> facility, it will vastly congest University to the point where the
>> county projects that there will be only about 16 blocks along
>> University between the Minneapolis/Saint Paul border and Regions
>> Hospital that won't have one or two lanes of cars and trucks backed up
>> during rush hour.  The cumulative length of the backups with lrt is
>> about 60% HIGHER than without.
>>
> Of course St. Paul and Ramsey county want a LRT in the central corridor.
>  This route would have an estimated 38,000 riders per day and would be
> the 5th largest corridor on the day it opened.
>
>
>> Lrt doesn't cut pollution or auto use enough (0.1%) to even be 1/10 of
>> the model's margin of error.
>>
> OK so lets just take the 900,000 new residents in the metro area in the
> next 20 years and have them all drive everywhere.  Since our highways
> are not congested now, I'm sure with hundreds of thousands of additional
> cars they won't be congested in the future either.  There is clearly no
> reason to have any additional transit options.
>
>> In the San Jose area, they have lrt and buses.  They have a $6 billion
>> budget problem over the next ten years, so they are cutting bus (and
>> even lrt) service to meet the budget.  That's so that they can build
>> more rail service, so that they can cut bus service more in the
>> future.
>>
>> In Los Angeles, they cut bus service to build lrt and a subway.  They
>> were successfully sued by the NAACP and the Bus Riders' Union and are
>> under a consent decree to provide a certain level of bus service.  The
>> transit agency has publicly stated that when the consent decree
>> expires in 2007, they plan to get rid of the extra buses that they had
>> to add.
>
>>
>> A lot of train pushers point to Dallas as a success story.  Depends on
>> how you measure success.  DART rail was supposed to pay 50% of its
>> operating and maintenance costs with passenger fares.  In 1985 it was
>> 35%, in 2001 it was 12%.  See the trend?
>>
>
> No holistic transit system, congested highways, more cars, more
> congestion, still no holistic transit system, see the trend?
>
> Yes transit systems are expensive.  So are highways.
>
>
>
>
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