Does Amtrak Have a "Last Mile" problem on corridor routes?

[Palmland]

One of the supposed key benefits of rail travel is that it drops you off in city centers (i.e. closer to where you are coming from or going to). If it can’t do that, and getting to your actual destination is complicated and/or expensive, then a benefit like that goes away

I think Brightline understand this. An article from today’s Orlando Sentinel newspaper:

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/new...0210810-4c6l6yngynbzhesktunfgl3sia-story.html

 

[toddinde]

It absolutely is an issue. Rail can only compete with air travel on convenience. At the distance where rail can compete with air on “speed,” it is also competing with other forms of transportation (namely, the automobile). If you make getting to where you’re going a hassle, then all the advantage in the world that rail travel brings evaporates quite quickly.

If you’re going to have to rent a car just to get to your destination, you might as well have driven the whole way. If it’s too far to drive, then (depending on origin and destination) flying will virtually always win on speed. Air travel’s last-mile problem is real, but easily mitigated by the fact that you’ve just gotten somewhere far faster than any alternative could.

One of the supposed key benefits of rail travel is that it drops you off in city centers (i.e. closer to where you are coming from or going to). If it can’t do that, and getting to your actual destination is complicated and/or expensive, then a benefit like that goes away.

A car is a disadvantage as well. You have congestion, safety and parking issues. Uber and Lyft resolve most of that. The last mile problem just hasn’t been an issue in the corridors that have developed.

 

[Trogdor]

A car is a disadvantage as well. You have congestion, safety and parking issues. Uber and Lyft resolve most of that. The last mile problem just hasn’t been an issue in the corridors that have developed.

Uber and Lyft only “resolve” the parking issue, make congestion worse, and safety…questionable.

 

[jiml]

The last mile problem is not real. Air travel has always had a last mile problem, but nobody talks about it, and it doesn’t diminish the popularity of air travel. In this day and age, with Uber, Lyft and rental cars, it’s really a non issue.

That's an interesting observation, but definitely of the "apples and oranges" variety. A train may bypass a station on its route, forcing passengers to double back to their destination, or not continue further than a large city requiring passengers to continue on another mode. However, that doesn't mean it couldn't stop or continue for an extra stop if demand warranted. A plane simply doesn't have that option.

 

[TheVig]

Look at Charlotte, a major city with 3 Piedmonts, the Carolinian and the Crescent.

The bus doesn't stop at the station - it's quite a bit of a walk to get to it since it is on the main road outside the rather large parking lot.

There is a Light Rail station nearby but there is no way to get to it although it is just across the tracks . One has to go a long way to get across the tracks and come back to the light rail station. Not one train has a shuttle that meets it to get you there.

This is in a state that supports Amtrak and in the largest city in that state. It has both Light rail and bus service. Some day the Amtrak station is supposed to be moved downtown but no shuttle service or bus at the station until then?

As a resident of Charlotte, I can assure you that no to and from bus service will consistently happen at the existing station. A bus does show up for the arriving Carolinian at night. However if the Carolinian is running late, the bus pulls away empty. I’ve seen it happen many times. No coordination on having the bus show up when the train actually arrives. Unless parking there, you need to rely on Uber, Lyft, Taxis, or a friend.

Once the Gateway station is completed, then their will be options for local bus and the street car. Not sure how that will all play out for the Crescent that rolls thru at 230am in the morning.

 

[MARC Rider]

One has to consider two things, the "last mile" issue in cities and towns as they are now, and the same issue in cities and towns they way many here would like them to be. Because most cities and towns, with the exception of a few neighborhoods are sprawled and not walkable, every form of public transportation, including airports, is going to have the last mile problem solved mostly by private cars, cabs, and ride share. Public transportation will always be a niche form of access, and really popular only in a few cities. If we were to convert cities and towns to a more dense walkable model, there may be more of a demand for public transportation, if only because a smaller proportion of the population will own cars. But taxis and ride shares will always be a big deal, as passengers with luggage are going to be a bit reluctant to haul their baggage in and out of buses and trains. I've found this true in my case as I've been getting older. I certainly have less tolerance for hauling even a roller bag up a flight of stairs from the subway entrance and sometimes having to stand in a crowded subway car while holding my bag.

 

[toddinde]

Uber and Lyft only “resolve” the parking issue, make congestion worse, and safety…questionable.

They’re good when you’re visiting a city away from home. It’s not a substitute for good mass transit. The issue is the last mile myth which is an excuse the highway people use to stop rail development. Nobody can ever point to a place where it’s been an issue though. It’s an unproven hypothesis.

 

[MARC Rider]

One thing that makes the NEC so successful is that they have provisions for both transit connections in the larger cities and park-and-ride facilities to appeal to suburbanites. Thus, if you live in the city of New York, Philadelphia, Washington, etc., there is lots of relatively convenient transit access to the stations. If you live in the 'burbs, you can board at Metro Park, BWI Airport station, New Carrolton, etc. Some smaller cities may have transit connections, but for a large part of the ridership, it's more convenient for them to just drive or take a taxi/ride share to the station. Baltimore is an example of this.

As far as comparing driving end to end and driving to the station to take the train, I could either get in my car, leave right from home and be in Center City Philadelphia in 2 hours or midtown Manhattan in 4 hours. Or I could drive 15 minutes to the station, probably wait around an average of 20 -30 minutes for my train, and take a 1:10 Northeast Regional train ride to 30th St. or a 2:40 Northeast Regional train ride to New York Penn. In both cases, even with the "last mile problem" and wait time for the train, the train is time-competitive with driving. This shows that a 75-80 mph end-to-end average speed is probably sufficient for corridor rail service if the goal is getting cars off the highway.

Of course, not all trips are between downtown and downtown. That means that if your final destination is in suburbia, it might well be faster to just drive the whole distance.

But there's more than just speed and travel times involved in a decision on whether to drive or let someone else do the driving for you for most of the distance. I can attest that driving I-95 between Baltimore and Philadelphia or New York is not an enjoyable experience. Even if the traffic is flowing freely, the volume of traffic, number of big-rig trucks, and aggressive drivers makes the drive very stressful. But there are usually traffic jams at at least one point along the way. And getting across the Hudson into New York almost always involves jammed up traffic. I think the last time I was able to ride into Manhattan without a traffic jam, LBJ was president and I wasn't old enough to drive. Then, of course, once you arrive at your final destination, you have to park your car. I think street parking for more than an hour or two is another thing from the past. (We don't even have it any more in Baltimore.) Thus, you have to go into a garage with rates that make the $20/day rate at the Baltimore Penn Station garage look like free parking.

Sure, corridor stations need to be easily accessible to local transportation. Stations in cities where a relatively large percentage of the population rides transit might benefit from transit connections. However, in most of the smaller cities and towns in corridors outside of the NEC (and also in parts of the NEC, too), what they really need to good convenient secure parking at reasonable rates, and also good access for taxis, ride share, and drop-offs. Because, let's face it, most of the Amtrak riders will be taking their cars or a taxi/ride share to the station, or be getting dropped off or picked up.

 

[Matthew H Fish]

So, to clarify something:

My post was specifically about corridor service, something that people might use regularly. And corridor service really changes the equation of what is practical. If someone is going from Denver to the Bay Area, the time and effort and money to call an Uber/Cab/Shuttle is a pretty minimal change. But if someone is going from Roseville to Sacramento, or Seattle to Centralia, two times a week, then the added price of getting an Uber/cab becomes a bigger factor. At least in Oregon, Amtrak's ticket prices are very competitive, 12 dollars for a 50 mile trip is a reasonably price, but if you have to spend an additional 10 dollars beyond that, then suddenly its a lot more expensive.

Also, even if we say it is an okay solution for one person, when we think about these transit options really attracting a lot of riders--- say there is 20-50 people getting off in that station. What does that parking lot look like if each one of them has an Uber or friend waiting with a car? If corridor service becomes a serious part of integrated transportation plans, single passenger cars don't scale well.

 

[sttom]

The biggest station to me is Sacramento, and they have an light rail stop at the station, so that makes a good connection along with a Holiday Inn about a block away. I personally don't think transit connections are a make or break deal for most people when it comes to choosing Amtrak over driving. Even if we got a reasonable train system in this country, a lot of stops will be in places that won't have hundreds of people getting on or off trains that are leaving every 10 minutes anytime soon. This doesn't mean that we should ignore the issues some people will face getting to and from the train station. Getting federal funding for Amtrak even if its for "state" trains would be a big milestone and we need it before we can really worry about how people get to the trains.

On the subject, the best way to think about urban planning is that we need to think of it like flood mitigation. Which is that you absorb the water as closer to where it falls as you can. Which means that when setting zoning and building codes (which really should be done at the state level, not the local level) places need to be zoned for mixed use so people can walk to things like a corner store or a restaurant instead of driving 5 miles for anything. Relating this back to the train station dilemma, having things closer to the station would help a lot too. Unless a state does this, along with funding and mandating public transit service levels, not much will change. Considering the national government is still run by climate deniers, they won't care to fund transit improvements adequately enough to make a difference.

 

[Matthew H Fish]

Another thing I should explain: I used the expression "Last Mile" by analogy with broadband internet. This is the problem where even if people put in the shiniest and newest technology of fiber optic cable between major cities...you still have to move those down the street along copper wires, and into people's homes on the same copper wires. So I wasn't talking about literal "miles" but about the point of diminishing returns when we spend a lot of money on new, fancy infrastructure to make certain point-to-point connections faster, but it is placed on top of infrastructure that isn't up to the task. I don't know exactly how many miles that "Last Mile" is, I would guess probably around 5-10 depending on the city.

Along the Amtrak Cascades corridor, the train is competitive in price, time and comfort with airplanes or private automobiles, if you are going station to station. But if your trip takes you more than 5-10 miles away from that station, it suddenly becomes much more difficult.

I could give more examples, as needed.

 

[west point]

An example of beating the system last and first mile. In law near San Jose drives to a free parking CAL train station. At station close to work picks up car at low cost parking and drives to work. Claims it saves him up to an hour each way ?

 

[joelkfla]

Speaking of last mile -- this is in a press release by Brightline in South FL:

Among the many service enhancements Goddard outlined is the introduction of Brightline’s new mobility as a service platform that will address guests’ first and last mile connections. Delivered in partnership with software company Iomob, the new service is intended to provide guests with full door-to-door travel service, eliminating the gaps created by the first and last miles and reducing environmental impact. It will be powered by a brand new, state-of-the-art, digital platform that will make its app experience and website completely frictionless. The new mobility service is designed to provide door-to-door travel through improved access to stations, offering a selection of private luxury cars, shared shuttle services, golf carts and micro-mobility options.​

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Full press release: brightline announces plans to resume service (gobrightline.com)