Acelas have not served NLC since 2020. I wonder what the ridership was; Shore Line East commuter rail service will be cut in September, so it'll be interesting to see how they choose to make the schedule even worse than it is currently.
Transit, Urbanism and Real Estate development supporting Transit
- Thread starter daybeers
- Start date
Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:
blueman271
OBS Chief
Where are you getting the SLE info from?
blueman271
OBS Chief
Thanks
Yup, sadly the per passenger subsidy is really high, so they thought they should cut the service instead of encouraging TOD to replace the abysmal land use around the stations. Not like that's going to set off a death spiral or anything...
Not like we've spent billions on billions for highway projects statewide recently...
Not like we've spent billions on billions for highway projects statewide recently...
a Subsidy of over $60 per passenger is ridiculous.
By comparison, Essential Air Service subsidizes at a rate of more than $100 per passenger (Souce: Forbes Magaine), with a limit is $200 if unless it is more than 210 miles from a larger airport (multiple sources).
jis
Permanent Way Inspector
Staff member
Administator
Moderator
AU Supporting Member
Gathering Team Member
Whether it is really a TOD will become obvious when we know how many parking/garage spaces will be built per dwelling. In NJ they have these grand TOD projects built with upto three parking spaces per apartment/condo and demonstrably people living there use cars more than transit, if they use transit at all that is!
In fact, I wonder if anyone has actually built any real TOD/New Urbanism outside of the old central city areas. All of the projects I've seen in my neck of the woods seem to just take a few New Urbanist design principles and graft them to what is essentially a car-oriented suburban development project.
The problem is, you might use the train every day to commute to work but you are probably going to still need your car to go shopping or go out for dinner etc even with TOD there are still too many places you need to get to that require a car or are inconvenient to get to by transit. Unless you live downtown in a large city like Manhattan.
A properly designed TOD should have enough commercial activity within walking distance that a resident shouldn't need a car for most daily activities. Or at least instead of 2 cars per family, they can get by on just one. Another they need to do is eliminate free parking everywhere, even in suburban shopping centers. And back in the old days of railroad suburbs, people did a lot of shopping downtown and had stuff they couldn't carry delivered to their homes.
Metra Electric Rider
Engineer
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2016
- Messages
- 2,229
Nobody, as in no developer, is going to build any TOD unless there is a market or business case for this, i.e. they can build at a profit, either through there being demand or a subsidy (tax abatement of some kind or a direct subsidy). I'm suspicious of a lot of it as being sustainable from the development end - I would actually like to know if a lot of the urban projects that have been built lately - talking about Chicago specifically - actually reduce car usage or if the residents truly have fewer cars or just park on the street.
In rural or suburban areas, I don't see it happening. There isn't enough density or demand to create realistically livable car-free environments in small towns or suburban downtowns with our current retail patterns and business patterns. Yes, definitely increase density around stations which will increase ridership, but it won't eliminate cars.
In the case of Shore Line East - even if zoning was changed, there were interested developers, business cases or subsidies in place for development, it would still take years for it to happen - the land has to be assembled (after somebody looking at the development possibilities and having done their due diligence), zoning changed or reviewed, the design done, bidding to contractors done, financing put in place and then construction. Best case two years from start to finish, i.e. occupancy. And realistically, longer for full build out and there to be a noticeable increase in ridership.
In rural or suburban areas, I don't see it happening. There isn't enough density or demand to create realistically livable car-free environments in small towns or suburban downtowns with our current retail patterns and business patterns. Yes, definitely increase density around stations which will increase ridership, but it won't eliminate cars.
In the case of Shore Line East - even if zoning was changed, there were interested developers, business cases or subsidies in place for development, it would still take years for it to happen - the land has to be assembled (after somebody looking at the development possibilities and having done their due diligence), zoning changed or reviewed, the design done, bidding to contractors done, financing put in place and then construction. Best case two years from start to finish, i.e. occupancy. And realistically, longer for full build out and there to be a noticeable increase in ridership.
It makes a huge difference in neighborhood life, pollution, traffic just to get down to one car households. Here are some notes from an urban life in a city assumed to be suburban.
From 2006 through 2019 I lived in a renovated 1915 condo conversion in Denver's Capitol Hill neighborhood. We had 12 two-bedroom units and 1 one-bedroom unit. We had 8 parking places that were in effect owned by specific households. Some residents' cars were parked through the day, used for evening shopping or weekend outings. Commuters used sidewalks, bicycled, rode buses, and some drove. At one point three households worked from home: a video producer, a musician, and a traveling nurse. Typically, two to four households had no car.
The most commonly expressed complaint was the broken-up sidewalks and snow and ice. Gutless city leaders were afraid to enforce the law that required adjacent property owners to maintain the walks. Throughout my 38 years in Denver, city leaders have talked big about what the transit system should be doing, but failed to act on issues over which they have exclusive authority.
No pun intended; it could be an uphill battle at times. The biggest problem was that outside firms assumed that we would like to drive to follow their relocations. Panera closed their neighborhood location and invited us to visit their convenient new place about 1½ miles away. Instead, traffic shifted to independents. Whole Foods took over the small regional Alfalfa's chain and found our busy neighborhood outlet to be too small, closed it and invited us to visit their big store about three miles away. They retained the lease so that no one would open a replacement. Fortunately, a former Safeway turned Office Depot became a regional Natural Grocers. Corporate chess moves are an obstacle.
New developments in the neighborhood continue, with old 1950's/60's parking minimums reduced.
Denver's streetcar era TOD:
From 2006 through 2019 I lived in a renovated 1915 condo conversion in Denver's Capitol Hill neighborhood. We had 12 two-bedroom units and 1 one-bedroom unit. We had 8 parking places that were in effect owned by specific households. Some residents' cars were parked through the day, used for evening shopping or weekend outings. Commuters used sidewalks, bicycled, rode buses, and some drove. At one point three households worked from home: a video producer, a musician, and a traveling nurse. Typically, two to four households had no car.
The most commonly expressed complaint was the broken-up sidewalks and snow and ice. Gutless city leaders were afraid to enforce the law that required adjacent property owners to maintain the walks. Throughout my 38 years in Denver, city leaders have talked big about what the transit system should be doing, but failed to act on issues over which they have exclusive authority.
No pun intended; it could be an uphill battle at times. The biggest problem was that outside firms assumed that we would like to drive to follow their relocations. Panera closed their neighborhood location and invited us to visit their convenient new place about 1½ miles away. Instead, traffic shifted to independents. Whole Foods took over the small regional Alfalfa's chain and found our busy neighborhood outlet to be too small, closed it and invited us to visit their big store about three miles away. They retained the lease so that no one would open a replacement. Fortunately, a former Safeway turned Office Depot became a regional Natural Grocers. Corporate chess moves are an obstacle.
New developments in the neighborhood continue, with old 1950's/60's parking minimums reduced.
Denver's streetcar era TOD:
danasgoodstuff
OBS Chief
Or that can just make their neighbors' lives miserable as new developments are built here without adequate parking based on wishful thinking and the residents park on the streets in front of single family dwellings and businesses. Just to be clear, I'm not opposed to TOD/NU, in principle I'm all for it, but it has to be done right or at least reasonably well or it will fail and turn folks off to the whole idea.
Last edited:
I'm not familiar with the terms of those leases (I know in the case of some malls there will be terms involving sales being made, partly because some share of the lease payments will be based on revenue generated at the location in question), but I feel like a partial solution to "sabotage" cases like that would be to permit the revocation of a lease for an "obviously disused" property, essentially at the whim of the owner (i.e. you can hold onto the lease until someone actually wants to take it over, but as soon as that happens you might end up being out on your ear on 30 days notice).
When I was a teenager, we moved into Center City Philadelphia in a new development. The city rules were that new developments needed one parking spot per car, one and no more. So we gave up one of our cars, and it worked out fine. Our neighbors in the older, historic houses had to find street parking, and they seemed to manage with that OK, too. Visitors also had to find street parking on their own, and that also worked, although you might have to park around the block and walk, which isn't as bad thing. Nobody's lives were made miserable by the limited parking.
The real problem is that these sort of neighborhoods can only be found in limited areas, and the rents and housing prices are very high. This suggests that there's an untapped demand for this sort of living, yet suburban development continues to be based on a pattern that requires each adult in the family to own a car and drive it 10-20 miles every day.
