Discussion: Zig vs Zag

I think you're right. I've observed the same thing. Crowded trains at odd off-peak hours, delayed service, equipment breakdowns, etc.

Too bad transit funding is being cut across the nation, as short-sighted taxpayers refuse to support it with increased (gas) taxes. St Louis and Chicago are fortunate to have invested in light rail years ago. But what about so many other new subdivisions and communities across the US built during the housing boom of the past 20 years? In this age of local government shutdowns, will transit systems be able to keep up with demand? Demand is zigging; funding is zagging.

I can't speak for other cities, but around here taxpayers have a legit beef. The seven-mile extension of MetroLink to Shrewsbury came to $700,000,000 - double the original estimate. Meanwhile, the rebuild of highway 40, came in under budget at $520,000,000. Given that 40 is used by about 40,000 people daily, whereas the Shrewsbury link carries something like 5,000 (even at full capacity, it would only be around 10,000), I think people are right to ask some hard questions.

$100 million per mile to install four steel rails on flat land, where no cuts or fills are required, is ridiculous. At that price, we'd never have settled the west coast until commercial flights began in 1950. Someone is getting extremely wealthy...there must be a scandal there someplace.

And half a billion to rebuild a major highway inside a major city? Seems too low...unless it was only to add a lane or repave, in which case very little was actually accomplished. Adding extra lanes to a congested highway has been likened by some to fighting obesity by letting out your belt!

I don't know much about that controversy. Its certainly easy to believe there was a lot of waste, especially given the legal battle between the client and the contractor, but my understanding was there were a lot of property issues, and a lot of that spur seems to be on bridges, a monster over 44, over manchester, over hanley, up to the clayton station from inner belt, or tunnelled: under brentwood, and the underground stations of big bend, forsyth, and skinker brought about by the finicky wealthy homeowners in Clayton and U city. Its easy to see how the tunneling thru Clayton and Ucity added millions to the cost - I wouldn't be surprised if it was $100 million more for that.

My colleagues at the Missouri State Auditor's Office looked at the issue a bit:

http://www.auditor.mo.gov/press/2008-58.htm

Light rail projects are well known for starting out with low estimates of costs and high estimates of ridership. Flyvbjerg coined the term "strategic misrepresentation" to describe this sort of problem in big capital projects.

Thanks for the link - that really spells it out. Looks like it there was a lot of mis-management. That's a shame.

As for 40, it was a complete rebuild - down to the roadbed. Every overpass and exit redone. Two very significant interchanges. The difference is that there are a lot of companies that build roads. Competition is fierce and they are working with known technology. More importantly, there's typically high support (although Richmond Heights certainly did everything they could to block it).

Contrast that with light rail, where the folks with the cash don't even want it to exist (hence having to build all the underground stuff in Clayton when a grade-level track has worked through the busier CWE for years) and only a few companies even try to make it work.

Also the highway project saved significant time through their then-controversial decision to close the western half for one year, then close the eastern half for one year, instead of keeping a few lanes open both ways by shifting lanes left and right. Yes, no east-west thru traffic on I-64 for 2 years. The congestion was much less than anticipated.

I think I'm going to check out of this thread, but let me offer a parting thought. Yes, taxpayers can be short sighted, but by supporting large transportation infrastructure, you're one of them. The future is not in moving people around, but information. That money would be much better spent on ubiquitous broadband access. I'm not talking fantasy land, here. I spent all of 2009 working as a lead on one of the largest and most complex projects in IT history. I met daily (sometimes hourly) with my peers. I had "hallway" conversations with them (via IM). By the usual metrics of software development, it was my most productive year ever. All this was done from my basement using a cell phone and an internet connection. People will always need to move around. But they won't always need to move along the same route at the same time twice a day. Rail is dead long term, except in very densly populated areas; it's simply not flexible enough. Fortunately, it probably won't be needed in another 20 years. I don't think spending hundres of millions on infrastructure with such a short useful lifespan doesn't make a lot of sense.

As for the required culture shift, I have some experience there, too. I managed the "Highway 40 mitigation project" for a major downtown employer. It was much easier to convince people to work from home than to get them to embrace mass transit. The solution is there, it works now, it's just a matter of time before more folks catch on.

The solution is there...

Well I yield to your superior knowledge and experience. Is the future you're envisioning devoid of freeways and rail too? A world where a homogeneous population is spread out across the face of the land, with everyone living a stationary life in their own cubical?

I think Robert Heinlein described such a world in a scifi novel about 60 years ago. But I don't think I'd like it. As an orienteer, surely you can understand peoples' deep-seated desire to travel, just to be challenged and see new things. It's not all practical either; there's a psychological component of "going to work" too. And to satisfy this need for our increasing population, we need large transportation infrastructures.

Light rail has come a long way in the past 30 years. Just ride the Chicago el after a trip on the MetroLink. Cold, slow, drafty, noisy, unsafe... It needs a complete replacement more than Highway 40 or any other interstate. But ridership is still shooting upward, because of the inherent convenience it provides over the automobile, and other factors described in this recent Atlantic Monthly article. If rail is to die "long term" how do you explain this thinking?

Is the increased ridership you and I both observed merely a spike, before we all assume positions in Heinlein's world?

There are a lot of future possibilities I don't much like - commuting is a relatively small concern in that context. Heinlein's world is a possible future, but not one I think of as likely. I ascribe much more credibility to Kurzweil's predictions, mainly because almost all the ones he made in the 80's about life in 2010 have come true. They also line up with my own understanding of the rate of technological and cultural change.

If you'd take a moment to reread my post, you'll find your answers. Total transportation may well continue to increase, the issue is patterns that can be addressed on a large scale. Rail's problem is lack of flexibility. Not really a drawback in a place like NYC where so many people want to go so many places that you can facilitate many of them with a comprehensive grid. Much more of a problem in a smaller city like STL and impossible by the time you get to the much less dense suburbs. Buses do the job better for a fraction of the price. Meanwhile, if enough folks stop commuting to work, the existing road infrastructure will handle the car traffic. It will need maintenance, of course, but probably not expansion.

I assume the spike now is a result of high energy prices in a bad economy. The first condition isn't likely to improve, the latter will, but the real issue is how many people need to move at PEAK times. Total movement is irrelevant - infrastructure has to be built to support peak. That number will likely drop precipitously in the next 20 years.