[sustran] Transit of Transit Options

Todd Litman litman at vtpi.org
Mon Feb 14 23:56:45 JST 2000


Thanks for the feedback.

I have always defined "Public Transit" to include a wide range of services,
from fixed rail to bus to jitney to demand-response shared taxi, and I
think that there is considerable potential for improving the range of these
services available to consumers.

I'm not really concerned with engineering issues. My interest is in how
options are evaluated. All I suggest is that if transit technology is being
compated with other options, that the full costs and benefits of each
option be considered. Some significant factors are frequently overlooked,
such as differences in parking and downstream congestion costs between rail
transit and automobile travel. 


At 09:12 AM 02/12/2000 -0600, you wrote:
>Posted to the transport-policy at egroups list.
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <Sladerj at aol.com>
>To: <transport-policy at egroups.com>
>Sent: Friday, February 11, 2000 3:52 PM
>Subject: [transport-policy] Highway vs Rail vs Future
>
>
>> Todd Litman Wrote:
>>
>> >>Cox's website includes the factoid that it would be cheaper to give each
>> user of Seattle's proposed rail system a new Jaguar car. This is a false
>> comparison. Rail includes right-of-way and avoids parking, so a more
>> appropriate comparison would be the cost of the car, the road and a
>> parking space, which would tend to be quite high in the high density urban
>> corridor that the rail line will serve.<<
>>
>> I think Mr. Cox means that, when people use rail, they still need other
>> transport at each end of their trip. Highways eliminate that. I need three
>> questions answered:
>>
>>     1. Why are the comparisons always Highway vs Rail?
>>
>>     2. Did anybody in Victioria look at any developing technology for the
>> solution?
>>
>>     3. Why do all transport people seem to think that mass transit means
>big
>>     transit? The only other thing they seem to know about is maglev, which
>> brings      up the same end-of-line problem Mr. Cox is talking about.
>Doesn't
>> an      hourly capacity figure make more sense?
>>
>> When rail was profitable, state and city didn't build them, people did.
>Now,
>> everybody wants government money used to build more, because no
>businessman
>> ever would. I think I have something that would produce a profit, and that
>> people would build it.
>>
>> Please look at my website, the benefits and plan buttons, not the
>pictures. I
>> would like to hear from you as to whether this might work, as a way to get
>> something new growing. The cost to the city could be as little as the
>> test-system cost, about ten million. The rest could be done on the public
>> market.
>>
>> Jack Slade
>> Skytrek Systems
>>
>> http://www3.sympatico.ca/karen.graham/skytrek/Skytrek.htm


Sincerely,

Todd Litman, Director
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
1250 Rudlin Street
Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
E-mail:  litman at vtpi.org
Website: http://www.vtpi.org



More information about the Sustran-discuss mailing list