[sustran] Re: Negative thoughts on metro

[J.H. Crawford]

Hi, all,

I've been lurking on this topic all along, but now I feel like I have
to rise up and defend metros. I've cut and pasted things from five
different messages, and I'll respond to each in turn.


Eric Britton:

>>>>3. I hope that we are pretty much agreed that the basic argument here is not
that we need to close down the London or Hong Kong metros, but rather to be
sure that we are 100% rational, informed and unbiased when it comes to
understanding how best to spent the NEXT BILLION DOLLARS that we may be able
to get our hands on in City X.  If you can make the argument for spending
that on a metro over the counter arguments that the smartest and best
informed of the people on this list, well then bravo!  Do it!  (But you
won't be able to. It's that simple.  So, as we say so demurely: "Goodbye to
(new) metros.")

I think you CAN justify it. Cities like Paris, London, Tokyo, Mexico City
demand metros--you can't develop sufficient capacity any other way.
At the same time, only metros can offer speeds that are competitive
with private cars. All surface means have got to be slower, noisier,
and less attractive. I grant you that trams are more pleasant for
the riders, because there is something to see, but in every respect,
metros are better for the non-users. I hope that we're all agreed
that systems elevated above ground should never be built.



Lake Sagaris

>>>>Let me add, in the rigid classbound societies of developing countries,
where the car is often the maximum symbol of having made it out of the
bottom mud and into the light, noisy dangerously driven poorly kept buses
are often the maximum symbol of the opposite. Metros, on the other hand, at
least Santiago (Chile) offer one of the few models of social equality,
transportation for the whole nation and not just the top or bottom half.
EVERYONE uses the metro (if it coincides with their route). If you're
talking about social justice and equality, metros are extremely important,
perhaps not the be all and end all, but very useful at the practical AND
the symbolic end.

Interesting point. The London and New York systems are heavily used by
the suit-and-tie crowd, along with everybody else. You'll not get these
people onto city buses. "Nobody with a choice ever took a bus anywhere."



Eric Bruun

>>>>Up to now, I have almost always agreed with you. But "Goodbye to 
Metros" is a bit much. Look at productive capacity - capacity times
speed (Productive Capacity), to see what the investment buys - if
tremendous capacity over long distances in a reasonable amount of time is
needed - nothing can outperform them. 

This is just plain true. If you've only got 25,000 passengers an hour, 
then you can try an LRV system. If you've got 50,000 then you have to
use a metro.

>>>>Of course, cost is a problem, but it
is not true that other modes have the same performance, that is my only
point.  This doesn't mean they always go to the right places, have
the right network configuration, or are properly connected to other
modes, but one can say this about any proposed rail or busway investment.
On the other hand, since the investment is permanent, one can eventually
revise the connecting network to improve the overall system over time.

Yes, see Toronto, for example.

>>>>Also, if you want to make service attractive in wealthier cities, you
might have to invest in high performance. 

Absolutely. Nothing can touch a metro on this criterion.

>>>>Parkinson's law does not
always hold, either. Munich has had no increase in average trip length per
capita for 20 years, even with massive increases in rail service.
The secret is to take additional measures such as pedestrian malls,
high parking prices, etc. to deter additional driving. 

The real principle, I think, is that surface streets must be for
pedestrians, not for cars, trucks, etc. Put the utilities where
they belong, under ground. Of course, in smaller cities, metros
are non-starters because the high capacity carries a cost that
can't be borne by smaller cities.



Dinesh Mohan

>>>>Metros are ideal for very high density corridors, eg Hong Kong. Very few
cities have living patterns similar to Hong Kong. As a matter of fact
the success of the metro in HK is an outlier.

Excellent example, but many cities still have densities that
are plenty high enough for metros to work better than any
other alternative.

>>>>Widely dispersed populations in cities with mixed land use patterns make
modern high capacity bus systems much more efficient. Certainly much
more amenable to change as the city changes structure and living and
business patterns with time.

People hate buses. I think the solution is to build suitable
rail systems (LRV or metro) into areas identified as suitable
for increased densities. The high quality of service will
attract the people and the redevelopment necessary to make
the systems justify their costs. You have to be prepared to
wait a while, though. You just aren't going to attract a high
ridership with buses. Only Curitiba has been successful in this,
and they're now busy replacing their bus routes with LRV systems.
In first-world cities, no bus system you can devise is going
to attract the BMW crowd.

>>>>Families generally cannot spend more than 10% of their income on
transportation. The break-even costs for a metro seem to be int he range
of USD 1.00 per trip, no matter where the metro is built. If we take a
figure of  4 trips per family per day, the annual expenditure comes to
USD 1,460 on transportation per family not counting other modes. This
means that the annual family income must be more than USD 14,600. A
figure beyond most families in the world.

I doubt that places like Mexico City are charging anywhere near $1/ride 
(anybody know?)


Well, enough for now. Suffice it to say that metros have their place.

Regards,




                                  ###

J.H. Crawford                                                 Carfree Cities
postmaster at carfree.com                                http://www.carfree.com