[sustran] Re: More on Portland and metros

[BruunB at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/31/01 7:04:04 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
wcox at publicpurpose.com writes:

WC:<< Have to agree with Eric on sports stadia. Let the owners and fans pay.
 
Have to disagree on what light rail has accomplished in Portland, but that
 debate could rage forever, and whether whatever it has created (which I
 would argue it has not) could not have been as easily created with buses.
 
ECB: A bus system that does not truncate some service to connect it to a rail 
line can not give the same frequency of service to lower demand areas as one 
that does, given an equal operating budget. Being "forced" to transfer is the 
price one pays. Do airlines provide direct service from South Podunk to New 
York or do they make you transfer in Chicago? This is why South Podunk can 
have 6 trips per day instead of only two trips if they were to be direct. 

I also point out that most Portland routes are on a 15-minute headway and 
connect with each other as well as the rail line, thus facilitating 
tangential travel as well as travel to the CBD. 

WC: As for metros in large developing world cities. Problem is that they are a
 non-comprehensive form of transit. It is not possible to provide auto
 competitive service throughout the urban area with metros, whether we are
 talking about
 Sao Paulo or Shanghai. And if you dont provide auto competitive service, the
 people are going to buy cars as soon as they can afford them.
 
 ECB: I certainly agree that they can not be comprehensive, but the more 
parts of the city that have auto-competitive service the better. So I 
understand why metro lines tend to serve richer areas first, unfair as that 
might be. But to reiterate my earlier point, when cities get really large and 
distances get long, I see no other way to get both reasonable travel times 
and high capacities needed. I keep hearing from Eric Britton and others that 
it is time for the "end of metros". Fair enough, but tell me how you are 
going to get hundreds of thousands of people from the fringes of a city the 
size of Shanghai, Mexico, Sao Paolo, etc. to where job opportunities are 
without some kind of grade separation? I don't mean to be argumentative, I 
seriously am open to suggestions.

Eric
  >>