[sustran] Re: More on Portland and metros

[Wendell Cox]

A quick response on point one... Point two will have to wait a bit. And not
concerned about argumentativeness, this discussion is all very appropriate.

Despite the theoretical connections that are available in Portland, outside
the downtown area, something less than 5 percent of the residents are within
auto competitive access of jobs in the average location. This is where auto
competitiveness is defined as 50 percent above the auto trip time. This is
not a regional system, it is a downtown system.

As regards bus v. rail in Portland... basic issue is that you can provide
more quality bus service than rail service --- surface busways, etc. You can
run buses like rail if you like, and some should be run that way. Question
comes down to how much access you provide per increment of expense. Portland
got perhaps 1/5 a loaf (based upon the recent GAO report or Kain)

Will have more on point 2 later.


DEMOGRAPHIA & THE PUBLIC PURPOSE (Wendell Cox Consultancy)
http://www.demographia.com (Demographics & Land Use)
http://www.publicpurpose.com (Public Policy & Transport))
Telephone: +1.618.632.8507 - Facsimile: +1.810.821.8134
PO Box 841 - Belleville, IL 62222 USA
----- Original Message -----
From: <BruunB at aol.com>
To: <sustran-discuss at jca.ax.apc.org>
Cc: <preston at cc.wwu.edu>
Sent: Friday, 02 November, 2001 14:36
Subject: [sustran] Re: More on Portland and metros


> 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
>   >>