[sustran] Re: More on Denver thread

[BruunB at aol.com]

I guess I don't want Wendell to have the last word. I would like to elaborate
on these points a little further. 

In a message dated 10/25/01 2:34:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
wcox at publicpurpose.com writes:

<< With respect to new rail systems, it can generally be posited that the
 subsidy of trips that are all or part on rail will be more highly subsidized
 than those on buses, due to the very high capital subsidy for rail. US
 transit agencies treat capital as manna from on high --- something free that
 does not have to be accounted for.

We all agree that the rail capital investment can be quite high. I also agree 
that public transport agencies can often view these investments as "free 
money", but it is not only the public transport agency's viewpoint that 
counts here. These investments can also be justified as alternatives to 
highway projects that are also expensive and have higher social and 
environmental costs. 
 
<< Whatever one can do with feeder buses to rail can also be done with feeder
 buses to trunk line buses. One of the more intractible  problems in the US
 has been the bias of transport planners in comparing modes.
  >>

Trunk bus systems can work fine too, but they also need some investment in 
separation from general traffic and traffic signal pre-emption if they are to 
work reliably and with attractive speed. But they do not work as well as rail 
systems when demand is quite high and the number of buses required becomes 
very large. But the real operating performance difference comes in systems 
with highly peaked demand. 
Rail consists can have additional cars added at low marginal cost to increase 
peak capacity, whereas every unit of bus capacity costs equally much as the 
last.

Eric