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(WA) Sound Transit light rail falling below projections

 
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RailBus63
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Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 1063

PostPosted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 9:34 pm    Post subject: (WA) Sound Transit light rail falling below projections Reply with quote

Crosscut.com - Sound Transit's (un)progress report on light rail

Quote:
Sound Transit just released its Second Quarter Ridership Report for this year. Light rail ridership is higher than the previous quarter but still far below projections:

    Weekday boardings averaged 21,766 for the quarter, compared with 16,909 average weekday boardings during last quarter. Central Link will need to maintain this high rate of growth to meet the ambitious 2010 ridership target. Halfway through the year, Central Link ridership totaled 3,195,454, about 40 percent of the budget target of 8.1 million boardings for the year.


Quote:
A more immediate area of concern for Sound Transit officials is the poor on-time performance with light rail. Sound Transit officials told voters in 1996 that Light Rail "will provide significantly greater reliability than all other types of public transportation in the region.” Typically, other transit modes have on-time performance of between 90-99 percent. Last quarter, light rail had a dismal on-time performance rate of 71 percent. This quarter saw a slight improvement at 77 percent, but still well below Sound Transit's target of being above 90 percent.


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timecruncher



Age: 73
Joined: 23 Dec 2008
Posts: 456
Location: Louisville, Kentucky

PostPosted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 1:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not a bit suprised. I rode the line from SEA-TAC down to King Street Station back in April when enroute to and from the Motor Bus Society meeting up in Vancouver.

The route does not serve any real traffic generators, and patronage seemed highest over the short stretch between downtown and the Beacon Hill area. The line is several blocks away from the main drag in Ranier Beach, and there is enough security on the LRT line to keep the dregs of that area of town off of the trains.

The airport? Yes, the airport is a potential source of much business, but as with many regional air hubs, a high percentage of arriving and departing passengers are going somewhere other than downtown Seattle. The first five miles of track is ariel structure with no stops convenient to anything with the exception of that first stop north of the airport terminal. The ride is nice, reasonably fast, and scenic - even in Seattle's traditionally miserable weather - but the line is an expensive testament to the notion that "If we build it, passengers will ride."

You must first determine that there is a reason for people to ride where it goes.

Thoughts: Getting from SEA-TAC to King Street Station was a breeze using Sounder.

I kept waiting for the train to get crowded. Even at 5:00pm, it was crowded southbound from downtown only for a couple of stops, then the train emptied out.

Is it no wonder that conservative talk-show icon Mike Medved considers Sounder a "toy train" that did not need to be built?

Sounder Airport Main Terminal stop. Nobody on the platform on a weekday except security personnel...


Nice ride, like I said. We're up high here, look ahead and you can see the first stop south of the terminal. Look at the elevation of it. There are some bus connections 'way down there at street level, but the climb up to LRT is formidable, and there is little in the way of pedestrian-friendly access to this rail line except in the economically depressed Ranier Beach area. Again, the train doesn't really go where people who live there want to go.


Nice equipment, but this photo was taken not too far south of downtown Seattle. The train was almost empty on a weekday at about lunchtime.


timecruncher
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HwyHaulier




Joined: 16 Dec 2007
Posts: 932
Location: Harford County, MD

PostPosted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 7:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

RailBus63 - timecruncher -

This example is as good as any illustrating the vices in the financing schemes. It is always the intense competition between
numerous agencies, to grab their perceived "fair share" of funding amounts. Pigs at the trough comes to mind...

Anything goes in the application processes. I have seen proposals packed with breathless projections, a great deal
of hyperbole, puffery, and downright deceitful use of data. It gets worse. Once a locality wins the prize (in this rather faux
Lottery scheme), then the part where the project demands endless continuing, locally funded subsidy.

Common sense is nowhere near any of most of it. Better to return to the original intent, "pay as you go" concepts. The taxes
and fees remitted by each of the States to the Feds should return to the respective States. No strings attached, compared
with present endless demands and mandates of how the funds should be spent.

.........................Vern.......................
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