VIA Rail

[steveintoronto]

Stats you say?

Transportation in Transition
A Look at Changing Travel Patterns in America’s Biggest Cities
Released by: U.S. PIRG
Release date: Wednesday, December 4, 2013
> Read News Release
> Download Report (PDF)

Americans’ transportation habits have changed. The average American drives 7.6 percent fewer miles today than when per-capita driving peaked in 2004. A review of data from the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration and Census Bureau for America’s 100 most populous urbanized areas – which are home to over half of the nation’s population – shows that the decline in per-capita driving has taken place in a wide variety of regions. From 2006 to 2011, the average number of miles driven per resident fell in almost three-quarters of America’s largest urbanized areas for which up-to-date and accurate data are available. Most urbanized areas have also seen increases in public transit use and bicycle commuting and decreases in the share of households owning a car.

NOTE: The first five data bars (“Increase in the proportion of workers working at home” to “Increase in the percent of car-less households”) measure the 100 most populous urbanized areas from 2000 to 2010. The “Decrease in vehicle-miles traveled per capita” measures the 74 (out of the 100) most populous urbanized areas for which comparable data exist from 2006 to 2011. The “Increase in transit passenger-miles traveled per capita” measures the 98 (out of 100) most populous urbanized areas for which comparable data exist from 2005 to 2010.

Regional, state and federal officials need to account for changing trends in driving as they consider how to adapt their transportation policies and infrastructure plans to a new future of slower growth in vehicle travel.

Transportation trends are changing in America’s biggest urbanized areas.

• The proportion of workers commuting by private vehicle – either alone or in a carpool – declined in 99 out of 100 of America’s largest urbanized areas between 2000 and 2007-2011.
  [*]The proportion of residents working from home has increased in 100 out of the 100 largest urbanized areas since 2000.
  [*]The proportion of households without cars increased in 84 out of the 100 largest urbanized areas from 2006 to 2011.
  [*]The proportion of households with two cars or more decreased in 86 out of the 100 largest urbanized areas from 2006 to 2011.

There is additional evidence of declining driving in those urbanized areas with standardized data on vehicle-miles traveled.
[...continues at length....]

http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/12/04/study-all-across-america-car-commuting-is-dropping/

January 22, 2016
Back to the future for passenger rail
Written by Michael Melaniphy

IN a "back to the future" moment, passenger rail is experiencing a renaissance in the United States. Over the last 10 years, rail systems have grown and the ridership demand has grown, too. The number of light rail networks increased from 32 in 2005 to 39 in 201, while the number of commuter rail and hybrid rail systems (regional rail) has risen from 22 to 32.

In 2014 ridership across all public transport modes in the United States reached 10.8 billion, the highest level for 58 years. Rail ridership was up 3.3%, while passenger numbers for light rail climbed 3.6% with a 2.9% increase in commuter rail usage.

2016 will bring more new lines and stations across the United States. To highlight just a few examples, Denver will open three commuter rail lines, one of which - the A Line - will connect Denver Union Station in the city centre with Denver International Airport. Denver will also open a light rail line that will connect to the A Line. Cincinnati will open a 5.8km tram line linking the urban core with city neighbourhoods. These are not the older, legacy cities that have had rail for decades. Denver and Cincinnati illustrate the growing reach of rail transit in this country.

The future is bright for passenger rail in the US, but why is it so popular now? To begin with, more people are living in urban areas and rail is an efficient way to move people. The largest generation in the United States, the Millennials (roughly aged 18-35), like having transportation choices and like urban living. So do many of the Baby Boomers (aged 50-70), the second-largest age group, who are increasingly moving to urban areas where they can use public transit services.

Another reason why rail is on the increase is because of its positive impact on communities. Mayors of towns and cities throughout the United States know the powerful impact that rail transit can have. Transit-oriented development around rail stations can change a blighted area into a thriving, mixed-use neighbourhood filled with apartments, offices, and shops.
[...continues at length...]

http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/north-america/back-to-the-future-for-passenger-rail.html

 

[steveintoronto]

More news on Churchill:

Ottawa appoints former top bureaucrat to find solution on Churchill rail line
Ottawa promises 'interim funding' to get line to northern Manitoba town operating, if conditions met
By Sean Kavanagh, CBC News Posted: Sep 08, 2017 3:17 PM CT

The federal government has appointed a former top bureaucrat as an negotiator to help solve the Churchill rail issue and says it will help in finding a new owner for the line if the U.S.-based owner won't meet its contractual obligations.

Ottawa is dispatching the former Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters to work out differences between two competing groups interested in buying the rail line and the port from Denver-based Omnitrax and get a deal as soon as possible so the line to the northern Manitoba town can be fixed.
[...]
"In the event that Omnitrax is not willing to satisfy its contractual obligations, the government will work to facilitate discussion for the transfer of the rail line to a new owner," the government's release said.

Because time is short, Ottawa is also now willing to consider "interim funding to ensure restoration of the rail service" if certain conditions are met, according to the release.

Senior executives at Omnitrax have said the company cannot afford to repair the rail line and considers it a "public utility."
[...]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/churchill-rail-line-wayne-wouters-1.4281563

 

[kEiThZ]

One important thing to keep in mind when talking about the US is that long car commutes are normal. I'm talking 60-100 miles. That's not the majority. But a far higher proportion than most of the rest of the world. I live 60-70 miles from Silicon Valley. A ton of my neighbours drive there daily. And a fair bit more do it a few times a week. What keeps their averages down in the US are all those small towns and mid size cities where it only takes you 20 minutes to get to work. I'd argue that stats don't give you the full picture. This is one of those mean, median, mode problems.

Public transit is coming along. But I don't think we have much to learn from the Americans on this file. They are starting from such a low base, any slight improvement looks impressive.

 

[MisterF]

I disagree. Only for the reason that I think you are still judging the context to be too similar. Had we built cities with less freeways like them? Absolutely. But we live in a country and province where a $2 toll on a highway is controversial (Gardiner) and one of the biggest sins of a previous government (according to anybody who remembers Mike Harris) is selling off a toll highway (the 407).

The fewer and more congested freeways they have compel the public to use transit. And that's true even outside Australia. Look at the New York area for example.

Yet, even after GO RER, which will for the first time offer true regional rail in the GTA, the modal share predictions from Metrolinx don't show dramatic improvement. Basically just keeping up.

So it's clear that even the best rail systems don't seem to dissuade people from driving, unless driving itself becomes either expensive or massively inconvenient. That's true for many cities in Australia, Europe and Asia. And where true in North America (like New York) you see the regional rail with higher modal shares.

And this is before we discuss things like the coming wave of automation which at a minimum will make driving easier, to flat out full automation in 10-15 years. Maybe we can hope for traffic to be bad enough that people start considering trains.

Lastly, since we're talking about VIA rail in this thread, I fail to see what Australia has to offer us. VIA's corridor services are better than most intercity rail in Australia.

Is it really that much more difficult to drive in Australia than here? Sure they have fewer highways but they still have divided expressways connecting most of the major cities in the southeast. Driving is a major part of their culture. They did give us Mad Max after all. We have higher population density in the W-C corridor and within the cities themselves. There's more potential than you let on.

Yes I've acknowledged that we already have better intercity rail thanks to the longer distances between Australian cities. But regional and intercity rail can overlap, as we see with GO taking over some of Via's shorter routes.

Autonomous cars will make driving easier but they might not improve congestion. Not only will there be empty cars driving around, but with the increased ease of driving people will be driving more often. We'll still have traffic jams. An autonomous car won't be able to make an intercity trip of hundreds of kilometres as quickly as a train.

 

[MisterF]

Outside of the city of SF, I couldn't imagine living in California without a car. Even in LA, which has expanded its subway system tremendously over the past while, has not really made a dent in mode share because driving is just too attractive and destinations are too spread out.

LA hasn't actually expanded their subway that much. They have 2 lines, one of which is a stub, with the rest being LRT and BRT. Their LRT is a bit like Transit City - on-street lines with little grade separation and trains stopping at red lights.

 

[ShonTron]

LA hasn't actually expanded their subway that much. They have 2 lines, one of which is a stub, with the rest being LRT and BRT. Their LRT is a bit like Transit City - on-street lines with little grade separation and trains stopping at red lights.

There are several different solutions for LA Metro's LRT lines. Along with road medians, there are also some elevated and underground sections, as well being located in railway ROWs and freeway medians. Because of the mix, it's more than simply a Transit City-type system.

 

[44 North]

LA hasn't actually expanded their subway that much. They have 2 lines, one of which is a stub, with the rest being LRT and BRT. Their LRT is a bit like Transit City - on-street lines with little grade separation and trains stopping at red lights.

Their Green Line is 100% grade-separated, so should be included in their subway network alongside Red and Purple lines. With the three lines combined that's something like 69km. Not huge, but not horrible either.
*oh wait, I guess that number should be lower since Purple shares with Red for its majority, with a bit of "stub" being actual new subway.

 

[crs1026]

This above is the point that I am trying to get at: we cannot look at the preferences of some millennials and at the skyscrapers being constructed downtown and assume that we are in the middle of some great inevitable green shift. The actual statistics show that we are losing badly the war for a walkable and low-carbon urban future.

Absolutely true.

It may be possible in large cities to forcibly restrict auto access, but constraining auto use outside the most central zones is not going to happen. Nor would it achieve the right result. It is absurd to think of banning autos from central Georgetown or Milton, for instance. Most commuters going from those points to the City already use GO, but they depend on their automobile for the rest of their lifestyle. When I visit friends in Milton (yes, getting there by car) I am appalled by the number of cars in each driveway. Three cars in a household is quite common. And yet, GO service from Milton is excellent for weekday commuting, and heavily used.

I would theorise that society has become so accustomed to immediate, in-the-moment satisfaction of all needs that waiting for a bus or transfering en route is not acceptable. This is true of all generations, it's not just millenials.

Public transportation simply can't match the control over when to travel, nor can it provide seamless door to door service. It only becomes an option when the inconvenience of first mile, last mile and waiting time exceeds the inconvenience of being stuck in traffic.

With people working longer hours, the time value of leisure time goes up. I can't imagine getting all my evening and Saturday "running around" chores done on transit. It would take a total relocation of all suburban service and commercial infrastructure - big box stores, kids' hockey rinks, soccer fields, the whole townscape - to make this doable on transit in the hours available, even if service ran at rush hour frequency.

- Paul

 

[nfitz]

The province is running hard to stand still when it comes to mode share, pouring in billions but not seeing much benefit. And that's because there are broader trends that they are fighting against.

Wait, they suddenly think that the downtown employment will grow less from 2016 to 2041 than it did between 2016 and 2006?

If that's the basis for their modelling, we are screwed.

 

[MisterF]

There are several different solutions for LA Metro's LRT lines. Along with road medians, there are also some elevated and underground sections, as well being located in railway ROWs and freeway medians. Because of the mix, it's more than simply a Transit City-type system.

Their Green Line is 100% grade-separated, so should be included in their subway network alongside Red and Purple lines. With the three lines combined that's something like 69km. Not huge, but not horrible either.
*oh wait, I guess that number should be lower since Purple shares with Red for its majority, with a bit of "stub" being actual new subway.

Fair points. Los Angeles does still have a lot of street running LRT sections where they have to stop at red lights though. And Transit City isn't all street running either, most notably the underground section of Eglinton.

 

[steveintoronto]

There are several different solutions for LA Metro's LRT lines. Along with road medians, there are also some elevated and underground sections, as well being located in railway ROWs and freeway medians. Because of the mix, it's more than simply a Transit City-type system.

The Pasadena Light Rail is yet another. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)

All of SoCal is witnessing new systems or extensions coming on-line, and CalTrains is just one of the many.

Here's for heavy rail commuter for LA and Counties alone:

 

[steveintoronto]

Watch this and related events closely. It portends an offer being made on the Havelock line. Don't expect HSR, at least not initially, upgrade can happen later, but expect it to be completely privately financed and owned, using their own rolling stock with a lease arrangement for VIA and other sub-tenants:

India starts work on bullet train line with £12bn loan from Japan
Gujarat to Mumbai 217mph train will cut journey time from eight hours to three and is funded with low-interest Japanese loan

[...]
More than four-fifths of the project’s $19bn (£14.4bn) cost will be funded by a 0.1% interest-rate loan from Japan as part of a deepening economic relationship that both countries hope will act as a bulwark against Chinese influence in Asia. “Japan has shown that its a true friend of India,” Modi said on Thursday.
[...]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/india-starts-work-on-its-first-bullet-train-line

The real question will be if it's Japanese or some other Eastern nation that makes the offer as per Havelock line...

 

[cplchanb]

Watch this and related events closely. It portends an offer being made on the Havelock line. Don't expect HSR, at least not initially, upgrade can happen later, but expect it to be completely privately financed and owned, using their own rolling stock with a lease arrangement for VIA and other sub-tenants:

[...]
More than four-fifths of the project’s $19bn (£14.4bn) cost will be funded by a 0.1% interest-rate loan from Japan as part of a deepening economic relationship that both countries hope will act as a bulwark against Chinese influence in Asia. “Japan has shown that its a true friend of India,” Modi said on Thursday.
[...]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/india-starts-work-on-its-first-bullet-train-line

The real question will be if it's Japanese or some other Eastern nation that makes the offer as per Havelock line...

hmm i wonder if we'll ever have the political courage to do what india is doing and financing their construction from another country. Might be risky if the economy is bad but seeing their theirs is booming they can afford to risk it.
clearly our funding models has not worked as of late, maybe its time to think outside the box more....

 

[aquateam]

Just a small overview over some of the problems, which driver-less cars are still struggling with:

• • The ability to respond to spoken commands or hand signals from law enforcement or highway safety employees.
    
  • Driving safely despite unclear lane markings.
    
  • Reliably recognizing traffic lights that are not working.
    
  • Making left turns into intersections with fast-moving traffic.
  • Detecting which small objects in the roadway must be avoided.
  • The ability to operate safely in all weather conditions.
  • Cybersecurity: There is no evidence yet that autonomous cars will be any more secure than any other networked computers.
• Some of the human and societal problems will not be easier to solve:
  • Public acceptability: We are used to accept that human error kills people at quite a remarkable frequency, but not that computer errors do the same
  • Interaction with humans: Machines are very good at predicting rational behaviour, which is often very different from how humans interact, especially in already dangerous situations
  • Safety paradox: while roads will undoubtedly safer once all human drivers have been removed, the safety will first become worse, while the gap between the number of autonomous and human-driven cars closes (before the former overtakes the latter)
  • Liability: who is liable if an autonomous car causes an accident? And even more: what responsibilities does the owner or lead passenger (i.e. the passenger who provides the commands to the car)? If you are expected to intervene if the car reacts unexpectedly and inappropriately, you will not be able to sit on the back seat and watch a movie or enjoy an alcoholic drink...
  • Ethical: while human drivers have only instinct and intuition to rely on making a split-second decision to situations where a collision is unavoidable, on-board computers can make a very rational decision in choosing the least undesirable obstacle to collide with. Who protects the human life of the people outside the autonomous vehicle about-to-crash against the bias of the car manufacturer to protect the life of their customer (inside the car) over the life of bystanders...

Those are all very real obstacles to fully autonomous cars. Some of them might not be even resolved until after self-driving cars are wide-spread.

I think the strongest case, though, for self-driving cars comes from this:

Self-driving cars have the potential to drastically reduce fatalities because finally traffic deaths would be treated with the same systematic approach as the rail and airline industries. Rather than each collision being an "accident," where blame is pointed and then the investigation closed without any real consequence, each collision would be analyzed by the car manufacturer with access to reams of recorded data about each collision, in order to find root causes and apply lessons learned to software updates.

I might reply to answer all your claims point by point, but frankly I don't see the point at this time. You obviously fail to see how you're being easily manipulated by an author who has a steep agenda.

Wendell Cox is pointing to the data about unchanging travel habits as evidence of the futility of transit spending. I am pointing to it as a reason to a) not be complacent and b) argue for a difference approach.

I find it suffice to make the point with Houston:
Houston's Flood Is a Design Problem - The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/why-cities-flood/538251/
How Houston's Zoning Can Help Hurricane Harvey Recovery - CityLab
https://www.citylab.com/environment/2017/09/is-houstons-zoning-to.../538626/
A Storm Forces Houston, the Limitless City, to Consider Its Limits - The ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/houston-flooding-growth-regulation.html?...
Houston's Flooding Problem Reflects Shortfalls In City Planning : NPR
www.npr.org/2017/08/.../houstons-flooding-problem-reflects-shortfalls-in-city-planning
Less Sprawl Would Have Helped Houston Weather Harvey - NYMag
nymag.com/daily/.../08/less-sprawl-would-have-helped-houston-weather-harvey.html

And so on. But of course, if you're Wendell Cox, that's all Leftie Talk.

You have a habit of quoting many sources, whether they support your argument or completely contradict you. Here is the second link you cited:

Car use and purchase is down, and transit use is up in *many* locales. Picking one to make a point and not another in aggregate can go on forever.

TTC ridership is down, GO and surrounding regional ridership is up. Spin that whichever way you wish.

That's why I cited country-wide and CMA-wide statistics.

VIA, btw, is breaking recent records for ridership. Feel free to post Wendell's take on that. I can't be bothered spending time to filter it for you:

VIA RAIL REPORTS OUTSTANDING GROWTH FOR THE THIRD ...
www.viarail.ca › Home › About VIA Rail
May 10, 2017 - Ridership up 4.1% • Passenger Revenues up 9.5%. Montréal, May 10, 2017 – VIA RailCanada (VIA Rail) reported record results today for ...
RECORD RIDERSHIP ON VIA RAIL TRAINS OVER MAY LONG ...
www.viarail.ca › Home › About VIA Rail
May 26, 2017 - Trains in the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor also posted strong growth, with an 8.5% increase in ridership and revenues up by approximately ...
via rail continues strong performance: growth in revenue and ridership
www.viarail.ca › Home › About VIA Rail
May 31, 2016 - Montréal, May 31st, 2016 – During the first quarter of 2016, VIA Rail Canada (VIA Rail) saw another increase in ridership and reported the best ...

As you stated earlier, it's important to look at numbers in aggregate and not pick and choose individual locales. The same thing applies to time periods for comparisons: by picking an arbitrary starting date you can create any kind of narrative about growth or decline.

Rosy news releases from Via are not going to paint the most objective picture of their ridership. I find it difficult to find long term historical trend data for Via rail but here is from their last year's report:

So the most recent year (2016) has seen two years of solid year-over-year growth. But it's also only just recovered to above what it was in 2010.

 

[steveintoronto]

I'll allow the VIA experts to put your claim in context. As for Houston and one man's opinion, same author states:

Happily, Houston’s unique, hands-off approach means that building dense new housing in the city is easy.

Yesssirreee! How Houston...step right up and build 'em right up!

Author goes on to state such raspberries as:
[The trick will be expanding such programs not just in the city of Houston, but across the region, with its many levels of government and municipalities. Some municipalities have taken stormwater mitigation very seriously. But going forward, the state will probably need to tame the region’s tangled mess of 949 suburban Municipal Utility Districts, which manage local infrastructure. So far, they have largely dropped the ball on stormwater management. If Houston is going to manage nine trillion gallons of water again, it’s going to need help.]
Gee, ya think?

And btw: I really do think, since you've made such a point of my posting a link 'en aggreagrate' since I can't be bothered replying to every point in your posts, that you actually read and understand what it is you proclaim so loudly:

[...]
The first is the Municipal Utility District (MUD), a special district that allows developers to sell bonds for development anywhere outside of a recognized jurisdiction and second is transportation policy.(red mine)

MUDs

I’m sure MUDs exist in other places but they don’t seem to be as prolific as they are around the suburbs of Houston. The basic idea of a MUD is that it’s a way for developers to buy land and set up shop to build new development. Once they own the land they can request the creation of a MUD that allows them to sell tax exempt bonds for infrastructure. An amazing Houston Chronicle article from 2016 points to their Houston specific popularity.

There are 1,751 active water districts in Texas, a class of special purpose districts tracked by TCEQ, ranging from large river authorities to tiny irrigation districts, including 949 MUDs, according to the state.

The epicenter of water district financing: Houston’s suburbs.

Forty-four percent of those 1,751 districts are in Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties. Sixty-five percent of the 949 MUDs are in those three counties – 389 in Harris County, 146 in Fort Bend County and 85 in Montgomery County.

So if a developer can just plop down anywhere in the county and build a massive development of single family homes, it stands to reason that regional drainage and water networks are not a top planning priority. And in fact one of the jokes at planning school was “In the ETJ, no one can hear you scream.” Because in areas just outside of cities (extra territorial jurisdiction) planning is severely limited.

Not only that! A recent court case found that cities can’t enforce building codes in their ETJs. So no, it’s not a zoning problem. And in the most recent state legislative session, annexation has been limited as well. So many things stack up against good environmental rules. [...]

I don't know what the point is that you're trying to make Aqua, as you keep punching yourself and claiming a knockout.