Bad service is hard to kill

Please help me fill in the ?????. Thanks in advance.

An IM conversation with my gracious host, doctor just a moment ago:
[12:33] (gracious host): After a lifetime of working, paying taxes and raising three children on her own, Wilder is struggling. She said she retired on disability from M&T Bank three years ago after undergoing knee replacement and back surgeries. She lives on her Social Security and disability benefits. Last year, she petitioned the bankruptcy court for protection from creditors. She said she did not have to pay federal income taxes last year because her income was too low. “I don’t want to see this country turn into a welfare, nanny state, where we stand in line for groceries, and we’re in welfare lines, and in socialized medicine lines,” Wilder said.
[12:33] (gracious host): http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/antitax_tea_party_could_draw_c.html
[12:33] mdahmus: fuh guh buh
[12:35] (gracious host): with appologies to the Princess Bride…. socialism… You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
[12:35] mdahmus: my favorite comment so far: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/antitax_tea_party_could_draw_c.html#3333987

Cross-posted from the twitter which is about all I have time for right now:
Was there any doubt? CM was being truthy about reserves/quarter-cent money: Statesman article ( also see: helpful chart ).
This happened, ask in short, bronchitis because Capital Metro pursued a cheap rail plan that was so cheap the Feds didn’t want any part of it (45M originally promised to voters from Feds now spent out of reserves) – then, a combination of typical overruns and not-so-typical incompetence (and a bit of overruns caused by under-engineering) led to even more spending out of reserves. When they say they have enough money to pay Austin the commitments they made in the past, they are lying. They clearly don’t have the money; didn’t back then; and Ben Wear deserves some apologies from some Capital Metro employees at this point.

Lots of local political content in this week’s issue, oncologist but in particular, two surprisingly good articles from Katherine Gregor.
First up, a good run-down of the Waterfront Overlay Ordinance notable for not giving Jeff Jack’s crowd the uncritical reception which has been their unearned right in past pieces. It gives the minority report adequate shrift and lists the membership of the task force so people can see who was involved with this (guess what consituency is over-represented?). On this issue, also see Austin Contrarian’s take for some good thoughts.
Second, this piece on affordable housing which at least makes the distinction between “single-family house” and “housing” which so many people fail to understand. My comment to that piece:

Once a city grows beyond a certain point, you have to be realistic that the core of the city probably isn’t going to remain affordable, as long as you only define housing as single-family detached houses.
How many cities that aren’t dying burgs or a sprawling hellholes have affordable single-family detached housing in their cores? I can’t think of any; people grow up and realize that if you want to live central and don’t have a lot of money, you live in a condo, a duplex, an apartment, a townhouse, a co-op, whatever.
At least Gregor pointed out condos here – that’s a start. Mentioning that the McMansion Ordinance severely disincents existing and future duplexes and garage apartments would have been a welcome addition as well, though.

Good show, Chronicle. Also, folks should be sure to check out City Hall Hustle for Wells Dunbar’s continuing series of in-depth interviews of mayoral candidates (well, he spends 10-20 minutes with them, which isn’t THAT deep, but compared to the alternatives is practically BBC-like). Turns caricatures into characters.

(see update at bottom as of 3:00)
(both reposted from the twitter during a short time window here in the hospital before I dive back into work):
In the “I can’t believe they’re really this stupid” department, here Capital Metro’s MetroRail has won a stewardship award from Envision Central Texas. Yes, ambulance really. The plan whose lies about seeking federal funding and other overruns have resulted in the funneling of Austin infrastructure dollars to Leander and Cedar Park. The plan that prevents light rail from being built; the one that has been delayed for many many moons due to incompetence and flat-out lies; the plan that provides jack squat to residents of Austin who pay essentially all the bills; THAT plan just won a stewardship award. Really? REALLY?
What’s next; a posthumous humanitarian award for Stalin or Hitler?
Second, Rapid [sic] Bus has been awarded some Federal money – but not the 80% requested, meaning that the project is going to be much harder to kill but is going to cost even more in local dollars.
An awful day for transit all-around. If you still held out any hope for urban rail in Austin, today kills most of that hope. Envision Central Texas, you’ve just won the first ever group award here. Nice show, today’s Worst People In Austin.

Some selected background reading for you from the archives:

• From 2004: Don’t Kid Yourself: Commuter Rail Precludes Light Rail
• From 2005: It’s Not Light Rail
• From 2006: Spot the correct rail corridor

Much much more, of course in the category archives, especially these two:

• Don’t Hurt Us Mr. Krusee; We’ll Do Whatever You Want
• Rapid Bus Ain’t Rapid

3:00 update: Got a message from somebody who was there that the Red Line was the only entrant (presumably in the category) which wasn’t clear to me before (the ECT front page just lists ‘finalists’ with no information about categorization). Supposedly eyes were rolling in the audience. I think “no award” would have been the right choice, if there were no other entrants (also, surely dadnab could have been given an/another award in the category instead). The point here is that not only does the Red Line fail to move the ECT vision forward; it’s actually preventing projects which could be moving said vision forward – for instance, if the Pfluger Bridge extension fails to get built because CM spent the money promised to the City of Austin on Red Line overruns/lies. You don’t even have to go to hypothetical-but-now-precluded light rail to get there; just pay attention to what’s going on right now.
We’re still left with: (1), ECT thinks the Red Line somehow moves us forward; and (2) Rapid Bus is not only still going to happen, but require more local dollars – condemning the #1 urban rail corridor in this city to nothing more than useless bus service for essentially forever.

May 10, malady 2009
Due to escalating pre-eclampsia, Jeanne was delivered at 9:42 this morning (was originally going to be around midnight). Sophie joins the world today at 35.5 weeks, 5 pounds 3 ounces, 41 centimeters (16 inches). She is now up in the neo-natal intensive-care unit to get a firm diagnosis about an intestinal tract problem observed previously via ultrasound which will almost definitely require surgery (and thus a stay here of a few weeks). Jeanne is recovering now; Mike got to visit Sophie in NICU for about 30 minutes before lunch with Aunt Karen and is going to visit again this afternoon. Other than the intestinal problem, whatever it is, everything is fine with Sophie. She is otherwise healthy and strong (and as Mike likes to describe all babies, “red wrinkly and pissed”). Jeanne thinks that she has Mike’s smile.
Mike has lots of pictures on the camera but forgot the mini USB cable, so they’ll have to wait.

Short post from the hospital while my wife naps.
In this thread, site I just made the comment below, order saved here for posterity in case it doesn’t make it.

Fundamentally, quite a lot of the things that are supposedly being worked on now would have had to have been completed for an earlier launch, and obviously weren’t. This calls into question the truthfulness of the agency on everything else, of course.
Brushing this off as “well, we held off on operator training because we’d have to do it all over again” is nonsense. You supposedly decided to stop the rollout very shortly before the actual date – so some of that training, for instance, would have had to be underway by that point were you telling the truth.

It should be obvious to anybody who isn’t completely credulous that quite a lot of the things Capital Metro is working on now would have delayed the rollout of the line or been PR disasters (imagine cops having to direct traffic at all the road crossings for months, for instance), and that Veolia basically saved their asses by making those mistakes.
Lee Nichols at the Chronicle ought to be paying attention: if they’re willing to pull such obvious BS on this stuff, why on earth are you trusting them on their financials?

From a Capital Metro employee in this thread:

The only other thing I’d like to add is that MetroRapid is a part of the All Systems Go plan, medications which thousands of citizens helped create.

Now, abortion go back to this crackplog from May 2004. Note, this was long before the public was ever involved – at no point, never, was the public asked if they preferred Rapid Bus to light rail on Guadalupe. Not one single time. (The earliest I got wind of Rapid Bus was actually in January of 2004).
My work is never done.
As for light rail on Guadalupe, yes, it would have taken away a lane of traffic each way (even more in one difficult stretch). This is how you get rail to where it’s needed, and precisely what every city that has succeeded with rail transit has done. That lane will carry a lot more people in a train than it ever will with cars or “Rapid” buses that are stuck in traffic the whole time. (No, once again, holding a single light green for a few more seconds doesn’t do jack squat in the afternoon congestion on Guadalupe). The only thing that would make Rapid Bus really ‘rapid’ would be to take away a lane on Guadalupe each way, and then what you’ve got is service not quite as good as light rail with far higher operating costs. Yay.
My response:

Jamie, you are wrong; the 20% time difference is compared to the #1, not the #101. It is very very unlikely that signal priority will help much in the most congested part of the #1 route since congestion usually results from the next two or more intersections.
Misty, it is foolish to claim citizens chose Rapid Bus. Citizens were presented with Rapid Bus as the only option for Lamar/Guadalupe; the only ‘choice’ presented was ‘where else would you like Rapid Bus?’
The fact is that in other cities, light rail would run on Guadalupe. It would already be running on Guadalupe by now had Krusee not pushed the election early in 2000.

Two posts I made today to the “busridersAustin” yahoo list in response to continuing misinformation from our old friend Lyndon Henry that I wanted to save for posterity. Reproduced as-is except that I’ve made the links live.

— In BusRidersAustin@yahoogroups.com, syphilis Nawdry wrote:

> Well, life I see Mike has basically morphed into the rant-recycling stage

Well, visit I see Lyndon has basically morphed back into his lying-sack-of-crap stage.
Just ONE among many of your lies:
Tri-Rail serves mostly Broward and Palm Beach Counties – extending a bit into
Dade County, but that’s not the focus of the service. MetroRail is a Dade County
phenomenon (more specifically Miami) – most Tri-Rail ridership never goes that
far south. MetroRail (Dade County / Miami) is largely an artifact of the 1970s.
The area that saw transit stall out for 20 years was Broward and Palm Beach
Counties (Ft. Lauderdale is still trying to establish some momentum for a
streetcar/light-rail system against the headwinds of 20 years of Tri-Rail
failure).
Tri-Rail was planned and built during the mid-to-late 1980s; AFTER MetroRail.
The fact is that after Tri-Rail turned out to be such a disaster, nobody could
get any traction on any additional rail in the region for a couple of decades.
And now, the local governments are so enamored by Tri-Rail’s ‘success’ that
they’re writing ‘doomsday budgets’:
Recent Miami Herald article
Recent Palm Beach Post article
Tri-Rail ridership has, in fact, declined since the 2008 fuel spike has eased,
despite what these articles imply (note that they do not state what current
ridership actually is; if anybody cares to doubt THAT, I’ll spend some time
finding the media that I read a few months back on the subject).
One can certainly conclude, with accuracy missing from anything Lyndon Henry has
ever written here, that the public in South Florida has not supported Tri-Rail
like they have, let’s say, DART in Dallas or Houston’s Metro system (both of
which passed expansion referendi with overwhelming support).
Some other (older) links, with links back to media (some of which has expired)
and with excerpts:
Old crackplog post
“Take the Delray Beach Tri-Rail station, for instance. It’s located way west of
downtown, languishing between Linton Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue. Now, where
can one walk from that location? The whole point of public transit is to create
an alternative to driving. Yet, the thriving popular downtown area of Delray
Beach is far removed from the poorly planned station location. Thus, you still
have a downtown clogged with cars, because the Tri-Rail station is beyond
walking distance. ”
[…]
“I have ridden on Metrorail, on the other hand, and it is a joy compared to the
mess that Tri-Rail is. Metrorail actually goes places, near neighborhoods, and
other places people actually go, and it doesn’t share its tracks with 8,000
mile-long freight trains. That’s why it works.”
and:
Old crackplog post
“The greatest hindrance to Mica’s rail, however, could come from the failure of
a predecessor, South Florida’s Tri-Rail, which runs from Palm Beach County south
to Miami. Tri-Rail has proven costly; it has drained $433 million so far, and
reports say it needs another $327 million to stay alive. Despite the investment,
Tri-Rail averages only 60 percent of its projected ridership, and governments
subsidize more than 70 percent of the operating costs.
The problem? Essentially, Tri-Rail doesn’t go anywhere. For most of its 11-year
life, Tri-Rail delved only into northern Dade County. “That’s like taking a
train from Volusia and dropping people off at the Seminole County line,” Mica
says. Connections to major workplaces and airports rely on unreliable bus
systems. Moreover, Tri-Rail only runs once an hour, and is frequently late at
that.”
and:
Old crackplog post
“Luksha is among the many South Floridians who derisively note that not a single
Tri-Rail train goes through a single �downtown�, and only indirect services
via, bus, taxi or Metrorail will get you to the region�s airports after
getting off Tri-Rail. ”
As should be obvious by the lead to this post, I will not stand by and let you
drag me down without responding in kind.
– MD

and

— In BusRidersAustin@yahoogroups.com, Nawdry wrote:

> At 2009/05/25 15:41, Mike Dahmus wrote:

> >Just ONE among many of your lies:
> >
> >Tri-Rail serves mostly Broward and Palm Beach Counties – extending a
> >bit into Dade County, but that’s not the focus of the service.
> >MetroRail is a Dade County phenomenon (more specifically Miami) –
> >most Tri-Rail ridership never goes that far south.

>
> Mike is just disseminating rubbish. By far the heaviest Tri-Rail
> ridership occurs at the 5 Miami-area stations, particularly the
> MetroRail Transfer station, where interface with the MetroRail rapid
> transit occurs. Tri-Rail also serves the Miami Airport.
>
> When I stayed in Deerfield Park

Heh.
Credibility, huh?
It’s “Deerfield Beach”, you ignoramus.
And, yes, Tri-Rail ENTERS Dade County. Of its 70 mile length, by far, the overwhelming majority of the line is in Palm Beach and Broward Counties. The fact that those stations see a bit more than typical traffic shows how stupid the plan was to rely on shuttlebuses for passenger distribution everywhere else; the only marginally successful stops are the ones that feed into the existing urban rail network in Dade County at the extreme end of a 70 mile system.
Urban rail systems never took off in Ft. Lauderdale or West Palm Beach or Boca Raton or any of the other large towns and cities along the line. Commuter rail spurred precisely nothing; no public support for more rail that might actually work – were it not for the existing MetroRail system that actually goes where people want to go, and, this is important, the 1200 magnet students riding every day, the system would have collapsed 15 years ago.
I lived there for most of my life, genius. I was around when Tri-Rail was getting started. I worked at IBM three summers and then three full years within a short shuttle ride of both the Delray Beach and Boca Raton Tri-Rail stops.
I had many coworkers that gave it a try (I lived too close for it to be of any use to me). None stuck. The shuttlebuses were the problem for every single one of them.
I’ve seen more than a dozen proposals for TOD come and go along the line. None stuck. The lack of choice commuters was the problem for every single one of _them_.
I was around when the original discussions about CSX vs. FEC were taking place. You’re right in one small respect – the FEC wasn’t available right at that instant; but there were people EVEN BACK THEN who said we’d be better served by waiting a couple of years and trying to negotiate with FEC instead of CSX. (Parallel to Austin here: Some people said, me among them, that rather than barreling ahead with a stupid dead-end Red Line commuter “ender” line, we’d be better served by waiting a few years to develop momentum for a re-run at the 2000 LRT line).
This was 20 years ago, mind you. Tri-Rail still, now, 20 years after the fact, has not approached initial ridership projections, unlike light rail starter lines all over the country which have mostly knocked them out of the park. After 20 years of disastrous failure on Tri-Rail, the number of people willing to say we should have waited for FEC has grown dramatically – including most of the political leadership in the counties paying the bills.
Those counties, by the way, are the ones that are cutting their subsidy to Tri-Rail because it was such a ‘success’ that they’ve gotten tired of the bleeding for so little benefit (again, compare and contrast to what happened in Houston and Dallas after GOOD LIGHT RAIL STARTER LINES showed people what could happen – 2/3 of the electorate voted in favor of huge expansions in both cases).
It’s you whose credibility ought to be completely lacking here. You visited South Florida once and rode Tri-Rail a couple of times.
Big whoop.
I lived there for 20 years.
You’re absolutely wrong, as usual.

One of the major selling points of rail service over bus service is that it reduces operating costs (at the expense of higher capital spending, gerontologist although not as much of a difference as most people assume given how frequently buses must be replaced). Is this going to work out for the Red Line?
Here’s a little table for you to consider:

Mode	Passenger load	Drivers per 100 passenger trips
Express bus	40	2.5
Red Line (train)	150	0.67

Sounds pretty good, pilule huh? Saved on quite a bit of labor there – as well as other costs that track with ‘trips’, medicine like fuel! But wait a minute – how are the passengers getting from the train station to their office again?

Oh yeah, shuttlebus.


Let’s expand our table, shall we?

Mode	Passenger load	Drivers per 100 passenger trips
Express bus	40	2.5
Red Line (train)	150	0.67
Shuttle bus	40	2.5

Yes, that’s right; the shuttle buses aren’t going to carry any more people than the express buses did – probably less, actually, given that the express buses are extra long; but I’m feeling charitable. What does that do to our operating costs here?
Well, for each passenger taking the Red Line, they first take a trip on the train (0.67/100pt) and then a trip on a shuttlebus (2.5/100pt) for a total figure of 3.17/100pt.

Wow! Yet another way in which the Red Line is just absolutely full of win. Higher capital costs than express buses, and higher operating costs too! The “Light Rail” entry refers to the 2000 line – which would have required no shuttlebuses at all; dropping passengers off right in front of UT just like the express buses do; right in front of the Capitol like express buses do; and on Congress Avenue (even closer to most offices than the express buses do).
Notes on data: This is a crude comparison, of course; we don’t know how many shuttle trips are going to be required to serve each train or whether a shuttle driver can serve one or two trains per hour. There’s 150 seats on the train; yes, some can stand, but more than 40 people can fit on the express bus, too. Shuttle bus capacity is just a guess at this point since they still haven’t released information about the vehicles being used – my bet is that they’re going to be the old Dillos taken out of service downtown, but with nothing conclusive, I have to go with a middle-of-the-road estimate of 40 there too. If one assumed that two shuttle trips were being made per hour by the same driver (not sure this will be possible); the total operating cost per passenger trip for the Red Line + shuttle case drops to something like (1.25 + 0.67) or 1.92 – below the express bus figure, but high enough to not be worth the extra capital cost.

While trying to find a new link (succeeded, mycoplasmosis finally) for this old entry since the old one aged off, abortion I was reminded to post a different excerpt which is probably even more relevant now that Lyndon Henry is out there once again claiming we can turn the Red Line into light rail, glands somehow:

“Was this the best investment?” asks Steve Polzin, director of public transit research at the University of South Florida in Tampa. “You wonder what could have been accomplished if they had not rushed into it. If, for example, they’d waited a few years and bought the FEC.”

[…]

The Tri-Rail system was never supposed to be this expensive. Because of its innocuous start as a temporary traffic-mitigation measure and because the project has been expanded in small increments, the kind of planning that generally precedes a billion-dollar public-works project never occurred. In the end, the stop-gap became part of the transportation landscape. “Once you start service, it’s extremely hard to stop,” Polzin says. “You’ve made the commitment and invested the capital.”

Lyndon has made noises that we could still switch the Red Line over to electrified LRT and then run trains back on the 2000 route. He’s either insane or lying; and the quotes above show you why: you can’t get service like this stopped once you’ve spent 8 years telling people how great commuter rail is compared to LRT. Plus, of course, Capital Metro’s public plans are all about improving the Red Line and adding the Green Line – with more and more diesel-smokin’ trains that only take you to a shuttle-bus pickup; NOT about light rail. It’s only McCracken and Wynn talking about urban rail (light rail), and although the plan pays lip service to Capital Metro, it’s really going to be trying to build light rail despite Capital Metro.