|
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 158 responses total. |
slynne
|
|
response 100 of 158:
| 
Apr 25 19:02 UTC 2002 |
If the population were really dense, the extra traffic on the roads
could increase commute time to the point where taking the train is
faster. However, right now that isnt the case even during rush hour.
|
keesan
|
|
response 101 of 158:
|
Apr 25 19:21 UTC 2002 |
I think that it IS the case in the Chicago suburbs, where they have frequent
fast trains with stops every mile or so, and the car we were in, on a road
not under construction, was going 11 miles per hour. The train stations were
all set up with enormous parking lots at which drivers rented parking spots.
|
keesan
|
|
response 102 of 158:
|
Apr 25 19:34 UTC 2002 |
I just took a quick look at www.ontrack23.org which has a brief intro to the
project. It started when GM transferred 1200 employees from Lansing to
Detroit in 1998 and they looked into ways of letting them commute instead of
relocate. Then general interest developed and someone got a grant. The
details of phases 3 and 4 are in a few enormous (8M) PDF files rather than
in a quickly accessible online html file - anyone with a fast connection want
to download the things, convert to text, and post the text? They were at
first also considering existing track going via Pontiac or Brighton. Similar
metropolitan commuter lines have been as much as 66% self-supporting over
similar distances, with fares of $3-35, once they got popular. Chicago METRA
was listed, also something in San Jose. They hope to get more people coming
into Detroit as tourists, also to Lansing for events. You would not need to
pay for downtown parking this way.
|
gull
|
|
response 103 of 158:
|
Apr 25 20:53 UTC 2002 |
Re #89: I'd have to spend some time working it out. Maintenance costs
are actually almost negligable per mile, because while they're fairly
large lump sums, they're pretty infrequent. Most of the cost in your
calculation would come from the purchase price and from fuel costs.
However, the purchase price and insurance are costs I'd be paying
anyway, regardless of how many or how few miles I drove, so I'm not sure
they should be included.
Generally the sticking point for me in using mass transit is that the
length of time I'd spend waiting for it would more than eliminate the
time I'd gain by being able to read or do other stuff while riding on
it. I don't even want to think about how many total hours I wasted
waiting for the bus in Houghton before I got a car.
|
jmsaul
|
|
response 104 of 158:
|
Apr 25 21:24 UTC 2002 |
Chicago and San Jose are *way* more densely populated than SE Michigan, and
both have much worse traffic (having driven a bit in all three areas).
|
scg
|
|
response 105 of 158:
|
Apr 25 22:00 UTC 2002 |
There's lots of new construction going pretty constantly in Southeast Michigan
farm fields, constantly reducing the density. Presumably some good proactive
urban planning could relocate that construction to areas and densities more
condusive to sustainable transit. Traffic in the detroit area certainly isn't
on the level of Bay Area traffic, but I've spent enough time sitting in
Detroit area traffic jams to not write it off as negligable or convenient.
Mass transit doesn't function very well if it doesn't run often. This would
need to in order to work.
|
senna
|
|
response 106 of 158:
|
Apr 25 23:06 UTC 2002 |
Question: Why doesn't Sindi live in any of these mass transit paradises?
|
keesan
|
|
response 107 of 158:
|
Apr 25 23:44 UTC 2002 |
I grew up in Boston where nobody needed a car. I prefer to live in a smaller
town.
Gull, are you claiming that you would not need to replace your car any more
often if you drove it an additional 36,000 miles per year to Lansing every
day? And that it would not require more frequent maintenance?
The trolley companies used to make lots of money selling up land adjacent to
the new tracks after they went in. Everyone wanted to live near a trolley
station.
|
dbunker
|
|
response 108 of 158:
|
Apr 26 00:23 UTC 2002 |
Highway miles tend to be the easiest on a vehicle. BTW, what's so hard about
recognizing that the ecomomics that make mass transit feasible in cities and
dense urban areas do not work in smaller towns and less dense areas? You
choose a smaller town, you accept the trade-offs.
|
senna
|
|
response 109 of 158:
|
Apr 26 04:08 UTC 2002 |
#107: h-word. You're a *cause* of surburban sprawl. You contribute to the
need for all this distance driving and sprawl and pollution you so righteously
oppose. Practice what you preach.
|
scg
|
|
response 110 of 158:
|
Apr 26 06:53 UTC 2002 |
I don't think small towns contribute to urban sprawl, or at least the cores
of small towns don't, unless you're using some strange definition of urban
sprawl. People need to live somewhere, so the key is to live close enough
to most of what you need on a regular basis that you're not having to drive
long distances to get to it. A small town with an easily accessable core
containing everything you need to buy frequently is probably about the
anti-sprawl ideal. The cities that strike me as best laid out (London really
comes to mind, but San Francisco/Oakland/Berkeley comes pretty close to this
as well) tend to consist of lots of small town-like neighborhoods, each with
its own central shopping district.
|
gull
|
|
response 111 of 158:
|
Apr 26 13:17 UTC 2002 |
Re #107: It would need more frequent maintenance, but it would likely
last for more miles than it will if I keep driving it on 10-minute
stop-and-go trips every day. This may seem paradoxical, but cars deal
best with being driven frequently and for long distances. When they're
driven only short distances, contaminants build up in the oil and cause
corrosion.
There was a recent news article about a guy who put over a million miles
on a Honda Accord. He had a job that required him to drive hundreds of
miles a day, every day.
|
keesan
|
|
response 112 of 158:
|
Apr 26 13:48 UTC 2002 |
I live in one of the original suburbs of Ann Arbor, 10 min walk from Main St.,
and I own a lot that is 1/12 of an acre. Is this sprawl? Probably it is,
compared to cities in most of the world where people live in larger apartment
buildings (mine is only 3 apartments). In those cities people have the
advantage that most of the businesses have not moved to the far suburbs so
that they can walk to shopping. Boston was that way when I was growing up
- the stores were all on a main street where the trolley ran and we only had
to walk a few blocks. You could buy food and have the store deliver it later.
I recall as a kid doing most of the food shopping - in one place I had to
stand holding my money over my head and wave it so they would notice me. We
had a fish store on the corner two houses away, a drugstore, pizza store,
greengrocer, bakery, deli, butcher, and things of less interest to kids.
Sometimes we would watch the pizza maker twirl dough in the window to attract
business. You could take the trolley to the end of the line then take the
subway into town to the big department stores.
|
cmcgee
|
|
response 113 of 158:
|
Apr 26 14:26 UTC 2002 |
Re tracks for the Detroit/Lansing line.
The current proposal is to use the tracks already in place, owned by Norfolk
and Southern, Ann Arbor Railroad, and a third railroad.
The costs do not include any upgrade to higher speed estimates. I think there
is the cost of a new bridge over the Huron, and some other new line, but only
for rationalizing the route, not for speeding it up.
|
gull
|
|
response 114 of 158:
|
Apr 26 14:58 UTC 2002 |
A high-speed rail line here would be a hazard and a major source of
litigation. U.S. drivers have no respect for rail crossings. If you
put in a 120 mph line through Michigan you'd have an accident within a
month, I bet.
|
gull
|
|
response 115 of 158:
|
Apr 26 15:01 UTC 2002 |
(Actually, I should say it'd be a major *target* of litigation.)
|
jp2
|
|
response 116 of 158:
|
Apr 26 16:45 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
|
gull
|
|
response 117 of 158:
|
Apr 26 17:19 UTC 2002 |
Someone's gotta pay for the bridges. It'd also mean closing a lot of
smaller roads and streets that cross the line but aren't major enough to
warrant building a bridge. Railroads like that (they lobby heavily to
have crossings closed) but local residents generally don't because it's
less convenient for them and can increase emergency vehicle response times.
|
jp2
|
|
response 118 of 158:
|
Apr 26 17:23 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
|
keesan
|
|
response 119 of 158:
|
Apr 26 18:59 UTC 2002 |
What ever happened to those automatic bars that go down to block the road when
the train is approaching, sort of like the things at the entrance to parking
lots that bonk pedestrians on the head? Or you could put in lights that turn
red when the cars are not supposed to go.
|
keesan
|
|
response 120 of 158:
|
Apr 26 20:41 UTC 2002 |
When the numbered highways go through, smaller roads also get closed, or
bridges have to be built. There are only a few bridges that will let you get
out of Ann Arbor over the moat of highways, including one for pedestrians.
|
glenda
|
|
response 121 of 158:
|
Apr 26 21:30 UTC 2002 |
There are bars that go down to block the road and red blinking lights and
clanging bells on most of the crossings. Idiots that think they are more
important than others will run around the bars if they think they can beat
the train. Sometimes they don't make it. The few crossing I have seen
without the bars have a stop sign just as if it were another road.
|
dbunker
|
|
response 122 of 158:
|
Apr 26 22:40 UTC 2002 |
Re #120: I count roughly 20 over/underpasses in A2. You call that a "few"?
|
senna
|
|
response 123 of 158:
|
Apr 26 23:33 UTC 2002 |
If everyone wants to live in a small town, then they have to leave the big
towns with their divine public transit systems to get there. In fact, that's
what's happening now, with people flocking to places like Chelsea, Dexter,
and Pinckney.
|
keesan
|
|
response 124 of 158:
|
Apr 27 00:04 UTC 2002 |
Detroit has a divine public transit system????
The over/underpasses in A2 are about a mile apart, which is highly
inconvenient for anyone not driving. I don't see anything wrong with an
occasional slight imposition on drivers to make the lives of non-drivers
easier, in the form of train service for which cars will occasionally have
to stop. They already stop frequently for other cars. This is a lot less
of an imposition than a dense network of roads which prevents people from
walking places without frequent waits.
|
