response 76 of 158:

Apr 24 22:47 UTC 2002

I want to hear more about the "greatly reduced noise."

response 78 of 158:

Apr 25 01:06 UTC 2002

Glenda, can you estimate how much money per year you put into these cars, in
an average year (including purchase price and repairs) and how many miles the
car is drive in a year?

I just checked a car lease site and it says the lease (the one someone
mentioned as costing $250/month) limits the user to 12,000 or 15,000 miles
per year, with an additional 10 to 20 cents per mile after that.  Let's
calculate the low end costs - 36,000 miles per year to drive to Lansing, let's
say 30 miles per gallon at $1.50 or 5 cents per mile for gasoline.
First, $250/month x 12 = $3000.  Someone estimate how much of that is for the
commute.
Second, gasoline for 50 weeks time 750 miles/week time $0.05/mile = $1900.
Let's assume that the car is used solely for commuting, first, so that the
first 15,000 miles are not charged extra. That leaves only 37,500 - 15,000
or 22,500 extra miles at a minimum of 10 cents per mile overage = $2,250.

Total so far for commuting costs (not counting lease itself) = $4100 for
gasoline and miles driven over 15,000.

If someone is putting in another 5,000 miles a year other than commuting,
there is another $1500 in overage costs, or over $5500.

Train at $100/week for 50 weeks = $5000.  
Shared car (STeve and krj) is cheaper than the train.

The noise:  1000 cars make more noise than one train full of people.

response 80 of 158:

Apr 25 01:39 UTC 2002

I just did a search on road building and cost per mile.  The NY Thruway is
641 miles and cost between $1.5 and $6.2 million dollars per mile.  Other east
coast expressways ran only $1.3 to $3.4 million per mile.  Let's take a low
average figure of $2 million per mile.  So building another expressway from
Lansing to Ann Arbor (75 miles) would cost only about $150 million - what were
the costs of upgrading rail service instead, $90 million (from Lansing to
Detroit, about twice the distance).  Maintenance costs are probably higher
for roads than train track, per passenger mile, since you have at least a ton
of vehicle wearing out the roads per passenger.

The other expressways were probably cheaper because they were built a while
back (I am assuming they are in actual not 2002 equivalent dollars) so the
actual cost of building an expressway could be more like $3-4 million per mile
now, on average.  At $3 M/mi Lansing to Detroit (125 miles?) would be $375
million for a new expressway.

I don't know what the cost is to build 125 miles of new train track.

response 82 of 158:

Apr 25 02:37 UTC 2002

Yeah, that's really going to happen given how low the ridership will be. 

Trains work in densely-populated areas.  SE Michigan isn't dense enough.

Sindi, even by your figures riding the train costs as much as owning a car.
Most people would rather have the car -- which they can use when they
aren't commuting from Detroit to Lansing, as well as when they are -- than
spend the money just on their commute and be carless the rest of the time.

Because they might want to be able to drive to the Grange Hall or something.

response 84 of 158:

Apr 25 07:48 UTC 2002

I don't think ridership in the US is high enough, also modern US train
service is pretty much all "luxury" class -- what used to qualify as 2nd
& 3rd class service has long since disappeared.

Now, if you look at trains in India and similar parts of the world,
things are *very* different there.  Some of those trains have hundreds
of passengers on the *roof*, let alone people in the train.

response 86 of 158:

Apr 25 13:21 UTC 2002

Are you expecting gasoline prices to stay the same as the supply runs out?
By my estimates, if you use the car for nothing but commuting to Lansing, it
would be $3000/year for the lease, plus 10 cents (or 20 cents) per mile for
the miles over 12 or 15 thousand (anywhere from $2100 to $4800 for the extra
miles) plus 5 cents per mile (36,000 miles) = $1800 (30 mpg - many American
cars do worse than this) = $6900 (12K 10 cents overage) to $9600 per year to
drive, not counting oil changes, replacement tires, or insurance (another $100
a month would add $1200).  $5000 to commute by train.  I was calculating car
costs as low as possible, assuming someone would already want to lease a car
(using your figures for cost of lease).

It is possible to keep an old car in Lansing at or near the train station for
those who cannot find any other way to get from the station to their
destination (such as arranging a ride with a coworker who lives in Lansing).

Re cost of roadbuilding, our friends on Independence Road in Ann Arbor were
presented with a $10,000 bill for asphalt paving on their section of an
already existing road (complete with street signs, etc.).  If their lot is
75 feet wide this comes to $1.5 million per mile for just the asphalt on a
road one lane (plus parking) in each direction.  This is one of the many ways
in which driving is subsidized.  After the road is built, maintenance is paid
for by taxes, not the drivers.  Does anyone know how much per year Ann Arbor
spends on road maintenance (repaving, snow removal)?  How much per mile of
road does Michigan spend on building and how much on maintenance per year?

If you had to pay for the bus from the train station in Lansing, that could
be another $10/week or $500/year if their fares match ours.  If you left a
bike at the train station it would be a free commute (March through November
is usually ice-free).  Is Lansing or East Lansing very hilly?

I think I read that the average new American vehicle gets something like 27
mpg but I don't know if that includes SUVs - what are the current mpg
requirements for smaller vehicles?

response 88 of 158:

Apr 25 14:30 UTC 2002

Re #86: If you're paying insurance and maintenance on a car to get you
to and from the train station, you might as well just drive it instead
of taking the train.

Leasing is one of the most expensive ways to get a car.  I paid $8,000
for a fairly low milage used car and expect it to last at *least*
another 100,000 miles, assuming I don't get in an accident or something.
 200,000 wouldn't astound me, if it doesn't rust out first.  (I don't
drive a huge number of miles per year, so age-related rust may catch up
with it before milage does.)

response 90 of 158:

Apr 25 15:10 UTC 2002

(And when you compare it to the train, make sure you add in the cost of the
extra hours he'll spend getting to and from the train stations, as well as
the longer travel times.)

response 92 of 158:

Apr 25 16:26 UTC 2002

Storing a care where you *don't* live is a real pain.  You can't just
park it on the street, and expect to find it there 3 months later.
Chances are somebody is going to decide it's abandoned first, and do
something about it -- *especially* if it's a "cheaper (less reliable)"
car.  Even if nobody does anything deliberately bad to it, there's a
good chance the tires will go flat, the battery will die, mice will nest
in the carburetors, or any number of other bad things that render the
car useless when you *do* want it.  Basically, gasoline automobiles
don't cope well with not being used.

If you were going to seriously do such a thing, you'd actually be far
better off with an electric automobile.  Even there, you're talking
about a significant capital expense for the batteries, plus finding a
place where you can suckle off the local electric company (they just
don't put free electrical outlets on every lamppost, for some reason...)

Michigan does have enough population to make trains work -- but *only*
if everyone got rid of their cars, and the worst of the urban sprawl
were corralled.  On average, most of the people so affected would regard
this as a reduction in their standard of living; all things being equal,
most people regard being able to schlep their loved ones and attendant
kipple door to door at a moment's notice as the ideal, while waiting or
sharing are regarded as negatives.

response 94 of 158:

Apr 25 16:27 UTC 2002

Maybe.  I'd personally rather save the time, and be able to use it for hanging
out at my house, talking to my wife, playing with the pets, working out,
cruising the Web, etc., etc. than sitting on a train.  I consider commute time
to be pretty much lost time whether I'm driving or riding, because it's time
I don't have control of.  And if you have to do that extra hour twice a day,
five days a week, that's ten hours flushed down the crapper.

response 96 of 158:

Apr 25 17:19 UTC 2002

We don't lease, we buy.  We drive a car enough that the cost of extra miles
would be extremely prohibitive.  We get the minimum insurance required by law,
and only because we are forced to.  I don't like the whole insurance scam.
You pay rediculus premiums and if you do make a legitimate claim they fight
you for every penny and then go and raise your rates.

Since I cannont predict what the cost of gas is going to do I can only go on
what I have been paying for it.  I have only paid near $1.50 very few times
in the last 15 years.

response 98 of 158:

Apr 25 17:28 UTC 2002

By the way, Ann Arbor to Lansing is not 75 miles by any stretch of the
definition, unless you're taking a side trip to South Lyon or something. 
Perhaps the difference is slight, being only about 60, but that's using
current non-direct highways.  It's not half the distance to Detroit.

Where do you get those highway cost figures?

I don't want my time dictated by a commute, either.  I'll admit that it is
considerably more relaxing to be on a train that has a nice, timely schedule,
but the commute is still lost time.  And I can listen to what I want to listen
to in my car (bought), too.  Most people still buy cars, I believe.