The Blessing and Curse of Rail

We are visiting Toronto and I very carefully picked our hotel to be right next to a streetcar line--which is currently not running because of water main work.

Phooey.

But it made me think about the way that rail's visibility is both a blessing and a curse. 

1. Predictability 

My favorite thing about trains is that you can see the tracks. 

See those tracks? They're very present.

It means that you know or at least have easy access at immediate street level to three key pieces of information without needing to be told:

1) where the train will come (these tracks)

2) where it might go (do the tracks turn or split?)

3) where it will stop (the visible station/stop) 

This is vital information and making it very obvious reduces friction in using transit. So does an even more important point I'll label 

0) that there is a train line at all.

For a bus, all of these but #3 are difficult to communicate, and in some cities (including most of the Quad Cities) even that one is not well communicated because there are small or nonexistent bus stop signs. 

For a train they're not necessarily 100% obvious but they're at least partly visible. And that leaves just the frequency and connectivity as key elements in transit use you're not able to instantly see; big elements but much better situated than a bus. 

2. Lies

Unfortunately, a visible rail line is a real problem if it's not actually served by rail. This can happen when rail service is discontinued entirely as in much of the US. It can happen as it has in Toronto right now for the 509 streetcar just temporarily. But it leaves you with a very visible marker of everything above that is lying to the potential rider. 

This happens on the big scale (no trains!) and the smaller scale (the rail replacement bus doesn't run exactly where the train did because roads and tracks aren't interchangeable). 

It ranges from a minor inconvenience (oh, there's the replacement sign, just on the corner!) to a major one (shoot I have no idea where to go) to a huge one (I am put off from using any transit now!). 

3. Opportunities

But overall I'd still say track is an advantage, because you can always rebuild, replace, return to service. I'm mildly inconvenienced right now (the kids probably think more than mildly since we have a lot more walking now). But the line will return and the high rise buildings serving transit demand will keep going up. Even where there isn't transit or is bad transit right now, a rail line can always become an advertisement for its own services. And that's a good reason to build rail and to keep it in service.

Lagging Behind

This week, I have a more somber point of view to pass along. The US already lags behind the world both in construction of transit and in costs for transit construction (which are no doubt linked). The tariffs that have recently been yo-yoing about (but always to a higher rate than prior years) are not going to help. The cancellation and attempted recission of transit approvals will make things actively worse. So today I want to talk a bit about the ways we're already behind and why that matters.

I don't mean to be all doom and gloom, so I'm also going to point out how we could totally do this here--if we change course.

1. Don't Be Afraid of Overlaps

US transit agencies seem all too often to focus on the bare question of whether there is any arguable form of transit available in a given place or corridor, and not on quality of provision; indeed, coverage of a given area appears at times to preclude additional coverage or additional modes. Something like the density of transit in central Paris, London, or Amsterdam seems impossible; and lest we think this is purely a legacy in those cities (as it is in American cities like New York), all of these cities have built major improvements to their central city transit in relatively recent years, in each case substantially overlapping with prior transit but also unlocking major new advantages in connectivity and capacity.

Welcome, the line formerly known as Crossrail.

What could this look like here in America? Imagine an actual expansion to the Chicago L, or a "Grand New York Express" that truly interconnects the boroughs that currently have less robust connections. LA and Seattle are making some steps in this direction (albeit from much lower transit baselines), but imagine those coming faster, connecting already-served areas with faster transit, and using less light rail and more high capacity lines.

2. Rethink Where Transit Belongs

Worldwide, major transit projects happen in a lot more kinds of cities than they tend to in the US. Just look at France's trams (which have just kept growing since that link from 13 years ago). We tend to think that trams, trains, metros, etc. can only exist in very large cities but the international models show that we could do so much better. Imagine the Quad Cities with a tram; smaller cities have them. 

Well, we don't necessarily have to imagine; we can remember. Because this isn't so much ridiculous as historical. We know it's possible because it used to be true, and while we do have a more car-centric world now, so do those other cities. Their streets have cars too!

Quite a lot of them in fact.

3. Ask why things cost so much

There are some legitimate reasons for transit projects to be so expensive. There are some...less compelling ones. For this, I'm indebted to the work of the Transit Costs Project. We probably can't do much about labor costs sometimes being higher without exploiting workers. But we can certainly try more default designs and fewer bespoke ones so that design and build costs go down, from station layout to engine/car design. We could stop contracting out everything and develop in-house solutions that reduce overruns and build design expertise. And we could stop pretending it inherently costs more to tunnel here than in places with deep archaeological pasts and active vulcanism--or if it does, we could at least ask what is making that true.

Tariffs probably won't help with that, given the costs of things like steel and aluminum go up, but yah know...

If we can control costs a bit, it will help us build in more places and stop fearing overlapping modes. Those in turn can make transit something we have in more places and that is more convenient to use--and that can help us catch up.