If only..Submitted by metracta t3_10ikvl7 in pittsburgh
[deleted] t1_j5frxlk wrote
Port Authority is a joke and the state of our "T" system never fails to raise my blood pressure. Could you imagine a proper network for our "T" system? You know, opposed to whatever boondoggle this is supposed to be:
South Hills Village -> Mt Lebanon -> Dormont -> (on a good day maybe Beechview) -> Station Square -> Downtown -> End of the line
Mass transit this is not. What an embarrassment for our city.
semcdwes t1_j5ge3ga wrote
Don’t forget the North Shore.
Sankara_Connolly2020 t1_j5hd5h8 wrote
How is the red line a “boondoggle?” Converting old trolley and interurban ROWs into LRT with an integrated Downtown subway system is fundamentally sound transit planning. The mistake is that Port Authority only did this for a couple South Hills routes instead of across the city (partially due to the huge bet they placed on “Skybus,” which was an actual boondoggle).
ktxhopem3276 t1_j5hps0w wrote
Sky bus would have been a boondoggle had they spent money in it but I don’t think they did. All the funding when to the trolley redline instead. They spent $500 million in 1980 dollars or $2billion in todays money to build the red line. Add another $500 billion for the blue line and $500 million for the north shore extension.
Here are some interesting pictures during the build out
https://www.brooklineconnection.com/history/Trolleys/Trolley29.html
Sankara_Connolly2020 t1_j5hu8rx wrote
Skybus was an attempted boondoggle, and the years spent over legal and political battles were a waste that ended up making the LRT and Busway plan more expensive and significantly less extensive that it should have been had they done it from the beginning. There’s a reason “people movers” don’t exist outside of airports and a handful of niche lines.
By “500 million.. to build the red line” I assume you mean the phase 1 plans, which I believe was mostly the downtown subway, along with the panhandle bridge conversion, the Mt. Lebo Tunnel, and the South Hills Village terminus? I’ve read that Brookline Connection article before but it’s been a minute.
LRT investment is expensive in the short term, but cost effective in the long term as long as ridership is decent (which it is, save the Library line). The tragedy of Port Authority’s Skybus obsession and anti-trolley bias is could have converted other old trolley lines, most notably the North Side and Oakland trunks, and made similar modifications as were made to the Beechview/Mt Lebonon and Overbrook Lines, and we’d be in clover right now. For decades, we had a great trolley system that was sorely missing a dedicated Downtown ROW… and now we’ve had several decades of a Downtown subway, but with trolleys only going to one area.
ktxhopem3276 t1_j5hxisn wrote
Yeah just the downtown to south hills village mall via Beechview was $500 in 1980s dollars. Even had they started ten years earlier they wouldn’t have built a lot more - maybe the would have tunneled to the north shore earlier but the steel mill collapse in 1982 still would have made it difficult. they built the east busway while the skybus debate was going on. Light rail is really tricky in a city the size of Pittsburgh and with employment so spread out geographically. Downtown lines get enough ridership but even Oakland is really tricky to do without transfers. The busways make a lot of sense because so many lines use them in the core congested areas and then branch out in all directions into the suburbs. PRT seems more favoring extending the trolly to Bellevue or Ross before Oakland and the airport but without more state or federal funds those extensions won’t happen fe atleast 15 years. All the near term projects are bus rapid transit with priority lanes on existing roadways. That might be all we get h less the population starts growing again. We get beat out on the federal funds competition by bigger and faster growing cities.
Sankara_Connolly2020 t1_j5i0hnl wrote
I get all that for the current financial constraints for Port Authority, but the problem with BRT is projects end up getting watered down significantly. The West Busway is a great example, as is the Oakland “BRT” project (which would be a fine idea if it was actually BRT).
What I’d love to see Port Auth… errr, PRT do is commit to the full Gondola proposal, both for sex appeal and as a highly cost effective way to built a direct transit line to Oakland from multiple dense neighborhoods, use the AVRR as a high frequency regional rail line (which as I argued upthread would be cheaper than converting it to a busway and could pilot the feasibility of regional rail on other lines), and focus on improving the bus network through redesigning it on “high transfer, high frequency” principles and by actually enforcing the existing and proposed bus lanes.
I’d also love to see them electrify the heaviest bus trunks by using trolleybuses with in motion charging instead of buying battery electric buses that will struggle mightily in the winter, and will require expensive battery replacements and time intensive recharging.
ktxhopem3276 t1_j5i311e wrote
The 6-15 time frame is listed for extending the west busway at both ends to improve the 28x airport flyer.
As long as the Oakland brt has dedicated lanes it should be a decent improvement. It’s just so difficult to build dedicated right of way through Oakland for mass transit.
I like the gondola idea but I’m not sure it would match the communing patterns and how it could feasibly connect to Oakland
I suspect it might be too hard to do high commuter heavy rail with the current geographical distribution of employment. Most cities that have done heavy commuter rail are much bigger cities with dense concentrated employment areas and Pittsburgh is struggling to keep employers downtown lately. Many have left downtown for the strip and ptc/hazelwood robinson and south point/cannonsburgh.
It does appear the direction prt is moving is high frequency bus services which due to funding I think is probably the most realistic and best bang for buck investment. I would be so happy if they could implement more traffic light priority and bus only lanes so buses are on time.
I like most of their plans on page 54
https://nextransitdraftplan.blob.core.windows.net/finalplan/NEXTransit%20-%20FINAL-web%209-16-21.pdf
Sankara_Connolly2020 t1_j5i77t7 wrote
Considering what a mess the original West Busway project was and how badly they’ve bungled the Oakland “BRT” project, color me skeptical that the West Busway is going to get finished anytime soon in either direction. Though I do hope they make connecting it to Downtown a high priority, which shouldn’t be that expensive provided they can figure out the ROW around the West End Circle and then use protected bus lanes from West Carson.
The problem with the Oakland project is the bus lanes aren’t going to be protected. They’ll serve as dual right turn lanes at multiple points, and they’re not taking measures to protect the lanes that actually are dedicated, outside of some red paint.
With the full gondola proposal in Port Authority’s long range plans, the connection to the South Busway/Overbrook Line JCT would open up greatly improved commuting options for the South Hills to Oakland, and the connections for Hazelwood and the Hill to both Oakland and the Strip would be highly beneficial for both those neighborhoods, and the Oakland-Strip connection is a major missing link (with all due respect to the 54C).
I highly recommend that article on the Ottawa “O-Train” I added late to my last post. The problem is most North American transit agencies think of local rail service in terms of either light rail or heavy commuter rail, and are blind to the happy medium of regional rail that is significantly cheaper than both. It’s only feasible on lines with limited freight traffic that service some dense neighborhoods, but that’s exactly what the AVRR line is.
I agree on your last point about bus signal priority and exclusive lanes 100%. I’d love to see them start by enforcing the existing Downtown lanes and adding as much signal priority as possible. I’ll also give PRT it’s due on some of the “belt buses” they’re proposing. The east-west connection through Brookline and Beechview is something I’ve been clamoring for since I moved down here!
ktxhopem3276 t1_j5i9zth wrote
When I lived in San Diego we had a 22 mile DMU line. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprinter_(rail_line)
There is also a small 10 mile eastern extension of BART that uses DMU it requires a transfer to use the rest of Bart https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBART
Both these lines were in much bigger cities although the Ottawa line gets 10,000 riders. I have a hard time guesstimating how many people would use a train from new Kensington to downtown. One potential issue is both these US lines used dedicated tracks. Has the FTA ever allowed DMU trains on freight tracks in the US? I have no idea.
I look forward to the belt buses and overbrook to Oakland connections. Covid made planning difficult for transit agencies and they are moving slower than their typical glacier pace these days.
WikiSummarizerBot t1_j5ia19v wrote
>Sprinter (stylized as SPRINTER) is a hybrid rail (light rail with some features similar to commuter rail) line operating in the North County area of San Diego County between the cities of Escondido and Oceanside, California, United States. The service uses the 22-mile (35 km) Escondido Branch of the San Diego Northern Railroad. Station platforms were constructed for the line's fifteen stations serving the cities of Oceanside, Vista, San Marcos, and Escondido. The line provides service to California State University, San Marcos and Palomar College.
>eBART (East Contra Costa County BART extension) is the project name for a hybrid rail (light rail with some features similar to commuter rail) branch line of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in eastern Contra Costa County, California, United States. Service starts at Pittsburg/Bay Point station and extends to Antioch station.
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Sankara_Connolly2020 t1_j5kg06h wrote
Yes, the FRA grants waivers for lightweight DMUs on active freight lines, but typically only when the freight lines are only used at specific times, like overnight service. NJ Transit runs such a line from Camden to Trenton, which is technically classified as light rail like the Sprinter line in CA that you mentioned. This line in Denton, TX was the first to get such a waiver, according to Wikipedia, though I believe there was a later Obama era relaxing of waiver standards for lighter passenger rail rolling stock: https://web.archive.org/web/20120609012338/http://www.dentonrc.com/local-news/local-news-headlines/20120605-dcta-gets-go-ahead-to-use-stadler-cars.ece
There are several lines that use heavy duty DMUs, and I think one iteration of the old PAT train used the old Budd cars. But I think if PRT decides to go with rail for the AVRR line, they should be able to classify it as “light rail” like the Sprinter and NJ River lines (since it only runs freight overnight) and go with the cheaper, lighter DMUs.
ktxhopem3276 t1_j5ki1wd wrote
Why is PRT considering a busway when AVRR is being used for freight? Does freight line want to sell the ROW? I follow city and south hills transit news more closely because I’m more familiar with the geography. I’ve been to oakmont once but I haven’t explored anything else over in that part of the county
Sankara_Connolly2020 t1_j5lqrmz wrote
I’m guessing there’s been some thoughts about AVRR selling the ROW since they’re considering a busway. But either way, that fact that they’re even considering it is indicative of their long standing bias towards busways. Which I largely am fine with when busways make sense, but it’s baffling in this case.
ktxhopem3276 t1_j5lye67 wrote
I don’t think they are against light rail DMU at this juncture. It sounds like they haven’t done a thorough study besides napkin calculations.
“The project will begin planning with a proposal to utilize the current AVRR right of way as a transit-exclusive facility to minimize delays and traffic congestion between stations (freight rail operations could continue at off peak hours or overnight hours so as not to conflict with transit service). As the line currently carries very light industrial freight traffic, both light rail and bus modes can be further studied in this corridor to see which is warranted as the best solution. Cost estimates for the purposes of this high-level look have used busway-type cost ranges as a starting point. This plan could also look into the possibility of a transit-only connection to the Turnpike. “
I wonder how much deferred investment there is if they don’t use it much. I don’t know what speed it’s rated for or what it would cost to bring the rails up to speed to be competitive with a busway. Are there any double track sections for passing? Also they would need to budget a place to store and maintain the trains. I wonder how many of the 45,000 New Kensington area work in downtown Pittsburgh. Even if the whole project cost only $250 million they would need a ridership of about 2500 to justify the capital costs and then operationally it would cost a lot to run for not a lot of riders with how office buildings downtown are being converted to housing lately. PRT will have to look very closely at the cost and ridership projections to determine if it is a wise investment given how little money they get from the state and federal governments.
The busway option would be more convenient for servicing oakland but slower than the train for downtown. On the other hand 13 miles of busway would probably cost a billion dollars and seems excessive considering it’s not congested or part of the core network. Prt is probably interested in the possibility of a phased approach to the busway in which they focus on the bottleneck at Verona and Oakmont. Outside of those towns there are hardly any traffic lights or impediments that would justify a dedicated right of way.
the sprinter in San Diego is 22 miles and with 5000 daily ridership and got a lot of bad publicity for how it requires a transfer to get anywhere popular. San Diego is about twice the size of Allegheny county and is able to beat us out on the federal funding competition. They revived a billion federal dollars that was matched by the state and county for a total of $2billion to build a 11 mile light rail extension for 20,000 daily risers that received a medium-high rating from the FTA . It seems like cities the size of Pittsburgh are getting shut out from the large chunks of funding that go to rail projects. The larger ridership, larger population growth and willingness to raise taxes to match federal funds is a factor in pittsburgh being at a disadvantage to other cities.
Sankara_Connolly2020 t1_j5mahxx wrote
“I wonder how much deferred investment there is if they don’t use it much. I don’t know what speed it’s rated for or what it would cost to bring the rails up to speed to be competitive with a busway. Are there any double track sections for passing? Also they would need to budget a place to store and maintain the trains.”
Some track improvements would need done and some sidings added, I’m sure. But the cost of that, the maintenance facility, and buying the DMUs vs paving the whole thing damn ROW? Not even close! And that’s not even factoring the much higher labor costs per rider of operating a busway.
“I wonder how many of the 45,000 New Kensington area work in downtown Pittsburgh.”
Why are you thinking of this as only the people who live in the town of the terminus commuting to Downtown? That would be like viewing the T as a commuter line between South Hills Village and Downtown and ignoring every connection in between. How many people would ride from Verona to Lawrenceville? Or from the Strip to Oakmont? Or take a short bus connector from Penn Hills or the Waterworks? Those are the riders that need to be factored in when considering ridership, along with the big picture of building a transit system where one can get from roughly any point A to any point B in a reasonable amount of time regardless of mode, and rapid transit for the Allegheny Valley is a big missing link.
“The busway option would be more convenient for servicing oakland but slower than the train for downtown. On the other hand 13 miles of busway would probably cost a billion dollars and seems excessive considering it’s not congested or part of the core network.”
Last I read, the plans for the Brilliant Branch are to turn it into a bike path. I doubt Port Authority gets anywhere with it.
“It seems like cities the size of Pittsburgh are getting shut out from the large chunks of funding that go to rail projects. The larger ridership, larger population growth and willingness to raise taxes to match federal funds is a factor in pittsburgh being at a disadvantage to other cities.”
All the more reason to go with the most cost-effective form of rapid transit!
ktxhopem3276 t1_j5mmnua wrote
I’m just guessing on numbers and not trying to ignore all the stops in between new Kensington and downtown. I used $100,000 per rider capital cost as a benchmark from other projects that have been funded. So if it’s $250 million maybe it will be worth it if gets at least 2500 riders. I think it sounds reasonable but I would still be curious what PRT thinks ridership and costs would be.
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