Yes, and in Dallas, DART has done the same thing over the last 20 years or so.
DART is one of the worst LRT systems in the country. It was poorly designed and consequently has low ridership:
Dallas DART Desperation: Cost is Growing but Ridership is Not
costaustin.org
Plus DT Dallas is still virtually a ghost town. It has not experienced the increase in DT residents that other cities have........although I understand that's just now starting to change a bit.
Dallas is really pitiful because it once had a vibrant downtown area. I recently saw a video of DT Dallas in the 1940s and 1950s, and was shocked......I didn't recognize the place. Apparently in the 1960s and 1970s, they tore most of their DT area down and turned it into 'the Brasilia' it is today.
Last year, the entire system had 108 million passenger trips, or about 300K/day, subsidized at a rate of nearly $5 per passenger from a half billion a year in sales tax revenue (that was voted in more than 20 years ago), no end in sight.
Yeah, it did a very poor job of designing its lines. It did it on the cheap.........you know......gov't shouldn't be spending $$$ and all that tripe. DART's problems are very well known in transportation circles.
Dallas, like LA, is big and sprawling and has a very large number of daily commuters downtown, both for work and for nightlife. Nobody is riding these trains. In LA the numbers are scarcely any better: 360k/day (the rail portion is just over half that).
First, densities are much, much higher in LA than Dallas. And rail ridership in LA is doing very well. Even the lines that have been in existence for many years are doing well :
Metro’s August ridership estimates: Expo Line reaches new high, Red/Purple Line have second-best month
thesource.metro.net
U.S. Public Transit Reports Record Ridership in 2013
Public transit ridership, which has risen 37.2 percent since 1995, has outpaced both population growth, which has increased 20.3 percent, and vehicle miles traveled, up 22.7 percent.
Heavy rail systems, which include subways and elevated trains, reported a 2.8 percent growth in ridership; eight of 15 systems saw increases, including heavy rail in Los Angeles, New York and Cleveland. Trips on Miami’s heavy rail surged by 10.6 percent when the system increased train frequency during peak service times.
Commuter rail ridership went up by 2.1 percent in 2013, with 20 of 28 transit systems reporting increases. Salt Lake City’s commuter rail witnessed a whopping 103.3 percent boost to ridership when it opened a new rail line in December 2012. Seven commuter rail systems, including those in Austin; Harrisburg-Philadelphia; Anchorage; Lewisville, Texas; Stockton, Calif., Minneapolis and Portland, boasted double-digit increases in trips taken.
Rides on light rail systems, like streetcars and trolleys, rose 1.6 percent last year, and 17 of 27 transit systems saw increased ridership. Light rail in New Orleans, Denver and San Diego all experienced double-digit growth in their number of riders. Meanwhile, national bus ridership remained stable, dipping by only 0.1 percent, and, in cities with populations below 100,000, bus rides increased by 3.8 percent.
triplepundit.com
These trains are empty. People aren't using them, and they're not going to anytime soon.
Maybe in Dallas......but elsewhere..........not true.
As to high speed rail -- a different thing -- there are a few routes that make economic sense. I seriously doubt the LA-SFO route ever could, though, because it will cost far too much to build.
This is the problem with liberalism: You [collectively] are incapable of understanding cost/benefit ratios.
At least liberals have brains. ;) |
