
For a Better Economy, Add Commuter Rail? - misnamed
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/08/for-a-better-economy-add-commuter-rail/494957/
======
jswrenn
Speaking as a Providence resident: Pawtucket begins where the comfortable-
walking-distance-to-the-Providence-station ends. Pawtucket and Central Falls
are languishing. Providence, generally speaking, is more affordable than
Boston to live in (which drives a lot of commuter traffic to Boston), but the
presence of Brown is steadily driving rents up in the suburb closest to the
Providence station. Pawtucket and Central Falls _should_ be the affordable
residential suburbs of Providence, but they're not (or, at least, not so much
as they should be). Commuter rail to these towns would help revitalize them
and ease some of Providence's present growing pains.

The thrust of commuter rail into southern Rhode Island has failed because it
has not responded to the needs of residents. In Wickford, where I grew up,
very few residents take advantage of the weekday commuter lines running from
the new Wickford Junction Station, since very few residents there commute to
Boston. There are, however, plenty of retired folk who would love to take a
weekend trip to Boston via train, but are stymied by the station being closed
on weekends. If weekday commuter rail is to ever succeed in southern Rhode
Island, it will not be in the short term.

~~~
chmaynard
> Very few residents take advantage of the weekday commuter lines running from
> the new Wickford Junction Station.

I wanted to take MBTA commuter rail to Boston on a Wednesday afternoon to see
the Red Sox play the Giants at Fenway Park. There were no trains leaving
Wickford between 1:25 and 5:30 pm, so I had to park at Wickford Junction, take
a bus to Providence, and walk three blocks to the Amtrak station to catch a
train. What good is a beautiful station if there is a 4-hour gap between
trains on a weekday?

~~~
api_or_ipa
> What good is a beautiful station if there is a 4-hour gap between trains on
> a weekday?

Transit begets transit. The shame in urban planning is the reactionary cycle
that engages the public process of investing in efficient and multi-mode
transit.

In the Bay Area, I'm continually frustrated by the lack of Caltrain service. A
light rail system with the local Caltrain service density and a headway of
<15m could provide the backbone of a huge number of bike commuters. In my
experience, Caltrain > driving for most commutes in the SF <=> SJ corridor and
having adequate last mile solutions. The challenge now is to transform the
chore & appointment traffic into public transit friendly opportunities.

~~~
cbhl
Some of Caltrain's biggest problems:

\- funding (some municipalities' voters don't want their towns to be bedroom
communities for Mountain View and SF -- these are also the towns that vote
against e.g. HOV lanes on their section of the 101, and against BART running
through their town)

\- ground level crossings along the whole route (trains hit people and cars
all the bloody time, but "grade separation" is expensive and also makes the
stations harder to use -- for example, see San Bruno station)

\- having to sound their loud horns along the whole route for safety reasons
(anyone with train tracks in their backyard opposes increased frequency)

\- people wanting electric trains before more service happens

\- did I mention funding? (Caltrain used to have people selling tickets at
every station -- those jobs were cut due to a lack of funding.)

I think creating a well-funded, well-managed state agency that was in charge
of transit (ala Metrolinx in Ontario) could do wonders for BART and Caltrain.
But the first thing that needs to happen would be to give public transit more
money (which is difficult considering all the other things on municipalities'
plates, like homelessness in San Francisco, and property tax rates not
reflecting the rise in housing prices).

------
niftich
The point in this particular case is that Rhode Island has become a bedroom
community for Boston, so improving transportation links between the two can
make RI even more attractive to discretionary residents (who come here because
they want to, not because they can't find anything better -- which is a byword
for higher-income residents), who can stimulate both residential and
commercial growth by their presence.

It's a reasonable suggestion. Another alternative is that RI could promote
business growth to lure away some MA or CT talent. But whether they want to be
a swankier, higher-income commuter suburb or a commercial-heavy exurb they
really should do something.

~~~
__derek__
The opposition of those two choices underscores how bizarre American regional
divisions are. The Boston area covers parts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and
New Hampshire and all of Rhode Island. Rather than attempting to improve the
entire region, the available options are zero-sum: RI would cannibalize the
business or income tax base of other parts of the Boston area. This, in turn,
encourages the MA and CT governments to do what they can to recover that loss.
If there were one regional government, that could be avoided by focusing
decisions about infrastructure, housing, services, and taxation on the actual
region's health.

~~~
niftich
You're not wrong, but this doesn't just happen in America, and it doesn't just
happen at the city, county, or state level.

There are entire countries or overseas departments of countries that
cannibalize tax bases of others, some in corporate taxes, some in personal
taxes. There are countries that, due to low wages, low cost of living, and low
worker protections, can manufacture certain goods really cheap. There are
countries that can ruin their countryside extracting resources like copper,
rare earth metals, or oil and sell it internationally.

Ultimately regardless of what the territorial unit, each unit looks out for
their self-interest, because a 'Unified Greater Boston' may result in more
growth, but it will likely come with a different allocation on wealth to the
particular area that each fiefdom covers. It's really just capitalism where
each entity competes with another, and some win really big, while most don't.

~~~
Symbiote
As an example of a better situation, London covers the cities and many smaller
towns and suburbs, which each have their own local government. The local areas
are responsible for schools, waste, most planning etc.

But it's all unified under the Greater London Authority, which controls
transport and policing. This is what the Mayor of London controls, as head of
the elected London Assembly.

~~~
chillydawg
Except the City Of London, which refuses to cede some 1000 year old power it
extorted from some king or other.

------
honkhonkpants
What a blessing of a problem to have a double-track high speed rail system
passing through an underutilized station. For comparison to the Bay Area, the
distance from Providence to Boston is about the same as the distance from
Berkeley to San Jose. That route is also served by Amtrak, but on a neglected
single-track, wooden-tie, local-stop service that's scheduled to take 1h33m,
but almost always takes longer. Amtrak from Providence to Boston only takes 40
minutes and is generally reliable. Regional transportation in the northeast is
so far beyond what we have in the Bay Area.

~~~
om42
I was talking to a friend about this. Why does California not have a better
public transportation system build? Especially in the Bay Area? I know cities
like LA were designed for cars but I've gotten used to public transportation
in the Northeast (DC/Philly/NYC/Boston) and its surprising how much west coast
cities lack in that department.

~~~
honkhonkpants
California until quite recently was a giant real estate scam. The entire place
was settled with the intent to exploit it and then dump it on the next more
gullible person. Only in the last few decades has planning for long-term
sustainability been widely practiced.

~~~
michaelvoz
Source? Seems like drivel.

~~~
madgar
Yeah, not sure who can swallow that "planning for long-term sustainability
[has] been widely practiced" for "the last few decades."

------
rchowe
There are a few issues with getting these train stations built though:

A. The state of Rhode Island currently reimburses the MBTA for all operating
expenses south of the RI/MA state line, and they just funded a commuter rail
extension south of Providence to attract intra-RI commuters to take transit to
Providence instead of driving. However, even providing incentives such as free
parking, ridership at these stations has pretty drastically missed
expectations [1], and the trains are scheduled to take the same time as the
bus takes in rush hour traffic. The commuting situation/parking isn't bad
enough in RI like Boston or New York to make the train obviously beneficial
time/money wise, when you lose schedule flexibility of when you can go
to/leave work.

B. The site of the proposed train station only has two passenger tracks and is
located in a high speed (125 MPH or 150 MPH) zone. Starting service to the
station is not as simple as just refinishing it and having trains stop there:
Amtrak (which owns the tracks) would probably insist that the state of Rhode
Island quad-track through the station so that its trains can pass a stopped
commuter train.

C. It's difficult to get transit projects funded near state borders, because
of the mindset of "we paid for it and they all go work in the other state!".

Providence is a pretty fast-growing city, so it's possible that in 5 to 10
years the traffic situation makes a much more compelling case for people to
make use of transit, but additional commuter rail service there is a kind of
hard sell.

[1] [http://wpri.com/2015/05/18/south-county-rail-ridership-
far-s...](http://wpri.com/2015/05/18/south-county-rail-ridership-far-short-of-
expectations-may15/)

~~~
ams6110
You would only need to add a third track, since traffic will be predominatntly
inbound in the morning and outbound in the evening. That's how Chicago does
it. Express trains on the center track, locals on the outer.

That said, even adding a third track is a substantial investment.

~~~
rchowe
Yeah, I guessed on that one. They may be able to use the third freight track
that already passes through the station for that. The reason I said four is
because there actually are just as many southbound commuter trains as
northbound commuter trains at rush hour [1], since most of the trains stay
overnight in Boston. The Amtrak trains are mostly southbound in the morning
and northbound in the evening though.

It depends on what Amtrak's mathematicians decide, including whether
electrifying the track is worth it.

[1]
[http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/Documents/Schedules_and_Ma...](http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/Documents/Schedules_and_Maps/Commuter_Rail/providence.pdf?led=5/23/2016%208:09:11%20AM)

------
jbpetersen
One thing I tripped over here is just what is a phototube in this context?
[https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2016/08/S...](https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2016/08/Screen_Shot_2016_08_09_at_1.41.29_PM/1500b1c9e.png)
"Phototubes protrude from an abandoned building at the Conant Thread-Coats &
Clark Mill Complex, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)"

My own knowledge, Google, and Wikipedia have all failed me here. My best guess
is it's old slang for pneumatic transport tubes, but I can't say I've ever
seen anything quite like what's shown in the picture.

~~~
R_haterade
Vacuum transport tubes. I seem to remember them being called photo tubes at
the bank branch we went to when I was a child. That was a small part of a
childhood I'm still recalling odd fragments of here and there. Thanks for
prompting the recall.

~~~
gozur88
Those things are still in use, believe it or not. There's a big box retailer
where my parents live that has a tube to every register. When the registers
have too much money the checker puts the excess into a cylinder that whooshes
to the central office.

~~~
R_haterade
I think they were in use in hospitals for a while as well for sending notes
around, pre-email.

~~~
nickzoic
Also pathology samples, although I believe there's now some interest in robots
doing similar things.

------
Animats
They already have the tracks and the trains; they just need a station. This is
the easy case. This isn't about building a new line.

With jobs moving back to inner cities, the radial structure of commuter rail
works again.

------
wtbob
I love rail as a user, but the cost is … a bit insane.

> In July, the feds awarded $13.1 million, just shy of the $14.5 million the
> state was seeking … The grant application estimates it would serve 519
> riders daily, within the range of other Boston-area commuter rail stations.
> But most riders would be drawn from busy stations nearby, resulting in a net
> gain of just 89 new passengers.

Surely we could just give $73,600 to each of the 89 people to pay for cab
fare, and save the other half of the money?

~~~
madgar
I suspect your calculation ignores that grant money isn't a yearly stipend, so
after the $73,600/person runs out those people are back where they started.

------
nickbauman
This should help a lot. When I worked in the rail automation biz (for a 100B
multinational) the internal heuristic for people transport worldwide was two
heavy commuter rail lines were the equivalent of a _24-lane highway_ all
parameters being equal (which they never are: there were tons of planning
formulae brought to bear when making projections).

~~~
gaul
Wikipedia suggests 3x more passengers per track/lane at 40% of the land use
based on Eurostar and the Highway Capacity Manual:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
speed_rail#Automobiles_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
speed_rail#Automobiles_and_buses)

Tokaido Shinkansen carries twice as many passengers so this agrees with your
post end assuming that two rail lines each have two tracks each. Note that
this is the most extreme example, most railways do not carry this capacity.

------
andys627
Lots of very intelligent critical analysis applied to these are related issues
- if only some of that was applied to roads and encouraging driving. Roads are
showered with money with no thought of consequences. This is not in the
slightest hyperbolic. Transit projects have to claw tooth and nail for scraps.

------
coredog64
If anyone is interested, I believe this [0] is the train station in question
on Google Maps. I can't find the mentioned nearby mills though.

[0] [https://goo.gl/maps/8UFfq737jgF2](https://goo.gl/maps/8UFfq737jgF2)

~~~
niftich
Here's some street view of the mills mentioned. Each building the initial
viewport is looking at is part of the mill complex, but ones behind the camera
are usually not. You can back out of streetview to see where it is on the map.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8821836,-71.3947742,3a,75y,2...](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8821836,-71.3947742,3a,75y,237.68h,82.89t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sl6x4y52O9PzgGoh7Cx4JEQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

[2]
[https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8794315,-71.3946096,3a,75y,3...](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8794315,-71.3946096,3a,75y,304.16h,80.67t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sSaa7VPaweOcc2rPr4fytug!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1)

[3]
[https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8832275,-71.3979953,3a,75y,1...](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8832275,-71.3979953,3a,75y,139.46h,89.88t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sCwidS0-IBpA-E1GrkWb_2A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1)

Also, see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conant_Thread-
Coats_%26_Clark_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conant_Thread-
Coats_%26_Clark_Mill_Complex_District)

------
Doctor_Fegg
$40m for one new station and associated signalling? That's not much less than
the cost of reopening the entire 19-mile, 8-station Ebbw Vale line in Wales
[1], even though British railway projects are notoriously expensive [2].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebbw_Valley_Railway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebbw_Valley_Railway)
[2]
[http://www.transportblog.com/archives/000492.html](http://www.transportblog.com/archives/000492.html)

------
guard-of-terra
It's 100,000 people[1], how come they don't have a station for a rail that
literally passes through? Of course they need to fix it right away.

[1] By European standards that could as well be a railway hub.

~~~
keithpeter
UK: Sutton Coldfield has a population just under 100K and has a manned station
[1]. Pretty middle class area, no abandoned mills or anything, embedded in a
larger conurbation up in the millions, fairly high density. On the Redditch to
Lichfield line via Birmingham.

Smethwick: working class area with an immediate population of around 25k you
get an unmanned station [2] with trains each half an hour in both directions
(Walsall to Wolverhampton via Birmingham).

Both lines used for commuter traffic, and both stations built a long time ago
(Lichfield line was actually early 20th Century). I suspect the economics all
come down to use levels and density. What they call 'ridership'. In a lot of
neighbourhoods in the West Midlands that are further away from the radial
railway lines you are looking at a bus ride then train and a bus ride the
other side - as I gather from the OA the present situation is in the
settlements mentioned.

[1]
[https://www.google.co.uk/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x4870a5a8c7157...](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x4870a5a8c7157eb5:0x9c0432a30a727d14!2m5!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i100!3m1!7e115!4s/maps/place/Sutton%2BColdfield%2BStation%2BUK/@52.5648576,-1.8246764,3a,75y,315.43h,90t/data%3D*213m4*211e1*213m2*211sIrcArVgECQGyzTeukcfyhQ*212e0*214m2*213m1*211s0x0:0x9c0432a30a727d14!5sSutton+Coldfield+Station+UK+-+Google+Search&imagekey=!1e2!2sIrcArVgECQGyzTeukcfyhQ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj93YOLp7_OAhWYOsAKHQMMCjEQpx8IiQEwDQ)

[2]
[https://www.google.co.uk/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x4870bd5d2f177...](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x4870bd5d2f177b5b:0xb0a5c999f72118f3!2m5!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i100!3m1!7e115!4s/maps/place/Rolfe%2BStreet%2BStation%2BUK/@52.4964898,-1.970528,3a,75y,174.16h,90t/data%3D*213m4*211e1*213m2*211so19lMnLpPuqMTu_mEAZh2A*212e0*214m2*213m1*211s0x0:0xb0a5c999f72118f3!5sRolfe+Street+Station+UK+-+Google+Search&imagekey=!1e2!2so19lMnLpPuqMTu_mEAZh2A&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiL5PP3p7_OAhWILMAKHaLmCkQQpx8IeDAK)

------
planetmcd
Yea, it is great for Rhode Island business to make it easy for talented people
to commute to another city in another state to help their businesses grow. I
bet they are thrilled their taxes fund that.

~~~
epa
The alternative view is that without rail it would be harder for those
individuals to bring their high pay checks back to Rhode Island to spend their
money in the local economy.

~~~
planetmcd
That would be true if people moved there because of the stop. I'm not sure
Pawtucket is a big draw for either families or singles. I am sure that if
there is parking, people who already live in RI will use it to commute to
Boston to create real wealth for Boston companies while hoping for marginal
trickle-down wealth for RI.

------
graycat
Will it pay for itself or need subsidies?

Usually in the US, passenger rail needs significant subsidies. A bit tough to
think that subsidies are a good path to "a better economy".

~~~
honkhonkpants
How do you feel about roads? Most of them are 100% subsidized, capital and
operations alike.

~~~
graycat
My understanding is that the roads are, were, are supposed to be, used to be,
might be, etc. paid for in part or in total by gasoline taxes, maybe called
the Highway Trust Fund (maybe at times dipped into for various other purposes)
which seems fair enough.

Also for the 100%, there are some toll roads and bridges where the users pay
for use of the roads which looks like users paying and not a subsidy.

There's likely another issue, a law about 100 years old passed in part to slow
down US West water resource projects to "make the desert bloom" \-- yup, can
do that, but the question was, do the benefits exceed the costs?

So, the law established that a Federally funded project needs to pass _cost-
benefit_ analysis. So, add up all the costs and all the benefits "to
whomsoever they accrue", and then to go ahead with the project the benefits
have to be higher than the costs.

Well, maybe passenger rail can pass cost-benefit analysis in some cases and,
there, justify a _subsidy_ , but the one case I heard about was in a lecture
on the Baltimore Subway. It was all built and ready to go. So, for the cost-
benefit analysis, just call the construction cost $0.00 -- seems generous
enough!

Then have to count the operational costs and consider the ticket revenue.
Well, the ticket revenue from the estimates of what people were willing to pay
and the number of such people still didn't cover even the operational costs.
The lecture ended with the _optimal_ solution -- brick up the openings and
walk away.

That seemed a bit extreme: Instead why not take out the tracks and use the
rest as underground parking? Warehousing?

~~~
honkhonkpants
Your understanding is a bit deficient then because the gas tax revenues do not
even begin to cover road building and maintenance. In California for example
the transportation budget is $17 billion per year, $14 billion of which is for
roads, but the fuel tax revenue is only $6 billion and the vehicle license and
registration fees are $3.2 billion. The remainder is provided from general
revenues, that is to say it constitutes a subsidy.

At the federal level, Congress has been transferring money from general funds
into the Highway Trust Fund every year since 2001, because the fuel tax has
gone down in real terms every year since 1993.

Tolls are nice but only account for 5% of road funds in the US. To use the
pejorative applied against transit projects, the "fare recovery ratio" for
roads ranks below literally every transit agency in the nation.

In short, roads are highly subsidized from general revenues.

~~~
graycat
My impression is that local roads are paid for heavily local real estate
taxes, state roads are paid for via state gasoline taxes, state license fees,
and tolls, Federal roads and bridges are paid for via the Federal gas taxes
and tolls. My impression is that the Federal Highway Trust Fund is funded by
Federal gas taxes and gets used also for purposes other than Federal highways
and bridges.

But I don't have good data. I want good data but don't have it.

E.g., there are a lot of roads and bridges that are not Federal, e.g., not the
Interstate highway system. So, when I hear that the gas taxes don't pay for
all the roads and bridges, I think, of course not -- e.g., my local roads and
bridges are paid for heavily, maybe mostly, by local real estate taxes, and in
my area that is fair -- everyone here needs the local roads and bridges.

------
Noos
It would probably descend into corruption. Rhode Island's governance is
horrible, and I doubt publics works projects will solve that.

------
BuckRogers
A better idea yet, force employers to allow all employees who can, to work
from home. It's bad for the environment, wasteful of resources and additional
stress (illness/cancer) for commuters.

Shifts the burden from the planet and people to the company as they learn to
manage employees remotely. Which is where the balance should be set at.

~~~
WalterBright
> force employers

This is usually where good intentions go awry. A more efficacious approach is
to find ways to make it worthwhile for employers to do so.

~~~
BuckRogers
Employers don't need any more efficacious reasons than balancing the health of
the planet/people and profits.

The world doesn't have to kiss the ring of employers, and few employees have
individual bargaining power as I do. I work from home. People were murdered
fighting for an 8-hour workday. Look up Pinkerton. Something that by and large
is still not respected to this day, we need stronger labor laws all around.

A law has to be passed to force it, because profits will always come before
people otherwise. This is the history of the labor movement. It's just reality
of how things work.

Another efficacious reason is as Nick Hanauer has argued, it's in the best
interests of business to compromise on these matters, before the pitchforks
come out.

As I was once told "every business gets the union they deserve". If you treat
people right, you won't have people saying the things I do, changing the
political environment.

And the final reason, it's just the right thing to do. Not much money will be
made once the planet is destroyed or talented employees die early deaths.

In the shortsighted search for profits, all of these reasons are ignored,
which is why we have labor laws and desperately need more.

~~~
WalterBright
"The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at
a profit." \-- Samuel Gompers

~~~
dredmorbius
Did Evonik Industries profit from its early 20th century chemical
manufactures? Does that profit absolve it of all other obligations?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evonik_Industries](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evonik_Industries)

Oh, the banality of profit.

~~~
BuckRogers
Not only that, his point made no sense at all. Mandating companies to allow
employees who can sensibly do their duties from home wouldn't harm profits
whatsoever.

They just don't want to do it because they can't socially pressure you to stay
in the office 10+ hours a day. They don't feel they're getting everything out
of you that they can. A good, hard, focused 8 hours is always going to beat a
sloppy 10+. Most people start sabotaging in one way or another, become passive
aggressive and other bad behaviors.

People seem to have issue with my "force" comment, but we don't -force- the
8-hour workday today, and it's not obeyed. Business more often than not does
not follow the law without enforcement and as a precursor, regulation.

It's good for everyone involved, but profit seeking is usually short-sighted.
I'm not surprised at the downvotes from business owners and the investment
class, but there's enough that employees must be downvoting as well. Which for
me is confirmation-bias that the US work culture is completely upside down as
much because of employees as management.

~~~
dredmorbius
NB: your first and second paragraphs somewhat contradict one another.

The fact that this _is_ about power plays _does_ impact profits. However those
profits are extracted (by decreased employee choice and mobility) rather than
created (through ingenuity).

~~~
BuckRogers
It increases profits. Once everyone is comfortable with remote employees
(obviously, not by choice), the available employee pool opens dramatically.
It's increased employee choice and mobility.

That's exactly why I said "short-sighted" profit seeking. It applies in many
ways.

