Friday, March 13, 2020

Worst Amtrak Routes

Eno said:

Fiscal 2018 Operational Results of Amtrak Long-Distance Trains


Number of Passenger- Operating Operating Operating Loss per Loss per

Passengers Miles Revenue Costs Deficit Passenger Pass.-Mile
Palmetto 387,919 94,908,198 $30,869,529 $36,262,835 -$5,393,306 -$13.90 -$0.06
Auto Train 224,837 193,584,657 $71,989,213 $87,461,429 -$15,472,216 -$68.82 -$0.08
City of New Orleans 237,781 100,272,820 $19,399,123 $40,437,972 -$21,038,849 -$88.48 -$0.21
Texas Eagle 335,770 154,765,722 $25,742,874 $57,527,780 -$31,784,906 -$94.66 -$0.21
Silver Star 368,518 165,945,944 $34,842,292 $69,730,438 -$34,888,146 -$94.67 -$0.21
Lake Shore Limited 337,882 149,358,299 $28,411,059 $64,083,465 -$35,672,406 -$105.58 -$0.24
Coast Starlight 417,819 194,382,390 $44,541,555 $90,112,715 -$45,571,160 -$109.07 -$0.23
Silver Meteor 337,023 190,075,999 $40,082,745 $79,869,814 -$39,787,069 -$118.05 -$0.21
Empire Builder 428,854 303,918,093 $57,626,494 $109,501,033 -$51,874,539 -$120.96 -$0.17
Capitol Limited 219,033 98,779,079 $21,380,052 $49,009,554 -$27,629,502 -$126.14 -$0.28
California Zephyr 418,203 295,678,349 $59,058,662 $116,349,708 -$57,291,046 -$136.99 -$0.19
Crescent 274,807 129,039,734 $33,141,871 $72,559,789 -$39,417,918 -$143.44 -$0.31
Cardinal 96,710 33,313,579 $7,127,007 $22,643,665 -$15,516,658 -$160.45 -$0.47
Southwest Chief 331,239 272,714,245 $45,511,902 $102,680,813 -$57,168,911 -$172.59 -$0.21
Sunset Limited 97,078 73,279,546 $12,391,231 $47,569,328 -$35,178,097 -$362.37 -$0.48


So it's looks like it's the sunset limited (New Orleans to San Diego) that is the real money loser.

https://www.amtrak.com/sunset-limited-train

Palmetto, weirdly enough, the best. (New York to Miami).


Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Fixed Guideway system mileage in the US



Using multiple charts to show this, in a 'Powers of Ten' sort of way.

Chart 1:  Most of what we have is highways; which has been oddly steady. While miles keep going up, you can see it's pretty flat after 1980.

Chart 2: Class 1 railway  has seen big declines, while oil pipelines are up.

Chart 3: Navigable channels steady as a rock, Amtrak had a big decline in '98, but much less than in '80. (Not sure this is a bad thing--so many of their long distance routes are terrible).

Chart 4 shows transit:

Commuter Rail - Bit of a surprise there--I would never have guess so many miles of commuter rail were being built, or had grown so steadily. Retrospectively predictable--it's the most auto-compliant form of transit; as it's based on a combination of downtown stations and suburban park and ride, and so the most suited for most of America. I'd like to slander it as never generating TOD, but then I recognize my ignorance on the topic.

Heavy rail is flat -after the DC Metro, BART, and Atlanta's MARTA, I'm not sure who has build any (excepting tiny mileages in NYC and LA). Heavy rail may be a dead technology (barring existing networks). No need for it--it's utility lay in being able to share track with freight ROW, a niche now (largely) filled by commuter rail. Given the greater acceleration provided by EMU (Electric Multiple Units) I suspect we may see a convergence between 'heavy rail' and 'commuter rail' over time.

Light rail--we've generated about 52 miles/year over the last 30 years. If we look at post 1990, 62 miles/year; post 2000, 72 miles a year. But post 2010....62 miles a year. Light rail may be reaching its limits--all the metros suited for it have it, and all the corridors within the metros have it. I expect we'll continue to see organic growth in those networks, but the number of light rail 'New Starts' is going to be pretty limited. My rule of thumb is a metro needs about a 2 million population for light rail to be feasible.



*Data for all charts for the 80's and 00's straight line interpolated from the 5 year increments of the data source, which flatters the regression, but not likely much.

Monday, March 9, 2020

Freeway legs as a proxy for sprawl.

Atlanta has three interstates running through it: 75, 20, 85, providing 6 corridors to sprawl along.

 Kansas City beat is out:--it has 29, 35, 70, 49, so 8 corridors to sprawl along.


Dallas only has 5 corridors to/away from down town. (Oh, but wait: Oklahoma City _also_ has five. And...Denver, San Antonio, Kansas City). Houston also has six, but... I-69 doesn't go anywhere (and shouldn't be part of the Interstate Highway System). Federally funded sprawl, that. St. Louis also has three Interstates--44, 70 and 55. Nashville, ditto: 24,40 and 55. Indianapolis has 65,69 and 70.  Birmingham has 65, 20 and 22, but is the terminus of 22...

Louisville (65, 65, 71), pairs within Cincinnati (71, 74, 75).

Columbus, Ohio, despite the apparent spaghetti of freeways, only has two interstates. Hate to see the
condition of the roads there.

Detroit gets three: 75,  94 96. 

Chicago may be the winner: 90, 88, 80, 55, 57, 65, 90.

Nothing in Florida is central enough to have more than two Interstates running through them.

Charleston, SC has (weirdly) only one: I-26; Charlotte, NC has two: 77 and 85.

Knoxville sits where 40 & 75 meet.

I wonder--if you were to make a 'block size' map, in terms of distance from the interstate, where would be most remote? Many serious contenders, but as always, Nevada wins for least connected state.

Places that shouldn't have Interstate access: Lubbock, Texas. So remote!

Pittsburgh looks...weird. The Interstates don't go through it so much as around it: 79, 70, 76, in a triangle. Downtown access relies on beltways (279 and 376). Also reminds me that western Pennsylvania is functionally part of Ohio, rather than the eastern seaboard.

Washington DC is the nexus between I-66 and I-95, but thanks to I-270, functionally has another 'leg'. (A reminder that Baltimore used to be bigger than DC).

Baltimore itself only has...83,95,97.

Buffalo just has the 90, Philly the 76 and 95. NYC the 95 and 87.

Portland has I-84 and I-5. Seattle the I-5 and the 90.

So. My hypothesis: Cities start building fixed guideway transit only when it road expansion gets expensive. The cost to adds lanes becomes marginally higher over time (as the easiest options get built out first). Places that can expand their accessible area along more 'legs' face the crunch in freeway capacity later, and tend to sprawl for longer periods of time. (When one 'leg' runs out of capacity, development proceeds along another leg).  Constrained geography also helps, as it concentrates trip ends in a more transit-suitable way--rivers and steeps slopes/mountains. Rivers also help, because they add the cost of bridges to highway construction, and make fixed guideway transit a more attractive alternative. So the most sprawling places ought have lots of freeway 'legs'.

Sadly, the number of  Federally funded 'beltways' biases the results--many places have number Interstates that only remotely resemble circumferential beltways.

All the transit in California can be explained by the lack of Interstates--no place has more than 6 'legs': San Diego only has I-5, and surprisingly important I-8. Sacramento has the 5 and the 80. LA, for all the talk about all it's freeways, only has the 5,10 and 15. But a lot of beltways. SF has (nominally) just the 80, although it has 280, 680, 880 and 580 as beltways.

8 'Legs' - Kansas City
7 Legs - Chicago
6 Legs: St. Louis, Nashville, Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Detroit, Baltimore, Houston (sort of)
5 Legs: Oklahoma City, Denver, San Antonio, Dallas, Birmingham, DC
4 Legs: Columbus, Ohio; Tampa, Orlando, Knoxville, Pittsburgh (?), Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake.
2 Legs: Buffalo

Columbus, Ohio seems like it ought have fixed guideway transit - 2 million metro population, and only 4 legs to grow along. Seems to have managed to self-sabotage itself by having a lot of other highways: 104, 62, 40,33,23...they've got to be going broke trying to pay for all that.


Maybe Atlanta needs it's own County (like Denver)

The beltway crosses...1,2,3,4 counties? (DeKalb, Fulton,Cobb, Clayton).

But everyone would scream. You can bet your bottom dollar that every one of those counties has indulged in freeway oriented 'economic development' and are counting on the proceeds from which to bail out all their SFD-related costs.