FrontRunner Double-tracking and electrification

I've generally been negative regarding FrontRunner double-tracking and electrification. Partially because for most of my riding life, it's been an hourly commuter rail with PnR access. Not real useful for those living the car-free or car-less lifestyle. More recently I realized what double-tracking and electrification would do: Transform FrontRunner into something much more like the PATH train. Viz: an electrified heavy-rail system with (potentially) 15 frequencies. FrontRunner was built on the cheap (not a criticism), including a lot of single track, so in many segments the only place two trains can pass each other is at stations. So one train has to wait for the other, so if one train is late, the other train is made late. It's also a diesel train, so the amount of torque it can produce is limited, and hence how fast it can accelerate. (Diesel trains are great for long distances--for cheaper than stringing catenary for the whole distance, and rolling-friction efficiency of trains aside, a better option than carrying batteries the whole way). FrontRunner is also the only way the whole Wasatch Front can be on one train system. TRAX is great, but it's light rail, which means it can't share track with freight trains, which means it's limited to being on it's own ROW. (TRAX does some 'time separation', which is why the blue line will never have an 'after hours' train home for people who want to drink and not-drive.)

Regional Electric Rail.

I've largely ignored the UTA FrontRunner. I don't ride it. It doesn't go where I need to go, at the times I need it to go places. It's a commuter rail, ferrying office works. It doesn't serve my transit oriented lifestyle. But not everyone is me, and transit riders come in many varieties.

The new (draft) WFRC-MAG long range transportation plan is out.  And looking at transit, one of the things that really catches my eyes is the money being put into FrontRunner--extension, electrification, double-tracking. I'll admit all are worthy: a) a regional rail network needs to serve the region; b) It's a dirty secret that FrontRunner's diesel engines actually produce more pollution than the cars they replace; c) doubling tracking is strictly necessary for more frequent operations. 

But a whole pile of articles I've been reading have me thinking about through-running regional rail (see end of post). In a nutshell, the 'Réseau Express Régional' (RER)  works because Paris is polycentric. The center is historic, so they exiled all the new skyscrapers to the edge of historic Paris--literal Edge Cities. So when people commute to/from these edge cities, they do so using the RER to cross central Paris. Despite much hope, such an approach seems unlikely to work in NYC, because it has one central CBD. 

But it makes me wonder if it might work in the Wasatch Front--that long skinny ribbon of urbanity west of the Wasatch Mountains. The biggest 'CBD' is SLC, but neither Provo nor Ogden are exactly tiny. So it's possible to imagine a transit network connecting all three, flowing through and across them. Not just a CRT, but a regional rail network. 

My first objection would be: "We already have TRAX!". But when I look at the Long Range Plan, I see 'infill stations' at 1700 S. and 2700 S. Infill stations improve the local access, but reduce network access. Every station requires an additional 3 minutes, making every commuter 3 minutes longer. Mode-share is very time sensitive, so adding 6 minutes the commute for someone coming from Sandy may lose UTA riders. (Whether the new stations add enough riders/trips to offset that requires serious analysis). But, less us presume things do go that way: That the TRAX corridor becomes more urban, with a stop every mile, such that the entire corridor is within a half-mile of a Trax Station--a veritable Transit Oriented Corridor (TOC--see Cervero's article on it). If that happens, SOMETHING is needed to replace the high-speed regional access formerly provided by TRAX. And if I'm reading the planning right, the idea is to have FrontRunner fill that role: A RER ('Regional Electric Rail'), touching Trax at North Temple, at 6400 South, and (sort of) in Sandy. LRTP is also showing cross I-15 at 102nd south, to connect Trax to FrontRunner, with a shared corridor down to 135th. (While still on the map, I view extending the Draper line as a dead letter. Nothing but miles and miles of single family out that way.) The South Jordan FrontRunner station would be a reasonable terminus. But, given the pressure to reach the Point of the Mountain and prison site, I can't imagine them stopping there. Draper FrontRunner would be the next reasonable terminus for extending Trax, and would make Ebay happy (they were long-ago promised a train). Past that gets muddy--reconnecting to east-side rail would require jumping I-15 again (not cheap), and is highly dependent on what happens with Utah County Trax.

• What the RER A vs. C Contrast Means for New York Regional Rai
• Regional Rail for New York City - Part I
• Through-Running at Penn Station
• To RER A, or to RER C? How Paris typifies the two models for cross-city commuter train lines

FrontRunner and Joint Development

Longterm utility of FrontRunner largely out of UTA's ambit. If we build office towers next to stations, it will be great forever. If we just create Station Parks and Ebays, it's a near-criminal waste. UTA likely needs to get into the Joint Development game (albeit with a VERY limited geographic context--6 minute walk/.3 mile), with unlimited densities. Using the most proximate land for surface-level purely for bus loops is crazy.  

Moving FrontRunner East a block

Trax, FrontRunner, Amtrak, moving them all and connecting them all in one place...

Probably a lot of money for not much benefit. Nice map, though.

FrontRunner - on the perils of commuter rail

This morning finds me less than enraptured of FrontRunner. Not because what it is not (fast, frequent, reliable), but rather because of what it is: Commuter rail. Read somewhere (likely Twitter) criticising transit agencies for dumping billion of dollars into creating high-cost but lightly ridden suburban commuter rail networks. Today, looking at Denver, this sort of strikes home.


In a related vein, the Transport Politic had a good article up on "What Kind of Network to Build?" The relevant part of the article was this:

"Denver, Minneapolis, and Portland are developing primarily radial networks, focusing on expanding access into their downtowns. Their lines—not only those that already exist, but also those under construction and proposed—are widely spaced across the region. On the other hand, Atlanta, Montréal, and Toronto are largely pursuing a grid of new lines that focus on their respective regions’ densest areas. This approach is likely to increase overall transit use more effectively, though it may not provide as useful an alternative to regional traffic. Los Angeles and Seattle are pursuing transit investment programs that tow the line somewhat between the two."

Seems like Denver, Minneapolis and Portland are developing light rail networks that mimic commuter rail networks, sprawling out to the suburbs in all directions, while places with existing heavy rail networks are focusing on many (shorter, lower capital cost) lines within the already built up dense areas. 

Part of the appeal of Commuter Rail comes from the east coast, where commuter rail networks (LIRR, etc) are the outgrowths of profitable passenger service from years ago. Today, I question that they can be replicated: Their genesis is as railroads providing access to the walkable urban cores of (pre-automotive) towns. While small, such towns were based on a monocentric (pre-automotive) automobile model. When I visit FrontRunner stations, all I see are Park and Ride lots, and a bus depot. The PnR makes sense--it's the only way that enough people can be concentrated within walkable distance of the FrontRunner station. Parking has a density of about 1 rider/400 SF. Achieving the same thing with residential density (assuming one rider/household, and 1000 SF/household), requires a FAR of 2.5. At a 50% lot coverage ratio that implies something like 5 stories of residential. Nowhere is that present along FrontRunner.

So FrontRunner is not creating transit-oriented polycentric density. It's just congestion relief. Correlational research out there suggests that a mile of transit travel (a passenger mile) replaces 3 miles of automobile travel, and effect called the Transit Leverage Effect. Empirical evidence bears this out: When a transit strike ocurrs, traffic congestion gets truly gnarly. Research suggests that this is because it's the people with the worst automobile commutes (long commuters along congested roads) that tend to take transit. When deprived of that alternative, they drive anyway. 

What alarms me is the idea that commuter rail is actually supporting sprawl: For a few people, it makes otherwise infeasible automobile commutes possible. Because those people drive a long way (consuming a lot of road capacity), doing so frees up road capacity for others. Via the triple convergence (from other times, other routes, and other modes) that capacity gets used up, until the road system again reaches an equilibrium of barely bearable congestion. 

Which makes me wonder: What does FrontRunner actually achieve? What does any commuter rail actually achieve? To me, it seems like it only makes life better for a few extreme commuters, whose auto commutes would otherwise be awful. 

I'm sure it also benefits a few transit dependent people, for whom the alternative is not making the trip. But I seriously question if the benefit of this small number of people (and it is a small number--FrontRunner ridership numbers are not large) is actually worth the millions of dollars it costs. I feel like we'd be far better creating the 'Freeway Flyers' network of BRT, and making a freeway lane into a HOT lane, then spending millions on commuter rail. 

A decade ago, I supported FrontRunner as an 'express route', making is possible to travel between points that would take far too long to access by Trax. Not once (even while transit dependent) have I ever used FrontRunner for such a purpose. The frequency is too low to make it feasible as part of a transfer network.  FrontRunner is not part of the Frequent Transit Network. 

Why waste so much breath on this issue? Because UTA (and WFRC) are getting ready to spend hundreds of millions double-tracking and electrifying FrontRunner. Double-tracking so that FrontRunner can actually become more reliable (check UTA's twitter for records of it's perpetual delay), and electrification to reduce pollution. (The dirty secret of FrontRunner being that it actually produces more pollution, per rider, and an equivalent number of cars). Part of the pollution is also caused by the single-tracking, which means that the FrontRunner is constantly starting and stopping, waiting for other trains to pass so that it can proceed. 

Here is what is planned. I don't think I like it. That bit of the FronRunner at the south is $51 million dollars for 6.8 miles. Happily, a lot of the stuff on the plan is corridor preservation. Corridor preservation is the essence of planning: Buying cheap today what you are going to need tomorrow. 

Electrifying FrontRunner

Greetings, all.

Future UTA does a nice job discussing electrifying FrontRunner. It notes that "electric traction can substantially increase the rate of acceleration trains are able to achieve, thus reducing trip times".

The benefits of doing so are uncertain, and calculating them is complex. Reason&Rail did so for the Amtrak Surfliner. He gives the number of $3.6m/mile, based on estimates for California's HSR.

Take-away is that shifting from a diesel train pulling cars (like FrontRunner) to electric multiple units doesn't seem to save much time. 

However, the Surfliner only stops 8 times, while FrontRunner stops 15 times (over 17 stations). Doubling the # of stations would double the number of times FrontRunner could benefit from increased acceleration. FrontRunner is 88 miles long, the Surfliner 125 miles long. So FrontRunner probably spends less time at top speeds, so acceleration is much more important. Surfliner EMU cuts time by 8%, 1%/stop, so we'll assume FrontRunner does the same, cutting travel time by 15%.  VTPI suggests a non-linear relationship, with a 15% reduction in travel time resulting in a 20% increase in ridership. Wiki says daily ridership is 17,600, so that would bet 3,520 new daily riders. 

88miles*$3.6m/mile is about $315m for electrification.  $315m/3,520 gives a cost of about $90k per new system rider. Which is very very high, higher than most heavy rail projects. ...and better than some light rail projects. By Montreal standards, pretty high.

Again, a back of the envelope calculation says it's not worth it. This calculation does not include pollution costs or savings in fuel costs, or savings in travel time etc, so it's not a cost-benefit analysis.

FrontRunner as symbolic unity

Not sure if you know it or not, but a few counties in Utah contain almost all of the population. Salt Lake, Utah, Davis are something like 70%. Adjacent counties (Wasatch, Tooele) are maybe another 5%, and Washington County (St.George, Cedar City) are the other 20%.

FrontRunner now links Salt Lake, Davis, and Utah. So 3/4 of the population is in a county with FrontRunner. The share within a mile of FrontRunner is likely even larger. Ideally, we can use FrontRunner as transit spine for the whole region, with TRAX/MAX lines branching off at all the stations.

Rapid Transit Office Index

Reading up on the Rapid Transit Office Index, which basically says 'Be within 500m or don't bother'. 500m is a about a third of a mile. Which has implications for TOD design. I think SANDAG nails is pretty well with this graphic.

Thinking on Cottonwood Corporate Center, on I-215 in SLC, UT. It's a large office complex with a lot of skyscrapers, basically in the middle of nowhere. It has good visibility from I-215 (on the hill) and a freeway exit, but it's hardly the only place with one. According to Christine Richman, the whole place got started with a build to suit developed for a specific tenant, and the whole cluster grew up around that.

Now, thinking of the RTOI, I wonder if it might not be possible to establish an office cluster around FrontRunner on that same basis. If you are going to work, Rapid Transit is certainly a plus. Sit down, read the paper, read a book, go over some documents. But it's difficult to get any work done on TRAX because there is nothing to write on. So, instead focus development around FrontRunner, which has a) Some seats with tables, and b) Wifi. Effectively, it becomes possible to treat FrontRunner as a rolling office. Roadway access would of course still be key, so a not too distant interchange seems like a good idea. To me, this suggests the otherwise abominable Station Park in Farmington. The only trouble is getting that first tenant...

'Central Station' is not so central...

Salt Lake's 'Central Station' is central to very little. The map below is a pretty good depiction of Salt Lake's downtown. The 'Central Station' is the Intermodal hub at the far periphery of the lower left hand corner of the map. For those unfamiliar with SLC, it has very large blocks-- about 8 blocks to the mile. That puts 'Central Station' a long way from downtown (Wells Fargo is tallest building, and hence assumable center).

If downtown SLC continues to grow westward and redevelop the industrial properties there, the area near 'Central Station' might become a vibrant urban center. But that's an idea I find unlikely. Check out the map below. The big blue line in I-15, a major 'through' interstate. It's over a 100' wide, and a significant barrier to urban growth. I find it much more likely that development will turn head south, until it reaches the 10th South exit.

As it is, it takes Salt Lake's various transit services a long way out of their way to reach it.

Making it worse, the new 'Viaduct Station' is completed at 500 W. and North Temple means it's no longer the best location for a FrontRunner/Trax transfer.  Right now, the Central Station serves as a node for buses, Trax, FrontRunner, Amtrak, and Greyhound. Once the North Temple line is completed, the talk is of adding another FrontRunner station, to permit easy transfers between the two.

From a transit planning perspective, it's a great idea--it will make traveling by commuter rail to downtown a great deal easier. But it will do a lot toward reducing the activity level at Central Station, which has never been high to begin with.