Zweisystem was in Portland during the 2007 ice storm and what an experience. Portland’s car drivers seemed ill equipped to deal with ice and tried to drive like it was snow and the following video shows the results.
The following video shows a four car MAX train clearing the ice build up in the flange way at an intersection. The build up of ice in the flange way breaks the electrical contact and stops the train, thus a four car train is needed to clear the flange way so at least one vehicle remains in the electrical circuit. Portland up to 2008 did not invest in snow and ice removal vehicles, unlike other cities who operate light rail in harsh winter conditions and removal of snow and especially ice is done manually.
Just a note: Vancouver hasn’t endured the ices storms that Portland now seems to get on an almost regular basis and when the last time an ice storm hit Vancouver in the late 90’s, the ice build up on the SkyTrain reaction rail stopped the SkyTrain metro system.
The 11.8 km. Rittnerbahn, located in the Western part of the Italian Dolimites, once connected the city Bolzano with the Ritten plateau and today only connects the villages on the Ritten plateau.
Opened in 1907, the interurban line started at Walther Square in the center of Bolzano where it shared the track with the Bolzano trams until it reached Brenner Street. From Brenner St. to the village of Maria Himmelfahrt the line was a rack railway climbing 990m until it reached the Ritten plateau. A rack locomotive was placed behind the trams and pushed them uphill. The train that went down to Bolzano produced, by an early example of regenerative braking, some of the power for the ascending train. After arriving in Maria Himmelfahrt on the Ritten plateau, the locomotive was uncoupled and the trams could proceed unaided on normal tracks until the final station in the village of Klobenstein.
In the 19th century the Ritten plateau was an highly frequented place by the people of Bolzano, who liked to pass their weekends there. To connect the two places, it was decided to build a rack railway and 1906 the railway engineer Josef Riehl commenced the planning of the line. In April 1907 the construction finished and the railroad was officially inaugurated on August 13th, 1907. At the end of the sixties a highway was built from Bolzano to Ritten and the railway was nearly abandoned, with minimal maintenance and operation. A decision was taken to augment the rack railway with a ropeway or gondola, which in the end replaced the rack railway, which suffered a serious derailment and accident in 1966 caused by reduced maintenance. In 1985 the Rittnerbahn was fully renovated and a new tricable aerial ropeway with eight gondolas, that can carry 550 persons per hour was constructed.
Today, remaining interurban line between Maria Himmelfahrt and Klobenstein is used by tourists, locals and train enthusiasts. Two interurbans still in use are vintage 1907 and can be said to be some of the oldest tram cars still in operation. The company that currently operates the line, SAD (Servizi Autobus Dolomiti), is the same company that runs all the buses in the province and also the Vinschgerbahn in the Vinschgau valley.
The following from the CFTE is interesting, as the following names pop up North of the 49th once in a while. Strangely, many in the SkyTrain lobby think that these people support SkyTrain because they attack modern Light Rail in the United States, but of course, they don’t build SkyTrain in the U.S. do they. Once ‘Peak Oil’ kicks in in a decade or so, these people will probably be relegated as a rustic anachronism or 21st Century version of Luddites as American cities will be grappling with fuel shortages and rationing, inadequate transportation alternatives, but having miles and miles of very underused highways and expressways.
Randal O’Toole, Executive Director of Oregon’s Thoreau Institute (http://www.ti.org).
His publications include: ISTEA: A Poisonous Brew for America’s Cities; Light Rail Myths and Realities; The Vanishing Automobile; and Light Rail: Yesterday’s Technology Tomorrow. O’Toole’s background is in economics, and prior to being energized by Portland’s Urban Growth Boundary, he worked mainly on forest issues and against the federal subsidization of logging. He was the primary organizer of the February 2003 transit critics conference, “Preserving the American Dream.”
Wendell Cox, a self-employed privatization proponent who lives in the St. Louis area who has written attacks on transit and Amtrak for the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Highway Users Alliance and others. His work includes the Cato publication False Dreams and Broken Promises: The Wasteful Federal Investment in Mass Transit and has continued with numerous op-eds, seminars and radio and TV appearances in communities considering new transit investments. Cox has authored reports for the Wisconsin Policy Center and the James Madison Institute attacking the proposed Milwaukee rail system and the Florida Overland Express high speed rail project. Cox’s background as an expert is derived from his appointment to the old Los Angeles County Transportation Commission as a citizen member. He has been employed by various conservative and road building groups over the years. Cox is also known for his anti-Portland and transit-bashing website, (http://www.publicpurpose.com), which Peter Gordon has cited in his presentations.
John Semmens, a fellow at Phoenix’s Goldwater Institute. His major contribution so far is the report “Public Transit: A Worthwhile Investment?” The report was an attempt to de-rail the Phoenix Transit 2000 initiative, which called for a .4 percent tax increase to expand bus service and build a light rail line there. The ballot measure was approved in March of 2000. Semmens’ report includes a number of fact sheets, including “A Declining Industry”, “A Financial Disaster”, “A Blight on the Economy”, and “A Failure Everywhere.”
Robert Poole, President of the Reason Foundation. He and others at the Reason Foundation have published detailed attacks on the Los Angeles MTA’s rail projects and on transit investments in general. Poole came to Phoenix before the 1997 referendum to attack the proposed regional transit system at seminars and on the radio. This visit created negative coverage in several local media outlets, including the Arizona Republic, which was otherwise in favor of the project.
Stephen Mueller of the Independence Institute played a role in undermining support for the 1997 referendum on the Denver light rail project with his paper Light Rail In Denver: Taking Taxpayers for a Ride and numerous appearances in the local media.
John Charles of the Cascade Policy Institute in Oregon began as an environmentalist and has evolved into a libertarian who promotes congestion pricing and attacks transit and planned growth. His recommendations include: “Local transit taxes should be abolished, Oregon’s ties to federal government transit funding should be terminated, and publicly owned transit assets should be auctioned off. Stop any further spending on publicly owned urban rail systems.” He also travels to spread the word: the Phoenix Business Journal reported that “… Charles was invited to Phoenix by the Goldwater Institute.”
Peter Samuel, editor of the self-published Toll Roads Newsletter, wrote a piece for the Reason Foundation which makes the case that one can build one’s way out of congestion. Samuel is a libertarian and an advocate of building toll roads and converting existing highways to toll roads as a solution to transportation problems. His past work includes writings for the Cato Institute promoting highway privatization, and he is also associated with something called the Sutherland Institute, and has joined the fray over Salt Lake City’s light rail proposal, arguing that the absence of rail has been a reason for growth in the West.
Other main actors include Peter Gordon and Harry Richardson of the University of Southern California, Charles Lave of the University of California at Irvine, Steven Hayward of the Commonwealth Foundation in Pennsylvania, and others.
The following are streetscapes and street cross sections of modern LRT (streetcars or trams) operating on-street and will help many to visualize how a modern tram would look on a typical city street in Vancouver, Langley, Abbotsford and even Chilliwack.
The above picture shows a pure streetcar setting with cars and trams sharing a common road. Simplicity and affordability are the keynotes in this type of light rail planning. Streetcars suffer from being stuck in auto traffic flows which reduce commercial speeds but still a tram operating on-street is about 10% faster than a bus using the same route.
The above two pictures shows the next step forward, a tram operating on a reserved rights-of-way on a one-way street. Operating on a reserved rights-of-way means that the tram is now light rail and can achieve faster speeds between stations increasing commercial speeds as there is no auto impediment. Also, when a tram stops at a station, it does not impede motor traffic. The tram route offers one tram line, to lanes for vehicular traffic, a parking lane, a bicycle lane and two spacious sidewalks for pedestrians.
The above picture illustrates a streetcar or tram, operating as light rail on a reserved rights-of-way on a narrow city street. Auto capacity is restricted but the capacity of the two tram lines have the potential to exceed 20,000 persons per hour per direction, far greater than the ,1600 to 2,000 pphpd capable on the two auto lanes. By installing a tram or light rail on a city street, has increased the potential capacity of the auto lane by over 18,000 pphpd!
Contrary to the doom and gloom of the SkyTrain lobby, this is how Broadway could look with modern light rail, a vibrant pedestrian friendly, cycle friendly and merchant friendly street; a place where locals, out of towner’s and tourist will want to frequent.
The following letter to the Surrey Leader certainly shreds the SkyTrain Urban Myth that it is faster and has more capacity than light rail. What the SkyTrain lobby and mainstream media forget, that both modes are railways (SkyTrain is an unconventional railway) and adhere to the same operating principals. SkyTrain’s reputation has been created by BC Transit and TransLink, yet outside the lower mainland, SkyTrain continues to be rejected by transit planners and only can be sold in private deals that are largely funded by the Canadian government! There are only seven SkyTrain type systems in operation, despite being on the market for over 30 years.
There is no evidence that the SkyTrain light metro or any light metro for that matter is faster or has a greater capacity than LRT and is the prime reason why light rail made light metro obsolete almost two decades ago.
Light rail capacity rivals SkyTrain
Published: November 24,
The article “TransLink’s Prendergast offers parting advice” contains an error, which is commonly made by those who know little about modern LRT, which must be rectified.
The comment: “At-grade light rail typically can’t carry as many people or run as fast as grade-separated SkyTrain,” is absolutely false.
The maximum capacity of a modern LRT line is over 20,000 persons per hour per direction and even some European streetcar or tram systems do manage 20,000 persons per hour in peak hours on portions of their lines.
SkyTrain, limited by automatic (driverless) train control can only manage under 15,000 persons per hour and needs a billion dollars or more in upgrades just to match what modern LRT can achieve today.
As for speed, SkyTrain’s higher commercial speeds can be, in part, accounted for fewer stations per route kilometre than comparable LRT systems.
The maximum speed for SkyTrain is about 80 km/h, yet in Portland, their MAX LRT line travels at 90 km/h on portions of their line.
MAX’s commercial speed is lower than SkyTrain because it has about twice as many stations per route kilometre than SkyTrain and the light rail travels as a streetcar through downtown Portland, with no track reservation or signal priority at intersections.
St. Louis’ LRT system in fact has a higher commercial speed than our SkyTrain light metro.
One would wish the media stop listening to the many SkyTrain urban myths and start dealing with established facts about modern light rail.
There is a good reason only seven SkyTrain type systems have been sold in the past 30 years.
It’s that time again, membership renewal requests are in the mail or in one’s email box. Zwei is renewing his annual subscription to the Light Rail Transit Association and would like you to consider joining the Light Rail Transit Association.
There are three good reasons for joining the LRTA:
1) The LRTA membership includes an annual subscription to the excellent Tramway’s & Urban Transit.
2) The LRTA blog, which is open to members only, is an excellent source of information on transit around the world.
3) With a larger membership in our area, we could get an article published on our efforts with Rail for the Valley for world wide coverage.
To succeed, Rail for the Valley must be well informed and there is no better way of being well informed than joining the Light Rail Transit Association.
The following article written by Gerald Fox, former TriMet Rail Corridor Manager, is well worth a read as it gives good insight why Portland opted for modern light rail. http://www.lrta.info/tramforward/TAUT-Oct09-LRTvBus.pdf Gerald Fox, one must remember is the same chap, who in the early 90’s, published a study, “A comparison of Automated Guided Transit (AGT) and Light Rail Transit”, which concluded that given equal rights-of-ways, LRT was cheaper to build, operate, and maintain. Mr. Fox also wrote a letter to a Victoria transit group shredding the Evergreen Line’s business case. https://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/can-translinks-business-cases-be-trusted/
There is a growing number of people in the region who believe that buying and operating more buses will solve our local transit woes, yet the same people refuse to recognize the buses just do not attract much new ridership. Mr. Fox’s article mat shed some light on the bus/LRT issue and why Portland opted for light rail.
This transit story from the Seattle Times illustrates the land value for a soon to be abandoned rail lines, which with the current railway land deal, amounts to slightly over $1 million a mile or about $0.6 million/km. A local example would be the Arbutus Corridor, which using the same formula as used in Seattle, would cost about $6 million to buy.
Where Seattle’s government organizations are showing foresight in buying and protecting redundant and/or abandoned railway lines for future use, METRO Vancouver buries it’s collective heads in the sand, ignoring what must be done and continue to support hugely expensive metro projects that have done little to reduce auto congestion or pollution, while at the same time, proposing ever higher taxes and user fees to fund the nonsense.
Future generations will condemn the present METRO Vancouver Board for their short sightedness and incompetence.
$26 million sought to buy land for portion of East side rail corridor
King County Executive Kurt Triplett proposed today that the county spend up to $26 million to buy most of the southern part of BNSF Railway’s 42-mile Eastside rail corridor for future use.
By Keith Ervin – Seattle Times staff reporter
King County Executive Kurt Triplett proposed today that the county spend up to $26 million to buy most of the southern part of BNSF Railway’s 42-mile Eastside rail corridor.
If approved by the Metropolitan King County Council, the purchase would help preserve for future rail and trail use the old rail line that connects Renton, Bellevue, Kirkland, Woodinville, Redmond and Snohomish.
Under deals that are still begin negotiated, the Port of Seattle would buy the entire rail line from BNSF by Dec. 15 for $107 million or less, then would sell much of the southern part to King County and other partners.
The county would own most of the 25 miles of the southern portion, but Sound Transit and Redmond are negotiating to buy smaller stretches from the Port of Seattle.
Sound Transit could acquire a portion of the corridor in Bellevue for its planned Seattle-to-Bellevue-to-Redmond light rail line. Redmond could buy part of the Woodinville-to-Redmond spur, and Puget Sound Energy and the Cascade Water Alliance are expected to buy utility rights of way.
King County would finance its part of the deal by selling bonds to be repaid with future revenues from the conservation futures property tax. That tax can only be used for acquisition of trails and open space — and legally can’t be used to rescue the county’s troubled general fund — Triplett said.
Terry Lavender, chair of the conservation futures advisory committee, endorsed the funding plan, saying, “Bonding against this fund should be for extraordinary circumstances and I believe this project rises to that level.”
In his final news conference as county executive, Triplett said he was “thrilled” to be part of a purchase of land “that’s going to belong to King County forever and for future generations.” After years of negotiations, he said, public agencies are “finally on the precipice of acquiring this corridor.”
He was joined in the news conference by County Council members Dow Constantine, Jane Hague, Julia Patterson and Larry Phillips, Lavender and Cascade Bicycle Club Executive Director Chuck Ayres.
“Woohoo! I’m so excited,” Hague exclaimed.
The Port will buy and hold the rail line between Woodinville and Snohomish, allowing a contractor to take over BNSF’s freight-hauling business. A trail could eventually be put alongside the track.
From Woodinville to the south, where BNSF has abandoned the rail line, the future owners expect to eventually build a trail and passenger rail service.
After a ceremony held on 14 November, the 9.6-km Gold light rail line extension from Union Station to East Los Angeles (Atlantic Boulevard) opened to the public with a free fares offer on 15 November. 50 000 passengers turned up to try the new service, which links with the existing Gold Line from Union Station to Pasadena. The USD $898 M project brings the Los Angeles light rail system to 126 km (three lines).
Already under construction is the city’s next new light rail, the Expo Line, while more is planned. However the proposal to award AnsaldoBreda a contract for 100 more LRVs (to join the 50 they are already delivering, late) has foundered because the Italian company did not want to sign up to the financial guarantees requested by the Metropolitan Transit Authority. A competitive tender will now be issued for the next batch of new trams.
This post marks the 300th posting on the Rail for the Valley Blog and congratulations to (now) Dr. John Buker for all his efforts with the valley rail project. When John asked me to post for the RFV blog, I don’t think he expected such a “stormy petrel“. I have tried hard to keep the blog current on rail projects around the globe, as well, inform local enthusiasts of the history and application of modern public transit.
Our readers responses to the various posts are informative and very welcome.
The RFV blog is just not a local blog, but we also have many international readers and not just in the USA, but in the UK, Finland, Russia, and elsewhere, which continues my task to keep postings interesting.
There is going to be some changes in the New Year, with more posts from guest contributers, to give a different opinion on transportation in the region. As well, the new year will bring some very interesting events, which will make Rail For The Valley front and centre for the Return of the Interurban debate in the Fraser Valley. 2010 will be a good year for valley transportation.
Rail For The Valley 