Rockmastermike
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johnwirtz wrote >>
1. Those aren't 750,000 unique riders. At best it's 375,000 unique riders since most people take round trips. In reality, it's probably far less. So it doesn't serve 7% of the population. Likewise for Ohio's calcs.
good point. i missed that. you gotta get home!
so divide by two. still seems like good value for the small amount of money involved.
bababoohi
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Rockmastermike wrote >>
bababoohi wrote >>
I may be misunderstanding this, but 750K people in a year seems like a miniscule number of people. That's just over 2000 people a day.or it's 7 percent of their ~10 million population.
(edit: The state of michigan subsidizes 7 million/year for two out of three of those lines. I'm sure this is a very small percentage of their total transportation budget. Probably well under 0.02% if they have a similar budget to ohio)
Their system also doesn't connect to Ohio or the east coast, it only goes to chicago. Cleveland is on the line which connects chicago to NY (which by the way is already servicing over 100,000 people/year on-off at ohio stations). I suspect if their system connected to that chi/tol/cle/nyc line it would likely get more ridership.
I'm basically for this as well, but I can see it from both sides. Yes, 750k is 7% of their total population. But c'mon, that's making stats say what you want them to by comparing apples and oranges. If 2000 people ride it each day, that's .0002% of the population riding it each day.
Also, unless Michigan's budget is $35 Billion dollars a year, then $7 Million is a lot more that .02%. I'm guessing you meant 2%. I'm not trying to be the a-hole who points out typos, but when it comes to decimal points it really matters.
But I do agree, ridership would certainly increase if it was connected to lines outside of MI.
Rockmastermike
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bababoohi wrote >>
Also, unless Michigan's budget is $35 Billion dollars a year, then $7 Million is a lot more that .02%. I'm guessing you meant 2%. I'm not trying to be the a-hole who points out typos, but when it comes to decimal points it really matters.
But I do agree, ridership would certainly increase if it was connected to lines outside of MI.
0.3 (for ~3.2 billion budget) corrected. thanks. that was a BAD typo.
I'm not an expert and will not claim to be. I'm just fooling around with some numbers on the web and a calculator. :)
Rockmastermike
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johnwirtz wrote >>
3. Even that isn't especially relevant though. We really want to know the costs per passenger-mile for different modes. BTS has that in terms of energy per passenger mile. Amtrak does pretty well:
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_20.html
Wow, thanks for posting that. That's a good easy to read comparison.
edit: wow I just noticed my little motorcycle is as efficient as a train! Maybe we should all just start riding vespas!
bababoohi
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Rockmastermike wrote >>
bababoohi wrote >>
Also, unless Michigan's budget is $35 Billion dollars a year, then $7 Million is a lot more that .02%. I'm guessing you meant 2%. I'm not trying to be the a-hole who points out typos, but when it comes to decimal points it really matters.
But I do agree, ridership would certainly increase if it was connected to lines outside of MI.0.3 (for ~3.2 billion budget) corrected. thanks. that was a BAD typo.
I made one myself, I meant .2%!
Rockmastermike
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bababoohi wrote >>
Rockmastermike wrote >>
bababoohi wrote >>
Also, unless Michigan's budget is $35 Billion dollars a year, then $7 Million is a lot more that .02%. I'm guessing you meant 2%. I'm not trying to be the a-hole who points out typos, but when it comes to decimal points it really matters.
But I do agree, ridership would certainly increase if it was connected to lines outside of MI.0.3 (for ~3.2 billion budget) corrected. thanks. that was a BAD typo.
I made one myself, I meant .2%!
I rounded up to .3 just to be less "optimistic". But yeah, I had accidently multiplied by 10 instead of 100 to get the percent. *derp*
Also, I really doubt it's the same 2000 people riding every day like a commuter rail. I just cannot find any data except ticket sales so I'm just guessing a lot of people using it for maybe 1-2 trips per year, which has been similar to my personal use of amtrak. So I think I'm going to stand by my 7% figure (3.5% round trip!) but lets just go ahead and round that all the way down to 2%. That still meets Rus' criteria (which is what started me playing with numbers today) and seems honest and perfectly reasonable to me.
johnwirtz
Evanston, IL
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Rockmastermike wrote >>
Wow, thanks for posting that. That's a good easy to read comparison.
edit: wow I just noticed my little motorcycle is as efficient as a train! Maybe we should all just start riding vespas!
...or car-pooling:
http://xingcolumbus.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/in-praise-of-car-pooling/
Rockmastermike
CORNspiracy HQ
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johnwirtz wrote >>
...or car-pooling:
http://xingcolumbus.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/in-praise-of-car-pooling/
well that would just be TOO easy, now wouldn't it?
bababoohi
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Rockmastermike wrote >>
bababoohi wrote >>
Rockmastermike wrote >>
bababoohi wrote >>
Also, unless Michigan's budget is $35 Billion dollars a year, then $7 Million is a lot more that .02%. I'm guessing you meant 2%. I'm not trying to be the a-hole who points out typos, but when it comes to decimal points it really matters.
But I do agree, ridership would certainly increase if it was connected to lines outside of MI.0.3 (for ~3.2 billion budget) corrected. thanks. that was a BAD typo.
I made one myself, I meant .2%!
I rounded up to .3 just to be less "optimistic". But yeah, I had accidently multiplied by 10 instead of 100 to get the percent. *derp*
Also, I really doubt it's the same 2000 people riding every day like a commuter rail. I just cannot find any data except ticket sales so I'm just guessing a lot of people using it for maybe 1-2 trips per year, which has been similar to my personal use of amtrak. So I think I'm going to stand by my 7% figure (3.5% round trip!) but lets just go ahead and round that all the way down to 2%. That still meets Rus' criteria (which is what started me playing with numbers today) and seems honest and perfectly reasonable to me.
Ok, I see your philosopy there and getting it down to 2% logically, but I still think that it's comparing apples to oranges. The percentage of the population that uses it isn't the point to me. It's the percentage of the population that uses it in leiu of other forms of transportation. If you're using 2000 people a day riding it, even if it were a different or the same 2000 people a day, that's a VERY small percentage of the overall population travelling THAT DAY. You've got to figure that really there are 10 Million people (for arguments sake) traveling each day. That's 3.65 Billion each year. So actually only .02% of actual travel takes place on the rail, whether 750000 different people use it or the same guy rides it 750000 times.
You're taking an annual figure for rail and comparing it to a one day figure for other forms of tansportation.
Rockmastermike
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bababoohi wrote >>
You're taking an annual figure for rail and comparing it to a one day figure for other forms of tansportation.
No, I'm really not and I'm not sure why you think I am.
I took an annual rider figure and compared it to the total state pop as percentage.
then I took the total money spent for annual rail subsidy and compared it to the total annual transportation budget (assuming it's probably of similar size to ohio).
I'm not comparing it to "total travel" or anything. I'm just saying that some percentage of population appears to have used it at least once in a given year, which is 'population served'.
My only point was "% population served" vs "% of total DOT budget"
I can see why you're more interested in 'total cars removed from daily use' or something, but that's a much more difficult calculation and wasn't the subject that Rus brought up that got me started on that. And frankly if that's the goal, its most likely better done with commuter rail instead of intercity rail since a majority of daily passenger trips are within their own city back and forth to work. Actually, I think your numbers would only be directly comparable to an intercity rail if the entire population commutes to another city and back every day.
johnwirtz
Evanston, IL
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bababoohi wrote >>
If you're using 2000 people a day riding it, even if it were a different or the same 2000 people a day, that's a VERY small percentage of the overall population travelling THAT DAY. You've got to figure that really there are 10 Million people (for arguments sake) traveling each day. That's 3.65 Billion each year. So actually only .02% of actual travel takes place on the rail, whether 750000 different people use it or the same guy rides it 750000 times.
You're taking an annual figure for rail and comparing it to a one day figure for other forms of tansportation.
We should also consider what percent of those 3.65 Billion trips are long-distance trips. Amtrak isn't really intended to serve the short ones, so they probably shouldn't count in the calculation.
I would be interested to know what the projected market share is for rail for Cleveland to Columbus trips or Columbus to Cincinnati trips. That might be in the 3C documents somewhere, but if it is I don't remember where.
Rockmastermike
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johnwirtz wrote >>
bababoohi wrote >>
If you're using 2000 people a day riding it, even if it were a different or the same 2000 people a day, that's a VERY small percentage of the overall population travelling THAT DAY. You've got to figure that really there are 10 Million people (for arguments sake) traveling each day. That's 3.65 Billion each year. So actually only .02% of actual travel takes place on the rail, whether 750000 different people use it or the same guy rides it 750000 times.
You're taking an annual figure for rail and comparing it to a one day figure for other forms of tansportation.We should also consider what percent of those 3.65 Billion trips are long-distance trips. Amtrak isn't really intended to serve the short ones, so they probably shouldn't count in the calculation.
I would be interested to know what the projected market share is for rail for Cleveland to Columbus trips or Columbus to Cincinnati trips. That might be in the 3C documents somewhere, but if it is I don't remember where.
Agree 100%. Unfortunately I've not seen that stat either.
I also cannot (I looked at some point in time earlier this year) find good stats of how many people drive I-71, much less where they drive to. Which would be the first step in that calculation.
I found one number specifically for the 70/71 split and posted something about it in a discussion on another topic and someone else had found a competing number and neither of us were sure which one was more accurate. Not sure if this even exists as a reliable figure. which makes me sad.
Comparing the number of trips for the michigan rail system, which has three paths, to intercity driving from city to cty on their highways would be really difficult for a person, such as myself, simply using google and a pocket calculator. I don't think I could ever come up with a meaningful figure. It would also take more time than I wish to spend. :)
johnwirtz
Evanston, IL
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I agree. It's not doable without much better data. That's why I would just cite the BTS that shows train travel is more economically efficient.
FYI, you can see traffic counts within the MORPC region here:
http://gis.midwesternconsulting.com/tcds/tsearch.asp?loc=Morpc&mod=
The daily traffic on I-71 is going to vary a lot throughout the corridor between Columbus and Cleveland. It's as high as 160,000 downtown, but just 56,000 in northern Delaware County. I wouldn't be surprised to see numbers as low as 40,000 in the rural areas. Again though, we need some way to filter out the local trips. I think ODOT would have that data available from Origin-Destination surveys completed for their statewide traffic model, but I don't think it's online.
Rockmastermike
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johnwirtz wrote >> Again though, we need some way to filter out the local trips. I think ODOT would have that data available from Origin-Destination surveys completed for their statewide traffic model, but I don't think it's online.
yeah thats the only way to do it. (and forget doing it for Michigan, it's a multipath system, so it gets MESSY).
Even with that data, given the possible combination of origin/destination it would be difficult to directly compare with the 3c rail proposals, which don't have that kind of origin/destination projections. You could add up all the car trips between all the combinations of cities with stations and add up all the boarding/dropoff at those station I suppose. Do they have projections for each station? I have not found that in the documents.
bababoohi
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Rockmastermike wrote >>
bababoohi wrote >>
You're taking an annual figure for rail and comparing it to a one day figure for other forms of tansportation.No, I'm really not and I'm not sure why you think I am.
I took an annual rider figure and compared it to the total state pop as percentage.
then I took the total money spent for annual rail subsidy and compared it to the total annual transportation budget (assuming it's probably of similar size to ohio).
I'm not comparing it to "total travel" or anything. I'm just saying that some percentage of population appears to have used it at least once in a given year, which is 'population served'.
My only point was "% population served" vs "% of total DOT budget"
I can see why you're more interested in 'total cars removed from daily use' or something, but that's a much more difficult calculation and wasn't the subject that Rus brought up that got me started on that. And frankly if that's the goal, its most likely better done with commuter rail instead of intercity rail since a majority of daily passenger trips are within their own city back and forth to work. Actually, I think your numbers would only be directly comparable to an intercity rail if the entire population commutes to another city and back every day.
You're correct in what you're saying. I think maybe I'm just looking at it from a different angle.
Mercurius
First Avenue
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ODOT SEEKS ANOTHER $37.8 MILLION FOR RAIL PASSENGER SYSTEM PROJECTSGov. Ted Strickland's administration said Wednesday it is seeking a combined $37.8 million in additional federal funds for local government projects related to initiation of rail passenger service from Cleveland to Cincinnati, via Columbus and Dayton.
The requests would be on top of $400 million in federal economic stimulus funds already awarded to the state - but not yet spent - to begin the conventional speed rail passenger service along the "3-C Corridor" as a basis for eventual construction of a high-speed system.
Extra money for rail was included in a list of 12 projects the Ohio Department of Transportation said it submitted to the U.S. Department of Transportation under a new funding stream.
ODOT is seeking a share of $600 million in federal discretionary grants.
No one state can receive more than 25% of the money. ODOT is supporting applications totaling more than $259 million in requests.
ODOT Director Jolene Molitoris said the projects were selected based, in part, on their ability to create jobs, and leverage new private investment.
"We also selected projects that will give Ohio's citizens and business multi-modal transportation choice to help Ohio retain the next generation of young professionals and job creators," she said in a news release.
Items related to passenger rail were:
* A $1.2 million joint request with the Ohio Department of Development to help local communities in planning activities near the state's eight proposed 3-C "Quick Start" passenger rail stations.
* A $20.2 million joint request with the City of Columbus to build pedestrian and bicycle facilities, parking lots, bus transit shelters, and install lighting for the city's 3-C passenger rail station.
* A $16.4 million request to build an intermodal facility in downtown Springfield to serve local transit routes, bike trails, and regional rail service, including the city's 3-C passenger rail station.
The single-largest request in the ODOT package was for $60 million to build a 9,000-foot long runway to support new aerospace testing at the NASA Plum Brook Station Intermodal Facility. The intent is to attract sustainable, high-tech jobs to Erie County.
Another $55 million was sought in a joint request with the City of Akron to reconstruct the high-volume Main Street/Broadway Street interchange. The goal is to increase access to businesses, improve safety, and reduce traffic congestion.
Other projects for which ODOT is seeking federal funding:
Electric System: A $12.3 million request to develop an Ohio electrical vehicle infrastructure readiness plan with local governments, including deployment of 106 plug-in electric vehicles and 118 charging stations.
Road Widening: An $11.3 million request to widen County Road 5 in Putnam County to provide better access to the Iron Highway Industrial Park, a 244-acre industrial site in Leipsic served by three rail providers.
Highway Relocation: A $3.8 million request to realign Ohio Route 794 to accommodate job growth at the Ohio Air National Guard Base at Springfield.
Cincy Streetcars: A $35 million request to help fund Cincinnati's streetcar project that would connect the city's two largest employment centers with electric streetcars.
Interstate Split: A $15 million request to assist with funding for the detailed design and construction plans for later phases of the reconstruction of the I-70/I-71 interchange through downtown Columbus.
River Port: A $16.2 million request to make improvements to the South Point intermodal facility along the Ohio River in Lawrence County, with dock improvements, new overhead bridge crane, supporting road infrastructure, and new railroad line connections.
Freight Transfer: A $12.5 million request to re-establish abandoned rail lines and connect the Ohio River port near Marietta to an active CSX freight rail line, thus eliminating the need to move freight from barges to a truck for a one-mile trip to the rail line.
Core_Models
Columbus
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Cincy Streetcars: A $35 million request to help fund Cincinnati's streetcar project that would connect the city's two largest employment centers with electric streetcars.
Oh Cincinnati, how I hate you.
hugh59
Aboard the ultimate power in Olde Towne East
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Core_Models wrote >>
Cincy Streetcars: A $35 million request to help fund Cincinnati's streetcar project that would connect the city's two largest employment centers with electric streetcars.
Oh Cincinnati, how I hate you.
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
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