re: Dedicated passenger train from Baton Rouge to New Orleans "3-5 years away"

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BRBR had an article today about the trolley route. An average of 30 riders a day I believe.

Basically, you guys who want a monorail are F'ing retarded.

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Baton Rouge residents are the type to drive 30 minutes for the first spot in the WalMart parking lot. They fear having to walk it seems.

The BR to NOLA train is different than a local trolley though. Will it be packed when it begins, nah.

Baton Rouge is not europe, nyc, philly, San Fran or whatever other enormouse city nothing like BR, and they don't have the demographics or mindset of Portland or seattle.

I don't think anyone here thinks public transportation is dumb. It just isn't going to work here. People need to change or demographics need to change, and that's just not things that will happen anytime soon. Middle to upper class whites in Baton Rouge will never get out of their trucks to ride trains and trolleys with people from north baton rouge. It's a sad truth.

I see it as a large waste of money, much like many things this state waste money on.

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BRBR had an article today about the trolley route. An average of 30 riders a day I believe.

Basically, you guys who want a monorail are F'ing retarded.

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No trying to compare something like this

to this is retarded. It amazes me that you ppl can see the results of what has happened in Baton Rouge for the last 30 years and still think that adding another lane or building a loop, a new bridge is the answer to your problems. I got news for you by ignoring public/mass transit is just doubling down on a failed policy. Like I said countless times in this thread BR needs rail, better bus service (not under CATS management would be a good place to start), streetcare or BRT, a loop and expanded interstate. Rail alone it is not going to fix BR or NOLA's congesion problem but it will help. Congestion and traffic tends to increase at a lower rate in corridors with a rail option than in one without a rail option.

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This study evaluates rail transit benefits based on a comprehensive analysis of
transportation system performance in major U.S. cities. It finds that cities with large, wellestablished
rail systems have significantly higher per capita transit ridership, lower
average per capita vehicle ownership and annual mileage, less traffic congestion, lower
traffic death rates, lower consumer expenditures on transportation, and higher transit
service cost recovery than otherwise comparable cities with less or no rail transit service.

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LINK

Check out figure17 on page 22, I can't get it to copy and paste right, but it shows that commuter rail is much cheaper than car. Commuter rail has a cost of $0.40/passenger mile where as car has a cost of ~$1.75/passenger mile.

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Like wasting money on ramp meters the state never utilizes?

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Since you believe studies let me direct you to a study that says the ramp meters were a bug success.
LINK

BTW, I think these projects were largely funded by the Feds so according to some here it really doesn't matter if they work or not because its Federal money right?

Now connect that sucker to Houston and make it a high speed train.

That would be awesome, I would never fly to NO again, just jump on a 180 mph train and get work done for a couple of hours. But I doubt the airlines would let it happen

I don't know how someone can ever be against the USA investing in high speed rail. Having been to Europe 5 times and traveled across the continent via rail, it is easily one of the most attractive aspects to living there. The ability to move from city to city at extremely low costs would have significant positive economic benefits for both business and leisure.

Investing behind high speed rail that connects all of the major cities in the US is a dream scenario. Rail is so much more pleasant and convenient than even air travel.

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BR would most certainly qualify as a dense area. It is #2 for congestion in cities its size and no easy way to expand because there is not grid outside of north BR and there is a massive river to the west.

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Urban BR is dense, but the area in between NO and BR is not and aren't we talking about a passenger rail line between the two markets? NO metro is ranked 45th in size and BR 70th in size. In the grand scheme of things neither market is that big, and as far as congestion goes the size of the city matters some, but the fact we have a major East West interstate funneling through the middle of town is the dominant factor as to why we have so much congestion and not the size of the city itself.

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The commuter rail expects to need $6.7million in subsidies but there are 1.4 million ppl in the area that it will service. That comes out to a whooping $3/person in taxes.

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Actually if you count every person in each metro area there would be over 2 million people "served" but we all know the vast majority of those that are "served" won't use the train because it wouldn't be practical.

The report you linked estimated 200,000 riders per year initially and two trains going each way.
Using the 200,000.00 figure and the 6.7 million dollar figure to run things the first year that means it will only cost each rider $33.50 per trip.
And there's your solution, if the RR is such a good deal for these people, charge them $33.50 per trip so that the people who will never use the train won't have to pay for it's operating expenses.

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Are you too dense to understand that they add more trains as the demand increases?

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Certainly I realize they would add trains, but won't that increase the operating costs too?

But I'm not against people riding the train, but we all know if the govt. doesn't subsidize the construction, and if it doesn't subsidize the fares then there won't be a train at all. The fear I have is that we build the train, just as we have bought more buses here in BR and relatively few people will ride them.

Then we are stuck with a train from BR to NO that is a big money loser as expenses rise as they always rise and we're stuck with a big lemon just as we are stuck with most(not all) of Amtrak on a national level but instead with our own version of Amtrak at the state level.

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I don't know how someone can ever be against the USA investing in high speed rail. Having been to Europe 5 times and traveled across the continent via rail, it is easily one of the most attractive aspects to living there. The ability to move from city to city at extremely low costs would have significant positive economic benefits for both business and leisure. Investing behind high speed rail that connects all of the major cities in the US is a dream scenario. Rail is so much more pleasant and convenient than even air travel.

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The plan being put forward is not high speed rail, it's a commuter rail line.

We had all that and then some in 1962.

Link to US map with passenger lines 1962

LINK

Yes, and trains can move much faster today and operate far more efficiently with regards to power and fuel. At the same time, congestion on interstates and major highways has increased exponentially. When My father started working in downtown Baton Rouge in the early 80's, he could get from Gonzales to downtown in 20 minutes flat. Today, that same trip (same roads, same speed limit) takes 30 minutes with no traffic, and often takes an hour or more in traffic.

That Zephyr that had to crawl 10 mph across the spillway could be made to go 210 mph if we wanted to. Rail has advanced to such a state that we can get some pretty crazy speed limits with the right infrastructure, something cars simply can't safely replicate.

In many ways, rail technology has grown by leaps and bounds while cars have stagnated and infrastructure (relative to population growth certainly) has regressed. With rail, much of the infrastructure is already there.