Passenger Rail in the 2035 MTP

Today I would like to take a look at the recently adopted 2035 Metropolitan Transportation Plan for Lexington and the MPO. My particular focus will be on one or two of my pet peeves, anything concerning rail.

Beginning in Chapter 3 the plan details an assessment of the present state of the transportation system and I am unaware of the reasoning behind the order of their sequencing. Obviously, the surface road network is of first priority as it has been since the '40s or before. This is followed by, and I don't know why, school transportation and taxi/limousine services. Passenger rail, which is next, does come before a practically, insignificant water transportation element(the Valley View ferry). Aviation, freight(road and rail) and transit(Lextran) make up the last items in the assessment. This order does not seem to fit any currently perceived hierarchy of transportation thought.

The initial paragraph of the passenger rail section states the AMTRAK operates the Kentucky Cardinal service from Louisville to Chicago daily while the highlighted link shows that the service was discontinued over 6 years ago. There is then a detailed(?) breakdown of the three closest AMTRAK stations, Cincinnati, Maysville and Louisville. The information given is apparently from a six+ year old schedule as the times and frequency data does not agree with the AMTRAK website and nowhere is it clarified that there is only ONE train a day(in alternating directions). The Louisville information, besides being old, does not show that the connection is made by motor coach and all the departure times for all stations are for service to Chicago. I have taken this route to Washington and on to New York(and back) in the past two years and can personally testify that there are very few empty seats.

This assessment does not include any estimations of current usage or demand nor does it contain any AMTRAK projections or on-time statistics. I don't see how any proposals could be set forth in the form of recommendations using this inventory of data.

Chapter 6 of the document contains the plan recommendations for each plan element. Their listed order is: Highway (of course) both short and long range, Transit(Lextran), Mobility(primarily rideshare/carpool/vanpool and awareness of transit/bike/ped/telecommuting), Bicycling/pedestrian, and other transportation modes.

At this point transportation by air is placed before rail despite ongoing consolidations in the airline industry and the demonstrated willingness of the new administration to push passenger rail, especially high speed rail. This new commitment to HSR(High Speed Rail) is mentioned yet any and all leading of the effort is left to the state Transportation Cabinet. What with the mayors of Louisville, Cincinnati and Nashville each touting regional rail in their areas, Lexington's mayor and Council are very quiet about the subject in public.

The one type of urban mass transit that is being discussed is, as most of should know I am not in favor of, the Automated Guideway Transit or AGT. These highly automated, elevated transit pods do enable a higher level of flexibility than the traditional streetcar model, but may not be able to be used in the case of failure of the automation system. The elevated guideways would alter the streetscape and the look of the downtown and may not fit with the proposed Downtown Master Plan, which though not adopted yet, is still in the minds of many urban citizens. An AGT wold certainly make Lexington a bit more unique, but the more traditionally minded Lexingtonians and others in Central Kenucky may be a roadblock. The AGT, although it may be next to last in the priority if recommendations, does have an impressive amount of information for something with so little publicity.

What you may have noticed over the foregoing paragraphs is the the mostly Federally funded, local MPO agency has little or no control over the planning efforts of Lextran, the Airport, Amtrak or, as I may get into later, the freight hauling modes of rail and trucking. As the umbrella transportation planning agency through which the Federal dollars should flow, there is little that they can do to influence how, where and when the funds will be disbursed.

I have not scrutinized the rest of the plan, nor do I intend to, as I dont want to get into which of the highway projects should get priority over another when I feel that they both could obtain the same results with a different mode as the solution.

Feel free to let me know if you believe some other solution is better.

Transit Poll recap

Well the poll is closed and I was surprised at just how close the voting was.

I, of course, voted for the surface running tram. I just think that it looks cleaner. Some of the examples that I have seem, have the trams running along not only on the streets, but also through some very grassy strips beside the roadway. If the system utilized the power supply devised by Bombardier, the one that powers by inductive motors, then there would be no overhead lines to clutter up the scenery.

To those of you who voted for the elevated system, I would like to hear your reasoning if you would share them. My dislikes about this system revolve around:

• (1) the massiveness of the poles and guideways. In our downtown, I think that this would detract from the overall look of the city. I know, the buildings downtown are mainly bland and boxy, but adding large supports and rails up to 35-40 ft in the air all through the downtown area is a bit much. The historic neighborhoods bordering downtown have restrictions on style and design, although the supports could be styled to fit in, I guess.
• (2) The number of guided vehicles. Even the Starship Enterprise had a limited number of turbolifts. The photo shows just a few pod vehicles, which appear to carry 4-6 person each. Some other proposed systems are designed for smaller occupancies, thus would require a greater number of pods. Most systems have proposed the control of the pods to be done by computer and not by human steering. While this could be programed and work well for a simple number of pods we all know that with a rise in pods the complexity increases exponentially. I recall just how well the automated baggage system has worked at the Denver airport (that is to say it failed and ran way over budget).
• (3) The appeal of the private auto, for most people, stems from one person exerting control over the timeliness and cleanliness of that persons vehicle. In an automated guideway system of pods, that control is limited or eliminated altogether, even if there is only one occupant at a time.

One can talk all they want about the advances in technology and the new computer systems coming on line, but the psychological makeup of of mankind has not made such strides. The Wall Street Journal had a report yesterday about some of the new "smart technologies" being investigated and how giving the driver more information allowed him to make better decisions. I see this as contrary to the programs trying to get drivers to put down their cell phones, ipods and other distractions that keep them from concentrating on the task at hand, driving. In watching my son playing his video games , with all that information on the screen, I finally asked about a certain symbol and was told "Dad, I ignore about half of that stuff, I don't know". Sixteen-year-olds don't care about it and 60 year olds can't understand it, so I guess that our best drivers will be in the 30-40 year old range.

Any way, thank you all for voting and feel free to share your reasons for your vote.

What transportation people don't know

I had a fairly animated discussion with a transportation planner today which was a natural extension of the post from yesterday. In my passion about the streetcar topic, I could not help but again ask why the Automated Guideway Transit, (AGT) as they call it, was to be an above ground system and not at street level with the pedestrians. The answer I got was just as passionate, he likes the idea of separating the pedestrians from the vehicular traffic, to eliminate conflicts.

Now, what I can't understand is where this mentality meshes with the recent and currently underway planning efforts in the Downtown Master Plan (Draft), the Lexington Streetscape Master Plan, the Complete Streets efforts of the bicycle/pedestrian plan. Each of these plans or planning efforts have urged the enhancement and expansion of the street level pedestrian experience.

This planning fellow tells me that he "loves" the skywalk system here in Lexington, such that it is, and uses it often to get to a restaurant for lunch, especially in inclement weather. He says that he sees many others using it along with him. I did point out that he has to walk about two blocks just to access the skywalk system, climb stairs and meander another two blocks through office buildings and hallways, desend stairs and enter the dining facility. To get back just reverse the process. He readily admitted that the system was incomplete, apparently expecting additions to it in the future. Nothing has been added in the last 10-15 years and the current bridges are starting to deteriorate. It also seemed to amaze him that other cities had started to dismantle their skywalk systems.

He did try to explain this AGT system in further detail, that this was a "test"phase, if you will, and that later phases would extend for the rest of the people. Now, I pointed out yesterday that they are looking at likely 3 phases currently and they all involved university students/faculty from campus to campus or downtown to campus. How can one measure if it is a success if it does not include everyone?

I was astounded to learn that some of our local transportation personnel are unaware of happenings in cities of the region. Items like the streetcar initiative in Cincinnati, and the aforementioned skywalk removals.

I guess that these ideas go hand in hand with the general public, like the thought that any railroad is ripe to be either removed or commandeered for the purposes of the local government, i.e. the local good. Railroads in this country are already in place and the ones in this area are steadily working to improve service. And the industry, as a whole, is not asking for a Federal bailout.