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| Re: Misdirection? (1166010) | |||
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Re: Misdirection? |
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Posted by WillD on Wed Jul 11 00:44:50 2012, in response to Re: Misdirection?, posted by Joe V on Tue Jul 10 18:54:34 2012. He failed to understand that 97% of SEPTA passengers did NOT ride thru.That doesn't matter, maintaining the R# system made for easier designations of terminals. SEPTA failed to understand that 97% of their passengers still call the lines by their R# designation, only to be brought to a screeching halt when confronted with a rack of schedules devoid of any easy identification. The removal of the R# designation system has only made the regional rail system more confusing for infrequent riders while doing nothing to reduce costs. It's next to impossible to give directions to people and convey to someone where their train is going and what to expect as it arrives now that the R# system is gone. He is concerned only with routing trains, not passengers, and too theoretical to comprehend how OTP suffers when delays magnify from one line and out to another. The studies from shortly after the tunnel opened, admittedly likely created with Vuchic's input, show that there was a significant reduction in schedule padding required when the Regional Rail system was created. The elimination of crew changes in Center City, and the greater flexibility over the terminals greatly improved the per-train productivity such that the propagation of delays was judged to be a fairly minor problem. Of course one of the first things SEPTA scrapped as part of Vuchic's plan (other than Swampoodle) was to do crew changes at both Suburban and the outer terminals, which eliminated that benefit. He was pontificating at the NARP member meeting in Philly last spring, saying NY has 3 "dead end systems" and they should all run thru. He said when he goes to "Long Island", he must spend a half hour "figuring out the other system" and buy a ticket at NYPS. Gee, I have made transfers with 90 seconds to spare. And I'm sure your mother is very proud of you. Do you want a cookie? (I admit there should be thru ticketing however. Appending LIRR's 8 fare zones onto NJT's should not be that difficult). Knowing the morass that is the financial side of either operation, it's probably a *lot* simpler to unify their operations. I also think he is equally predisposed to being taken to wherever the "thru" train leaves him, like Sayville, Smithtown, or Ronkonkoma, and he can expense a $30 taxi ride to take him to whichever he was originally headed. Why do you assume that? The operational experience of SEPTA (and pretty well all of Western Europe, much of Japan, and nearly every Subway/Metro in existence) indicates that there are significant cost reductions which can be had by routing commuter trains around existing terminals and distributing their passengers across a given CBD. Allowing station pairs to be linked on the opposite sides of the CBD are not a major factor in deciding to adopt a through-running commuter rail system, and arguing that they're useless is merely a strawman argument. But then if you're dealing with a significant amount of new commuter railroad infrastructure being required to accommodate current demand and potential growth you're better off designing for through-running. NYC's recent experience shows that the tunnels themselves are comparatively cheap, but the large caverns, whether for switches, stations, or other elements, are outrageously expensive. As such it's likely cheaper and much more effective to build an S-bahn/RER-like system and copy Hong Kong's cross platform transfers to get a wide variety of destinations within an easy two seat ride of most origin stations within a given metro area. |
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