© Urban Rail in America UL5. Department of Transportation A r— | . • #• An Exploration of Criteria for Fixed-Guideway Transit 1980 TECHNICAL REPORT STANDARD TITLE PAGE 1. Report No. 2. Government Accession No. 3. Recipient's Catalog No. UMTA-NY-06-006 1-80-1 4. Title and Subtitle 5. Report Date November URBAN RAIL IN AMERICA: An exploration 1980 6. Performing Orgonization Code of criteria for f ixed-guideway transit 7. Author(s) 8. Performing Orgonization Report No. Boris Pushkarev and Jeffrey Zupan 9. Performing Organization Name and Address 10. Work Unit No. Plan Regional Association, Inc. 11, Contract or Grant No. 235 E. 45th Street, New York, NY 10017 NY-06-0061 13. Type of Report and Period Covered 12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address Final report 1981 Urban Mass Transportation Administration U.S. Department of Transportation 14. Sponsoring Agency Code Washington, D:C. 20590 DOT-UMTA-UPP-30 15. Supplementary Notes Issued in cooperation with the Technology Sharing Program of the Office of the Secretary of Transportation. 16. Abstract The purpose'of this study is to explore what range of travel volume may be sufficient to warrant what type of f ixed-guideway invest- ment; to indicate the location of urban corridors where such travel volumes may be found; to offer a rough, tentative assessment of the nat- ional market for f ixed-guideway facilities and to aid in focusing local alternatives analyses on the most promising locations. The f ixed-guideway modes primarily considered are rapid transit, light rail, and automated downtown people movers; commuter rail is referred to only peripherally. The variables used to scale the magnitude of the prospective investment include: 1. space per passenger; 2. service frequency; 3. labor savings compared to bus operations; 4. energy savings compared to modes previously used; 5. land savings compared to modes previously used; 6. construction cost related to recent investment decisions and, indirectly 7. operating speed. Based on operating experience, functions are developed relating the various variables to travel volume and minimum travel volume criteria or thresholds are formulated. These criteria are applied to estimated travel streams originating in 29 major downtowns and to actual volumes on some existing systems to indicate which of them may warrant what number of f ixed-guideway lines of what length. A numerical Appendix includes 50 pages of historical and analytical tables. 17. Key Words 18. Distribution Statement Fixed guideways; rapid Available to the Public thru the transit; light rail; downtown National Technical Information Servicle people movers; alternatives Springfield, VA 22161 analysis 19. Security Classif. (of this report) 20. Security Classif. (of this page) 21. No. of Pages 22. Price Unclassified Unclassified 336 Form DOT F 1700.7 (8-69) URBAN RAIL IN AMERICA An exploration of criteria for fixed guideway transit. Fixed guideway transit is not a universal solution nor should it be applied in all urban areas. Fixed guideway is a potential strategy, as is the bus, the ferry boat, the car pool or the van pool. In many possible applications, fixed guideway is a superior strategy. But whatever strategy is finally selected, each should be evaluated not in the narrow context of transportation alone, nor solely in the framework of accounting. It should be measured in the broader context of its contribution to the overall long-term aspirations of the urban society it is supposed to serve. Louis J. Gambaccini, 1978. CONTENTS PREFACE ii FOREWORD i i i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v DEFINITIONS vii SUMMARY viii CHAPTER I. EXTENT AND USE OF RAIL TRANSIT 1. The First Wave of Urban Rail 1 2. Beginning the Second Wave 14 3. Rail Transit Use in the United States 25 4. - Passenger Loads on Systems and Lines 34 5. Impact on Urban Development 39 6. Objectives of Building New Lines 48 7. Evaluating the Attainment of Objectives 55 CHAPTER II. OPERATING PERFORMANCE 1. Passenger Space and Service Frequency 68 2. Operating Speed 79 3. Labor Requirements 87 4. Energy Requirements 118 5. Land Requirements 145 6. Construction Costs 152 7. Summarizing the Threshold Criteria 164 CHAPTER III. TRAVEL DEMAND 1. The Effect of Population Distribution 175 2. The Effect of Nonresidential Activity 195 3. Total Travel to a Downtown 204 4. The Choice of Rail Transit 212 5. Extent of Tributary Area 223 6. Travel Within Downtowns 227 CHAPTER IV. FIXED GUIDEWAY POTENTIAL 1. Guideways in an Urban Corridor 239 2. Rapid Transit 249 3. Light Rail 256 & 4. Peoplemovers in Downtowns 26'1 5. The Prospect for Urban Rail 270 APPENDIX 285: Historical Tables; Analytical Tables i PREFACE The changing function of American cities, changes in our environment and advances in technology present a constant challenge to local decision makers to plan for the most appropriate means of meeting future mobility needs. This requires a cost conscious approach, which would offer attractive service, an efficient use of land, labor and capital, less pollution and less oil dependence. Under certain con- ditions rail systems may be cost effective and can offer many of these advantages, and provide a high quality of service. Helping to define such conditions is the purpose of this research effort. It offers an extensive data base and a systematic methodology to test the suitability of proposed rail facilities, aid in the evaluation of alternatives, and promote greater efficiency of existing operations. It is in this spirit, to advance the state-of-the-art in evaluating rail systems, that the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) sponsored this research. The findings of the report do not represent the views or the policy of the U.S. Department of Transportation. The study's assessment of particular urban corridors is heavily conditioned by the assumptions used; it should be viewed as illustrative of the methodology and not as a justification for or against local decisions, which can only rest on site-specific studies. Urban Mass Transportation Administration FOREWORD Policy toward rail transit is inseparable from policy toward cities. Large downtowns can attract the ridership needed to make effective use of fixed guideway investment. There is less reason to invest in rail if there is no effort to encourage the development of downtowns and of compact residential patterns around them. A consensus on making such an effort has been difficult to achieve, and the contro- versies are reflected in conflicting attitudes toward urban rail. Nevertheless, widely shared objectives -- improving the per- formance of the national economy, whose command posts remain in the downtowns to a large degree, providing jobs for the urban unemployed, furthering equality of opportunity, conserving energy and other physical resources, preserving natural areas and agricultural land -- would be advanced by channeling more development into central cities. Rail transit can support such shifts in development. U.S. Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) policy toward rail transit has made three essential points: (1) rail transit is cost-effective in heavily travelled corridors; (2) the number of such corridors is limited; (3) site-specific alternatives analysis is needed to determine whether and what type of investment is appropriate. Respond ing to these points, this book does three things: 1. It explores what range of volume may in fact define a corridor travelled heavily enough to make a fixed guideway cost-effective. 2. It offers the first rough, national assessment of the number and location of corridors where different types of rail transit look promising, and where site-specific alternatives analysis would most profitably be focused. 3. It provides a uniform data base and a consistent set of analytical tools to facilitate such site-specific studies. The book is not a replacement for these studies. It does not choose among the types of guideways investigated or among other possible options. It cannot deal with precise construction costs at the local level. It says: here is where fixed guideways can make sense, saving time, labor, energy and land compared to present modes of travel, if several conditions are met. The conditions themselves are of interest as a guide to designing new systems and improving existing ones. iv Travel volume in urban corridors is obviously not the only yardstick to judge new guideway projects. A region also must consider the value of improving public transit service, environmental impact, labor relations, fiscal arrangements, potential for traffic growth, whether land use controls fit the transportation plans, whether community attitudes are supportive, and the ability of local institutions to carry out plans. Still, the starting point is whether the project is in scale with local travel needs. That is the issue in this book . The estimates of local travel rely on an aggregate approach that is appropriate for a national study. The purpose is not to model how individual travellers make their decisions but rather how such decisions tend to be distributed in space, given a physical context of land use and travel facilities. By applying the same yardstick to all cities, the estimates enable consistent comparisons among cities. Because of time and data limitations, the book does not explore the potential for commuter rail, a mode that is important near the largest cities. Express buses are referred to for comparison, but no measure of their potential is made. In less detail, that subject is treated in the authors' earlier work, Public Transportation and Land Use Policy (Indiana University Press, 1977). The book closes major data gaps related to the performance of public transit and provides historical statistics not previously available. It also points to serious remaining data gaps, such as the lack of a national inventory of urban land and building use and the weakness of existing estimates of indirect energy consumption by all modes of travel. Beyond the local transportation analyst "on the firing line," this book should interest a broader audience of students in public affairs, urban geography and transportation engineering.