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Re: Why Families Don't Ride Trains (or airplanes)
Author: Edward
Date: 01-18-2015 - 15:13
I don't live in the Northeast Corridor. I have a bus every half hour directly to the Transbay Terminal. In addition I can take a bus every 12 minutes to BART and that takes me a block away from the Transbay Terminal.
By the Transbay Terminal I mean the new HST station in San Francisco. Isn't that frequent local transportation? I live in an East Bay suburb.
The present population of the Bay Area is 7.151 million and is expected to expand to 9.3 million by 2040. The Los Angeles Metro area (the second largest in the US) population was 17,775,984 in 2008.
But the San Joaquin Valley seems to be thought of as "flyover country". Its population is growing faster than the coastal cities. If you add the counties the HST is intended to run through in in the Great Valley of California...
Projected population in 2040, by which the Sacramento extension should be built:
1,912,838 Sacramento
1,037,761 San Joaquin
714,910 Stanislaus
389,934 Merced
238,514 Madera
1,332,913 Fresno
650,819 Tulare
1,396,314 Kern
218,394 Kings
Totaling 7.9 million.
But the topic was public transportation: High Speed Rail stations become, by their nature, centers of transit. Of course you need sufficient population to support transit, so let us check the present population of a few cities with planned stops:
Sacramento: 479,686
Stockton: 298,118
Modesto: 204,933
Merced: 81,102
Fresno: 509,924
Kings/Tulare: 182,449 (Hanford: 54686 & Visalia: 127,763)
Bakersfield: 363,630
There are 16 station on the northeast corridor rail line. Some are big cities: New York, Boston, Washington. Several of them have multiple stations: If you count route 128, Boston has three; rather like San Francisco, Peninsula, San Jose. But there are stops in some rather small places, if you only count the cities as I did above. Among the 16 stations are:
Providence, RI: 177,994
New London, CT: 27,545
New Haven, CT: 130,660
Stamford, CT: 126,456
Newark, NJ: 126,427
Iselin, NJ: 16,698
Trenton, NJ: 84,349
Wilmington, DE: 71,525
Yes, I know that most of the people living in the northeast corridor don't live in one of the towns where the train stops. The same will be true of the Valley.
To simplify: The projected population in 2040 of the counties in the Valley that the train will run through is over a million greater than the projected 2040 population of Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island and The District of Columbia, combined.
The increase in population and the natural basing of transit at the HSR station will certainly improve the convenience of rail. And none of the above makes any reference to the major conurbations at the ends of the lines, whether Northeast Corridor or California HSR corridor. They already have decent transit and lots more being built or planned by 2040.
I know some of the posters won't be here in 2040... But think of the children :)
By the Transbay Terminal I mean the new HST station in San Francisco. Isn't that frequent local transportation? I live in an East Bay suburb.
The present population of the Bay Area is 7.151 million and is expected to expand to 9.3 million by 2040. The Los Angeles Metro area (the second largest in the US) population was 17,775,984 in 2008.
But the San Joaquin Valley seems to be thought of as "flyover country". Its population is growing faster than the coastal cities. If you add the counties the HST is intended to run through in in the Great Valley of California...
Projected population in 2040, by which the Sacramento extension should be built:
1,912,838 Sacramento
1,037,761 San Joaquin
714,910 Stanislaus
389,934 Merced
238,514 Madera
1,332,913 Fresno
650,819 Tulare
1,396,314 Kern
218,394 Kings
Totaling 7.9 million.
But the topic was public transportation: High Speed Rail stations become, by their nature, centers of transit. Of course you need sufficient population to support transit, so let us check the present population of a few cities with planned stops:
Sacramento: 479,686
Stockton: 298,118
Modesto: 204,933
Merced: 81,102
Fresno: 509,924
Kings/Tulare: 182,449 (Hanford: 54686 & Visalia: 127,763)
Bakersfield: 363,630
There are 16 station on the northeast corridor rail line. Some are big cities: New York, Boston, Washington. Several of them have multiple stations: If you count route 128, Boston has three; rather like San Francisco, Peninsula, San Jose. But there are stops in some rather small places, if you only count the cities as I did above. Among the 16 stations are:
Providence, RI: 177,994
New London, CT: 27,545
New Haven, CT: 130,660
Stamford, CT: 126,456
Newark, NJ: 126,427
Iselin, NJ: 16,698
Trenton, NJ: 84,349
Wilmington, DE: 71,525
Yes, I know that most of the people living in the northeast corridor don't live in one of the towns where the train stops. The same will be true of the Valley.
To simplify: The projected population in 2040 of the counties in the Valley that the train will run through is over a million greater than the projected 2040 population of Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island and The District of Columbia, combined.
The increase in population and the natural basing of transit at the HSR station will certainly improve the convenience of rail. And none of the above makes any reference to the major conurbations at the ends of the lines, whether Northeast Corridor or California HSR corridor. They already have decent transit and lots more being built or planned by 2040.
I know some of the posters won't be here in 2040... But think of the children :)
