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Re: Electric over gasoline buses to replace streetcars
Author: BOB2
Date: 07-05-2016 - 09:10
Bob,
If the Orangeline busway in the San Fernando Valley is any indication, MTA can easily build a busway that is as expensive as rail, though that is an exception, not a rule. Less is less, and the less you spend on track, overhead, in station design, is generally the case, and busways are usually cheaper. However, as has been seen with the Orangeline busway, buses are not trains, and capacity is constrained (and by bad station design, and poor operational planning to effectively maximize use). So now, at the cost of another 3 billion dollars the MTA proposes to convert the Orangeline busway to light rail.
This expenditure of $3 billion will increase the OL "busway" ridership up by an estimated 15.000 riders to around 45,000 a day, making this existing busway "conversion" to rail among the worst of the investments, in dollars per additional passenger, included in the upcoming LA County sales tax measure in November......
This wasteful and costly Orangeline busway conversion to rail is being done to ameliorate the always ungrateful San Fernando Valley (you must remember the SFV got a busway because the SFV and Zev didn't want rail), and the City of LA dominated (the tail that wags the dog of all of LA Counties 11 million citizens, while only representing 4 million of them) MTA Board.
Enough of that rant, you can google some cost lists for Busway and Light Rail "cost per mile" or "cost per passenger" and get a rough idea (depending of course on additional things like tunneling, cut and cover, grade separations, shop facilities, elevated structures, and the like all of which cost more than any surface "bare bones" system costs. The Highway Capacity Manual, Vukan Vuchic's old classics, and even many new transportation engineering textbooks contain various capacity, system operating characteristics, cost estimates, actual performance, and comparisons for rail and bus systems of various types.
DMU like Escondido, Ebart, and SMART are an alternative kind of more cost effective interurban/light rail system, without the added costs of electrical power infrastructure, which can potentially achieve similar capacity and operational goals.
If the Orangeline busway in the San Fernando Valley is any indication, MTA can easily build a busway that is as expensive as rail, though that is an exception, not a rule. Less is less, and the less you spend on track, overhead, in station design, is generally the case, and busways are usually cheaper. However, as has been seen with the Orangeline busway, buses are not trains, and capacity is constrained (and by bad station design, and poor operational planning to effectively maximize use). So now, at the cost of another 3 billion dollars the MTA proposes to convert the Orangeline busway to light rail.
This expenditure of $3 billion will increase the OL "busway" ridership up by an estimated 15.000 riders to around 45,000 a day, making this existing busway "conversion" to rail among the worst of the investments, in dollars per additional passenger, included in the upcoming LA County sales tax measure in November......
This wasteful and costly Orangeline busway conversion to rail is being done to ameliorate the always ungrateful San Fernando Valley (you must remember the SFV got a busway because the SFV and Zev didn't want rail), and the City of LA dominated (the tail that wags the dog of all of LA Counties 11 million citizens, while only representing 4 million of them) MTA Board.
Enough of that rant, you can google some cost lists for Busway and Light Rail "cost per mile" or "cost per passenger" and get a rough idea (depending of course on additional things like tunneling, cut and cover, grade separations, shop facilities, elevated structures, and the like all of which cost more than any surface "bare bones" system costs. The Highway Capacity Manual, Vukan Vuchic's old classics, and even many new transportation engineering textbooks contain various capacity, system operating characteristics, cost estimates, actual performance, and comparisons for rail and bus systems of various types.
DMU like Escondido, Ebart, and SMART are an alternative kind of more cost effective interurban/light rail system, without the added costs of electrical power infrastructure, which can potentially achieve similar capacity and operational goals.
