Take me out with the crowd: Trains, buses pack riders in
Posted on August 25th, 2008 – 6:05 AMBy Roadguy
Here’s my column from the Sunday paper. If you’ve already read it elsewhere (like, say, here), please skip on down to the comments below. Thanks.
LIGHT-RAIL CAR OR CATTLE CAR?
If you’re eating breakfast right now, you might want to read this when you’re done, because alert reader Andy’s tale of taking light rail home from a Twins game last month isn’t for the faint of stomach:
It took us an hour in line to finally get on a train. … On the train, we were packed shoulder to shoulder as someone began to vomit.
Andy said there wasn’t room to move his family away from the mess, and his head was full of questions: Don’t trains have some sort of capacity limit for safety reasons? And doesn’t Metro Transit plan for the postgame crowds?
The short answers to those questions are, respectively, “no” and “yes.”
Trains and buses aren’t like planes, boats or elevators — operators aren’t constrained by the number of seat belts or flotation devices or the combined weight of the passengers.
A light-rail car can hold about 190 people, says Bob Gibbons of Metro Transit, but there’s no firm limit. “We don’t have someone standing at the door clicking,” he said; loading continues “until people don’t want to get on anymore.”
If the crowding is not to one’s liking, Gibbons suggests waiting for the next train. But after a game, the next one is likely to be packed as well — just ask the baseball fans who had to make room for paramedics last week after a man hurt in a robbery boarded a train at Lake Street.
To prepare for the postgame rush, Gibbons said, Metro Transit employees watch the games on television to see when fans start to leave, monitor the flow of people on the platforms, and activate the entire light-rail fleet (save for one or two cars in the shop for maintenance or vomit-cleaning). At the same time, they maintain the regular light-rail schedule so that non-sports-fans elsewhere along the line can get where they want to go.
It’s “a little bit of an art,” Gibbons said.
NO WIGGLE ROOM
Alert reader Cassandra is also feeling a bit cramped:
With rising gas prices, it’s no surprise to me that more people are opting to ride Metro Transit buses. … What I don’t understand is why Metro Transit has not added more buses to routes that really need it, like the one I ride (850 Express from the Foley Park & Ride). It’s very obvious that there are more riders, as demonstrated by every single bus I end up on having several people standing in the aisles. If more people are riding the bus, wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume Metro Transit has more money to add more buses to the routes?
The economics of public transit can be counterintuitive. A full bus brings in more revenue than a mostly empty one, but the overall formula remains unchanged: Riders pay only about a third of the cost of the service, with subsidies making up the rest. So adding a bus, even if it attracted new riders, would cost more money, or require a service reduction elsewhere.
“It’s not the kind of business where you can make it up on volume,” Gibbons said.
(Related link: A New York Times story about removing seats from subway trains is here.)
11 Responses to "Take me out with the crowd: Trains, buses pack riders in"
At the new ballpark it looks like they are extending the rail-line along 5th and around HERC down almost to the Metro Transit builings. I presume that would be to store extra cars to get people home after Twins games. I also believe this will be part of the SW Corridor LRT should that be the route chosen (as opposed to the Greenway/Nicollet route).
“And doesn’t Metro Transit plan for the postgame crowds?”
There’s only so much they can do, given the lead time to buy additional cars; the number of cars they own now, etc. I did notice that they are already talking about expanding stations in order to accomodate 3-car trains - the nokomis east website has some info on the plans for the 50th street station.
How many stations are currently not 3-car-length platforms?
It looks like Minneapolis/Hennepin County thinks that there will be two lines, continuous Southwest-Hiawatha and Bottineau-Central.
At some point, there should be consideration for a subway tunnel downtown with concourses spanning multiple blocks and direct connections to many buildings.
Ideally, there could be an E-W subway under 6th Street and a N-S subway under the Mall. I’m pretty sure this is similar to the ideas Froggie has on his site.
There’s obviously demand for additional transit — let’s do it right so the momentum keeps growing.
“How many stations are currently not 3-car-length platforms?”
Good question. I think most of the stations along Hiawatha are not 3-car ready. The MOA, Lindbergh terminal & downtown stations are full-size.
Point of clarification: All downtown stations are 3-car ready except for Government Plaza (I learned this while covering Central Corridor meetings).
Although the modifications needed to make the Gov. Ctr. station 3-car ready would be *minimal* — very very minimal.
Will the Central Corridor go 3-car from the start then, given that the DT platforms are almost all 3-car ready?
I’m surprised that the WH District - Hennepin stop is 3-car ready. Everytime I look at it with 2 cars, I try to imagine it with 3 and it always seems like it would stick out about 8′ into 1st Ave.
Ask Pawlenty why there isn’t more mass transit.
There’s a number of reasons why…the Governor is only a small part of the equation.
And yes, maudio, that’s exactly what I was thinkig of as far as subway lines…under Nicollet and under 6th St.
“The economics of public transit can be counterintuitive.”
Not really. Whenever you set prices below marginal cost, you will always run deficits.
