| ARISTOTLE
on Light Rail |
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| ARISTOTLE
on Light Rail |
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What does ARISTOTLE have to do with modern urban transportation planning ? |
About WEBMASTER |
| Essays and Links | Many of the following
documents are available in either html or pdf format. Better
prints of tables and graphs are available in the pdf
format. To read and print pdf you will need the Acrobat reader
which may be downloaded free from Adobe. |
|
Rail |
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| The Guideway Saga NEW | Saga of an unsuccessful two year effort to convince, cajole, or compel OCTA to do a comprehensive analysis of the net marginal benefit of light rail in the CenterLine Project, including accounting for the inseparable adverse impacts of 1) Street ROW taking, 2) Permanent blockading off the unsig3nalized half of cross-streets, and 3) green light preemption of the signalized cross streets. 4/21/06 | |
| CenterLine Unveiled | The 2003 EIR defines the CenterLine PROJECT as a bundle of Light Rail, Bus expansion, and Street widening. The only performance analysis pertains to the entire bundle. This hides the embarrassing fact that because of the street disruption it causes, the net transportation benefit of the Light Rail element itself is strongly negative, nearly canceling the positive benefits of the other two elements. 8/8/04 | |
| CenterLine
Debundle Analysis |
Detailed, gritty sources, assumptions and calculations underlying the above debundling analysis. 8/3/04 | |
| Critique of CenterLine DEIR/S | The 2003 CenterLine EIR redefined the system analyzed to comprise the bundle Light Rail plus significant street widening and bus service expansion. Evidence from the objective technical findings shows that a No-LR alternative, simply dropping the LR from the bundle, would result in greater transportation, air quality, and energy saving benefits, with a 50% reduction of adverse environmental impacts, and cost saving of $900 million. 3/3/04 | |
| Better to Dig A Hole |
The Orange County CenterLine light rail system would literally make Orange County traffic congestion worse. How is this possible? Therein lies a significant story, the dirty little secret of CenterLIne. An LA Times Commentary by Jack Mallinckrodt 12/12/02 | |
| A Ten Count Indictment of CenterLine | The proposed Orange County CenterLine light rail system, even though elevated, takes most of a street lane for most of its length. The net capacity afforded is then the rail capacity gained, minus the street capacity lost. Ten count evidence from its own documentation that CenterLine, irrespective of its $3 billion cost, makes congestion, emissions, air quality and and energy consumption worse than doing nothing. 5/27/02 | |
| OCTA Approval of Centerline Light Rail | pdf |
Verbatim transcript of OCTA board members' comments on occasion of their unanimous approval to proceed with $40 million "Preliminary Engineering": of the Centerline Line Light Rail. 1/7/03 |
| The Public Cost of Transportation Alternatives | pdf
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Compilation of total (operations and capital) average gross and net cost, performance, and cost- effectiveness for all US public transit and road systems based on latest (1999) US DOT data. Gross cost per unit transportation ($ per person-mile) varies over a range of from $0.03/ps-mi (roads) to $1.29/ps-mi (light rail). Net costs accounting for user fares or fees vary from $-0.02 to $1.15. 4/12/03 |
| Road/Transit Equity |
OCTA's allocation of resources between roads and transit is vastly out of proportion to quantifiable, rational measures of cost effectiveness, need, benefit, balance and equity. 11/10/01 | |
| O. C. Grand Jury Report on the Lt. Rail Study Process | The 1999 Orange County Grand Jury has filed a report on the study and decision process leading to a possible commitment decision this year to build a light rail system. The report is a scathing indictment of the process as a promotion of light rail by OCTA rather than a balanced search for the most effective transportation alternatives. 12/7/99 | |
| OCTA Response to the Grand Jury Report | Draft OCTA response to the Grand Jury Report. OCTA "disagrees wholly" with all the findings and states that it "is already complying" with all the recommendations. 12/7/99 | |
| The OCTA Major Investment Study |
A $3.1 million OCTA Major Investment Alternatives Study shows that dollar-for-dollar, regular unrestricted road capacity additions would afford greater benefits than light rail in every benefit category by factors of from 4 to 32 times. Nevertheless, OCTA has rejected the roads alternative and selected the worst-place light rail solution. 12/7/99 |
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| Derail Centerline | OCTA directors are pushing hard for their light rail system, ignoring the overwhelmingly adverse findings of each of their three studies of the Light Rail system. 1/14/01 | |
| The Effect of Street ROW Taking | The OCTA Light Rail System takes considerable street capacity for rail ROW. This study finds that the street capacity sacrificed to light rail ROW exceeds the projected capacity of the rail system for either at-grade or elevated option confirming and explaining the DEIR finding that as compared to no-build, the light rail system is worse in every quantified performance measure . 1/14/01 | |
| Comparing Freeways to Light Rail | Advocates often claim that a single rail track will carry more persons in less space than an entire freeway. This is grossly wrong. On the broadest possible US averages, a single freeway lane caries 5 times as much traffic as a single light rail track in the same space. 1/14/01 | |
| Light Rail's Tiny Fraction of Urban Travel | DOT annual data compendia (1996) show that no city in the United States supports as much as 0.4% of its total traffic with light rail. 12/7/99 | |
| Where's Debate in Planning of Light Rail | html | "The cost, and mismanagement debacle in Los Angeles should make Orange County question the need for a light rail system. Instead it is treated as an all but done deal. The effort that is going intro promoting light rail should be going into fully informing the public and debate of the issue." An editorial by David Mootchnik 12/7/99 |
| Comparison of Maglev with High Speed Rail | link | As compared to modern High Speed rail, overall time-saving advantages of maglev technology are insignificant. Other advantages do not outweigh the added cost, risk, and network incompatibility of maglev technology. FTA emphasis on maglev development questioned. Analysis by Professors Vukan Vuchic and Jeffrey Casello. |
| Critique of "Benefits of Light Rail In Austin" | The consultant, HBL, has analyzed the benefits of Light Rail in Austin based on the "Mogridge-Lewis Convergence Hypothesis" which is that the travel times by road will be controlled by and converge to those of light rail. Critique points out the many errors in the hypothesis and in this application of it. 1/14/01 | |
| Jonathon Richmond's Essays | link | A link to Harvard and MIT Professor Jonathon Richmond's factual, insightful essays on Light Rail. Highly recommended reading. |
| Wendell Cox's " Public Purpose" |
link | Link to a massive resource for fundamental performance and cost statistics and analysis of all transportation modes. |
| The Thoreau Institute | link | Link to Urban growth and Transportation Studies. Factual analyses of some claimed urban planning and light rail success stories, with emphasis on Portland, OR. Home port of Randall O'Toole |
| Railroading America |
link | A
great link hub. Gateway to diverse resources of common sense and facts about light rail. |
Thanks for the visit. Comments and suggestions welcomed.
Jack
Mallinckrodt, Webmaster
mally@ieee.org
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