The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal |
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Informed but opinionated commentary and analysis on urban transportation topics from the Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal. Names have been omitted to protect the guilty. Our Mission: Monkeywrench the Anti-Transit Forces
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E-mail: transitcabal -AT- gmail.com (EDIT before sending!) Please report dead links News Sources www.planetizen.com www.lightrail.com www.lightrailnow.org www.funimag.com. Funicular RRs Skepticism/Baloney Detecton Practical Skepticism Site The Fine Art of Baloney Detection (Carl Sagan) www.spinsanity.org Pro-Transit Sites Victoria Transportation Policy Institute Vitriolic Critic of American "Urbanism": www.kunstler.com Protransit Site in Cincinnati Protransit Site in Toronto SeattleMonoJabsAll.pdf Critics / Anti-Transit Sites Prime Transit Disinfo: www.rppi.org Wendell Cox's Website Randal O'Toole: www.ti.org/antiplanner 
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Friday, February 28, 2003
Wendell Cox Is Not Mediocre, But Sometimes, He's Dense -- 2 "It is the unfortunate destiny of the ridiculous to be subject to ridicule." James Howard Kunstler "Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two. From the Cabalmaster: In our last post, we explained the difference between: “Traffic density,” the number of passengers who travel over each mile of route. “Boarding density,” the number of passengers who enter, or board vehicles, along each mile of route. (“Wendell’s density,” as we see it, ranges from high to extreme – in other words, Wendell, we think you’re dense.) We’re not really sure what “boarding density” indicates in terms of the “workload” performed by each system. However, we do acknowledge that boarding counts are an important measure of transportation performance. The tables that follow show various rail systems worldwide ranked by traffic density. We’ve also included rank according to “passengers per line mile,” aka “Wendell Rank,” for each entry so that you can compare (“*” = more than one system with this rank). We’ll share various techniques for estimating average trip length in due course, but not today. We’ll be brief, blunt, and to the point: we’re not going to assist the Denizens of Demographia should they care to challenge the results presented below. (Let ‘em do their own homework!) Lines are classified by type, as follows: ---ICTS: “Intermediate Capacity Transport System;” this category includes lines built with full separation and using vehicles smaller than full-scale urban HRT. Many ICTS systems use rubber-tired vehicles and driverless (automated) operation of trains. Monorail is generally considered a separate mode but has much in common with ICTS. ---LRT: Light Rail Transit, implying significant sections of reserved track and multiple-car trains. ---Monorail: Straddle (Alweg-type) or suspended (Safege-type) monorail lines. ---Streetcar: Urban tramway systems without significant sections of reserved track, and significant operation of multiple-car trains. ---Suburban: In Switzerland and provincial Japanese cities, electric light railways having various “light rail” characteristics but not usually listed as “LRT.” These characteristics include extensive sections of reserved track and significant operation of multiple-car trains; in Japan, such lines have no street track and car-floor-level boarding. In large Japanese and German cities, Hong Kong and Paris, lines which are heavy rail in character and serve mixed urban-suburban markets. ---Urban HRT: Urban heavy rail transit, that is, fully separated alignment, multiple-car trains and car-floor level boarding. (“Premetro” is a French and Belgian term for tramcar subways built for eventual conversion to urban HRT.) (“S-Bahn,” a German abbreviation for “Schnellbahn” or “Fast Railway,” refers to HRT services operated over “railway” lines, often but not necessarily with dedicated tracks. These serve mixed urban-suburban markets.) (“Sneltram,” a Dutch term meaning “Fast Tram,” refers in this case to an Amsterdam service, using LRT-type vehicles, that has a section of shared operation with full-scale urban HRT trains. We’ve grouped systems according to geography: U.S., Canada, Australia and Western Europe. Eastern Europe. Former Soviet Union. Asia Africa Latin America. We’ve used the following precision standards: Japan: Nearest tenth. USA: Two significant digits. Rest of World: Nearest whole; two significant digits. Japanese data are not necessarily more precise than those found in the NTD, but we do appreciate that traffic-density statistics are presented explicitly, and Your Favorite Transit Pundits decided to call attention to this fact! We’ll start presenting the data tables next time. Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Wendell Cox Is Not Mediocre, But Sometimes, He's Dense -- 1 "It is the unfortunate destiny of the ridiculous to be subject to ridicule." James Howard Kunstler "Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two. From the Cabalmaster: The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal is pleased to bring you the results of our latest random visit to "The Public Purpose" / "Demographia." We spotted a page titled "International Urban Rail: Passengers per Line Mile By City" (see: www.publicpurpose.com/ut-wrail.htm). The "test" statistic -- presented without supporting data (as usual . . . ) is annual passengers per line-mile. Cities and systems are arranged in rank order, and an index is computed -- although we don’t fathom what this index, normalized on Hong Kong’s MTR, is supposed to demonstrate. Similar pages include: "Urban Rail Productivity: Selected International Urban Areas" (see: www.publicpurpose.com/ut-intlrrprod.htm). "Urban Rail Productivity: Selected International Urban Areas Ranked" (see: www.publicpurpose.com/ut-intlrrprodtok.htm). This page compares systems in other cities to those in Tokyo. We TransitCabalists are not impressed, nor should you be (but you know we're opinionated, don't you?). All the compiler(s) did was divide annual boarding counts by total route length. This tells nothing at all about "transportation" -- that is, travel. Putting it another way, "The Public Purpose" presentations make sense if -- and only if: 1) One assumes that the average travel distance for urban rail passengers is the same, worldwide. 2) One doesn't care about average travel distance, which means one doesn't care whether boarding "passengers" travel or not. (Some of the newest subway stations in Tokyo have "community" areas, including carpet, chairs, table and bookshelves--complete with books and magazines. There may be something to point 2), at least in Tokyo...) The correct "test" statistic would be traffic density--passenger-miles per mile of route (or pass-km per km of route). Although the unit sounds clumsy, the concept is simplicity itself: The number of passengers transported over each mile of route (in both directions) per year. (As we've noted before, passenger light-years per light-year of route would also give the same number . . . and might be appropriate for the Denizens of Demographia, whom we think are sometimes out in space.) Some transit foes who don't like this approach complain that passenger-km or passenger-mi data are "not available." Lame, lame, lame. Average trip length may often be calculated directly (as from National Transit Database data for U.S. operators). In the absence of passenger-km or passenger-mile data, or traffic-density statistics, average trip length may be estimated with good precision. Reyolds, for example, presents one technique for doing so (Reynolds, D. J. 1971. Research Monograph No. 3: The Urban Transport Problem in Canada, 1970-2000. (Prepared for the Honourable R. K. Andras, Minister Responsible for Housing, Government of Canada.) Ottawa.). We'll continue with our discussion of density - density of traffic, density of boardings, and density of Wendell - next time. Monday, February 24, 2003
EXCLUSIVE! First Day of the Anti-Urban, Anti-Transit "Axis of Weasels" Conference! "It is the unfortunate destiny of the ridiculous to be subject to ridicule." James Howard Kunstler "Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two. From the Cabalmaster: EXCLUSIVE! First Day of the Anti-Urban, Anti-Transit "Axis of Weasels" Conference! This conference is being held, as we blog, in Washington, D.C. from Sunday, February 23 to Tuesday, February 25, 2003. Remember you saw it first here at www.transitcabal.org! Brought to you by the Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal.  Saturday, February 15, 2003
The Anti-Urban, Anti-Transit "Axis of Weasels" "It is the unfortunate destiny of the ridiculous to be subject to ridicule." James Howard Kunstler "Truth passes through three phases: 1) It is ridiculed. 2) It is violently opposed. 3) It is accepted as self-evident." Albert Schopenhouer. In the United States, rail is currently passing through Phase Two. From the Cabalmaster: Recently large numbers of so-called "warbloggers" have taken to calling Germany, Belgium, and France the "axis of weasels" due to their opposition to the pending U.S. war against Iraq, a play on George W. Bush's "axis of evil." (Maverick British leftist Christopher Hitchens points out that France and Germany have had extensive business dealings with Iraq; on the other hand, the public in those countries oppose a new Middle East war by 80%-90% margins, but that's an off topic blog...) Well, there is another "axis of weasels" that we wise-guy Transit Cabalists have identified: A pretty complete list of the Antiurban, Antitransit Axis of Weasels is posted at www.ti.org/amdream.html. This list is as follows, excluding government representatives, consultants we know don't agree with the anti-urban agenda, and Andres Duany, invited to provide entertainment and counterpoint to "King of the Weasels" Wendell Cox: Funding Sources "Thanks also to the Charlotte and Walter Kohler Charitable Trust and the Sarah Scaife Foundation for making the conference possible." (e.g., far right wing foundations). It will be interesting to see if this "Meeting of the Axis of Weasels" get more attendees than speakers. The Secret Worldwide Transit Cabal is predicting somewhere between 150 and 200 conference attendees in addition to the speakers and sponsors. |