Saturday, November 16, 2024

Brightline, a model for the future

Timeline:

  • 1976: Conrail founded from the remnants of Penn Central and Erie Lackawanna Railway
  • 1994: Privatization of British Rail began under RailTrack
  • 1997: Privatization of British Rail completed
  • 1999: Privatization of Conrail
  • 2002: RailTrack failed and Network Rail was founded with a monopoly on British railways
  • 2005: Brightline West proposed
  • 2008: S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland call for tender
  • 2012: Brightline Florida announced plans to start operation on track they already owned
  • 2013: S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland begins operating 802 km of service
  • 2018: Brightline Florida starts operation in Greater Miami
  • 2023: Brightline Florida starts operation to Orlando, all on track they already owned
  • 2028: Brightline West plans to begin operation

 

Conrail lasted for 23 years and it was profitable when it was discontinued.

RailTrack lasted for a full 5 years of independent operation before it failed.

It took Brightline Florida 11 years to start operating on track they already own.

It will take Brightline West about 23 years to go from going out to bid to being in operation.

It took S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland 5 years to go from being out to bid to being in full operation with 802 km of service.

Private monopolies do not work.

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

DOGE

No alt text provided for this image

So Trump and Elon Musk are going all-in on DOGE, or "Department of Government Efficiency" to make a smaller government. What does this mean?

  • Cutting police budgets and streamlining police to better serve their communities
  • Eliminating wasteful visas and reinstating an era of visa-free travel
  • Making American TSA work like airport security in the EU
  • Visas for farm workers
  • eFile for income tax
  • Audit the Department of Defense
  • Faster border crossing for everyone.

Lol, no. He's talking about cutting government spending. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/doge-elon-musk-department-government-efficiency-trump-b2646246.html

This likely has nothing  to do with government efficiency, this has to do with cutting social welfare programs.

The biggest expenditures of the government in the current budget year are outlined in the Fiscal Year budget.

Most financial outlays are mandatory, which mostly means Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. Discretionary spending is 50% Department of Defense and 10% Department of Veterans Affairs.

What it will actually be is likely:

  • Defunding NASA which is a competitor to Elon Musk
  • Reducing funds for free school lunches
  • Restricting Medicaid
  • Cutting Social Security OASI benefits
  • Cutting Medicare benefits

All other remaining programs make up such a small percentage of the budget they are unlikely to make any difference to the federal deficit.

Don't fall for the memeification of right wing blabber.

DOGE is a scam. It's Donald Trump's brand.

Monday, November 11, 2024

Shifty and Untrustworthy

  

People read establishment politicians as shifty and untrustworthy. Here are a few reasons why:

  • Biden promised to support Ukraine while holding back aid.
  • He claimed to care about human rights in Gaza but did not withhold weapons from Israel as they violate international law.
  • Biden swore that when we withdrew from Afghanistan the Taliban would not come to power, but they did anyway, and we were not prepared to stop them.

Is there any wonder why millions of Americans perceive Biden as untrustworthy?

Biden promised unity. What that means in practice is supporting the filibuster as Manchin and Sinema, members of his own caucus, watered down his bill. Is there any wonder why he is seen by millions of Americans as shifty?

When New Democrats and Republicans work together to bring down progressive policies, they are feeding the narrative that there is an establishment working to undermine the working class in America.

Ultimately we need ranked voting and to abolish the electoral college.

But for now we just need to ensure the Democratic nominee is not a New Democrat or worked under a New Democrat like Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris. None of whom won their elections.

We need a more progressive candidate in 2028. Not just in terms of policy but in terms of character and strategy.

The Biden strategy of "Unity" failed. Trump will be president in 2028. He only united America against himself.

The Biden strategy of appealing to a theoretical middle voter worried about nuclear war failed to garner votes. He failed to win the war in Ukraine. He failed to protect Afghani women and girls.

This needs to be the last failure of the New Democrats.

We cannot afford another term of a President like George W. Bush.

Trump is going to repeal as much of Biden's accomplishments as he can, most of which are executive orders. New Democrats are likely going to work with Trump in their shared hatred of the New Deal and love of oligarchy. They have always been wolves in sheep's clothing. It's time to recognize those swine for who they are.

Stop throwing your pearls before swine.

Vote progressive.

Sunday, November 10, 2024

A more reasonable visa policy

Different tiers of visa policies, and samples of countries which I would include.

Open border

The most open visa policy is an open border like between Germany and Poland. In order for this to work the following should be done:
  1. Unified visa policy
  2. Similar economic policies to prevent a brain drain
  3. Very low risk of terrorism or other unsocial behavior.
  4. Right to live and work in each other's countries for unlimited amounts of time
The Schengen area is an obvious case of this. Adding Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea to Schengen makes sense since they are extremely safe and highly developed countries. Make Schengen grow outside of Europe!
 

Visa-free

Visa-free countries are for countries with the following profile:
  1. Very low risk of terrorism or anti-social behavior
  2. Different visa policies
  3. Low risk of visa overstay

An example of this is the US and the Schengen area. There is a very low risk of terrorism, and anti-social behavior by Americans and Europeans is very low. When traveling the risk of terrorism by tourists is zero.

The risk of visa overstay is very low, and this should be the default until proven otherwise.

eVisa

I suppose an eVisa could be a useful tool if there is an increased risk of a visa overstay but a low risk of terrorism. Mexicans traveling to the United States should be able to get work visas and given the issue with people overstaying their visas an eVisa makes sense. But the number of Mexicans who commit acts of terrorism or other crimes in the US is lower than native born Americans so it doesn't make sense to use a full blown visa for them.

Full Visa

A full visa is used for situations like the abhorrent behavior observed by Israelis in the Netherlands last week. Such behavior is unacceptable and the European Union now has probable cause to require Israelis to have visas when traveling to Europe in light of this event.
Anyone traveling from a country which is suspected of sourcing terrorism or has a very high level of visa overstays should require a full visa.

Travel banned except for refugees

Used against countries actively disturbing the international order. Russia is the clearest case in this, Israel also fits the criterion.

Saturday, November 9, 2024

Exit poll

 The exit poll for this year was disappointing. The only two questions it asked on actual issues were about abortion and Israel, along with a question on how you feel about your personal finances. The rest of the questions just don't tell me much.

If I were to design the exit poll here are the questions I would ask:

Demographics

  • What is your gender?
  • What is your race?
  • How old are you?
  • What is your highest level of education?
  • What is your income?
  • Are you married?
  • Do you have children?
  • Are you LGBT? If yes, how so?
  • Have you ever served in the military?
  • What is your career?
  • What state do you live in?

Party, ideology, and affiliation

  • What party do you identify with?
  • Are you a liberal, moderate, conservative, or a socialist?
  • Are you a member of a union?
  • What is your religion?
  • Are you a born-again or evangelical christian if you identify as a Christian?
  • Where do you primarily get your news?

Issues and knowledge

  • Name your three most important issues.
  • Should America assist Ukraine/Israel more/less/about the same?
  • Should America have withdrew from Afghanistan when we did and how we did?
  • Should Canadians continue to be visa-exempt?
  • Should citizens of the European Union be able to travel to the US for tourist reasons without any form of visa including ESTA?
  • Should our border with Canada be more secure or more open?
  • Should our border with Mexico be more secure or more open?
  • What is your stance on abortion? Legal always, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, or illegal?
  • Do you support universal health care? Any preference on the form?
  • Do you support debt-free college? Tuition-free college?
  • Do you support expanding intercity rail? Do you support nationalization of railroads?
  • Should illegal immigrants be given a chance to apply for legal status or deported?
  • Is crime higher or lower than it was four years ago?
  • Is unemployment above or below 5%?
  • Has the stock market gone up or down during Biden's presidency?

Monday, October 23, 2023

Two state lie

If you say you support a two state solution, but you don't recognize Palestine, you do not support a two state solution. Your two state solution looks a lot less like Kosovo and a lot more like Bantustan.

Either recognize Palestine, or pressure Israel to give Israeli citizenship to every Palestinian with all of the rights and freedoms that entails.

There is no middle ground.

In regards to the current situation in Israel:

On one hand we have every human rights organization, almost every democratic government in the world, and peace activists from every major peace church in the world saying in unison that what is happening in Gaza is a genocide.

On the other hand, Putin, Biden, Sunak, and Netanyahu say it is not genocide.

Who is to be believed?!


Recognize Palestine as an independent state or give Israeli citizenship to every Palestinian immediately.

Stop bombing apartments, schools, hospitals, and refugee camps immediately.

Friday, October 20, 2023

Transportation Capacity

Basic facts:

·      Average freeway lane maxes out at 1800 vehicles per hour at full speed.

·      An unoptimized bus route will carry 45 people on average.

·      An optimized bus route will carry 80 people.

·      A single BART railcar will carry 56 seated passengers, and up to 200 passengers in total with standing capacity. BART trains are between 3 and 10 cars long.

·      A single Link train carries 600-800 passengers.

 

So, an average freeway lane is anticipated to carry 1800 vehicles per hour per lane at peak times. Most vehicles are empty most of the time.

 

Basic equivalency

 

Passenger

Freeway lane

Optimized Bus

Link

BART

Passenger

 

 

 

 

 

Freeway lane (per hour, 1 passenger = 1 car)

1,800

 

22.5

2.25

0.9

Optimized Bus

80

 

 

 

 

Link

800

 

10

 

 

BART

2,000

 

25

2.5

 

I-80 SF westbound per hour (5 lanes)

9,000

 

112.5

11.25

4.5

Katy Freeway eastbound per hour (7 lanes)

12,600

 

157.5

15.75

6.3

 

Bus optimization

If I am planning for a city of 100k people, and I have a bus depot in downtown which has 10 buses which leave downtown every 15 minutes, I have 40 vehicles per hour. Those vehicles only need to carry 45 people each on average to equal the carrying capacity of a highway lane.

 

To replace a 3-lane freeway, I need 120 buses per hour across my metropolitan area, or 30 vehicles every 15 minutes. That is honestly not that many buses. 20 bus routes at 10-minute intervals are the equivalent of a 3-lane freeway, in both directions.

 

If each bus is running a fully optimized route and carries 75 people per vehicle, and we have only 10 routes in our city, 25-minute headways on these optimized routes will equal the capacity of one highway which has 6 lanes each direction.

 

This however is complicated because many of the less efficient routes are feeder routes to the system which serve local neighborhoods. Cutting the local can significantly reduce overall passengers carried, reducing the viability of the entire system. Transit planers cannot just put in a few high capacity low operating cost vehicles and call it a day. The lack of a network effect will all but guarantee those routes will never get  to that optimal capacity. Higher order more cost efficient transit effectively subsidizes the local routes, while local routes make it so that rider can get to that higher order transit from their front doors. They work together and in larger cities they need each other.


The I-80 bridge in San Francisco has 5 lanes and carries about 9000 people per hour. It would take 120 buses to replace the I-80 bridge. 2 buses per minute per hour leaving San Francisco will carry an equivalent number of people.

Rail optimization

 

Using Link rail cars

A single Link train will carry 700 passengers per hour. I-5 is a 4-lane freeway south of the I-405 interchange in Tukwila. I-5 carries 7200 people (single individual cars) per hour at rush hour in each direction. 10 trains per hour (6-minute headways) will carry as many people as I-5.

 

Using BART cars

A typical BART train on the highest demand routes carries 2000 passengers at peak hours. The I-80 bridge has 5 lanes, so it carries 9000 people per hour. It takes 5 trains per hour to beat the capacity of the I-80 bridge.

 

The fare for BART needs to be less than the toll to go over the Bay Bridge.

 

Annual ridership

 

So… let’s say you take the I-80 bridge between Oakland and San Francisco, which can carry 9000 people per hour each direction. So, you have 250 workdays per year, and you have about 6 hours per day where people are commuting, which means that if one side of the bridge is at capacity 6 hours per day, 250 work days per year you have a total capacity of 13.5 million passengers per year. BART carried 26 million passengers in 2021.

 

Even simpler, you can expect the I-80 bridge could comfortably carry 45,000 people per day. For comparison the Embarcadero station on BART carried 48,000 people per day by itself in 2017, including weekends.

 

Montgomery Station carries another 45,000 people per day by itself.

 

If the I-80 bridge were running at full capacity 12 hours per day it would carry 90,000 people.

 

These two stations, Embarcadero and Montgomery, carry 93,000 people per day.

 

 

Most of the passengers of BART in downtown San Francisco are going to the East Bay.

 

The Embarcadero station by itself fills 24 trains per day.

 

Montgomery station by itself fills another 22.5 trains per day.

 

 

Put another way:

If the I-80 bridge was working at full capacity 12 hours a day, it could carry 108,000 passengers per day. BART carried 145,700 passengers per day in Q3 2022.

 

And yet another way:

There are four BART lines which go under the Bay. Those are the green, blue, yellow, and red lines. Each of them runs 4 trains per hour under the Bay, so there are 16 trains per hour running through the Transbay Tube, or one every 3 minutes and 45 seconds, in each direction.

 

These four lines can carry 32,000 passengers per hour.

 

The I-80 bridge only carries 9,000 passengers per hour.

 

The four BART lines which run through the Transbay Tube generally carry 4 times the number of passengers as the I-80 bridge.

 

How does BART compare to buses?

If you were to try to build a bus network to carry as many people as are carried by BART… you would need to run 400 buses over the TransBay bridge in the morning to match the capacity of BART. That would be one bus every 9 seconds!

 

Conclusion

For high-demand routes, buses are more expensive to operate, slower, and carry fewer people.

 

BART is one of the best investments ever made. If you tried to build a system which carries as many people as BART with light rail you will end up with significant congestion, and you would have to build another 20 lanes of highway IN EACH DIRECTION across the Bay in order to match the number of people BART carries every day.

 

The two tracks of BART underneath the Bay carry as many people as 50 highway lanes. On a cost per passenger km basis the San Francisco Bay tunnel is one of the best investments this country has ever made.

 

Whenever a politician or pundit is talking about how they need to constrain costs, you need to think about the benefit that program will provide just as much as you are talking about how much it will cost to build and consider how much it will cost to maintain.

 

The TransBay Tube was far cheaper to build and is far cheaper to maintain than any other comparable infrastructure which would carry the same number of people as BART carries every day.

References:

https://www.numerade.com/ask/question/a-four-lane-highway-has-a-normal-capacity-of-1800-vehicles-per-hour-per-lane-in-the-southbound-direction-a-vehicle-disablement-on-the-roadway-shoulder-occurs-at-430-pm-due-to-rubbernecking-t-70091/

 

https://www.codot.gov/programs/innovativemobility/assets/commuterchoices/documents/trandir_transit.pdf

 

https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/building-system/modes-service

 

Appendix A: Hierarchy of transportation modes

1.     Walking. Walking is the best mode of transportation. Every trip starts with walking, so it is best to make it so as many trips as possible can be done by only walking. Trips under 2 miles should be done via walking.

2.     Biking. Biking is excellent because there is no wait time, it’s the second lowest cost after walking, highly space efficient, and very cheap to build for. For trips up to 5 miles biking should be preferred, and possible to use bike infrastructure for trips up to 10 miles.

3.     Buses. Buses are excellent for short, low demand routes. They are more expensive per passenger km than higher orders of transit, but for low demand routes buses are ideal.

4.     Streetcars are ideal for short high demand routes. They have the cost and capacity advantages of higher order rail over buses while being cheaper to build and operate. Build these in your city center on routes which have high usage. The San Francisco Streetcar is a good implementation of this useful technology.

5.     Light rail is useful for medium distance, medium demand routes. A perfect use case of this is the Hudson Bergen Light rail. Routes which are too high demand for a bus or a streetcar, but not enough demand to be worth building a tunnel for rapid transit are perfect candidates for light rail.

6.     Rapid transit. Rapid transit is only ever realistically going to be rail. Tracks are no more expensive to build than road outside of legal barriers (which can be overcome), they carry a lot more people, you can go faster on tracks than is possible to go on a road, and trains have a lower operating cost than buses per passenger km. In big cities rapid transit is realistically only going to be done either as elevated rail and/or tunnels. If you don’t elevate or bury you will have more delays, it stops being rapid, and you are wasting money. It is less expensive to do it right way the first time.

a.     Short-haul rapid transit: This is rapid transit for moving people around 20 km or less. The New York Subway or BART is a great example of this.

b.     Long-haul rapid transit: This is for moving people between urban centers, even within the same metro area. Deutsche Bahn between Bonn and Koln is a great example of this.

 

Appendix B:

In response to the whole "America can't have good transit because we are too spread out!!!" argument...

San Francisco has a population density of 2,642 people per square km, and Los Angeles has a population density of 3,206 people per square km.

Yet San Francisco is MUCH faster and easier to get around without a car than Los Angeles, and Los Angeles is known for being a car-centric city.

Creating real urbanism takes more than just building density through dense zoning laws. Los Angeles proves that you can zone for density, but if you don't provide convenient, affordable, fast transit, walkability, and safe places to bike, you will still be stuck in car-centric hell.

Plus, you can build bikeable cities with good transit with a lot lower density than you might think... to a certain point. Bellingham has half the density of San Jose, but I find Bellingham is a much easier city to bike around than San Jose.

It's a combination of walkability, available transit, dense neighborhoods, and safe convenient ways to bike around your city, all working together.

Density does not lead to a car-lite or car-free lifestyle being reasonable by itself.

 

Appendix C: Global mode transport data

I grabbed mode share data from Wikipedia. It includes 146 cities from every continent across a large variety of countries.

First of all, let’s describe our data:

Most common mode of all:

private motor vehicle    106

public transport          30

cycling                    5

walking                    5

 

74 cities saw cars compose more than 50% of all trips.

United States     23
Canada            11
Spain             10
Italy              7
Australia          6
New Zealand        3
Netherlands        2
Ireland            2
United Kingdom     2
Indonesia          1
Greece             1
Germany            1
Malaysia           1
Sweden             1

 

How many cities per country are car dependent, meaning that car trips compose 50% or more of all trips?


Country

Car dependent cities

Total Cities

0

United States

23.0

24

1

Canada

11.0

11

2

Spain

10.0

14

3

Italy

7.0

8

4

Australia

6.0

6

5

New Zealand

3.0

3

6

Netherlands

2.0

5

7

Ireland

2.0

2

8

United Kingdom

2.0

4

9

Indonesia

1.0

1

10

Greece

1.0

1

11

Germany

1.0

15

12

Malaysia

1.0

1

13

Sweden

1.0

3

14

Poland

0

5

15

Switzerland

0

3

16

Japan

0

3

17

China

0

3

18

Denmark

0

2

19

India

0

2

20

Czech Republic

0

2

21

Belgium

0

2

22

South Korea

0

2

23

Brazil

0

2

24

Austria

0

2

25

Lithuania

0

1

26

Columbia

0

1

27

Norway

0

1

28

Finland

0

1

29

Serbia

0

1

30

Singapore

0

1

31

Slovakia

0

1

32

Philippines

0

1

33

Romania

0

1

34

Bulgaria

0

1

35

Ethiopia

0

1

36

Chile

0

1

37

Belarus

0

1

38

Israel

0

1

39

Hungary

0

1

40

Portugal

0

1

41

Mexico

0

1

42

Bangladesh

0

1

43

France

0

1

44

Taiwan

0

1

 

Car dependent cities appear to be a regional phenomenon concentrated both in Southern Europe and the Anglosphere.

If we exclude Anglosphere countries and Southern Europe (commonly referred to as the PIGS), we find that Eindhoven, Rotterdam, Essen, and Gothenburg are the only cities left which are car dependent and in highly developed countries.

 

Every other city in Northern Europe (excluding the UK and Ireland) has car usage below 50%.

 

What are the reasons for this?

 

Well, a commonly cited reason is downtown urban freeways. But Munich, Paris, Cologne, Bonn, Tokyo, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Budapest, Prague, Berlin, and more all have highways within 5 km of their downtowns. Almost every city in the world has a freeway within 5 km of downtown. Urban freeways are not a factor.

 

Could it be because the urban highways are tolled? Well… there are practically no toll roads in Germany, which does extremely well on this list with almost all their cities dominated by non-car usage, some even as low as 20% car usage even with urban highways in all of their cities. It’s more complicated.

 

It’s not the urban highways.

 

Of these cities which have less than 50% car usage… what is their dominant mode of transport?

 

private motor vehicle    38
public transport         30
cycling                   5
walking                   5

 

About half of them still have private motor vehicle as the dominant mode of transport, and all but 10 of the others have public transport as their dominant mode of transport.

 

109 cities in the sample see public transport with a greater mode share than walking.

 

Here is a four dimensional chart, comparing which cities have:

·      more public transport usage versus walking

·      most used mode

·      private motor vehicle usage above or below 50% (PM>/<.5)

·      population above or under 1,000,000 (P>/<10e6

 

 

Public transport > walking

Public transport < walking

Private motor vehicle dominant

 

PM>.5

PM<.5

P>10e6

43

11

P<10e6

9

15

 

PM>.5

PM<.5

P>10e6

4

7

P<10e6

8

16

Public transport dominant

 

PM>.5

PM<.5

P>10e6

 

26

P<10e6

 

2

 

PM>.5

PM<.5

P>10e6

 

 

P<10e6

 

 

Cycling dominant

 

PM>.5

PM<.5

P>10e6

 

3

P<10e6

 

 

 

PM>.5

PM<.5

P>10e6

 

 

P<10e6

 

2

Walking dominant

 

PM>.5

PM<.5

P>10e6

 

 

P<10e6

 

 

 

PM>.5

PM<.5

P>10e6

 

3

P<10e6

 

2

 

 

This shows us that almost every city has private motor vehicle as the most frequently used mode of transport. All but 10 of the cities which don’t have public transport as their dominant mode of transport see private motor vehicles as the dominant mode.

 

Most car dependent cities as earlier described are in the Anglosphere and Southern Europe.

 

Cities which are not car dependent are mostly in Northwest Europe and East Asia.

 

There is no correlation of geography between whether cities are car dependent or not. Hot climate, cold climate, a city with canals, a city on the coast, or a city in the middle of a great flat plain… this doesn’t matter.

 

Having freeways within 5 km of your city center makes no difference as to whether your city will be car dependent or not.

 

Whether the freeways or tolled or not does not make a difference.

 

The majority of cities which do not have private motor vehicles as the most used form of transportation have public transportation as their most used form of transportation.

 

Surface parking lots and zoning codes do you no favors in terms of having a car centric city… but then again… Jakarta with 78% private motor vehicle usage doesn’t have surface parking lots dominate their cities, and their traffic jams are famous. Jakarta is what happens when you don’t have sufficient mass transit around your city and you have little surface parking lots. Your city will still be car dependent.

 

There is one factor and one factor only which is by far the DOMINANT FACTOR in whether your city has low car usage around the world. Every single city with low car usage in this sample has this one factor in common:

 

This data demonstrates a good quality rapid mass transit network is the most important factor towards reducing dependence on private motor vehicles.