JERSEY CITY | PATH Train Ridership Growing Rapidly

[TowerDude]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

The simple takeaway is that with the exception of East Side Access, the entire public transportation system of metropolitan New York has been locked in amber for 70 years. We celebrate the opening of a couple new stations over thirty years like we put men on Mars while other world cities have built entire metro systems and open new lines and line extensions left and right.

That new Hudson Terminal concept for either NJT or PATH would be a great mega project ... http://www.realtransit.org/htp1.php

You can bring the 7 and L trains to it to complete the integration of it into the transit network. Cap it with an express Hudson Terminal-Penn Station special subway line and you've got a world class fifth hub for the city (after Penn/Jamaica/WTC/Grand Central/PABT)

Maybe place the terminal where that Chelsea Sports Complex is now (and offer the Sports complex a new set of piers elsewhere to relocate to.

[UrbanImpact]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

What passes for radical transformation in the NYC metropolitan area is what would have been done decades ago in most other first world cities. Due to the doldrums of the city and transit agencies over the last many decades, truly radically ambitious ideas rarely if ever get spoken of (true interoperability of NJT/LIRR/MN under an umbrella regional rail identity with metro-like regional rail frequencies and service patterns; re-opened passenger rail lines throughout NJ; metropolitan orbital rail, of which IBX could be but one segment on an inner orbital that would cross the Hudson over the GWB and under the Narrows into SI and traverse north-south through Hudson and Bergen counties; JFK express to lower Manhattan; PATH expansion; significant NY subway expansion including much of the IND second system; Paris style T style light rail on heaviest NYC bus routes like Q52/52, Bx12, etc...) And that's not even getting into what would be involved to run true HSR in and out of the area.


The simple takeaway is that with the exception of East Side Access, the entire public transportation system of metropolitan New York has been locked in amber for 70 years. We celebrate the opening of a couple new stations over thirty years like we put men on Mars while other world cities have built entire metro systems and open new lines and line extensions left and right.

How do you propose funding mass transit without raising taxes?

[Nouvellecosse]

Poor New Zealand! I wonder what has driven their average to such an extreme.

[iheartthed]

The average cost in the U.S. is probably so high because so few rapid transit projects are built here.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The average cost in the U.S. is probably so high because so few rapid transit projects are built here.

And the cost of labour, as well as environmental/governmental red tape.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by homebucket

And the cost of labour, as well as environmental/governmental red tape.

Whenever the euros come over to look at some project we are doing they make fun of us for how massively overstaffed it is. And we are not talking about people form nations with weak labor.

US projects are bloated with corruption, incompetence, and political issues that's resulted in a total failure to control cost.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by homebucket

And the cost of labour, as well as environmental/governmental red tape.

I'd be more convinced if all infrastructure projects were extraordinarily expensive in the U.S. But I doubt roads are very expensive in the U.S. because we build so many of them.

We only build heavy rail transit in a couple of cities. Those cities also happen to be expensive for just about every other category too.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I'd be more convinced if all infrastructure projects were extraordinarily expensive in the U.S. But I doubt roads are very expensive in the U.S. because we build so many of them.

We only build heavy rail transit in a couple of cities. Those cities also happen to be expensive for just about every other category too.

Define "very expensive". Do we spend more on roads than peer nations do for comparable projects? Yes. We absolutely do.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by k1052

Define "very expensive". Do we spend more on roads than peer nations do for comparable projects? Yes. We absolutely do.

Is our average cost per mile/kilometer of road much more expensive than other countries? I don't know but if so then I'd be more convinced about the conclusion drawn here. But I think the tendency for our heavy-rail projects to be very limited to 1 or 2 cities can distort what the cost of rail in the U.S. would look like if these projects were more widespread.

I mean, you're basically just comparing New York and maybe L.A. to the rest of the world. Are there any heavy rail rapid transit projects in any other U.S. city besides those two?

[k1052]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Is our average cost per mile/kilometer of road much more expensive than other countries? I don't know but if so then I'd be more convinced about the conclusion drawn here.

Yes. We're more expensive per unit of distance. Especially when any engineering beyond putting in flat roads to green field suburban developments is involved.

But I think the tendency for our heavy-rail projects to be very limited to 1 or 2 cities can distort what the cost of rail in the U.S. would look like if these projects were more widespread.

Well since you generally do HRT projects in cities this is the only standard for comparison. It should not be drastically less expensive per km to build subway in Rome or Paris than anywhere in the US.

I mean, you're basically just comparing New York and maybe L.A. to the rest of the world. Are there any heavy rail rapid transit projects in any other U.S. city besides those two?

Again the appropriate comp is projects in other major cities. I'm sure we could build HRT cheaper in the middle of nowhere but what would be the point?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by k1052

Again the appropriate comp is projects in other major cities. I'm sure we could build HRT cheaper in the middle of nowhere but what would be the point?

New York is not the only major city in the U.S. The U.S. has over 50 metro areas with at least 1 million people. I doubt the cost of a heavy rail project in New York is informative about how much it costs to build rail in most major metro areas in the United States.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

New York is not the only major city in the U.S. The U.S. has over 50 metro areas with at least 1 million people. I doubt the cost of a heavy rail project in New York is informative about how much it costs to build rail in most major metro areas in the United States.

LA, DC, HNL, SF etc all have projects going at multiples more cost than comparable euro projects per distance/station. NY is the reigning champ of out of control costs though.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Is our average cost per mile/kilometer of road much more expensive than other countries? I don't know but if so then I'd be more convinced about the conclusion drawn here.

Cost disease actually affects the entire US construction industry. It's not even limited to infrastructure.

There's a reason Euro cities can afford to build masonry or steel apartment buildings with beautiful cladding materials, while we have to put up flimsy wood-framed 5+1s in most US cities and cover them in Hardieboard.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Cost disease actually affects the entire US construction industry. It's not even limited to infrastructure.

There's a reason Euro cities can afford to build masonry or steel apartment buildings with beautiful cladding materials, while we have to put up flimsy wood-framed 5+1s in most US cities and cover them in Hardieboard.

This is correct. It infects everything.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Cost disease actually affects the entire US construction industry. It's not even limited to infrastructure.

There's a reason Euro cities can afford to build masonry or steel apartment buildings with beautiful cladding materials, while we have to put up flimsy wood-framed 5+1s in most US cities and cover them in Hardieboard.

If that's the case, and I have no reason to doubt that this is true... Does it matter that building rail is more expensive in the U.S.? If relatively higher costs aren't prohibitive to any other parts of our infrastructure development then why does it matter for heavy rail?

[Busy Bee]

^I think whats being suggested in the example of the quality of housing construction US vs. Europe is that when that is applied to transit projects the choice is not "transit project" vs. "transit project with lower construction costs", it's "transit project" vs. "no transit project." And in the case of the latter, in many cases no agency or politician even proposes it due to inevitable fiscal infeasibility, i.e. "the funds just aren't there for this kind of investment"... followed by "we need to scale it back" or, in most cases, "we need to shift priorities to more attainable goals."

As a side note, why the hell does no one ever talk about the infrastructure bank anymore?

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

If that's the case, and I have no reason to doubt that this is true... Does it matter that building rail is more expensive in the U.S.? If relatively higher costs aren't prohibitive to any other parts of our infrastructure development then why does it matter for heavy rail?

Some people reach that same conclusion, but I think the big picture is that we can't do anything to fix our problems without a lot of building stuff, whether that's rail systems, roadwork, power grid, flood control, energy-efficient housing, affordable housing, etc.

[C.]

March 2022 - 132,440
March 2019 - 281,605

Still at only 47 percent

[Crawford]

Why is PATH recovering slower than MTA subway? Kind of strange. It's the same market, should be same general trends.

PATH will eventually get back to "normal", but yeah, a bit disappointing that there's such a long way to go.

[k1052]

As with most systems weekend ridership recovery is outpacing weekday ridership recovery. It is unfortunate so many agencies just decided to use the federal recovery money to prop up peaky commuter service that is running far under capacity instead of bolstering night and weekend schedules to attract riders when they actually seem to want to show up.