Core Capacity
As Ryan Avent says, Metro expansion is great, especially when it’s done properly, but you can’t just keep adding new branches in the suburbs:
One final point: Metro is a network. When a new extension is built, the additional connectivity increases the value of all the other nodes on the system. But while that increase in value is significant, it’s not nearly as great as the benefit conferred on people located along the extension, who suddenly have easy access to the whole of the system. And meanwhile, the usage generated by the extension does generate some direct and indirect costs on other users.
These costs are increasingly borne by users in the core of the system, where growth in the number of trains and passengers have led to crowded conditions on platforms and back-ups during peak periods. To some extent, this can be addressed by increasing peak fares, but given the obvious value of Metro, the growth in the system’s spokes, and the fact that the District is better suited than almost anywhere else in the metro area to handle increased density, it seems clear that new core capacity is needed (as well as a new river crossing over or under the Potomac).
Probably the best way to add capacity would be to construct the proposed “separated blue line” through downtown. Among the other virtues of that plan, it would have an immediate and obvious benefit to many people in Virginia, as well as improving the performance of the overall system, thus broadening its potential constituency. The Brown Line idea shown here also has a lot of merit and would, I believe, be less hideously expensive. But either of these proposals would cost a lot of money—there’s no cheap way to build heavy rail beneath an existing city. That said, the benefits would be enormous, both to the areas directly served and in terms of the enhanced value to the rest of the network. The completion of the Green Line has already had a completely transformational effect on swathes of the city.
20 Responses to “Core Capacity”
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October 29th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Don’t forget the enormous benefits that go to automobile drivers in the form of less congestion. A steep location specific road use tax implemented by GPS tracking would be the way to go.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Are the delays on the blue/orange line in the core at all addressable by tinkering with the schedules of the trains (holding some, having some run express) to make them come more evenly at peak times? My impression of the DC metro is that it’s well run by comparison to Boston, but here in Boston we deal with *four* lines (four branches of the Green Line) sharing a tunnel under Boylston Street.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:12 am
A steep location specific road use tax implemented by GPS tracking would be the way to go.
Then you’d have to get everyone to install a GPS device, and hand a windfall to GPS makers and installers. This could work, but maybe you should have a special tax on these devices and their installation and then rebate some or all of the tax collected to low-income drivers so they don’t suffer financially from having to buy and install the device, or just make an agreement with the winners of the regulation that they have to compensate the worst-off losers.
Alternatively, why not just introduce a parking tax that gradually increases with proximity to most congested areas? This wouldn’t have the privacy problem that the GPS solution has, and it’s likely to be cheaper, as the parking-fee-collection infrastructure already exists.
Or do people in DC drive *though* the core to get from one side of it to the other?
October 29th, 2009 at 10:19 am
The separated blue line is a good idea in spite of the fact that it would benefit Virginians (the metro area’s most terrible people).
October 29th, 2009 at 10:32 am
I hope this is intended to be good natured ribbing, because if not, you’re a jerk.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:34 am
How about a direct Bethesda-Tysons connection?
October 29th, 2009 at 10:51 am
The best transportation policy that could be undertaken w/r/t Virginia is to sever all transportation links across the Potomac and then outlaw any federal contracts going to companies with any offices whatsoever in Fairfax or Loudoun counties.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Why does Maryland escape your vitriol? Why all the hate for Virginia?
October 29th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Maryland may have its problems but at least Marylanders aren’t about to elect a Falwellite nutball as governor.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Touche.
But in general, I’d say that is in spite of NoVA, not because of it.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:25 am
I believe Greater Greater Washington and David Alpert have been referring to it as the Gold Line.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:33 am
As a former NOVA resident, I was dismayed that there is no light rail access to fairfax. You have to go to vienna or van dorn to get into the city. The gap in coverage is obvious on the transit map. Why? I assume it is because NOVA politicians and the voters that elect them have not funded light rail the way Maryland has. No forsight, even though NOVA continues to add population. NOVA was a suburban hellhole where crappy bus service meant that cars are necessary and the traffic was horrible. That is how it was in the early 90s and I don’t think it has changed much.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:41 am
I believe Greater Greater Washington and David Alpert have been referring to it as the Gold Line.
no – the gold line name was given to a proposed line running down Rt 7 between Falls Church and Alexandria. I think we’re running out of colors though – gonna have to move to pastels or patterns (the “plaid line”) at some point
October 29th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
It’s worth noting that Los Angeles, in addition to facing the same “running out of colors” problem as Washington, is also working on solutions to the problem Matthew brings up, namely, the expansion of the system putting a strain on operations at the core of the system. L.A. Metro is currently exploring alternative alignments and configurations for what they’re calling the “Downtown Connector,” which would connect the light-rail Blue and Gold Lines, negating the need to transfer on and off of the heavy-rail Red Line inbetween.
http://www.metro.net/projects_studies/connector/default.htm
October 29th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Totally trivia, but it seems in the U.S., lines are named by color, except for San Francisco and New York. S.F. Muni has a dual letter/street-based system; S.F. BART has a destination-based system, and New York has a number-and-letter system. In Germany, it’s all numbers, I think (prefixed by U- or S-); in London and Vancouver, the lines have names (sometimes comical ones like “Bakerloo”). Anyone have any guesses as to why this is? The color system doesn’t work beyond six or so lines (I suppose Londoners could call the Metropolitan Line the “Mauve Line” and the Waterloo and City line the “even-lighter-blue than the Victoria Line”), so when America enters the second half of the twentieth century, what’s going to happen?
October 29th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Just run more trains in the core. Instead of making a Blue train always go from end to end, add some extras trains that turn around at the edge of the core. You have to build some turn points (typically trains can go either way, so no actual turning is involved), but that is much cheaper building new track.
October 29th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
@Mark – The interlined portion of the Orange and Blue are on the brink of capacity at rush hour – especially at the Potomac Tunnel. We can’t just run more trains in the core.
October 29th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
#15 Jason, the trains in México are named by both number and color with about 60% of the references I hear using color and 30% number. (Ten percent refer to some specific destination without mention which train is being used.)
1/Pink
2/Blue
3/Green
I don’t know anybody who rides Line 4
5/Yellow
6/Red
7/Orange
8/Dark Green
9/Brown
A/Purple
B/Silver and Green
So there are certainly more than six colors available.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Yes, there are more colors available, but there are only a few more colors available where you can have a system where color is the sole identifier of a line. Those examples from Mexico all have another identifier – a number or a letter.
Chicago is at about the maximum for colors – Red, Blue, Yellow (three primary colors), Orange, Green, Purple (three secondary colors), plus brown and pink. You can maybe add silver (as DC will do), but beyond that, the differences between colors are too small, and you need to go to some other naming system.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
L.A. has all six primary and secondary colors: Red, Purple, Blue, Gold (i.e., Yellow), Orange, and Green, as well as Bronze and Silver busways. The new line opening up next year is called the Expo Line (it uses the Exposition Blvd. alignment) and is marked on maps with an Aqua-colored line.