Will Fort Worth Ever Need To Add Longer Trains To Meet Light Rail Demand?

I saw this this morning in the Seattle Times and thought to myself that this is definitely something I would not be seeing in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about a similar thing happening in Fort Worth.

Some excerpts from the Seattle Times Sound Transit to add longer trains to meet unexpected light-rail demand article....

Sound Transit will put some longer trains on its light rail tracks beginning Monday, to carry the unexpectedly big crowds using the new University of Washington and Capitol Hill stations.

Three-car trains will alternate with the usual two-car trains, spokesman Bruce Gray said Wednesday.

The agency opened a new $1.8 billion tunnel from Westlake Station to UW and Capitol Hill on Saturday. Passengers are finding full platforms and trains at peak times, and sometimes waiting for the next train, Gray said.

And that’s happening while UW is on spring break, and Seattle Central College in exam week.

Roughly 57,000 passengers used the 19-mile light-rail corridor from UW to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Tuesday, Gray said. That followed 67,000 people on opening day, 35,000 on Sunday and 47,000 on Monday. Previous weekday ridership was around 35,000 boardings.

So the counts are already as high as Sound Transit projected for next year — with not only these two stations, but the Angle Lake Station beyond the airport scheduled to open in September, with 1,050 park-and-ride stalls.

Sound Transit aims to carry nearly — but not more than — 150 people in each railcar, or 450 in a three-car train. That sort of volume means about half are seated, half standing, and people can readily enter or exit. Similar-sized trains in Asia might hold 200 people per railcar, considered a crush load here.

______________________

Apparently Puget Sounders are liking their new light rail mass transit method of traveling. Soon Puget Sound voters will be voting on a multi-billion dollar extension of the Link Light Rail. The newly opened extension to the University of Washington cuts the commute time of someone living in the Rainier Valley from around an hour and a half to half an hour, with no need to find a parking space.

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, riding the Fort Worth antiquated T bus public transit it takes about an hour to make it from my location, eight miles, to downtown Fort Worth.

There is an attempt underway to add a commuter rail line to transit options in Tarrant County.

The subject of this new commuter rail line in Tarrant County came up yesterday in a series of Facebook comments made regarding yesterday's blogging titled Fort Worth Star-Telegram Thinks Someone Goofed On The Panther Island Bridge Design.

Chris Putnam commented--- One correction to Durango's story. The TRV isn't America's - or even Tarrant County's biggest boondoggle - that honor goes to TexRail with a $1B price tag and unknown operating costs to construct 23 miles of commuter rail that will service less than one half of one percent of the Tarrant population. TRV is a close 2nd.

To which Durango said--- I am sticking with the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island Vision as being Tarrant County's and America's Biggest Boondoggle. America's Biggest Boondoggle has been boondoggling along longer than any of America's other boondoggle candidates, with very little to show for the effort. America's Biggest Boondoggle has multiple facets that enhance its boondoggle status. You have wasting almost a million bucks on a work of art that looks like an abstract garbage can, unveiled in a solemn ceremony that was very boondoggle worthy. You have the totally unqualified son of a local congresswoman put in charge of America's Biggest Boondoggle so as to motivate the mama to secure federal funds. Adding corruption to the mix enhances the TRCCUPIV's boondoggle status. Then we have the wanton abuse of eminent domain. The son of the local congresswoman has what is known as a Frat Boy mentality. None of America's other Biggest Boondoggle candidates have added items to the agenda like Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floating beer parties in a polluted river. None of America's other Biggest Boondoggle candidates has gone through so many name changes, let alone oddities like calling a chunk of a land an island, where there is no island....

One Year To Build A Floating Bridge While In Fort Worth It Takes Four Years To Build Three Bridges Over Nothing

No, that is not some sort of artist's rendering of a Trinity River Vision Boondoggle bridge you are looking at here.

What you are looking at is a pair of floating bridges crossing Lake Washington from Seattle to Mercer Island.

Mercer Island is a real island, not an imaginary island of the sort to which Fort Worth builds bridges.

The bridge on the left was built in one year, opening to traffic on June 4, 1989.

Yes, you read that correctly, this bridge was built in one year. And, obviously, unlike the Fort Worth Boondoggle's Three Bridges Over Nothing, this bridge was built over water. Actually built on water, what with that floating thing.

That train you see crossing the bridge is a Link Light Rail train, heading towards Bellevue, Redmond and the Microsoft campus. This particular link of the Link Light Rail system was approved by voters in 2008.

That approved by voters thing is what caught my attention when I read the Wikipedia article about Link Light Rail after a fellow former Pacific Northwesterner asked me if I knew what the current status was of the Seattle zone's light rail projects.

Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle has never been voted on by the local voters. Due to lack of funding this project relies on federal handouts, courtesy of J.D. Granger's mama, Kay, who recently somehow sent $17.5 million more of those federal dollars to her boy's playpen, under the guise of the money coming from the Army Corps of Engineers, for some supposed flood basins about which no one knows anything.

If Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision had been the result of a public debate and a public vote the result likely would not be the embarrassing slow motion boondoggle we now see, with three simple bridges taking an astounding four years to build, with no project timeline for the rest of the project, such as the digging of the ditch over which the bridges are being slowly built.

I have extracted five paragraphs from the Wikipedia article about the Seattle zone's Link Light Rail. These five paragraphs are a very instructive example of how things happen to get done in progressive, democratic parts of America....

In November 1996, voters in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties approved increases in sales taxes and vehicle excise taxes to pay for a US$3.9 billion transit package that included $1.7 billion for a light rail system, including Central Link and Tacoma Link. Over the next several years, debates raged over various issues surrounding the Central Link line.

Sound Transit's Phase 2 plan, under the name of ST2 (Sound Transit 2), is the plan for the second phase of Link Light Rail expansion. ST2 was put before voters in November 2007 as part of the "Roads and Transit" measure, which included hundreds of miles of highway expansion along with the light rail, but failed to pass. Sound Transit then put another ST2 plan on the ballot in November 2008. The measure passed by large margins. The plan will extend light rail to Lynnwood Transit Center in the north, S. 272nd St. in Federal Way to the south, and Downtown Bellevue and Overlake Transit Center to the east.

Northgate Link Extension is a future extension of Central Link partially approved by voters in November 2008. It will connect the University Link project currently under way to a central University District station, Roosevelt, Northgate, and points north. Once Northgate Link Extension is complete, the major urban centers of downtown Seattle, Capitol Hill, the University District, and Northgate will be connected via light rail. It is a top priority for Sound Transit as it will add over 40,000 daily riders to Link Light Rail by 2030, easing pressure on the Interstate 5 corridor.

Proposition 1, the measure on the ballot in 2008, included extensions of Central Link north to Lynnwood Transit Center, via the stations described above and Jackson Park, Shoreline, and Mountlake Terrace. The ballot measure also includes funding for a study to develop possible routes for a future extension of Central Link to Everett. As the extension to Lynnwood Transit Center will be finished in 2023, it can be assumed that an extension to Everett would not be completed until well after that year. An extension to Everett would require a separate, future measure.

In November 2008, voters approved the construction of an East Link light rail line connecting the city of Seattle to Mercer Island and the Eastside communities of Bellevue and Redmond as part of the Proposition 1 measure. This line will split from Central Link just south of the International District/Chinatown Station in downtown Seattle, extend across the I-90 bridge express lanes through downtown Bellevue and serve the Overlake Transit Center, including Microsoft headquarters.

__________________________________________

What a concept. Voters voting to approve various measures, with public debates thrown into the mix, influencing the decisions made as to how to move forward. With a project actually moving forward in a timely fashion.

And the result?

A complex public works project coming to fruition, with the public enjoying the benefits of that for which they voted.

No local Congresswoman's unqualified son hired to direct the project so as to motivate his mama to secure pittances of federal funds.

A project with a project timeline, with actual construction goals, publicly stated. A pubic works project which authentically integrates public opinion into decisions made, not make believe "user requested amenities" of ridiculous sorts of the type The Boondoggle claims results in their fairy tale nonsense, like the Gateway Park Masterplan.

Four years to build Three Bridges Over Nothing.

Longer than it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge. Longer, by far, than it took to build the world's newest floating bridge. Longer than it took to build Grand Coulee Dam. Longer than it took to build the Empire State Building. Longer than it took to build the Panama Canal. Longer than it took to build Disneyland.

After well over a decade of Trinity River Vision nonsense what has The Boondoggle seen of its myopic vision?

Rockin' the River Happy Hour Floats in the polluted Trinity River. A tacky music venue bizarrely named Panther Island Pavilion, where there is no island, where there is no pavilion. A beer hall called The Shack. The first drive-in movie theater of the 21st century. Plastering a plethora of signage in all sorts of location, now touting the imaginary Panther Island.

And those bridges, those three very ordinary, very small bridges, being built over dry land, with The Boondoggle's misleading propaganda claiming this construction method is being used to save money, with the ditch under the bridges dug later, when the truth of the matter is there currently is no funding to dig the ditch.

All Ma Granger has been able to come up with of late is $17.5 million, supposedly to dig some flood control basins, supposedly currently being dug, because J.D. Granger said that money he got from his mama and the Army Corps of Engineers was going to be quickly put to use, and it is supposedly those flood control basins those federal dollars are intended for....

Wondering About The Effect Of Fort Worth's Citizen's Minimalist Public Participation In Proposed Public Works

Last night I was lost on the Internet, going from link to link, and at one point I ended up at Wikipedia's article about the Sound Transit Link Light Rail system. Sound Transit is a light rail mass transit system similar to the Dallas DART train system.

Sound Transit moves people in the Western Washington counties of King, Pierce and Snohomish. King County is where Seattle is located, Tacoma is in Pierce County, Everett is in Snohomish County.

Previously, on more than one occasion, when I've compared something in the D/FW zone to the Seattle zone I've heard simplistic comments, like all you need to know about me is Seattle good, Fort Worth bad. I have explained, previously, the Seattle zone and the D/FW zone are the metro areas with which I am most familiar and so when something strikes me as sort of profoundly different, I  tend to notice it and comment on it. If that makes Fort Worth sound bad and Seattle sound good, well, when one holds up a mirror one can't complain about what one sees, if one is being honest.

So, I have long noticed that when an election takes place in Texas there is very little to vote on. No initiatives, referendums, few bond issues, few issues of any sort. I think there may have been some sort of road building bond issue since I was in Texas, but I don't remember being motivated to vote on it, one way or the other.

I have also noticed that HUGE public works projects can happen in Texas with no public vote. Such as the billion dollar Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

Now, of the west coast cities Seattle was late to adding light rail to its transit mix, lagging way behind San Francisco, Portland and Vancouver. At the same point in time, in the late 1960s, (or was it early 1970s?), that San Francisco approved building the BART rail system, the Puget Sound zone rejected the light rail part of a bond issue called Forward Thrust, that being the vote that gave Seattle the now gone Kingdome, among many other things, including new water treatment installations to clean up Puget Sound and Lake Washington.

Decades later, in the 1990s, with traffic getting really bad, voters finally approved light rail, currently up and running and expanding.

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, little gets voted on. How is it this town can not replace the decrepit Will Rogers Memorial Center, where rodeos are held during the Stock Show? How can the town known as Cowtown, that claims to be Where the West Begins, not figure out how to build a replacement for a seriously outdated facility?

Fort Worth built the Will Rogers Memorial Center way back in 1936. Since 1970 Seattle built the Kingdome, Safeco Field, the Kingdome replacement Seahawk football stadium, expanded Key Arena and is about to start construction on a new basketball arena for the incoming new Seattle Supersonics.

Since 1970, near as I can tell, Fort Worth has built nothing of the sort of things I've seen built in Seattle.

Oh, I forgot, Fort Worth built the now very run-down La Grave Field where Fort Worth has a professional baseball team playing in leagues with teams from towns with populations in the 20,000 range, give or take a few people.

Why such a difference between two towns, with one of them being known as one of the Greatest Cities in the World?

Well, I think I know what causes one key difference between Seattle and Fort Worth, that being public participation in proposed public works.

Read the following three paragraphs from the Wikipedia article about Sound Transit Link Light Rail and see if you can spot differences between how things are done and come to fruition in progressive, liberal, Washington, and think about how public works projects come about, or don't come about, in less progressive, less liberal Fort Worth and environs...

In November 1996, voters in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties approved increases in sales taxes and vehicle excise taxes to pay for a $3.9 billion transit package that included $1.7 billion for a light rail system, including Central Link and Tacoma Link. Over the next several years, debates raged over various issues surrounding the Central Link line.

Sound Transit's Phase 2 plan, under the name of ST2 (Sound Transit 2), is the plan for the second phase of Link Light Rail expansion. ST2 was put before voters in November 2007 as part of the "Roads and Transit" measure, which included hundreds of miles of highway expansion along with the light rail, but failed to pass. Sound Transit then put another ST2 plan on the ballot in November 2008. The measure passed by large margins. The plan will extend light rail to Lynnwood Transit Center in the north, S. 272nd St. in Federal Way to the south, and Downtown Bellevue and Overlake Transit Center to the east.

In November 2008, voters approved the construction of an East Link light rail line connecting the city of Seattle to Mercer Island and the Eastside communities of Bellevue and Redmond as part of the Proposition 1 measure. This line will split from Central Link just south of the International District/Chinatown Station in downtown Seattle, extend across the I-90 bridge express lanes through downtown Bellevue and serve the Overlake Transit Center, including Microsoft headquarters.

___________________________________

Voters voting on a public works project. What a concept. Debates raging over various issues. What a concept. Connecting towns by light rail. What a concept.