This is Wawa erasure

WMATA says full automation reduces the variable costs of added service by 41%, and this is before getting into how an automated fleet saves on requiring less vehicles.

Does Frederick Douglass Tunnel project count? They’re replacing several small rail bridges.

^ me on Yom Kippur

I try to fly American but it is usually so much cheaper to get from the northeast to Tampa on Frontier when I’m flying home to see family, even if you need a carryon or checked bag

SEPTA I am inside you

And roads are more expensive to construct now because of higher standards. Reconstruction often includes lane and shoulder widening plus more gradual curves.

Still, I wonder if we didn’t build new roads if there’d be enough for maintenance. Idk the numbers.

Also why is the FRA so bad at links? This is not the first document from them where important links don’t work!

A week and a half application period for this amount of money seems very short, no?

And the projects they have in mind are… very specific. Hopefully this will be spent on actual rail infrastructure and not just station beautification.

railroads.dot.gov/about-fra/co...

Wonder if the lack of pricing will cause shortages. The biggest benefit from pricing bikeshare is you encourage turnover so more people can use it.

Is this intentional or more so stemming from firing 30% of FTA staff?

US DOT's new "Freedom to Drive Initiative" focuses on addressing congestion by:
—"Building new roadway capacity"
—"Recover[ing] roadway capacity from other purposes [e.g., biking & transit] to support driving"

[There is no evidence that either of these strategies work to address congestion.]

Studio travel week potential

Planning is in the works…

Wonder if the doors could’ve been customized to be any wider, although door width does seem to be constant looking through Wikipedia and more customization would no doubt make these $5.5M trams even more expensive

Apparently Alstom 205 per their brochure

Which I’m a little confused by because 24 m is 80 so SEPTA’s purchase sounds like they squeezed a 305 into a 205’s body

This is the type of stuff that fascinates me, the engineering constraints.

How about the three bogies? Is that for being able to make the turns in the tunnel?

What is the significance of 80 ft and three bogies? Tried looking for the RFP to maybe find some answers but have been unsuccessful.

They are talking like traffic engineers haven't been trying - and failing - to fix traffic congestion for the last 70+ years

It's the wrong question to ask

And a good part of the reason we're in the mess that we're in

Summary table from 2016 report. The 2018 report used a similar methodology.

This was evident back in 2016 and 2018, when the DVRPC (Philly’s MPO) studied how trolley modernization would improve travel times and only modeled two-door boarding. Haven’t see any other public modeling since, so wonder if more/wider doors were ever considered. www.dvrpc.org/reports/1500...

This doesn’t seem to be a SEPTA-specific problem btw. Other North American Alstom vehicles like Toronto’s Finch West tram also have a paucity of doors. www.alstom.com/lightrail_usa

So I just realized the new SEPTA trolleys only have two doors that are not even that wide. What gives?

Meanwhile the Australian and Barcelona Citadis 305 (the same model) has a lot higher door density

Counterpoint (although he’s also an economist): papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

For sure. The near term effect size just seems pretty large. Would love for the author to share the methodology

or current Philadelphians choosing to not leave the city for a suburban job. This seems like a long term behavioral effect but the author argues there will be an immediate population increase. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the dynamics though.

I thought that was a pretty good proposal but idk but the why it would increase population. Both Philadelphians and non-Philadelphians pay the wage tax so population growth would only be driven by a non-Philadelphian choosing to change jobs to one in the city and deciding to move to reduce commute..

The estimate for an underground station, which apparently comes from the FTA, is low at only $120 million.

Looking further, this is because there are only 8 relevant underground heavy rail station projects in FTA’s database, the newest being the 2003 BART SFO extension.

Why is the data so bad? 💀

Apparently the PennDOT cost estimate for the Roosevelt Blvd Subway doesn’t differentiate between stations at cut-and-cover sections vs deep bore sections

The CTA railcar is nice! Other than that it assumes buses and trains haven’t existed since the 50s…

Don’t forget about Honolulu

Anyone want to take a guess as to what this shows?