Study finds Houston won't curb its driving desires

[Slick Vik]

In my post above, SEPTA referred to the rail part only. I never backtracked, you wrongfully assumed that the total mass transit numbers (which I posted) were the rail numbers, and I called you out on that. You not only refuse to see the tiny percentage of rail (which again, makes a bigger difference in volume), you're also calling mistakes you made as victories.

I admire your refusal to give up, yet frown upon the fact that you cannot admit you made a mistake.

 

PHILADELPHIA, PA - SEPTA has set a new Regional Rail ridership record, with 36,023,000 trips taken by customers during Fiscal Year 2013, the Authority announced today. Fiscal Year 2013 was the 12-month period from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013. Ridership on SEPTA's 13 Regional Rail lines increased by 2.2 percent over the course of the year.

 

System-wide, SEPTA recorded 337.3 million trips during the year on its trains, buses and trolleys. While total ridership was down slightly from the 339.3 million trips in Fiscal Year 2012, the numbers for FY 2013 were impacted by a two-day shutdown due to Hurricane Sandy. SEPTA has an average weekday ridership of approximately one million trips.

 

Over the last 15 years, Regional Rail ridership has increased 50 percent, with annual ridership up from 24 million to 36 million trips. SEPTA's ridership continues on an upward trend on all modes of travel, with average annual increases of 1.9 percent over the last seven years, and total annual trips up by more than 40 million since 2006.

 

http://www.septa.org/media/releases/2013/07-22.html

[IronTiger]

Ridership on SEPTA's 13 Regional Rail lines increased by 2.2 percent over the course of the year.

That may be true, but I think you're confusing X percent increase with X percent total. Let's say our metro area contains 10 million people, but only 1% ride the train to work, which is still a healthy 100,000 people (it's a big city). In a year, the train's travel goes up by 2%. That does not mean 3% (300,000 people) now ride the train...that would be an increase of 300%. Instead, a 2% increase means from 100,000, so that would be 102,000 people now ride the train, bringing the total increase to 1.02% of people. Let me know if my math is faulty, k?

[august948]

I personally know many companies that have considered moving from downtown that are not due to the inconvenience it would cause employees who are used to coming downtown and/or live nearby.

 

I'm sure companies that are already downtown are there for a reason and/or preference of those who are calling the shots location-wise.  I personally know of a lot of companies, with more total employment than is found downtown that have decided to locate elsewhere.

 

The following lists downtown employment as 150k

 

http://downtownhouston.org/retail/demographics-reports/

 

I'm pretty sure the total number of employed workers in the Houston area outside downtown is quite a bit greater than 150k.

[Slick Vik]

That may be true, but I think you're confusing X percent increase with X percent total. Let's say our metro area contains 10 million people, but only 1% ride the train to work, which is still a healthy 100,000 people (it's a big city). In a year, the train's travel goes up by 2%. That does not mean 3% (300,000 people) now ride the train...that would be an increase of 300%. Instead, a 2% increase means from 100,000, so that would be 102,000 people now ride the train, bringing the total increase to 1.02% of people. Let me know if my math is faulty, k?

 

Still waiting for a breakdown on the stats of train vs. buses for SEPTA from you.

[IronTiger]

Still waiting for a breakdown on the stats of train vs. buses for SEPTA from you.

Here, read this again. It's unaltered from when I first posted it, and I'll explain further.

Not really. SEPTA Regional Rail, in Philadelphia, is a metro rail system that's three decades old, includes 13 branches, nearly 300 miles and 150 stations. Sounds pretty good, right? 127,800 ride the train everyday. Philadelphia has about 6 million people in its metropolitan area, about the same as Houston, so that represents a tiny fraction of the total population (2%). Even total mass transit (that's including bus) tops out at 55% (that's New York City, most cities, including Houston, don't make it past 10%).

A massive rail system in Houston will not make much of a dent in driving automobiles, sorry to say.

The 127,800 numbers comes from this article on Wikipedia, which is cited from here. If you wanted to include the light rail (fair enough), the light rail gets about 31,206,900 riders a year, so divide that by 260 (dividing a smaller number--the workdays--so we get the most bang for our numbers here), and we get about 85,000, another 1% added to our rail. Now, we don't know total mass transit for the entire region (we just know individual cities), but with the numbers provided we can make a pretty good estimate of what the surrounding communities have and don't have.

We subtract the percentage from the mass transit totals to get the bus. That doesn't mean the other 85% or whatever IS driving, many walk or bike. And what I said earlier is that the small percentages do add up: it's the same concept of what makes low-margin items profitable. If I sell a 99 cent widget for a dollar, I get a penny for every one I make. That sounds pretty terrible, but if I sell a million widgets, I get 1000000¢, or $10,000. We all know that light rail doesn't make money, but it keeps cars off the road, and when you have a lot of people, that 1% can make a difference.

You probably didn't notice that because you were too busy trying to call me an idiot in your next reply.

Edited December 30, 2013 by IronTiger

[Slick Vik]

Here, read this again. It's unaltered from when I first posted it, and I'll explain further.

The 127,800 numbers comes from this article on Wikipedia, which is cited from here. If you wanted to include the light rail (fair enough), the light rail gets about 31,206,900 riders a year, so divide that by 260 (dividing a smaller number--the workdays--so we get the most bang for our numbers here), and we get about 85,000, another 1% added to our rail. Now, we don't know total mass transit for the entire region (we just know individual cities), but with the numbers provided we can make a pretty good estimate of what the surrounding communities have and don't have.

We subtract the percentage from the mass transit totals to get the bus. That doesn't mean the other 85% or whatever IS driving, many walk or bike. And what I said earlier is that the small percentages do add up: it's the same concept of what makes low-margin items profitable. If I sell a 99 cent widget for a dollar, I get a penny for every one I make. That sounds pretty terrible, but if I sell a million widgets, I get 1000000¢, or $10,000. We all know that light rail doesn't make money, but it keeps cars off the road, and when you have a lot of people, that 1% can make a difference.

You probably didn't notice that because you were too busy trying to call me an idiot in your next reply.

 

Well, for one thing you are noting only SEPTA. What about PATCO, which has 38,000 riders per day? You've also left out the SEPTA subway lines, which get a ridership of 289,300 riders per day. So let's add this up, shall we?

 

127,800 + 289,300 + 38,000 = 455,100 riders per day, so 111,499,500 riders per year. Pretty impressive. In fact, Philly has the 6th highest ridership in the country for rapid transit systems. And this is without including streetcars, whose ridership I will try to find later.

 

So if your point was commuter rail gets less ridership than rapid transit in denser areas, you've made it. But if your point was that Philly's rail system gets poor ridership and/or was a bad investment, it's fallen horribly flat on its face. Good try.

[IronTiger]

Well, for one thing you are noting only SEPTA. What about PATCO, which has 38,000 riders per day? You've also left out the SEPTA subway lines, which get a ridership of 289,300 riders per day. So let's add this up, shall we?

127,800 + 289,300 + 38,000 = 455,100 riders per day, so 111,499,500 riders per year. Pretty impressive. In fact, Philly has the 6th highest ridership in the country for rapid transit systems. And this is without including streetcars, whose ridership I will try to find later.

The streetcars, rapid transit lines, etc. aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, so a true number is hard to find. Nevertheless, the 25% for Philadelphia for mass transit to work is only within the city limits. The bus system, by contrast, has 333 million riders per year, three times the amount! However, the average ridership is 4.5 miles, which is hardly work and back home again. But if you were arguing on solely on a riders per year approach, you'll lose if you compare that to bus.

However, as I suspected, you didn't notice AGAIN that I had mentioned that the 1% (of light rail) is still worth it because you were too busy trying to call out AGAIN. Q.E.D.

[Slick Vik]

The streetcars, rapid transit lines, etc. aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, so a true number is hard to find. Nevertheless, the 25% for Philadelphia for mass transit to work is only within the city limits. The bus system, by contrast, has 333 million riders per year, three times the amount! However, the average ridership is 4.5 miles, which is hardly work and back home again. But if you were arguing on solely on a riders per year approach, you'll lose if you compare that to bus.

However, as I suspected, you didn't notice AGAIN that I had mentioned that the 1% (of light rail) is still worth it because you were too busy trying to call out AGAIN. Q.E.D.

In such a system buses are used to feed in and out of rail lines.

[mfastx]

Guys, average daily boarding statistics can be found on APTA's website (American Public Transit Association). 

 

For Philly, the daily ridership is as follows:

 

Commuter rail - 127,100

Heavy rail - 336,600 (subway)

Light rail - 111,600 (streetcar)

Total rail - 575,300

Bus - 556,000

 

Total daily ridership for SEPTA is around 1,156,500 boardings/day. 

 

To compare, Houston's numbers are as follows:

Light rail - 37,500

Bus - 229,500

 

For a total ridership of around 282,700.  We got some work to do. 

 

Peak ridership was in the mid 90s with around 350,000 or so boardings/day.

[Slick Vik]

Guys, average daily boarding statistics can be found on APTA's website (American Public Transit Association).

For Philly, the daily ridership is as follows:

Commuter rail - 127,100

Heavy rail - 336,600 (subway)

Light rail - 111,600 (streetcar)

Total rail - 575,300

Bus - 556,000

Total daily ridership for SEPTA is around 1,156,500 boardings/day.

To compare, Houston's numbers are as follows:

Light rail - 37,500

Bus - 229,500

For a total ridership of around 282,700. We got some work to do.

Peak ridership was in the mid 90s with around 350,000 or so boardings/day.

Thanks

[LTAWACS]

I personally know many companies that have considered moving from downtown that are not due to the inconvenience it would cause employees who are used to coming downtown and/or live nearby.

What?? Where in the heck would they go????