Light Rail System in Huntsville? (Montgomery, Mobile: school, living, price)

[David1502]

It is not a question of who wants Light Rail and who doesn't - It's whether LRT can be supported by the local community and the answer is not at this time. And that no is for a number of reasons. (And I say this as one who uses public transit when traveling to cities with strong transit systems.)
1. Lack of density in development and overall population. Even in areas where public transit exists, not everyone is taking the train or bus. So it takes a large base population to provide the 10% who will use it.
2. Frequency of service: Because of the low population density, the trains will not be able to operate frequently during the middle of the day. For example in Atlanta (which has a metro populaiton of 5 million plus) you can wait 15 minutes for a MARTA train mid day. Who will be willing to sit and wait for a train at Bridge Street for 20 or 30 minutes to ride to downtown Huntsville or the Airport when they can drive there in 10 minutes or less?
3. Who will be riding the train to Redstone Arsenal after the morning rush? Other than the morning rush coming into the Arsenal and the afternoon exit, who will be using the train? Government workers have to report in at a certain time - they can't come dragging in at 10AM.
4. Other than Bridge Street/Cummings Research Park, RSA and Downtown HSV, how many other areas have any type of density of workers to support transit. There certainly aren't many residential areas with density to support it. If there were 10 Village of Providence communities with high density residential, there could be a start of having a base of riders.
All in all Light Rail Transit sounds appealing, but when you come down to the fiscal realities, it is hard to see how Madison County with 300,000 people can support it at the present time.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by guxu

For people like me who live in Madison and work in research park, riding bicycle to work is very reasonable.

Except when it is raining
Except when it is really really windy
Except when it is really really hot
Except when it is really really cold
Except when you are too hungover to ride a bike
Except when your office doesn't have a shower
Except when you want to head over to your secretary's apartment for a little while at lunch
Except when you have to run errands
Except when you have to bring bulky things to or from work

So, on the three days of the year that it isn't one of those conditions, sure it is very reasonable.

[clamoore]

software engineer != engineer

[DvlsAdvc8]

Originally Posted by Huntsville

you bring other cities into the mix.

Huntsville didn't decide to go to the moon. The United States decided to go to the moon. Huntsville is a work site. If it were up to Huntsville to fund going to the moon, no, we would not have gone to the moon.

I bring other cities into the mix as evidence that cities of Huntsville's size cannot support light rail.

Follow?

Originally Posted by Huntsville

"This is how we Huntsville is a town of engineers."--DvlsAdvc8

Surely you don't have a problem with engineers being an influence in Huntsville.

You missed my point completely. The engineer is concerned with the best way to make something happen - you can make rail as power efficient as you want, but that doesn't make people use it... this is the limit of the engineering argument. The "best" transit, isn't necessarily the transit that people WANT. I have attempted to point this out to you, and you think I'm attacking engineers. I again point to other cities where despite dramatic cost and efficiency advantages of rail/trolley, the automobile remains DOMINANT. I don't know what else to do to make my point. Are you trying to say that people in Huntsville are less attached to their cars than people in Norway? (good luck with that) You'll build this expensive rail network, and the majority will still be driving their car to work. More to it, they'll be pissed they're paying more in taxes for the rail network (good luck with that one too).

Originally Posted by Huntsville

I don't understand why if it will not cause any direct harm to you, why you are so opposed to it. It seems kind of like your just throwing in road blocks for the heck of it. If Huntsville doesn't do this project I will be dissappointed because I look forward to using light-rail here, and you can still drive your car everywhere if you choose to. If Huntsville does the light-rail project, you can still drive your car everywahere if you choose to. Get my point?

No. It does affect me because I'll be paying the taxes that build and run it. I like taking rail where rail is a more effective mode of transportation than my car, but that's not the case in Huntsville. Huntsville doesn't have the traffic problems, nor are energy costs (gas) sufficient to drive people to use rail. Lastly, the cost per capita (or per rider) would be exorbitant due to the wide distribution of Huntsville's population. Cities with light rail have it because they have high population densities and severe traffic problems. Huntsville has neither of these, and the energy issue is 20 years off. So if you built it now, you'd have a pointless rail network for 20 years.

I do not oppose light rail in general. I really like DCs metro as I stated. Huntsville simply has no reason to implement one any time soon: insufficient traffic, insufficient population density, insufficient energy costs.

It's not about LIKING IT. It simply doesn't make sense for Huntsville.

[DvlsAdvc8]

Originally Posted by clamoore

software engineer != engineer

Uhm, no, actually its: SoftwareEngineer extends Engineer

American Engineer's Council for Professional Development defines engineering as:

“[T]he creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as respects an intended function, economics of operation and safety to life and property.”[2][3][4]
Engineering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Creative? check
Application of scientific principles? check
Design or develop structures, machines, aparatus, or manufacturing process? check
Forecast behavior under specific operating conditions? check


More accurately, you might have said: Programmer != Engineer

... but then, a Programmer is not necessarily a Software Engineer either.

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by Charles

Except when you want to head over to your secretary's apartment for a little while at lunch

Waaaayyyyy too much personal info there, Charles.

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by clamoore

software engineer != engineer

No way.

Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Doesn't apply. It's a hardware problem.

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by DvlsAdvc8

Uhm, no, actually its: SoftwareEngineer extends Engineer

That's like saying Financial Engineering is also a part of Engineering. Social study is actually a part of science, e.g., social science.






How does this relate to the subject of this thread I have no idea. Probably just as relevant as the price of beef in chicago.

[Huntsville]

If people want it then they will more than likely us it. Just because you aren't interested doesn't mean others don't like it.

Using other cities to prove that Huntsville can't successfully implement an effecient light-rail system is invalid because as you say they don't have it.

As far as taxes, I pay taxes too--now we are right back at the beginning like always...just circling the wagons expecting different results. You pay taxes anyway--not just because of a light-rail system. If they have to add more lanes to the 565 intrastate, it's still tax dollars. Please don't make this political(more taxes, less taxes blah blah) because that will bring out the devil in all of us =) We didn't need Bridgestreet either and it wouldn't work say the ney sayers, but look it's seems to be thriving to me. If we have a choice on rather to build more lanes on the highway or use light-rail which could be more efficient and we have the same tax payer dollars being used for either project, what's our decision? We all have different answers I know...lol--but, that's the way I'm looking at the situation.

The United States put the man on the moon but where was the rocket built? Not too shabby for a small Alabama town at that time! What if light-rail does work for us? People will using Huntsvegas as a model because we actually took unprecedented action and made it work.

A Software Engineer is still an engineer to a lay person.

[Pirat_cat]

You know, I have to agree with Dvls. Ask me again in 10 years, but right now, I don't see the majority of Huntsville residents giving up their cars and paying who knows how much for light rail. It's an appealing idea in theory, but in practice I think people are too attached to their cars and their freedom to go exactly where they want, when they want.