Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
It really just comes down to the cost - including opportunity cost of not funding alternatives - of that system relative to the payoff. Having fully electrified double tracking for the entire route is very expensive to the point that it only really makes sense with a minimum level of ridership relative to route length so to not also spend enough for routing and station locations that will generate ridership may not result in a good investment. Whether it was a good investment in DART's case I personally don't know while Cirrus doesn't seem to think so.
Regardless of whose idea something is or whose decision it was that doesn't really say much about whether or not it was a good investment. It may not be right to criticise DART for a decision it was not responsible for, but that's different from the decision itself being immune to criticism.
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I do not have problems with criticism when the criticism is valid.
If critics can not tell the difference between a regular and express bus line, they loose the argument. The bus transit centers I mentioned earlier only lost their express bus services, not the regular bus lines circulating through their local neighborhoods.
If we accept your premise that DART's light rail system is more akin to European commuter rail systems, where European commuter rail lines seem to provide excellent services to its' customers, why criticize DART for following their examples? Few US transit systems use European built trains - specifically diesel electric powered Stadler GTWs and FLIRTS - Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and Denton do. DART should be praised for thinking out fo the box and using European transit solutions, not criticize for it.
The reason why DART chose to double track the entire light rail system is because it is electrified, that they had already spent extra doing so. Here's something else to second guess them and chew the fat on; the DART board has decided to proceed with double tracking the new Cotton Belt (Silver Line) commuter rail line. Yes, for an over $Billion project, double tracking only added less than $100 Million to the entire project. Electrifying the approximately 30 mile line would have added thrice that amount.
I repeat, the lessons to be learned here are;
(1) electrifying a railroad line costs significantly more than double tracking that line.
(2) double tracking a railroad line is operationally more valuable than electrifying it.
(3) electrifying a line is valuable and worth the extra expense only if train headways are very short.
(4) there are some critics who only believe urban rail systems are worth building in the USA where suburban rail systems flourish worlld wide.