South Jersey's "Riverline" opens on the 14th.

[jresta]

I've been waiting for this thing to open for 3 years. First it was supposed to open mid-2002. Then it got pushed back to January 2003. Then "summer" 2003. Then "fall" 2003. Then January 2004. Then February 15th 2004. Now it's March 14th 2004 and it looks like it's actually going to happen this time.
http://www.riverline.com

For those of you not in the know, this is a 34 mile diesel light rail line (the first in the country) that runs from Trenton Station to the Camden Transportation Center.
It was built entirely with state funds because it was understood that it would never pass federal muster. As might be expected with a project that runs 20 months over schedule, it's seriously over-budget. $300 million over budget. It's mostly single-track with plenty of sidings and it is time separated for freight movements. In other words freight has the track from 10pm to 6am and light rail has it the rest of the time, with the exception of a small on-street segment that is not used by freight.

The most important part of the line hasn't been built. It's now called "the Capitol Extension" http://www.njtransit.com/images/CapitalExtension.jpg
Why the last administration chose to build the downtown Camden segment first (where there are maybe 1,000 jobs and 2,000 students) rather than the downtown Trenton portion (where there are over 10,000 jobs) is beyond just about everybody.

 

[jresta]

weekend ridership

So it turns out that weekend ridership is nearly double the weekday ridership.

It's only been two weeks but I think that it's consistent with the nature of the development along the line. It doesn't really pass any significant job centers. The train passes a lot of old downtowns along the way with their shops, restaurants, and professional offices as well as the entertainment complexes at either end of the line.

I told a colleague at work a few days ago that i thought we "aren't doing our jobs if we're only looking at journey-to-work data when it comes to planning new transit routes. Only 22% of VMT are worked based trips. Twice that number are people running errands, dropping the kids off, visiting friends, going to the movies, etc."

We could be on to something here.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/112-03232004-269452.html

 

[undergrad planner]

For those of you not in the know, this is a 34 mile diesel light rail line (the first in the country) that runs from Trenton Station to the Camden Transportation Center.
It was built entirely with state funds because it was understood that it would never pass federal muster. As might be expected with a project that runs 20 months over schedule, it's seriously over-budget. $300 million over budget. It's mostly single-track with plenty of sidings and it is time separated for freight movements. In other words freight has the track from 10pm to 6am and light rail has it the rest of the time, with the exception of a small on-street segment that is not used by freight.

This sounds a lot like Ottawa's O-Train which opened in 2001. It's a similar set up, diesel light rail running on mostly single tracks with sidings at the stations (resulting in timed service so that the trains can pass one another), the track is abandonned, so Ottawa has full control of it. The line is far shorter than the River Line, coming in at 8 km or 13 miles with only 5 stations. It ties in with the BRT Transitway at both ends. Plans call for it to be extended north into Hull, Québec, south to the Airport, with a spur line running into downtown Ottawa. Currently, the line ends just west of downtown. There are also call to electrify the line. That'll cost money, but diesel seems to be working fine for now. Here's a link to the O-Train for more details: http://www.octranspo.com/train_menue.htm