Ownership of the LV and EL ROW North of Mortimer Junction

erie2521 wrote:One of the problems with resurrecting the 1972 plan is that a good piece of the trackage that existed then is gone now, in particular, the subway and the Lehigh/Erie out to Jefferson Rd.

Well, not to further the pipe dream of light rail in Rochester, but much of the infrastructure along the way is still intact - the subway tunnel, the trestles over the Genesee River, Canal and I-390... much of the ROW is still usable (some of which would involve street running through the UofR campus).

But the sticker price is still high in this day and age of the ADA and the years of red-tape and delays that will slow down progress as every government agency gets involved and every NIMBY group throws up roadblocks.

Les, you're quite right about the "sticker price" being high. I read somewhere a number of years ago that the price to restore the Falls Road would be as high as a million per mile! And that would be just to re-lay the track on a "clean" gravel roadbed with no appreciable regrading or reconstruction needed. (Can someone confirm/deny this number?) As for the Lehigh and/or Erie routes, the cost would be much higher due to the additional work that would be needed to restore the basic ROW. Yup, just another "entertaining" pipe dream. Like how I once thought it would be a good idea to link the ferry terminal with High Falls with light rail. That ROW would need even more work. For example, I recently took a look at the old RW&O trestle near Beebee on maps.live.com. I didn't know until then that the west side approach had been excavated to make room for a (new?) trucking company!

Scott K.

RRTC's engineering report quoted a price of $10 million for a demonstration "shuttle" route between Charlotte and the Amtrak station. Those costs were for equipment, rudimentary station facilities, scheduling, marketing, and bus connections.

http://www.ggw.org/rrtc/report/

-otto-

nessman wrote:But the sticker price is still high in this day and age of the ADA ....

Which is what I love about government intervention in trade: rather than some people being served well, and others served poorly, nobody is served at all.

Anybody else see this month's Trains Magazine article about less-than-perfect Amtrak platforms?

Otto Vondrak wrote:RRTC's engineering report quoted a price of $10 million for a demonstration "shuttle" route between Charlotte and the Amtrak station. Those costs were for equipment, rudimentary station facilities, scheduling, marketing, and bus connections.

http://www.ggw.org/rrtc/report/

-otto-

Thanks, Otto, looks like interesting reading.

Scott K.

railwatcher wrote:Uof R also has the added Strong hospital facility that might increase ridership. The big thing about it all is that RTS has done an absolutely horrible job in servicing and routing.

In defense of RTS, the intra-campus bus service at RIT and UofR was subsidized by the colleges. Within the past couple of years the colleges decided to go with their own intra-campus shuttle service. The RTS routes that now service the campuses are largely to transport the public to/from the campuses. As this service receives taxpayer subsidy, RTS has to run these routes based on actual customer demand - in other words run buses when and where people want to ride them in a concentrated timeframe and geographical area to maximize efficiency. They've done a pretty good job of increasing route productivity based on the numbers - rather than running buses along routes because that's how it was done in the past (and at an incredible financial loss - not that public transportation can sustain itself but you have to maximize the money you receive from state/federal sources as well as farebox revenue).

Just keep in mind that buses are a very flexible form of public transporation - you can run buses any time and anywhere so long as you are not exceeding posted weight limitations and height restrictions. With light rail you don't have that flexibility as they run along a fixed corridor and must adhere to rules and timetables in order to prevent collisions.

nessman wrote:

railwatcher wrote:Uof R also has the added Strong hospital facility that might increase ridership. The big thing about it all is that RTS has done an absolutely horrible job in servicing and routing.

In defense of RTS, the intra-campus bus service at RIT and UofR was subsidized by the colleges. Within the past couple of years the colleges decided to go with their own intra-campus shuttle service. The RTS routes that now service the campuses are largely to transport the public to/from the campuses. As this service receives taxpayer subsidy, RTS has to run these routes based on actual customer demand - in other words run buses when and where people want to ride them in a concentrated timeframe and geographical area to maximize efficiency.



Just keep in mind that buses are a very flexible form of public transporation - you can run buses any time and anywhere so long as you are not exceeding posted weight limitations and height restrictions. With light rail you don't have that flexibility as they run along a fixed corridor and must adhere to rules and timetables in order to prevent collisions.

That is true although, being I have been priveldged to the inside ear of this from the colleges standpoint, and RTS has failed to adjust routes and stay on schedules on a regular basis. Many times of the day or evening students are stranded by the #24 bus in particular, ging to and from RIT. Because of this each college has opted away from RTS and gone with individual contract carriers that will opt to adjust the colleges demands. Furthermore, in seeing how each college operates their transportation contracts, it is highly doubtful that they could come to any agreement over scheduling and demands on the system usage.

LOl oh man I thought I'd never see the day... Bus discussion on the New York State Forum! Nessman made his point about bus routes being more flexible than fixed rail routes, railwatcher made his point that bus service is not always reliable.

Let's swing back to either the EL and LV Rochester Branches, rail transit in Rochester, or call it a day, please.

Acknowledged!

Otto Vondrak wrote:LOl oh man I thought I'd never see the day... Bus discussion on the New York State Forum! Nessman made his point about bus routes being more flexible than fixed rail routes, railwatcher made his point that bus service is not always reliable.

I worked for RTS from 2003 to this past November. They've worked hard to improve the service and to make it much more customer oriented and efficient. But with any service there's always room for improvement, fine tuning and trying to meet customer demand in a cost-effective manner. But, there's only so much a state/federally funded entity can do before crossing the line into non-compliance with applicable law when certain routes begin to have the appearance of a privately funded service (they just won a major court case with the Rochester City Schools contract that debated a somewhat similar issue). It's a very delicate balance - but win-win for everyone when done right.

Anyway... sorry to "derail" the topic... although the original Rochester Transit ran trolleys which were serviced on the very property I used to work at so there!

Scott K wrote:Les, you're quite right about the "sticker price" being high. I read somewhere a number of years ago that the price to restore the Falls Road would be as high as a million per mile!

With that in mind, I found the"How much does it cost?" article in the January issue of Trains very sobering. The cost of (re)construction is definitely something to consider before investing precious tax dollars in a light rail system that may or may not work here in the Rochester area. The county has a rather tight budget, so I'm not sure how much they could contribute to such a project.

http://www.rochestertrolley.com/

I drew maps for these folks, too.

-otto-

Matt Langworthy wrote:

Scott K wrote:Les, you're quite right about the "sticker price" being high. I read somewhere a number of years ago that the price to restore the Falls Road would be as high as a million per mile!

With that in mind, I found the"How much does it cost?" article in the January issue of Trains very sobering. The cost of (re)construction is definitely something to consider before investing precious tax dollars in a light rail system that may or may not work here in the Rochester area. The county has a rather tight budget, so I'm not sure how much they could contribute to such a project.

Funding for this type of project would come largely from Federal funds with the State and local sources kicking in the rest. Typically these funds are funnelled through an MPO such as GTC who prioritizes where the money goes.

Demand for light rail in Rochester isn't enough to justify the costs and we have a lot of highway infrastructure that needs TLC first. Bus transit is the way to go in smaller cities because it costs less and you have far more flexibility to change routes to meet demand. Geographically, this isn't a narrow, densely populated corridor like Long Island where commuter trains make sense.

ok, back to the topic of Mortimer Jct, can anybody show me how it was configured when still in operation? I am looking at the jct. from live search and i can see nothing of how the Erie tied into the tracks. I see how the LV tied in, but no Erie.
Thanks.
Sean

Look at Google Maps. Go to satellite view. You'll see the streak of right of way where the Erie used to run parallel to the LV. You'll be able to follow them all the way up to the River and up to Court Street.

See Silvarole Street off of Jefferson Road in Henrietta? That big looping track was the connection Conrail built to tie in the former Erie with the former LV Rochester Branch. The Erie used to go straight through what is now a Ryder Truck lot or something.

http://maps.google.com

-otto-