Atlanta Heavy Rail - In Context

A heavy rail system is an electric railway with the capacity to handle a heavy volume of traffic.  The term is often used to distinguish it from light rail systems, which usually handle a smaller volume of passengers.  [Wikipedia]

Although the recent vote on a regional transportation tax failed to garner support, Atlanta is still considering its options for improved transportation.  Most notably, this involves the reduction of automobile traffic, and central to such a possible reduction is the 48-mile long heavy rail system currently operated by MARTA.  The rail system was designed to provide regional transit, but for a variety of reasons has been limited to serving only portions of Fulton and DeKalb Counties.  It is helpful to examine this heavy rail system in the context of all heavy rail systems in the United States.

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At this writing, there are 99 rail transit systems in the United States in 52 cities.  Of these 99 systems, I consider 15 to be heavy rail systems, based upon this Wikipedia source page.  In these 15 cases, the system meets the criteria of traffic volume, and all are part of a larger system of rail transit lines, buses and other forms of transportation.  Here, some comparisons:

Traffic Volume

New York City Subways

• New York City subway (2,499,514,500)
• Washington, DC Metro (290,203,500)
• Chicago L (221,587,400)
• Boston MBTA (160,512,000)
• San Francisco BART (114,325,400)
• Philadelphia SEPTA (99,706,500)
• New York PATH ( 76,480,400)
• Atlanta MARTA (74,236,400)
• Los Angeles Metro Rail ( 46,964,500)
• Miami Metrorail (18,295,500)
• Baltimore Metro (14,939,700)
• San Juan, PR Tren Urbano (10,770,100)
• Philadelphia PATCO (10,506,400)
• Cleveland RTA (5,687,300)
• Staten Island (4,583,500)

In terms of traffic volume, the Big Apple is worthy of its name, but the traffic numbers quickly fall off, with Washington Metro handling about 11% of what New York handles.  At one point, I was examining passenger traffic in relation to population density, but I don’t think that it is a useful measure for comparison between systems.  That is, New York is densely populated, so much so that automobile ownership is an option for many New Yorkers.  On the other hand, Atlanta virtually requires automobile ownership because of lower population density.  Yet, both cities need rapid transit.

System Route Length

Washington Metro

• New York City subway (232 miles)
• Washington, DC Metro (106 miles)
• San Francisco BART (104 miles)
• Chicago L (103 miles)
• Atlanta MARTA (48 miles)
• Boston MBTA (38 miles)
• Philadelphia SEPTA (37 miles)
• Miami Metrorail (24 miles)
• Cleveland RTA (19 miles)
• Los Angeles Metro Rail (17 miles)
• Baltimore Metro (16 miles)
• Philadelphia PATCO (14 miles)
• Staten Island (14 miles)
• New York PATH (14 miles)
• San Juan, PR Tren Urbano (11 miles)

Again, New York comes out on top in terms of system size, a reflection of the traffic density of that system.  You move that many people, you need the trackage.  Again, the Washington system is smaller, but this time it is 46% smaller than New York.  Washington is one of three systems that are of comparable length.  Atlanta’s heavy rail system is the longest of the next group of three systems, followed by another group starting with Miami.

 Order of Construction

• Staten Island (1860)
• Chicago L (1892)
• Boston MBTA (1897)
• New York City subway (1904)
• Philadelphia SEPTA (1907)
• New York PATH (1908)
• Philadelphia PATCO (1936)
• Cleveland RTA (1955)
• San Francisco BART (1972)
• Washington, DC Metro (1976)
• Atlanta MARTA (1979)
• Baltimore Metro (1983)
• Miami Metrorail (1984)
• Los Angeles Metro Rail (1993)
• San Juan, PR Tren Urbano (2004)

Who says nothing ever happens on Staten Island?  This system, along with several others, started life as a steam locomotive powered railroad, with electrification coming around the early 1900′s.  The early systems, from Staten Island to the predecessor company to PATH, were, to my knowledge, all initially funded with private capital.

Construction Capital

In the case of the Staten Island system, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad controlled it for many years.  In the case of PATH, it originally operated as the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, with joint operations by the Pennsylvania Railroad.  In other cases such Philadelphia’s SEPTA, these were originally privately funded commuter operations of both the Reading and the Pennsylvania railroads combined with a branch of the Philadelphia & Western Railroad.  These privately operated transit operations would eventually became municipally public governmental owned systems.

The observant will have noticed that there is a long gap of time between the opening of NY’s PATH and  Philadelphia’s PATCO.  PATCO would be the first to be funded by a governmental entity; please see here.  In part, this time gap is due to the substantial presence of street car and interurban systems throughout the United States, but especially in the Northeast, Midwest and Pacific coast regions.  Notable among these electric traction companies were the Pacific Electric (1000 miles), the Chicago interurbans (North Shore, South Shore, and the CA&E) and others.  These systems were also typically funded with private capital, and many of the streetcar systems of that era were owned by the local power company.

Pacific Electric

Many of these systems, both streetcar and interurban would suffer in the Great Depression.  And, as the country suffered, so did private capital.  One notable case involved Samuel Insull, but it was more than that.  Just as people currently hate their cable company, people in that era hated the wealthy and hated the traction companies.  Always eager to please, the United States Congress passed the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935.  This act was:

a law that was passed by the United States Congress to facilitate regulation of electric utilities, by either limiting their operations to a single state, and thus subjecting them to effective state regulation, or forcing divestitures so that each became a single integrated system serving a limited geographic area. Another purpose of PUHCA was to keep utility holding companies engaged in regulated businesses from engaging in unregulated businesses.

What the financial depression had not killed was killed by the Act.  Where once the streetcars and interurbans had been supported by local electric utilities, now these systems were closing at a rapid rate.  The automobile finished the job and by the end of World War II, public transit systems were either gone or moribund.  The PATCO line was the sole exception, and it was constructed by a governmental entity.

After another long gap of time, Cleveland is another turning point, where a system originally built with private capital slowly morphed into a publicly funded institution.  The City of Shaker Heights bought the Shaker Heights Rapid Transit from the estate of developers.  This system was their lifeline to the commercial center of Cleveland.  Government was getting into the transit business.  When Cleveland’s heavy rail system was begun in the 1950′s, it was done by means of a loan from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, an independent agency of the United States government.

Cleveland Rapid Transit

Cleveland would be the first city with a rapid transit connection to their airport.  And Cleveland is often used as an example of the success of rapid transit in a middle-sized city.  Cleveland was a turning point; from there on, construction of transit systems became policy of the Federal government, via UMTA.

What followed were five systems which can be described as modern “heavy rail”.

San Francisco BART

These systems are:

• San Francisco BART (1972)
• Washington, DC Metro (1976)
• Atlanta MARTA (1979)
• Baltimore Metro (1983)
• Miami Metrorail (1984)

About 10 years later (1993), the Los Angeles system opened.  It should be noted that while previous systems were heavy rail lines served by buses or streetcars, the Los Angeles system is a combination of heavy rail (2 lines) and light rail, both of which are coordinated with bus service.  In 2004, the San Juan, Puerto Rico Tren Urbano line opened.

System Trends

The heavy rail systems have had their day.  It seems unlikely that any new heavy rail systems will be constructed in the United States.  After the burst of construction that began with BART in 1972 and ended 12 years later with Metrorail, transit construction has shifted its focus to light rail.  The notion of a heavy rail system being central to a rapid transit system has been supplanted by light rail systems.  And, after MARTA, the size of the subsequent heavy rail systems has tapered down.  MARTA is 48 miles in length; Baltimore’s Metro is 16 miles in length.  The systems in Baltimore and Miami are shorter in length in part because of the costs of construction and operation.  The notion of heavy rail systems has been supplanted by light rail.

Consider this page on light rail systems in the United States.  MARTA opened up for service in 1979 with the East line between Georgia State and Avondale.  Since that time, twenty-five light rail systems have opened in the United States.  To be sure, some of these systems are very short, less than five miles in length, but they still serve as transit systems.  In several cases, such as Dallas, these light rail systems are very long, up to 75 miles worth of track.  Nearby Charlotte’s line is about 10 miles long.

In part, the light rail approach has become popular because it is “good enough”.  The costs of construction are considerably lower, typically ranging between $15 to $100 million per mile, depending upon tunneling costs.  Please see the “Costs” section, here.  Heavy rail construction ranges between $200 million to $400 million.  During the recent transportation tax brouhaha, it was estimated that constructing a line connecting Emory with the Lindbergh MARTA station would cost $170 million per mile.  Please see my thoughts on the matter, here.  And, this is just talking about the costs of constructing heavy rail lines.  Once in place, heavy rail costs more to operate and costs more to maintain.

The Wrong Choice?

In looking at the Atlanta heavy rail lines in context, I’m left wondering if we have built too much, with an emphasis on the wrong approach.  Of course, it’s too late to just walk away from the project, but I’m left wondering if the heavy rail system in Atlanta is more than we need.

Yes, I know that they are building a light rail line, but that line will not serve the average commuter.  Atlanta’s light rail venture is too little and does not serve an existing transit market.  Please see my comments, here.  Presumably, there will be further development of light rail transit in Atlanta and Georgia.

In the larger sense, there is the dawning reality that the Atlanta heavy rail system is not efficient.  Heavy rail systems, are by their nature, able to handle heavy traffic loads.  Yet, the Georgia heavy rail lines are running increasingly infrequent trains because of the disparity between the costs of operation in relation to what the fare gate collects.  Even the conservatives are noticing this problem; please see Kyle Wingfield’s words on the matter:

Few transit riders of choice have it easier than me: I can go from my front door to the Lindbergh rail platform in 10 minutes, and my office is across the street from the Dunwoody station. The whole trip should take about 25 minutes, roughly the average amount of time it takes me to drive.

But I stopped taking MARTA because even a one-minute delay on my part could mean waiting 15 minutes or more for the next train — increasing my commute by more than half. No thanks, especially when the cost compared to driving is a wash at best.

In context, MARTA is slowly circling the drain.  They cut bus service to save costs, which leads to fewer riders on the core heavy rail system.  This drop in ridership leads to further cutting train service.  This on a system which has the capacity to operate a train every five minutes, perhaps even more.  At the moment, trains run every 15 minutes, but with the next cost cutting cycle, these headways will drop to 20 minutes, and ridership will dwindle again.

There will come a time when MARTA cannot sustain itself, and at that time, the State of Georgia is the likely candidate for operating the heavy rail system in Atlanta.  Perhaps at that time, the notion of using the heavy rail lines of Atlanta will become palatable to those living outside the Perimeter Highway.  This was the intent of the designers of the Atlanta heavy rail lines all along.  Please see the proposed system drawing below and note that it extends out into the Atlanta region: