IOWA CITY, Iowa — Bus riders in the Iowa City area are being asked for their opinion on a possible commuter rail line, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reports.
Riders traveling to and from the University of Iowa on three bus lines serving the campus will be asked to voluntarily take part in surveys conducted by Kansas City-based ETC Institute. Surveys will continue on weekdays through the remainder of the year.
The proposed rail line would run approximately 7.1 miles between Iowa City and North Liberty, using the existing right-of-way of Class III short line Cedar Rapids & Iowa City. A 2016 feasibility study projected the service, using diesel multiple-unit trainsets, would have initial capital costs of just over $40 million and annual operation and maintenance costs of $1.39 million.
Does anyone remember the “commuter rail “system” installed in Burlington VT (home of U of Vermont) back in the 1990s? Average ridership per trip was in the single digits. Commuter rail belongs in multiple-million population metropolitan areas. Transportation planning does not consist of drawing lines on a map. If it were, kindergarten students might do a better job than the unscrupulous staff of WSP.
Mr. Sellz, your statement re: “Amtrak ridership is high when it serves college towns” is not universally true. The failed Brunswick extension of the Downeaster carries an average of 125 daily riders spread over 5 round trips or about a dozen passengers per train. A poster below points out that ridership in Burlington Vermont was in the single digits before discontinuance. College students prefer to drive if they have a car or hitch a ride with friends if they don’t. Amtrak schedules are too infrequent and/or too slow for the majority of college students. Plus unless the station is right on campus they need to get to it, another inconvenience.
This is just an attempt by the consultants and their politician friends to extract more money from the taxpayers for their foolish ideas and to line their own pockets.
I am always supportive of commuter rail service as an alternative to more roads and the cost to maintain them. The traffic on I-380 between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids is horrendous. The Iowa DOT is looking to expand the 20-mile stretch to three lanes at a cost of milliions. There was a serious effort in the 1990s to establish passenger rail from city to city on the CRANDIC line, but the project was deemed too expensive. There were too many road crossings and ridership projections were not adequate–Iowans love their cars and highways. Also, there is a relatively new commuter bus between CR and IC that seems to be popular. A more realistic proposal might be from the burgeoning suburb of North Liberty to Iowa City, 8 miles on the CRANDIC, putting people adjacent to the University of Iowa, the hospitals and downtown Iowa City (again, there is bus service). Much will depend on the costs. I’d rather see the focus and money go toward extending the proposed Amtrak service from Chicago to the Quad Cities another 50 miles to Iowa City. Amtrak ridership is high when it serves college towns.
Mr. Marynowych: No. As a Des Moines resident I can say that the DSM metro does not need passenger rail. It’s pretty easy to get from one side of town to the other by car. Congestion isn’t a real issue here. Plus, a couple of rail lines that might have been ideal for passenger service (the former CNW Ames-Des Moines main through Ankeny, for example, has been pulled up north of I-80) are gone. I seem to remember one proposal to use the IAIS line from downtown out to West Des Moines, then on the ex-MILW, now UP Waukee branch for a commuter line, but it went absolutely nowhere. The appetite for passenger rail just doesn’t exist here in central Iowa.
Side note about the CRANDIC: since it was built as an interurban, it has tighter curves and steeper grades than a normal Class I freight line. So only 4-axle locomotives and short consists are allowed on it.
Does Des Moines need train service?
Charles Landey – “Like Ann Arbor or Lansing/ East Lansing and I’m sure many other college towns, a problem is that the university sprawls where the city center doesn’t, fragmenting the commuter market.”
Me – This. The College Park Metro/MARC station is a 13 minute walk from the *edge* of the U of MD campus per Google Maps.
The Cedar Rapids & Iowa City(CRANDIC) is the crazy part of it. CRANDIC goes and has gone everywhere you want to go. Downtown Cedar Rapids, the airport, Coralville, University of Iowa, and the sports stadium, Iowa City, as well as many of the major employers in Iowa City and some others in Cedar Rapids.
CRANDIC a long time ago had a fair amount of passenger business. Just didn’t make any money at it. The passenger side was kept afloat by cross subsidy from the power company which evolved from it and then became the parent company.
Iowa City has all the problems of a college town and some of its own problems – limited parking, congested roads, rugged landscape forms …. and as an opportunity barely utilized freight rail corridors. Does this translate into ridership for commuter rail? Depends in part on where the train goes from and to. Like Ann Arbor or Lansing/ East Lansing and I’m sure many other college towns, a problem is that the university sprawls where the city center doesn’t, fragmenting the commuter market. Also one must consider college students’ or employee’s schedules and how they vary from one day to the next. A student or a university employee might want a ride home at 2:00 PM one day and 11:00 PM the next. A half-baked commuter rail service won’t cut it.
The commuter line might not cut it but the consultant’s fee surely will.
“Picture this: a wider I-380 from North Liberty to Cedar Rapids”
“Cutler said in studying I-380, the Iowa DOT considered alternatives including active traffic management — implementing variable speed limits, hard-shoulder running and ramp metering to regulate traffic flow — as well as alternate travel modes such as buses or using the CRANDIC line for a trolley or passenger rail. Ultimately, planners found that adding lanes in each direction was the best way to go.”
“https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/government/picture-this-a-wider-i-380-from-north-liberty-to-cedar-rapids-20191106
Restoring passenger service from Cedar Rapids to Iowa City is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Passenger rail should be restored for the entire 27 miles between Downtown Iowa City (adjoined to the west by my Alma Mater, the University of Iowa) and Downtown Cedar Rapids. The Cedar Rapids and Iowa City (CRANDIC) upon which these trains would run, goes through the middle of the campus of the University of Iowa, crossing the Iowa River where the Student Union stands nearby on the east bank.
Potential intermediate stops include the University of Iowa, the neighbouring City of Coralville (where UI also has a satellite campus) and the Cedar Rapids Municipal Airport.
As everywhere else, widening I-380 would only encourage more driving; and then congestion again becomes chronic.
Mr. Landey: The CRANDIC route is not really just a barely used freight rail corridor.
Yes, freights are all that run on it now and given that most freight interchanges at the IAIS South Amana yard now, not that many freights.
But CRANDIC was built as in interurban. Located where the population was. The proposed route would effectively connect the area by the old Iowa City Rock Island station (for when passenger trains return there), the main campus and downtown Iowa City (since they’re right next to each other/interwoven, the UI Hospitals and the campus on the western side of the Iowa River. Coralville’s downtown. The Coral Ridge Mall is right nearby. The UI Oakdale campus is right on the line. As are residential areas in North Liberty.
For starting a passenger rail service, that’s a pretty impressive list. Lots of people going back and forth in that corridor, for all kinds of reasons. It’s a corridor that can eventually be extended to Cedar Rapids, including the airport just south of Cedar Rapids.
And a conceptual schedule is just that: conceptual. I have no doubt that once started, the service hours would expand with later/earlier departures. But it’s got to start somewhere.