Why isn't there a Metro Stop at Taylor's Run?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where would you even put a metro station to serve Taylor Run. Look at a map. West of King Street, the metro runs along a rail line south of Duke Street. If you can't walk to King Street Station, you aren't likely to walk across Duke.

Are you suggesting a brand new metro line to serve your little neighborhood of Single family houses?

Time to invoke Poe's Law. I know some annoying people in Taylor Run, but none so crazy as to suggest this.

Well, according to Google Maps, The furthest point of Taylor Run (where Lindsay Lexus is) is 2.1 miles and a 45 minute walk. That said, take a look at the metro track, it goes from NE to SW and the King St metro stop is the only place where the neighborhood intersects the metro line (zoom out to see the metro track). If you wanted to build the metro line that 1 or 2 miles into the neighborhood, it would be like $100K each way for a passenger to ride to make up the cost of putting in a side track just for the entitled neighborhood residents. Plus, they would block it because of NIMBY. No one wants their yard dug up and they'd fight tooth and nail to avoid it.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Taylor+Run,+Alexandria,+VA/@38.8157055,-77.0842964,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x89b7b10db2c67ebd:0x3f1a195ae190ec!8m2!3d38.8105951!4d-77.0765927

Googles map is also overstating the size of Taylor Run. It is a very small neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They really need to put one in. Thoughts?

My thought is they needed to put a very large parking garage at the King St metro.
If there were parking, people who live there would drive and park at the metro station and take metro.

I hate, hate, hate the magical thinking of "people will use public transportation to get to public transportation despite that adding anywhere from a half hour to an hour to their commute!"
There is no evidence that people in this area are going to abandon their cars even to go 1 mile.

No. The King/Callahan/Russell intersection is bad enough as is. There is nothing difficult about the 15-20 minute walk or 5 minute bus ride from Taylor Run. Talk about privileged.

How often do the buses come? I had this discussion with someone about Bethesda. I live more like 2-2.5 miles from the metro and drive in. It is too far to walk daily and the bus comes every half hour even in rush and would transform an 8-10 minute ride into 20+. Unless the buses came very frequently, which isn't realistic, there is just no way I am going to take the bus despite the cost of parking. This is particularly true since I have to get kids and get them to activities and the chance of bus routes lining up is very low.

It's simply a fantasy that some have that people will turn to public transportation to get to metro and restricting parking, as some advocate, is fool hardy.

Metrobuses now have pretty accurate GPS tracking which makes it a lot more pleasant to catch a bus

[Anonymous]

https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=432703f6abd745c18e56bc653bbf95d4&extent=-77.4352,38.7339,-76.6154,39.0748

That's a population density map of the inside the Beltway region. You can see there are some other areas with more people that need service.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

How often do the buses come? I had this discussion with someone about Bethesda. I live more like 2-2.5 miles from the metro and drive in. It is too far to walk daily and the bus comes every half hour even in rush and would transform an 8-10 minute ride into 20+. Unless the buses came very frequently, which isn't realistic, there is just no way I am going to take the bus despite the cost of parking. This is particularly true since I have to get kids and get them to activities and the chance of bus routes lining up is very low.

It's simply a fantasy that some have that people will turn to public transportation to get to metro and restricting parking, as some advocate, is fool hardy.

Yes, I agree, we need more frequent bus service. This is a thing that is possible!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so weird. “Why doesn’t my random small neighborhood of single family homes 1 mile from a Metro Station have its own Metro station?”

+1. This is like one of the conversations I have with my 7yo where he asks if he can have a helicopter/boat/spaceship (a real one) and I tell him he can have one when I get my unicorn.

[Anonymous]

Most people try to buy near Metro if they can. Metro does not come to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

How often do the buses come? I had this discussion with someone about Bethesda. I live more like 2-2.5 miles from the metro and drive in. It is too far to walk daily and the bus comes every half hour even in rush and would transform an 8-10 minute ride into 20+. Unless the buses came very frequently, which isn't realistic, there is just no way I am going to take the bus despite the cost of parking. This is particularly true since I have to get kids and get them to activities and the chance of bus routes lining up is very low.

It's simply a fantasy that some have that people will turn to public transportation to get to metro and restricting parking, as some advocate, is fool hardy.

Yes, I agree, we need more frequent bus service. This is a thing that is possible!

Only if there is a demand. WMATA has been cutting back on bus service and killing routes because of low ridership. The only way to get more frequent bus service is if the passengers will ride and pay for the service. If there isn't a significant demand, then you'll never get more service. And frankly a neighborhood of single family homes tends not to have a high enough ridership to increase bus service. Most of those residences have cars and use their cars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While we are on the subject, can we please get an extension to Centreville?

2nd!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While we are on the subject, can we please get an extension to Centreville?

2nd!

This actually makes logical sense and I think was part of the original design

[Anonymous]

Am I in some parallel universe where there is a Metro Stop in every single neighborhood and Metro is a workable transportation system that people actually use to navigate the whole city?

[Anonymous]

Hybla Valley is more deserving

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Am I in some parallel universe where there is a Metro Stop in every single neighborhood and Metro is a workable transportation system that people actually use to navigate the whole city?

Metro IS a transportation system that people actually use to get a variety of places. And yes, extensions to Centreville and Hybla Valley are realistic and worth talking about. Building a new metro station, a mile from an existing one, in a neighborhood of detached SFHs, is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

How often do the buses come? I had this discussion with someone about Bethesda. I live more like 2-2.5 miles from the metro and drive in. It is too far to walk daily and the bus comes every half hour even in rush and would transform an 8-10 minute ride into 20+. Unless the buses came very frequently, which isn't realistic, there is just no way I am going to take the bus despite the cost of parking. This is particularly true since I have to get kids and get them to activities and the chance of bus routes lining up is very low.

It's simply a fantasy that some have that people will turn to public transportation to get to metro and restricting parking, as some advocate, is fool hardy.

Yes, I agree, we need more frequent bus service. This is a thing that is possible!

Only if there is a demand. WMATA has been cutting back on bus service and killing routes because of low ridership. The only way to get more frequent bus service is if the passengers will ride and pay for the service. If there isn't a significant demand, then you'll never get more service. And frankly a neighborhood of single family homes tends not to have a high enough ridership to increase bus service. Most of those residences have cars and use their cars.

WMATA is also doing a regional study of routes that will look at rationalizing - cutting service in some places but adding frequency in others, etc. City of Alexandria is also doing a study (including both DASH and Metrobus) and I think is considering adding general fund $ to increase frequency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They really need to put one in. Thoughts?

My thought is they needed to put a very large parking garage at the King St metro.
If there were parking, people who live there would drive and park at the metro station and take metro.

I hate, hate, hate the magical thinking of "people will use public transportation to get to public transportation despite that adding anywhere from a half hour to an hour to their commute!"
There is no evidence that people in this area are going to abandon their cars even to go 1 mile.

No. The King/Callahan/Russell intersection is bad enough as is. There is nothing difficult about the 15-20 minute walk or 5 minute bus ride from Taylor Run. Talk about privileged.

How often do the buses come? I had this discussion with someone about Bethesda. I live more like 2-2.5 miles from the metro and drive in. It is too far to walk daily and the bus comes every half hour even in rush and would transform an 8-10 minute ride into 20+. Unless the buses came very frequently, which isn't realistic, there is just no way I am going to take the bus despite the cost of parking. This is particularly true since I have to get kids and get them to activities and the chance of bus routes lining up is very low.

It's simply a fantasy that some have that people will turn to public transportation to get to metro and restricting parking, as some advocate, is fool hardy.

Metrobuses now have pretty accurate GPS tracking which makes it a lot more pleasant to catch a bus

I'm PP and I agree that helps, but only so much when the bus only comes every 30 minutes. It may not be possible to time leaving in the morning to the bus (e.g. the metro bus left right after the school bus and I couldn't afford to wait 30 minutes for the next one) and it is even harder to try to time things on the backend when a metro ride precedes catching the bus. And of course the bus still take a good bit longer than driving yourself.

With the gps I have definitely been times I have used the bus in the morning when I had flexibility or got lucky. If I got lucky on the backend, great, if not an uber home is about the same price as parking. But it just isn't a viable alternative most days.

The cost to have the buses come every 5 or 10 minutes would be staggering and I still don't think demand would improve that much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm PP and I agree that helps, but only so much when the bus only comes every 30 minutes. It may not be possible to time leaving in the morning to the bus (e.g. the metro bus left right after the school bus and I couldn't afford to wait 30 minutes for the next one) and it is even harder to try to time things on the backend when a metro ride precedes catching the bus. And of course the bus still take a good bit longer than driving yourself.

With the gps I have definitely been times I have used the bus in the morning when I had flexibility or got lucky. If I got lucky on the backend, great, if not an uber home is about the same price as parking. But it just isn't a viable alternative most days.

The cost to have the buses come every 5 or 10 minutes would be staggering and I still don't think demand would improve that much.

There is a well-established, solid relationship between increased frequencies and increased use. Your own experiences explain why.

The costs of road construction are staggering. If we instead used that money for transit, bike lanes, and sidewalks, we could really get somewhere.