From: heller@deepsoft.com

At Wed, 23 Apr 2014 09:39:01 -0400 Sancho Panza 
wrote:

>
> On 4/23/2014 12:00 AM, Glen Labah wrote:
> > In article ,
> >   Stephen Sprunk  wrote:
> >
> >> On 22-Apr-14 08:58, conklin wrote:
> >>>
> >>> How nice 2% of stops might have something near them.  Now they need,
> >>> like the RRs, a $60 million station like Raleigh is planning at
> >>> public expense for a couple hundred passengers a day.
> >>
> >> If the local taxpayers want to build some extravagant monument to
> >> wasteful spending, as in Raleigh, that is their choice, but it's not
> >> _necessary_, nor should Amtrak be saddled with the cost of such
> >> wastefulness.
> >
> >
> > It's probably best to read about this supposed "extravagant monument"
> > before judging what George has written.
> >
> > According to their web site:
> > http://www.ncdot.gov/projects/raleighunionstation/
> > the existing station is frequently overcrowded and has platforms that
> > are too short to serve longer trains.
>
> Here are their figures:
>
> "Project Overview and Purpose
>      Currently four daily round trip passenger trains serve the Raleigh
> Amtrak Station: New York to Charlotte Carolinian, Raleigh to Charlotte
> Piedmont (2), and the New York to Miami Silver Star. Two additional
> Raleigh to Charlotte Piedmont round trips are planned in the near future
> to meet increasing service demands.
>      The Raleigh Amtrak Station served 164,000 passengers in 2012,
> making it one of the busiest Amtrak stations in the Southeastern U.S. .
> . .
>      The two waiting rooms in the existing Raleigh Amtrak Station
> provide only 1,800 square feet of passenger waiting space, often
> requiring passengers to wait outside."
>
> That is 450 passengers a day, a sum that is then split among eight train
> departures. If that is called overcrowding, they must have never seen
> any of the busier platforms in the NJ Transit or L.I.R.R. systems. And
> NJ Transit closes waiting rooms and bathrooms at many stations for long
> periods, anyway.

Commuter rail passengers don't usually have much luggage and rarely wait very
long for a train. Also they are not people who are arriving at a 'unfamilure'
city after sitting on a train for hours. Most of the people at NJ Transit or
L.I.R.R. stations are business people or students or other people who make the
trip (almost) every day who arrive less than 10-15 minutes before the train
departs and are only carrying minimual 'luggage' (eg a briefcase or bookbag).
When they detrain, they know where they are going (to their office, class,
home, etc.).  That is, they are people who are doing more *moving* and less
*waiting*, than the people at a LD train station, like the one at Raleigh.

>
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Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller@deepsoft.com
Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
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