Poll asks why Cascades ridership is down

[CHamilton]

From the Seattle Times:

Amtrak ridership is down in the Northwest–is Bolt Bus to blame?Ridership on Amtrak’s Cascade route dropped four percent in the 2013 fiscal year, according to new numbers released today by the company.


In 2013, 811,692 passengers boarded a train along the Cascades route, which runs between Vancouver, B.C., and Eugene, Ore. That’s down from 845,099 passengers in 2012.

It’s not like Amtrak is doing badly everywhere. Nationally, Amtrak ridership increased by 1 percent, or more than 300,000 passengers, for a total ridership of nearly 31.6 million. That breaks for the record of 31.2 million set in 2012. Twenty of Amtrak’s routes set all-time records this year....

But in this corner of the country, we’re bucking the trend. The Cascades line’s 4 percent drop was the sixth biggest decline of any of Amtrak’s routes.

It represents a reversal from previous years.

In 2011, the Cascades line grew by 1.9 percent, and in 2012 it had only a slight drop of .8 percent. And a 2012 report published by the Brookings Institution showed that from 1997 to 2012, Amtrak ridership in the Seattle metropolitan area increased by 59 percent, and by 90 percent in the Portland metro.

So why a decline all of a sudden–could it be the upstart Bolt Bus?

The bus line, which is owned Greyhound, began service between Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver in 2012 at significantly lower fares than Amtrak. While the company will not disclose ridership numbers, a Bolt Bus spokesperson did confirm that customer response in the Northwest has exceeded expectations. The company has increased the frequency of service to meet the demand, and has added new routes; Bolt Bus now serves Bellingham, Eugene and Albany, Ore....

 

[williamn]

Maybe because there are only two trains a day between Seattle and Vancouver and they are *painfully* slow.

 

[fairviewroad]

I can't get the link to work.

That said, I wish the Seattle Times had consulted its own archives, in which case it would no doubt have discovered

quite a number of articles, including this one from last month, which notes:

Rainy slopes along Puget Sound canceled 40 passenger trains in 2005-06, which prompted frustration but could be dismissed as a freak event. Some years there were zero disruptions. But the last three seasons saw 70, 41 and 206 lost trips, respectively.

So FY12 had 41 lost trips due to mudslides, while FY13 had 206 lost trips. I'm guessing the additional 165 lost trips accounts for a good chunk of

the 4% decline, since a canceled train can in many cases mean two canceled tickets as people who were going to take Amtrak round-trip instead

just drive (rather than accept a bustitution). And other people probably booked away from Amtrak (whether to BoltBus, a personal car, or airplane)

due to the repeated news articles about the cancellations, regardless of whether their specific trip would have been impacted.

I'm not saying BoltBus has had zero impact. In truth, it probably has made a bit of a dent. But to throw out numbers like that without taking into

account the effect of last year's horrible cancellation rate.

A better comparison would to check the year-over-year numbers for the SEA-PDX segment specifically, since that one was mostly unaffected by

mudslides.

 

[CHamilton]

I can't get the link to work.

You may be having trouble with their paywall. Try opening the link in an incognito window.

 

[EMDF9A]

I tend to agree with Fairview. I think the decline in ridership has much more to do with the mudslide cancelled trips than any competition from BoltBus. I sure hope this season has significantly less cancellations!

 

[HDouthwaite]

I am an occasional traveller between Vancouver, B.C and Seattle. In the past twelve months I have taken four trips, two by Greyhound/Bolt Bus and two with my own personal vehicle. I'll be taking another trip next week with BoltBus.

WilliamN has a significant point about the rail service between Vancouver and Seattle, it takes more than twice as long by train as it does by personal vehicle. I believe there are a number of reasons for this...

1. The service primarily operates along a freight-owned corridor, not a major problem except for the 79mph restriction and the unsatisfactory single-track line between Bellingham and through the first half of the line in British Columbia.

2. The service is operated as more of a local service instead of as an intercity rail service. The stops at Edmonds, Stanwood and Mount Vernon could easily be eliminated and replaced by either extending Sounder services or improving existing transit connections between Everett and Bellingham.

3. The section in British Columbia is along a congested, meandering route that is only single-track for the most part, and the main bottleneck is the single-track swingbridge over the Fraser River.

If I could travel between Vancouver, BC and Seattle in roughly 2 hours by intercity rail, I'd pay that little bit extra. Right now though, my own personal vehicle and Bolt Bus are the only feasible options for me.

I noticed that improvements are being made to the rail corridor between Seattle and Portland, OR. If these improvements could include quadruple tracking along the busiest sections of the entire corridor, and the introduction of a line speed of 125mph as is common-practice in the UK for main lines, the train would become a much more attractive alternative to driving or taking the highway-bus.

Ideally a 'new' corridor into BC would allow higher speeds and less congestion. Looking at current rail maps, an ideal solution would be to divert the Cascades services from Brunette Junction along the CP connector to Coquitlam, along the CP Main Line running non-stop to Mission, over the Fraser River at an improved crossing there, and running along the line through Abbotsford and through the border at Sumas and along a new rail corridor to Bellingham, linking up with the existing main line. This route could also allow for an intermediate stop at Abbotsford at a later date.

However I must agree that the mudslides are no doubt the main cause of the decline in passenger numbers, and this problem should be the first to be addressed.

 

[Anderson]

It seems to me that the slide is largely down to the slides...

Joking aside, I think Bolt Bus may have had an impact. What seems more likely is that unreliability piled up: If you get into seasons where every-other-day the trains are cancelled, people just won't book the train to start with...and over 200 cancellations is going to crimp your ridership with both direct (i.e. wouldn't take the bus) and indirect (i.e. unreliability-induced mode shifts) losses.

(By the way, remind me...were most/all of the cancellations north of Seattle? If so, then those cancellations would be a non-trivial share of trains run up there)

To the extent that Bolt Bus is gaining ground, reliability issues are to blame here...but the mudslides are at the heart of this whole issue.

 

[CHamilton]

By the way, remind me...were most/all of the cancellations north of Seattle?

Yes, most of the cancellations were between Seattle and Everett.

 

[Anderson]

By the way, remind me...were most/all of the cancellations north of Seattle?

Yes, most of the cancellations were between Seattle and Everett.

It's quite possible that the cancellations exceeded 10% of trains for the year.

 

[Nathanael]

Perhaps when we get station ridership counts for the year we'll be able to see whether the drop in ridership was primarily north of Seattle. I would expect it to be almost entirely north of Seattle, due to the massive mudslide disruptions there.

If there were serious drops south of Seattle, of course, it means something else is going on.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

This drop off in the rider count is awkward, coming after a decade and more of robust growth. The haters will seize on the slippage and tell their own story, true or false. They'll say Amtrak, the "Soviet-style railroad", as per Cong Mica, is getting wiped out by Bolt Bus, a private enterprise.

Truth is, obviously Amtrak got hit with mudslides too damn many times. BNSF and Washington DOT have done the studies, and are moving to remove or stabilize various threatening hillsides to reduce the number of future landslides, with work on two sites already this year.

Meanwhile, in this fiscal year, the new Talgo trains may be put to some use. As best I can figure out, one replaces an existing Talgo trainset while each existing one is rotated into a serious overhaul. And one older trainset will be chopped into pieces, so more cars can be added to the surviving trainsets. This will add nicely to capacity while the route is still limited to four Talgos plus the Starliner.

The rehabs of the older trains will mean a better product: better HVAC, lighting, Wi-Fi, and food service, with a business class car, etc. Operations will improve when the Oregon train can become a thru train to Seattle, instead of Oregon passengers changing trains in Portland.

The first new trainset will be subbing for the existing fleet while those cars get their rehabs, and it cannot get a slot from BSNF to add a frequency on the core section, Seattle-Portland, until $800 in upgrades are finished, in 2017. When the rehabs and improvements are in place, the Cascades trains will be much more reliable, will cut almost 10 minutes from the timetable, and become more frequent, going from four daily departures each way to six.

With the new Talgos boosting capacity in a sort of backdoor way, and offering a better product, the Cascades service will probably stabilize in passenger count for the next few years, if mudslides can be held town average number

An avalanche of riders will descend when the core route frequencies increase from 4 to 6., easily bringing the route over a million riders a year in fiscal 2018 to the Amtrak Cascades, Bolt Bus or no..

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

OK, don't blame me this time for talking about buses on a rail forum. I agree that the mudslides are the main problem. Bolt says ridership exceeded expectations, but bus ridership everywhere is exceeding expectations, yet not all Amtrak trains are losing pax like this. That's why buses get overbooked all the time, and that's why Greyhound's putting in a new computer system to try and stop overbookings. Greyhound ridership's going up so fast that they're buying every bus they have money for.

If Bolt is to blame for this, then every train route in the nation with bus competition would drop ridership fast. I don't think so, I think it's just due to the mudslides. Greyhound and Amtrak are growing parallel, but Greyhound has more capital so they're expanding faster. We're both pulling customers out of their cars, since car use has been steady or dropping for the last few years. Airline ridership is still growing slowly.

 

[Nathanael]

I did a little research and pretty much all of the remaining Cascades corridor improvements seem to be scheduled to start construction no earlier than 2015. This is not just the Pt. Defiance Bypass but also the various sidings and bypass tracks between Seattle and Portland, and also the King St. track rearrangement. They're all supposed to be started in 2015 and finished in 2017.

If the increase in frequencies comes immediately thereafter, there should be a massive boost in ridership in 2018.

Now, I rechecked the Washington State Amtrak Cascades "medium range plan" from 2008. The Pt. Defiance Bypass and the Vancouver (WA) Yard Bypass are required in order to add the fifth frequency. For the sixth frequency, it appears that two additional trainsets are needed (Oregon has bought two as you know) -- and the Kelso area projects need to be finished. All of this is in progress and the dealy to the Pt. Defiance Bypass is why the 5th and 6th frequencies will happen simultaneously.

Here's the interesting part. For the seventh and eighth frequency, it seems that two more additional trainsets are needed -- but perhaps WA can get the "Wisconsin Talgos" cheap. High speed locomotives are needed -- but WA is already in the process of requesting designs for these as part of the multi-state consortium. Beyond that, what was thought to be needed in 2008 is two sections of triple track and a crossover. Since then, it has become apparent that the Tacoma Trestle may also need replacement, but Sound Transit is heading that project because it's more important for them.

I think there is a very real possibility, if the mood at the State level manages to turn positive towards Cascades, that Washington State will manage to build the projects necessary for 8 frequencies by 2018 or soon after.

 

[afigg]

...

Beyond that, what was thought to be needed in 2008 is two sections of triple track and a crossover. Since then, it has become apparent that the Tacoma Trestle may also need replacement, but Sound Transit is heading that project because it's more important for them.

I think there is a very real possibility, if the mood at the State level manages to turn positive towards Cascades, that Washington State will manage to build the projects necessary for 8 frequencies by 2018 or soon after.

The 2 track replacement for the single track trestle bridge in Tacoma received a $10 million FY2013 TIGER grant. The total project cost is $54 million, but according to the FY13 TIGER grant fact sheet, Sound Transit is providing 71% of the funding. The fact sheet states the project will support expansion of "high-speed" passenger and commuter rail. One of the strategic grants from the limited FY13 TIGER grant program to advance the corridor projects. Searching for the Sound Transit news release on the grant award, the bridge project is expected to be completed in 2017. So, yes, 2017 will be the big year for improvements on the Cascades corridor.

 

[AlanB]

As best I can figure out, one replaces an existing Talgo trainset while each existing one is rotated into a serious overhaul. And one older trainset will be chopped into pieces, so more cars can be added to the surviving trainsets. This will add nicely to capacity while the route is still limited to four Talgos plus the Starliner.

The rehabs of the older trains will mean a better product: better HVAC, lighting, Wi-Fi, and food service, with a business class car, etc. Operations will improve when the Oregon train can become a thru train to Seattle, instead of Oregon passengers changing trains in Portland.

Amtrak just spent the last 3 years or so rehabbing the existing Talgo's; so I don't think that they're about to do it again.

 

[Anderson]

I'll be on the state-sponsored corridor analysis this afternoon...Accounting midterms stink.