Light Rail

[The Terminator 0]

Does your town/city have light rail?

The nearest Light rail line to me is in Newark and Jersey City,NJ.

Newarks subway is a LRT line wich connects Downtown Newark to the Semi-Urban suburb of Bloomfeild.

and the Hudson Bergen Light rail is an LRT line that links the Urban centers of Bayonne, Jersey City and Hoboken.

www.lighrailnow.org

www.njtransit.com

Personally, i think there should be some form of Elevated LRT line in Manhattan, this would greatly reduce traffic, and congestionof overcrouded busses. Since Manhattan is always gridlocked, i find it unreasonable why ANYONE would take a Bus in Manhattan.

Share your thoughts on Light Rail.

[leonel1982 7]

Portland has the MAX that covers the metro area east and west of Portland. The blue line goes all the way from Gresham through Portland to Hillsboro. The red line goes from Portland to the Airport and there's a new yellow line that goes from Portland to a convention center very near the Washington state border.

http://www.trimet.org

[transitbuddie 0]

San Francisco has a light rail network and we are trying to extend the existing network. There are 6 lines, the J Church, K Ingleside, L Taravel, M Oceanview, N Judah, and the S Castro Shuttle. All lines start underground in the downtown part of San Francisco, underneath Market Street and exit the tunnel and extend towards the southern parts of town. San Francisco used to have a very extensive streetcar/light rail system. There used to be one that correponded to almost every bus line. They took out almost every line because of operating costs. Now the city regrets the decision made in the 1950s, as many of the corridors that used to have light rail lines have a lot of congestion (Geary Boulevard/Van Ness). We are trying to rebuild a few light rail lines, but the funding the city does not have enough money to build any kind of rapid transit for the time being.

Some great pictures of the Muni Metro light rail system can be found here:
http://world.nycsubway.org/us/sf/munimetro.html

Around 1998, Muni replaced the computer system in the Muni Metro, which caused the Metro Meltdown, where the light rail system had many flaws and was malfunctioning. Now the system is very fast and I can get downtown from Haight St in less than 10 minutes on the N Judah.

[MallowTheCloud 41]

Date: 8/6/2005 3:15:58 PM
Author: leonel1982
Portland has the MAX that covers the metro area east and west of Portland. The blue line goes all the way from Gresham through Portland to Hillsboro. The red line goes from Portland to the Airport and there's a new yellow line that goes from Portland to a convention center very near the Washington state border.


http://www.trimet.org

quote>

Plus, they're planning on building a new (Green) line south to Clackamas Town Center.

[slightlyslack 20]

Los Angeles has three distinct light rail lines: the Blue Line, the Green Line, and the Gold Line.

 

The Blue Line runs along a former Pacific Electric Red Car right-of-way from downtown Los Angeles to downtown Long Beach.  Except in the last few hundred meters of its route in downtown Los Angeles, it is entirely at grade level.  Known as the Ghetto Blue because it goes through some of the poorest and most violent areas in greater Los Angeles (Watts, Compton, North Long Beach), it isn't especially fast--45 minutes from Long Beach to Los Angeles is typical, which is about the same speed as driving at rush hour--but it's extremely heavily used.  If I'm not mistaken, with something like 70,000 daily boardings, it's the busiest single light rail line in the United States.  It opened in the late '80s and was a success from day one.

 

The Green Line, on the other hand, is a prime example of why political expediency should not be the principal criterion in transportation planning.  When it was planned in the '80s, it was decided that it should run in the median of the Century Freeway that was then under construction, from Norwalk in the east to El Segundo in the west, then turn south until the border of Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach. The idea was that folks who lived in Norwalk, Bellflower, and other such working-class suburbs could ride the train to the aerospace factories in the area south of LAX.  Unfortunately, by the time the Green Line went through, the aerospace industry had pretty much gone bust, and not many residents of southeastern Los Angeles County worked in the aircraft plants anyway.  Most of the Century Freeway's route is not especially densely populated, and so the Green Line has largely been a flop: initial ridership estimates from its opening in the mid-1990s weren't exceeded until last year.   It passes within a mile of Los Angeles International Airport, but does not directly serve the airport (you have to take a shuttle instead); this is because of opposition from the city's taxi drivers, who didn't want a train line serving the airport.   Future MTA plans include a spur from the Green Line that will serve LAX, then continue north along Sepulveda or Lincoln Boulevards through Westchester and Marina Del Rey, and perhaps all the way to Venice Beach.  It would be nice if this spur linked up with the Exposition Line about to break ground (q.v.)

 

The Gold Line goes from eastern Pasadena to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, through the old neighborhoods of northeastern LA and the Old Town area of Pasadena.  It was built by the city of Pasadena, not by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, but is operated by the MTA.  It is at grade level, and in many cases is too close to the street, so it is very slow and takes well over 45 minutes on a route that, even at rush hour, rarely takes over 30 by car.  It opened in 2003, and has been moderately successful; ridership will likely increase if northeastern LA continues to gentrify.  For some insane reason, the MTA thinks it would be a good idea to extend it along the old Pacific Electric ROW it owns all the way to Montclair, in San Bernardino County, even though the potential ridership densities in these areas simply don't exist.

 

Currently, a second leg of the Gold Line is under construction.  It will go east from Union Station through the predominantly Mexican neighborhoods of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles, and will be a subway through most of Boyle Heights.  This route will probably get more ridership than the original Gold Line because many residents of East LA work in downtown.

 

After several decades of legal wrangling, a line along Exposition Boulevard from the 7th/Flower station downtown to Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica will probably break ground either next year or the year after.  It will run primarily at grade level.  The first phase will go from 7th/Flower to the eastern border of Culver City, most notably passing by USC and Exposition Park (the site of the L.A. Coliseum, which will probably be the new home of whatever team the NFL chooses to move to Los Angeles).  The next phase, for which funding is always up in the air, will go down the median of Venice Boulevard through my neighborhood, Palms, then cut north along Sepulveda Boulevard before turning west at Sepulveda and Pico and continue all the way to downtown Santa Monica along former Pacific Electric ROW.  Santa Monica has already started setting aside land for stations, and it may well be that the line gets built by an authority created by the cities of Santa Monica and Culver City.

[slightlyslack 20]

In re light rail in Manhattan:

The issue of grade separation at intersections is of great importance.  The 42nd Street light rail line that I've seen proposed won't be all that much faster than the M42 (which is supposedly the slowest bus line in the United States, and is a good bit slower than walking) if it has to wait at the red lights at Broadway and the avenues.  Using signal priority circuitry is absolutely out of the question because it would conflict with the signal priority circuits being used by MTA buses on the avenues, and would have a catastrophic ripple effect on traffic throughout Midtown anyway.

 

It would make much more sense to build an elevated rail line, but the property owners along the way would howl, I'm sure.  I think another subway tube might be in order...maybe one that goes all the way under the Hudson and into Weehawken.  Street-level light rail doesn't work in a city as dense as Manhattan.

[buddybud 63]

heres some pictures of light rail in our nations capitol..ottawa....this is a new project and runs on existing rail lines and consists of just one north south line....it will probably be expanded...or...scrapped...who knows..

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//ottawa01.jpg align=baseline>https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//ottawa02.jpg align=baseline>

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//ottawa03.jpg align=baseline>https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//ottawa04.jpg align=baseline>https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//ottawa05.jpg align=baseline>

[AddisonWesley 2]

The TTC in Toronto currently operates 305.8 km (roughly 190 miles) of streetcar track in the city.  There are eleven lines:

 

501 - Queen
502 - Downtowner
503 - Kingston Road Tripper
504 - King
505 - Dundas
506 - Carlton
508 - Lake Shore
509 - Harbourfront
510 - Spadina
511 - Bathurst/Exhibition
512 - St Clair

 

During the postwar times right up to the 1990s, many north american cities were abandoning streetcars with the exception of a few (Boston, etc.)  Toronto continued to operate its streetcars until the 1970s-1980s when it too started abandonment of streetcars.  Luckily, it was quite late in the game and so Toronto retained almost half its original streetcar lines.  Unlike the newer 'off the shelf' streetcars or trams found in many cities today, the TTC operates and maintains a streetcar design used no where else in the world (CLRV - Canadian Light Rail Vehicle).  The streetcars also operate mainly in pre-WW2 style, mixed with traffic and stopping frequently at request stops like buses.  To this date, the TTC operates the largest streetcar system in north america and is looking to expand as well.

[DuskTrooper 314]

Houston Light rail:

[toxicpiano 125]

a small amount of south london has a tram running through it. boroughs of croydon and merton i think.

[SC4BOY 20]

As pretty as they may be and as appealing as they are to us oldtimers who remember streetcars and old time passenger rail, Lightrail gobbles up CA$H faster than the respective city counsels can shovel it in!

Take a look at ALL those pics. What is the single most obvious thing you observe? They are EMPTY and the stations are EMPTY.. only the VERY MOST congested and constrictive correodores in the US can do anything but burn CA$H.

 

Problem is EVERYONE in the US owns at least one and frequently several cars and they will HOLD FAST to the convenience of them until the highways burn (or maybe when the price of gasoline reaches about 7.50US per gallon)!! Can't speak to other countries, but in the US almost EVERY SINGLE lightrail system is just a hole into which money is poured, thereby taking money from any possible REAL solution to travel.

 

 

[NiagaranEagle 74]

Date: 8/17/2005 5:19:56 AM Author: SC4BOY

As pretty as they may be and as appealing as they are to us oldtimers who remember streetcars and 'old time' passenger rail, Lightrail gobbles up CA$H faster than the respective city counsels can shovel it in!

Take a look at ALL those pics. What is the single most obvious thing you observe? They are EMPTY and the stations are EMPTY.. only the VERY MOST congested and constrictive correodores in the US can do anything but burn CA$H.

Problem is EVERYONE in the US owns at least one and frequently several cars and they will HOLD FAST to the convenience of them until the highways burn (or maybe when the price of gasoline reaches about 7.50US per gallon)!! Can't speak to other countries, but in the US almost EVERY SINGLE lightrail system is just a hole into which money is poured, thereby taking money from any possible REAL solution to travel.

quote>

 

Not all Lightrail in America is so empty.  in fact, The Hiawatha Lightrail line in Minneapolis, carried far more passangers than was ever expected for the completed line----BEFORE it was even finnished, upon completion, it wisks along thousands of commuters every day, (between 15,000 and 20,000)...the entire trasit system, busses and the one rail line, move a total of 75,000 people per day!  thats a HUGE chunk of the total transit ridership!! and, when you ride the train, it is not, as you say EMPTY, and the stations are not EMPTY either.  The Hiawatha LRT may be the exeption, and not the rule, but it is working here, and the goal was to encourage people to give up the car to loosen up the daily gridlock on Twin Cities roads, and people ARE giving up the car!

 

[Bank 0]

I know the L in Chicago is not a light rail system. It's heavy rail. And so are the METRA trains. But I have to say that train planning seems to have been done fairly wisely in Chicago. A half million people take the L, 300,000 take the METRA, so that's about 10% of the population commuting. Certainly not enough. A major problem with the L is that it seems heavily biased toward the north side of the city, even though 2/3 of the city lives south of the Loop, and even then, there are three lines running along the eastern shore of the city (Red, Purple, Brown) making the northside and North Shore far more commuter friendly than other areas of the city. There are always talks of building more outer loops to create a more functional network consisting of interlocking/overlapping circles rather than the half-hub-and-spoke model...

[hikariyuugi 0]

There is so much Rail in Tokyo! closest station in my neighborhood is ?

[vester_DK 477]

hikariyuugi, as you sayed yourself, that is a rail line, not a light rail line.

In Copenhagen we don't have any light rail, but there disqustion about it. A ring line outside the center of town, aprox 10 km out.

EDIT: It's the blue line:

The dark lines are the commuter trains (S-trains/s-tog) and the metro lines.
The other color lines is proposals, which I don't think will become nothing of.

[hikariyuugi 0]

I am not sure the difference of Light rail and rail.

[vester_DK 477]

Light rail is like a modern version of the tram. The trains are shorts like trams. They are also lower weight than normal trains. Most of the times it's runs at street level, along them, mostly in it's own traze. The stations are simple, mostly like busstops.

[AddisonWesley 2]

Not all are empty.

[+Guest JetRanger]

Brussels
Belgium has a light rail system. Once you enter the city you can see trams in many of the city's roadways.
But it's not really a new idea. THey use older trains I think because they have an extensive bus service and a subway system.

[Mr. Cortez 11]

Washington, DC does not have one, but we are working on getting a test line in the near future.

Our sister city, Baltimore, had one for years...

[SC4BOY 20]

 people ARE giving up the car!

 

So tell me..how many times a week do you ride this train? How many times a week do your parents? your sibling? your children? How many miles a week do you or your family drive? Have they sold their cars yet? The point is even under their best planning they usually are just a subsidized money loser with city employees that use strikes and union rules to foul it up even if it does work for a while.. You needn't answer.. the questions are rhetorical ...

 

I'm only a dispassionate observer.. and one who sees a proposal for light rail in my city come up for vote every 3 yrs or so.. they keep trying here (columbus oh) and it has absolutely NO CHANCE of working here as anything other than a city/developer boondoogle.. maybe when the metro area triples in size.. who knows..

 

personally I think a bus system designed to the individual .. maybe with lots of minivans..... rather than (or perhaps in concert with) rail etc has any chance of working in the bigger USA..

And in general our bus system sucks too.. it also is a huge money drain..

 

I've ridden many public transports in my life, and trust me even the very best are only a begrudging, forced choice to an auto.. and we of course are paying the price for it..

 

hikariyuugi .. yes the USA HAD this kind of train /trolley service 100 years ago.. .. it died a sad weighty death ..

[mikeseith 457]

And for my 2 cents. I also think rail and light rail in many cases are too expensive. Busses are much more efficient than trains and on a per person basis polute less (the power for electric trains has to be generated somewhere). Many modern busses can be very comfortable also.

In many cases the better (cheaper) solution to trains is a bus line on a dedicated bus only road. The infrastucture is much less money and much more flexible than rails. Don't get me wrong, I hate it when local officials talk about running express bus routes down gridlocked roads expecting traffic to get better. Given the choice most of us would rather sit in traffic in our own cars instead of on a bus.

Now. That said, I think trains are great even if they are a bit of a luxury in many cases.

[slightlyslack 20]

Date: 8/17/2005 10:50:13 PM Author: mikeseith And for my 2 cents. I also think rail and light rail in many cases are too expensive. Busses are much more efficient than trains and on a per person basis polute less (the power for electric trains has to be generated somewhere). Many modern busses can be very comfortable also. In many cases the better (cheaper) solution to trains is a bus line on a dedicated bus only road.  The infrastucture is much less money and much more flexible than rails.

You'd be surprised.  Bus-only roads have the same problem of ROW acquisition as do rail lines.  Moreover, because of their acceleration behavior, buses are slow, much slower than trains overall even if the peak speeds are the same.  Whereas an electric train can basically explode out of the station and is limited only by the passengers' G-tolerance, it takes buses a long time to accelerate from a dead stop to cruising speed; this is even more so the case if the bus runs on natural gas combustion, like most clean air buses.  (Of course, one could go with diesel buses to get better acceleration, but then one gets diesel smoke--and smog.)  A city could do like San Francisco does and string catenaries everywhere and run electric buses, but by the time they've installed that infrastructure, it's cheaper to lay down rail instead of asphalt!  San Francisco only had the catenaries sitting around because they never completely tore out their streetcar system, the way most American cities did.

 

Los Angeles is building a busway through the San Fernando Valley, the Orange Line, that will have an average speed of 20 mph.  Even at the worst rush hour, that's considerably slower than driving on the 101 freeway, which runs about a mile south of the busway.  Considering that it doesn't run through any major commercial corridors, I can guarantee that the Orange Line will be a bigger flop than, say, a light rail line (let alone a subway) down Ventura Boulevard might have been.

 

As far as operating costs go, it's actually a wash between buses and light rail.  Diesel is damn expensive, and so is natural gas, but in most places electricity is pretty cheap.  Trains don't have to kneel to accommodate the handicapped, and they don't go over potholes, so they don't require nearly as many suspension repairs as do buses.  (Even a bus-only road is going to develop potholes--it's not like it doesn't rain or snow on busways.)

 

Light rail is a stupid idea for small cities and a lot of medium-sized ones because of the capital costs, but it can be a much better deal than buses for mid-sized and large cities that are willing to spend the political effort to built LRT lines along corridors with sufficient density to generate ridership.  The fact that cities like Curitiba and Ottawa, whose bus rapid transit systems are lauded by rail skeptics, are quietly building rail systems (a full-on subway, in Curitiba's case) is a testament to the limitations of BRT.

[slightlyslack 20]

Date: 8/17/2005 10:34:40 PM Author: SC4BOY

personally I think a bus system designed to the individual .. maybe with lots of minivans..... rather than (or perhaps in concert with) rail etc has any chance of working in the bigger USA..

 

Paratransit, which is what you're describing, is extraordinarily expensive if individuals want any sort of flexibility.  It's a decent solution for the elderly and the disabled in low-density areas, but they're generally willing to deal with week-long waiting lists for a ride somewhere.

 

Gas isn't going to get any cheaper than it is right now; the refineries are running full tilt, adding refining capacity is virtually impossible (and most of the refiners don't want to do so, since they got caught with their pants down in the oil price collapse of 20 years ago and aren't about to saddle themselves with debt), and crude oil prices are well on their way to record highs in real terms.  Most of the sprawl development that has taken place in the last 10-15 years has catered to the lower middle classes; these are the people who are getting killed the most by high fuel prices, and they're going to have to resign themselves to the fact that exurban living is not viable in a $3-gasoline environment.  There won't be an abrupt bitchslap upside the head gasoline price shock of the sort that New Urbanists like James Kunstler have predicted, but there will be a considerable movement toward densification in cities and inner-ring suburbs.  Look for it to start on the coasts and gradually move its way inland.

[lakeyboy 12]

Melbourne, Australia is known the world over for it's extensive tram network
We call them trams. They are basicly the same thing as Light Rail except we call the tram lines Light Rail when they run along lines which trains were used. There are four different ways Trams are situated in Melbourne.

1. On Their Own (Just track with no road at all)
2. On the road but in their own area on it
3. On the road but cars can share the lane with Trams. (trams always have right of way)
4. In the median of a dual carrageway road

For A map of Melbournes Tram Network, copy the following address into your browser (I've tried a link and it doesn't work properly):
http://www.imgcity.net/server/primary/Melbourne%20Tram%20Network.PNG
Because it's about 400kb and 2164 x 1277 in size, it was too big to put in a post.

And considering the posts in this thread, the Melbourne system is very well used and is at the moment better than the train system in my oppinion. (Considering not every train station in Melbourne is staffed and/or has proper fencing and ticket turnstiles)

Pictures of the new Route 75 Tram Route Extension
Since it opened only less than an month ago, there aren't many pictures of the extension but I'm planing to get my digital camera and take some (better) pictures myself of the new extension. I live quite close to it so thats good, but here is what i've found so far:

City Bound Tram Stop 73 (Springvale Road)
http://www.imgcity.net/server/primary/Tram_Stop_73.jpg align=baseline>

Tram on tracks just past Tram Stop 74 (Stanley Road)
http://www.imgcity.net/server/primary/Tram_Stop_74.jpg align=baseline>

The Vermont South Terminus / Interchange Tram Stop 75 (Here you can change to a Route 732 Bus which takes you to Knox City Shops. And when you get off a tram, a bus is there waiting for you and vice versa.
http://www.imgcity.net/server/primary/Tram_Stop_75.jpg align=baseline>

I will post more pictures as I take them. And also, the trams in the pictures are Melbournes newest type of tram but some older style trams usually run along the 75 route. I doubt anyone on SimTrop would have gone or even known about this.

ADDITION: I've found some more pictures, but these ones are pretty small. Anyway...

Burwood Highway between Vermont South & Springvale Road
http://www.doi.vic.gov.au/DOI/Internet/planningprojects.nsf/e8a380222d121b0fca2569220019d543/051a3daf097281d1ca256f31001ef7fc/Body/1.3764?OpenElement&FieldElemFormat=jpg align=baseline>

Vermont South Tram / Bus Interchange
http://www.doi.vic.gov.au/DOI/Internet/planningprojects.nsf/e8a380222d121b0fca2569220019d543/051a3daf097281d1ca256f31001ef7fc/Body/2.2970?OpenElement&FieldElemFormat=jpg align=baseline>http://www.doi.vic.gov.au/DOI/Internet/planningprojects.nsf/e8a380222d121b0fca2569220019d543/051a3daf097281d1ca256f31001ef7fc/Body/1.78A?OpenElement&FieldElemFormat=jpg align=baseline>

I will post more as I find more.

[Bank 0]

I've ridden many public transports in my life, and trust me even the very best are only a begrudging, forced choice to an auto

quote>

No way! Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Brussels, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, Portland, Washington, New York City--none of these are begrudging.

Sure, you can go places in a car--but the places to go are already linked to trains and if there aren't any trains there aren't enough people to sustain an interesting place to go anyway! Parking is a nightmare, so is traffic, and so is driving in a car in general.

[Slowhand 0]

DuskTrooper, you beat me to it.

Anyways, yeah pretty much thats Houston's brand spankin' new light rail.

[Ninja12 3]

 

My City San Jose CA

 

The Extensions

our new low floors

http://www.all-transit.com/logos/VTALogo.GIF width=471>

[transitbuddie 0]

Date: 8/19/2005 7:06:02 PM
Author: Bank

I've ridden many public transports in my life, and trust me even the very best are only a begrudging, forced choice to an auto

quote>


No way! Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Brussels, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, Portland, Washington, New York City--none of these are begrudging.


Sure, you can go places in a car--but the places to go are already linked to trains and if there aren't any trains there aren't enough people to sustain an interesting place to go anyway! Parking is a nightmare, so is traffic, and so is driving in a car in general.

quote>

I absolutely agree with you, Bank. When I lived in Paris, I avoided riding in any car for one year. There is no building in Paris that is more than 500 meters from a subway stop. In the suburbs, the RATP (the transport company) has such a good and reliable bus system to and from train stations, you can go anywhere (except for in the middle of the forests in the suburbs, where no one lives...). The bus system is faster than the cars as the traffic is horrible in the center and the buses can go down dedicated lanes. Plus walking is always an option!

---------

We are trying to get a light rail down Geary Boulevard in San Francisco. We had a streetcar line line about 50 years ago, but it was torn out. The scheduled time from the Beach to the Transbay Terminal (downtown) was 41 minutes on the streetcar, but now with the buses, it takes more than an hour.

San Francisco passed Prop. K, a 1/2 cents sales tax that will help the expansion of rapid transit in San Francisco, but none of the studies has focused on the Geary light rail. The funding that SF Muni gave to the Third Street Light Rail project left Geary with not enough money to build a light rail line, although there are more than 50,000 people (per day) who take the lines down Geary Boulevard and over 100,000 passengers who take Geary Boulevard Lines and the adjacent lines (within a two block radius), comparing to the Third Street lines with 15,000 passengers per day.

We are trying to get bus lanes down Geary, but we will not have any sort of transit improvement until 2010-2011. We are going to build rail ready BRT lanes. There will already be rails in the ground so we can quickly convert the right of way lanes to light rail in 2020-2030.

The total cost of building the BRT (phase 1) and the light rail subway tunnel will cost about 1.35 billion dollars. Of course we will not have the funding for any kind of rapid transit for the next few years.

[louisville327 0]

SC4BOY:

Your entire argument falls apart once the oil runs out. Peak production---worldwide---is estimated to be within the next THREE years. After the peak, oil production begins decreasing, worldwide, forever. Until it's all gone.

In the meantime, gasoline prices---and the price of just about everything else---starts to go up, and keep going up.

While gas is still relatively cheap in the US, some light rail and other transit systems will remain unused. As long as it is economically possible to drive a car or ride a gas-powered bus anywhere they want to go, people will do so. But once gasoline prices reach a certain level, people will HAVE to turn to mass transit systems in order to move around. They won't have the easy choice of driving.

Be grateful you live in a place with a light rail system at all. In Louisville, our city government has sat on its hands for so long that any possible light rail system is literally decades away---and it will be far too late to ease the pain caused by skyrocketing gas prices...