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Before long, all cities, big and small, will have light rail.
Cities love to compete with one another, building the tallest skyscraper, building the biggest sports arena, having the biggest/finest museum, and cities don't like being criticized or embarrassed or shamed.
That, alone, will propel more light rail. I can see it coming: This city bragging about how many rail lines they have, another city bragging their rail cars are fancier or more colorful, another bragging more of their lines go underground, etc. etc.
Tourists will also help to bring this about. As tourists become more addicted to traveling to cities with better mass transit/light rail they'll get spoiled, and begin to demand it in their travels, being met outside the Airport terminal by a train and looking for hotels within a short walk of a train stop, leading to car-less vacations.
I'm taking one in Dec. Gonna try out Dallas' new light rail system, and then onward to Denver, Salt Lake City and Sacramento, and try theirs and compare. I'm getting to that point in my travels: No light rail, no come.
My guesses for future light rail lines: Milwaukee, San Antonio (now that Austin/Dallas/Houston have it, why be left behind?) Cincinnati.
Las Vegas? Oh please! Where people love their cars enough to sleep in them at night?
San Antonio definitely needs to step it up. Especially since they are a tourist attraction with The Alamo and The Riverwalk.
Seattle. They just opened the first leg of their light rail line from (almost) the airport to downtown, and have future expansion planned to the University District and to the eastside, ending in Redmond. This makes sense because the Seattle - Bellevue - Redmond and Seattle - Northside areas are the most congested in the area.
Seattle sorta had heavy rail but it really only ran along the coast, from downtown Seattle to Everett, and almost nobody took it.
Where did you come up with your information that Seattle sort of had heavy rail?
We still have heavy rail Sounder trains that run between Seattle and Tacoma, and from Seattle to Everett and ridership is booming.
New York City Subway is too crowded for me. I went there for my birthday in Sept and felt like I was being molested because of all the people. So Some trains above ground on the street, maybe and enhanced streetcar service would help that city.
And whats with the letters and numbers they did not help me. I ended up in The Bronx trying to get to my hotel room in New Jersey. but I did meet some friendly people that helped me
And whats with the letters and numbers they did not help me. I ended up in The Bronx trying to get to my hotel room in New Jersey. but I did meet some friendly people that helped me
New York City Subway is too crowded for me. I went there for my birthday in Sept and felt like I was being molested because of all the people. So Some trains above ground on the street, maybe and enhanced streetcar service would help that city.
And whats with the letters and numbers they did not help me. I ended up in The Bronx trying to get to my hotel room in New Jersey. but I did meet some friendly people that helped me
I've never been on a train that crowded (but I don't take the subway that often), I hope they don't build anymore above ground subways, they are very ugly. The numbers and letter are the different subway lines (ex: the E train goes from the World Trade Center to Jamaica, Queens). The PATH (different subway system) goes from Manhattan to New Jersey, the NYC Subway runs only in 4 boroughs.
You can't trust the car-loving voters on this issue, it's well-documented.
As more Kansas Citians travel to St. Louis and other cities with rail and they actually experience it firsthand, the experience, for many, will follow them back to KC and minds will be changed.
In Minnesota, I was told that there was no support for light rail up there, but Governor Ventura pushed it through regardless of the screams and howls of the voters.
Now, they can't believe they've lived so long without it and this Fall they will be opening a line that will radiate out of downtown to the NE suburbs. A Southwest or St. Paul corridor next?
People get a little taste of it and they become quickly addicted to this new toy in town. Yes, it's a toy, an expensive toy, but aren't all Americans fond of expensive toys?
This is what L.A. is going to accomplish in the near future:
And the thing is we have about 3 rail lines that we're working on that aren't even on these maps. We hope to get all of these lines built in 30 years (or less if we can procure $$$ for all of these projects).
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It will come to Kansas City, count on it!
