Light Rail In Des Moines? (Cedar Rapids, Iowa City: college, live in, young professionals)

[El Rhino]

Originally Posted by RonnieJonez

DSM should be hosting the Super Bowl tonight, after all, Des Moines tallest building is 52.49ft taller than Tampa's tallest.

I tend to agree but let's be careful what we say here. Omaha does have a building that is 10 feet or something like that taller than the tallest building in Des Moines....

[Northern Traveler]

Originally Posted by dsmguy

how is that any more delusional than a place with a bunch stinky cereal and barley plants thinking it is silicon valley?

haha :d

[thatguy1]

Originally Posted by zz4guy

This thread is rediculous. WHy is it everyone from DesMoines area has a warped view of realtity? They think they are living in some megatropolis that has a demand for all this stuff.

How long does it take to get to work? A typical 25 minute drive? If you take some train it will take longer because you will have to park, wait for the train, get on the train, then when you get to the destination, walk to wherever you're going to.

Trains are fun the first day, but you start to miss your car when you have an errand to run or get sick of waiting for the train in -10 degree weather.

Find another way to waste your money, DSM.

With that logic people could say, "who needs the skywalk system"? It would take just as long to walk on the sidewalks and not be a big puss and bear the elements.

The size of a city, for the most part, is an arbitrary gauge of which city is more qualified for this type of public transit. It's more about layout, tourism, Airport/Downtown location, nightlife and demographic locations (i.e. getting low income neighborhoods to jobs).

Light Rail/Street Cars is also a very useful tool to spur further urban development.

I don't think a complex "Chicago Style" layout would be for Des Moines, but certainly a line from the airport to downtown...or something similar.

Further, within the next 5-10 years, I would bet my house the price of oil will change people’s minds.

[thatguy1]

Originally Posted by RonnieJonez

DSM should be hosting the Super Bowl tonight, after all, Des Moines tallest building is 52.49ft taller than Tampa's tallest.

Lol, that's funny because you actually had to take the time and effort to find Tampa's tallest building and find difference from Principal's building.

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by projectmaximus

Add Kenosha, Wisconsin or Little Rock, AR to your list. Some of the smallest cities with successful streetcar lines. Little Rock is considering a second expansion since opening a little over four years ago (and adding a second phase 2 years ago).

True, but they're not really true light rail in a sense of commuters and rush hour service, etc.

Kenosha's system is a heritage system about 1.5 miles long that does a loop from the Metra Station through downtown. It gives around 3,000 rider per month. Most decent light rail systems give at least 30,000 or more rides per day.

Little Rock's is a heritage line as well, and had 200,000 rides in a year. A few hundred a day.

Not dissing them, but when you talk about light rail you think more of the systems in St. Louis, Portland or San Fran

[Chicago60614]

It's all about density density density. Des Moines is a great city, but honestly, there are MANY more pertinent things the city could do than construct light rail.

Traffic isn't too bad, most people have cars, and there aren't really any rational places that need to have light rail connecting them.

It works great in larger cities because people can just walk to a station, and downtown parking is a huge pain.

Our society is so sprawled out now that it's really hard to have heavily traveled mass transit without the density to support the systems. Even the new systems in cities like Houston, Phoenix and Dallas have just a fraction of the usage of large dense urban areas in Asia and Europe, or cities like NYC, Boston or Chicago.

We need to start building denser to bring out the advantages of light rail.

[RonnieJonez]

Originally Posted by burgerflipper

Lol, that's funny because you actually had to take the time and effort to find Tampa's tallest building and find difference from Principal's building.

I remember seeing a list somewhere about cities Des Moines claims to be taller than.

Yet, not even Des Moines, can outdo the Alpha World Major City of Omaha.

[capitalcityguy]

Originally Posted by Chicago60614

We need to start building denser to bring out the advantages of light rail.

There is some real truth to that.

[MastermindDSM]

Originally Posted by RonnieJonez

I remember seeing a list somewhere about cities Des Moines claims to be taller than.

Yet, not even Des Moines, can outdo the Alpha World Major City of Omaha.

Well lets remember it took Omaha 11 years to catch up to Des Moines, and I am sure they had 801 Grand in mind when determining how high to go. Official sizes: 801 Grand: 192 meters -First National: 192.9 meters. Not quite 3 feet!

[SharpHawkeye]

Originally Posted by Chicago60614

We need to start building denser to bring out the advantages of light rail.

Or do we need to build light rail to encourage denser building? It's almost a chicken and the egg argument...