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Often rail is the best but with dedicated bus lanes it is an effective system.
And many times it's not the best option. And it's always the more expensive option. Some places simply don't have the density to justify massive expenditures on rail. And some routes can be served just as well by bus.
I'm not sure where this bus/rail ideological divide came from. Whenever buses are suggested, there are some people that literally go ape and call you a rail hater. Rail makes sense to me in high-density corridors. I can standby LA's new subway construction. The Second Avenue Subway makes sense to me. The Silver Line makes sense to me. I think some people construe "rail" opposition in some cases to rail opposition in all cases.
I'm also not sure why we lump all "rail" into one category. When people express an anti-rail bias, they are probably thinking of a subway or El that's completely unimpeded by traffic, not a streetcar that runs in mixed-traffic. Yet advocates will often claim that "rail" is overwhelmingly preferred without breaking down the different kinds of "rail."
As a policy matter, I don't object to creating disincentives to driving. I think less driving, on the whole, is a good thing.
My objection is just to lavish and unnecessary spending on transit (which will always be seen as "necessary" by rail boosters because rail does everything from generate economic development to curing cancer).
I agree. Rail is now the "golden goose" of urbanism, just like "slum clearance" was 50 years ago. That is why 50 years from now, people like the urban advocates on here will look back and laugh at the BILLIONS in public money that was spent on light rail. Not, mind you, that I am opposed to all light rail.
I agree. Rail is now the "golden goose" of urbanism, just like "slum clearance" was 50 years ago. That is why 50 years from now, people like the urban advocates on here will look back and laugh at the BILLIONS in public money that was spent on light rail. Not, mind you, that I am opposed to all light rail.
I guess it all depends on what your goal is. Is your goal fast and efficient travel? Or is it fast and efficient travel and status?
Why would a city like Nashville ever need rail-based transit? There's the argument that if you build high-density development (which in Nashville's case probably means a few stories) without "transit" (because buses obviously don't count), then all of the development would just fail due to congestion. Therefore, some form of rail, whether it be LRT or streetcar, is necessary to relieve all of the crowding in those 9,000 ppsm density tracts.
Then there's also the argument that "people" (read: "me") simply won't ride a bus. Therefore, it is necessary to spend 10 times as much on a technology that does the same thing in order to coax people onto transit. The problem with this argument is that we see that people simply "get on the bus" when they have to. And if a bus is clean, and offers a short ride from your gentrifying urban core nabe to your downtown office building, why wouldn't you ride it? There are thousands of yuppies in Arlington, VA that ride buses. Why wouldn't they ride them in Nashville, Atlanta, Houston, Jacksonville, Charlotte, Raleigh, etc?
50-60 years ago when I was growing up on the West Side of Chicago many, probably most, of the people in the neighborhood didn't own cars. And they weren't coffee carrying trendy young tech workers either, they were tradesmen, office workers, factory workers, schoolteachers, businessmen, city workers, politicians---just regular working and middle class people. There were many buses available and both the Lake St. and Congress ELs were close by. Most of the buses and all the EL trains ran 24 hours a day back then.
Of course there were a lot more jobs in the city then, I remember the buses being crowded with people going to work at the big Zenith plant up on Austin Blvd.
Exactly. 50 years ago cities large and small had good transit. Better than most do today. We have made cars the de facto standard, and that doesn't make much sense. We have made it so that the only option is driving for all people. Transit has other benefits besides keeping cars off the road. Transit users walk more and get more incidental activity than drivers do. When our infrastructure is car only, we do not create streets designed with more uses in mind (edge strains, cyclists and cars).
There is no reason that a city of any size can't have a denser walkable section served by transit.
And many times it's not the best option. And it's always the more expensive option. Some places simply don't have the density to justify massive expenditures on rail. And some routes can be served just as well by bus.
I'm not sure where this bus/rail ideological divide came from. Whenever buses are suggested, there are some people that literally go ape and call you a rail hater. Rail makes sense to me in high-density corridors. I can standby LA's new subway construction. The Second Avenue Subway makes sense to me. The Silver Line makes sense to me. I think some people construe "rail" opposition in some cases to rail opposition in all cases.
I'm also not sure why we lump all "rail" into one category. When people express an anti-rail bias, they are probably thinking of a subway or El that's completely unimpeded by traffic, not a streetcar that runs in mixed-traffic. Yet advocates will often claim that "rail" is overwhelmingly preferred without breaking down the different kinds of "rail."
If they don't have the density for buses they don't have the density for cars. States should not build roads for every person who lives in the middle of nowhere.
I agree. Rail is now the "golden goose" of urbanism, just like "slum clearance" was 50 years ago. That is why 50 years from now, people like the urban advocates on here will look back and laugh at the BILLIONS in public money that was spent on light rail. Not, mind you, that I am opposed to all light rail.
In 50 years we will be laughing at sprawl and the huge stupid road system.
And they don't. A lot of places in the rural South still have dirt roads.
You don't have to go far here, there are a few dirt roads within a mile or two of me. The majority of roads up in Vermont are unpaved (by miles, not by use).
Exactly. 50 years ago cities large and small had good transit. Better than most do today. We have made cars the de facto standard, and that doesn't make much sense. We have made it so that the only option is driving for all people. Transit has other benefits besides keeping cars off the road. Transit users walk more and get more incidental activity than drivers do. When our infrastructure is car only, we do not create streets designed with more uses in mind (edge strains, cyclists and cars).
There is no reason that a city of any size can't have a denser walkable section served by transit.
Did just transit service change? Or business and residence locations change? Even if Chicago had the same level of transit service as 1950 [I doubt it's declined drastically], the jobs and shops have moved. Far more of the Chicago area's population lives in outer suburbs where transit is less practical.
People on this forum and elsewhere confuse poor transit with a transit-unfriendly layout.
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