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Cleveland does light rail very well, I think. It is an asset to the city. I took it all the time to go to work down town. Quick and reliable, more pleasant than a bus.
I live in Boston now. I hate the light rail here. Yes, service is more frequent than in Cleveland, but I hate taking the T. It is extremely slow. I live 6 miles from downtown and it takes 45 minutes to get there. Biking is faster. Sometimes, walking is faster. The trains are always crowded.
So, in my opinion, overrated in Boston, underrated in Cleveland.
We have a decent lightrail system in NJ. It's not big but it connects urban areas to heavy rail stations. There are plans to expand it out to take the load off of the bus system.
Detroit's people mover was never a success. For one, it never connected any major nodes of activity. Original plans were to have the downtown loop with lines going outwards but funding only allowed for the loop. It's useful for if you park on one side of the loop to get to the other, but otherwise most of the stations are within walking distance of each other. It does make for a great touristy ride though.
There are plans now for a light rail line to go up Woodward which would be entirely more useful, imo. I'm hoping the system will be able to expand and cover a nice percentage of the metropolitan area but only time will tell.
Cleveland does light rail very well, I think. It is an asset to the city. I took it all the time to go to work down town. Quick and reliable, more pleasant than a bus.
I live in Boston now. I hate the light rail here. Yes, service is more frequent than in Cleveland, but I hate taking the T. It is extremely slow. I live 6 miles from downtown and it takes 45 minutes to get there. Biking is faster. Sometimes, walking is faster. The trains are always crowded.
So, in my opinion, overrated in Boston, underrated in Cleveland.
LOL B-Line?
The B-Line is god-awful, I agree. Way too many stops and no signal priority or preemption. Took about an hour to get to Park St.
C and D lines are great though. I lived at the intersection of the 3 branches so had my choice of lines to take into downtown. Hence my LRT experience in Boston was significantly more positive than yours seems to be.
So first of all, why does it need to be repeated every. . .single. . time that the rules in NYC don't apply elsewhere. NYC is wholly unique. OK? Moving on.
In cities like Houston which are moving forward with lightrail, buses were tried for decade after decade and. . .whitey don't ride the bus. Turns out, whitey likes rail. Dunno why, but there it is. If you want transit in Houston to work, it has to be rail.
What?! I saw white people everyday getting on the bus, from scrubs to suits.
In Los Angeles:
17.9% of the LRT riders are non-Hispanic white vs. 37.1% of the population being non-Hispanic white. (without the Expo Line, doubt it changed a whole lot).
20.6% of the bus riders are non-Hispanic white vs. 37.1% of the population being non-Hispanic white.
Interesting, whitey prefers the bus over LRT in LA.
Whitey don't like the bus because it is unreliable and slower than heavy traffic and gives a rough ride. But light rail needs to be longer than the under 10 km test tracks that have been built many places. Another thought: I heard that in Europe some light rail systems have food and beverage service on board, in contrast to American systems where eating and drinking on board can net you a big fine.
I think light rail is one of these things our children's children are going to look back at and laugh, just like we look at the old urban renewal projects and say "what were they thinking?" It seems virtually every city, even small cities like Salt Lake City, are building light rail and "TOD" at the end of the lines which is anything but actual TOD. I have documented Denver's problems before. Our transit agency ran out of money, even after we voted to increase taxes to complete the damn project. Now they are saying instead of extending LR to the northwest, they will build only so far, and then institute BRT for the rest. This has angered some of the suburban governments in the NW corridor, to the extent that one community is talking about witholding the tax receipts from the new tax until RTD can get its act together and complete the project.
Billions and billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on these systems.
This is my concern. We have a line that goes from downtown Norfolk to the edge of the city, and TOD was a big argument but it appears as though the TOD would actually occur in Virginia Beach, if and when the line goes through THAT city, which could take a few years to build out. Personally I think claims about TOD are overrated, and it never really occurs, or not quite the way that people were expecting it to.
Cleveland does light rail very well, I think. It is an asset to the city. I took it all the time to go to work down town. Quick and reliable, more pleasant than a bus.
I live in Boston now. I hate the light rail here. Yes, service is more frequent than in Cleveland, but I hate taking the T. It is extremely slow. I live 6 miles from downtown and it takes 45 minutes to get there. Biking is faster. Sometimes, walking is faster. The trains are always crowded.
So, in my opinion, overrated in Boston, underrated in Cleveland.
I was under the impression that Boston had both light rail and subway. I was wondering if anyone actually used the Cleveland system or not.
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