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Old 04-26-2015, 05:34 PM
 
10,275 posts, read 10,251,196 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Urban Peasant View Post
Have you ever ridden Boston's Green Line, especially during rush hours? Do you really think no Bostonian would ever wish for the Green Line to magically turn into heavy rail that can hold six car trains and run at the same frequency?
Of course the answer is yes, but that has nothing to do with the conversation.

The issue isn't that the Green Line is light rail, it's that it's designed as a low capacity trolley. There are even bus lines delivering much higher ridership than the Green Line, so the mode isn't an issue. Mexico City has a million daily passengers on a few BRT bus lines. Probably half that ridership is on one line, where articulated buses come every 30 seconds.

When planning transit, the issue isn't really mode, it's how the system is designed. You can, in theory, deliver massive capacity by even bus, and meager capacity by heavy rail.
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Old 04-26-2015, 05:56 PM
 
Location: Beautiful and sanitary DC
2,478 posts, read 3,489,458 times
Reputation: 3240
The jokey answer is that the 'L' trains are too lightweight to be considered light rail.

A longer answer: One was proposed in 1989, but never built. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicag...rea_Circulator
A similar project is now underway as the Central Loop BRT.
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Old 04-27-2015, 03:36 PM
 
Location: A subtropical paradise
2,068 posts, read 2,903,996 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by marothisu View Post
I have a feeling that almost all cities in Texas (except maybe Austin) would not really skew anytime, ever, towards public transit. Just my thoughts though.
Spoken like someone who believes everything read and seen in the internet.
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Old 04-27-2015, 04:01 PM
 
Location: Upper West Side, Manhattan, NYC
15,331 posts, read 23,776,398 times
Reputation: 7419
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yn0hTnA View Post
Spoken like someone who believes everything read and seen in the internet.
No, or spoken like someone who's been to Texas many times and knows many Texans. There's a guy I work with who travels to NYC from Dallas who, at the beginning of the assignment, asked people if they were going to rent a car every week in *Manhattan*. Then another guy a few months ago from Dallas started up and asked the same question. Neither of them had any idea why people were laughing at them and merely said "I guess we didn't consider public transit."
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Old 04-27-2015, 06:57 PM
 
Location: Boston, MA
3,962 posts, read 5,710,097 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101 View Post

All wrong. Light rail vs heavy rail has nothing to do with the number of cars in a train. There are heavy rail networks with low capacity, and light rail networks with high capacity.
I never said or implied that a rail line that doesn't fit within city limits doesn't count. You're the one seemingly making up rules instead. As for "nothing to do with the conversation", you were the one who brought up the case study of the HBLR and I so kindly provided you a link to a recent article that implied that the HBLR proposal has not been finalized. Did you even bother to read it? I also strongly advise you to go back and read the first two pages of this thread because some of your kind fellow Chicagoans made the exact same arguments that I made in my first post here, that light rail is better suited for smaller cities (and that HBLR does not run in NYC because it is NJ and so is not a good comparison to Chicago). So before you think I am a nutty East Coast guy who's making things up about your city or transit in general, find out what others are saying. I don't even think your definition of capacity is the same as mine, judging by the last sentence in your post.
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Old 04-27-2015, 07:08 PM
 
10,275 posts, read 10,251,196 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Yn0hTnA View Post
Spoken like someone who believes everything read and seen in the internet.
Compared to Chicago, yeah, no city in Texas is remotely close in terms of transit. Chicago is far more transit-oriented than any Texas city. This is a case where "the internet" is apparently 100% correct.
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Old 04-27-2015, 07:13 PM
 
10,275 posts, read 10,251,196 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Urban Peasant View Post
I never said or implied that a rail line that doesn't fit within city limits doesn't count. You're the one seemingly making up rules instead. As for "nothing to do with the conversation", you were the one who brought up the case study of the HBLR and I so kindly provided you a link to a recent article that implied that the HBLR proposal has not been finalized. Did you even bother to read it? I also strongly advise you to go back and read the first two pages of this thread because some of your kind fellow Chicagoans made the exact same arguments that I made in my first post here, that light rail is better suited for smaller cities (and that HBLR does not run in NYC because it is NJ and so is not a good comparison to Chicago). So before you think I am a nutty East Coast guy who's making things up about your city or transit in general, find out what others are saying. I don't even think your definition of capacity is the same as mine, judging by the last sentence in your post.
The HBLR, and the Newark City Subway, are both in the NYC region. NJ is part of the NYC region. Only you seem to be unaware of this. In fact there are more suburban residents on the NJ side of the Hudson than on the NY side. Municipal boundaries are completely irrelevant to transit networks. No one would say that Paris or Mexico City don't have light rail because the lines are outside the arbitrary municipal boundaries.

So the premise that big cities with high transit capacity don't look to light rail is obviously false. Same goes for almost every big city out there. There is nothing automatically preventing light rail usage in major transit corridors with high demand.
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Old 04-27-2015, 09:01 PM
 
Location: Boston, MA
3,962 posts, read 5,710,097 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101 View Post
The HBLR, and the Newark City Subway, are both in the NYC region. NJ is part of the NYC region. Only you seem to be unaware of this. In fact there are more suburban residents on the NJ side of the Hudson than on the NY side. Municipal boundaries are completely irrelevant to transit networks. No one would say that Paris or Mexico City don't have light rail because the lines are outside the arbitrary municipal boundaries.

So the premise that big cities with high transit capacity don't look to light rail is obviously false. Same goes for almost every big city out there. There is nothing automatically preventing light rail usage in major transit corridors with high demand.
I've visited NYC and NJ enough times to know that Newark and Hudson County are both in the NYC Region and have ridden the Newark City Subway and PATH trains (the heavy rail trains that connect Newark and Hoboken to Manhattan) too. The whole region is known as the "Tri-State Metro Area" which is the term referred to by any news outlet in that region. If you say Newark or NJ is part of NYC, you might as well say that Norwalk, CT is part of NYC which it is so obviously not. Norwalk is part of the Tri-State Metro Area, not NYC just as Gary, Indiana is part of Chicagoland and not Chicago.

As to the rest of your twisted argument, fine. You obviously are sticking to your strong opinion that light rail is just as good if not better than heavy rail without even considering for a moment that your argument may be valid but unsound. I still don't know what your definition of "capacity" is by the way.
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Old 04-27-2015, 09:08 PM
 
Location: Chicago - Logan Square
3,396 posts, read 7,177,596 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101 View Post
When planning transit, the issue isn't really mode, it's how the system is designed. You can, in theory, deliver massive capacity by even bus, and meager capacity by heavy rail.
Yep, and that's why should Chicago shouldn't worry at all about not having light rail - a specific mode of transit.

The articulated buses the CTA runs carry a hell of a lot more people than most of the light rail systems I've ridden in other cities (especially the buses on LSD), and at a much lower cost. There is no need for light rail in Chicago, we have plenty of other solutions that are better fits for the city.
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Old 04-27-2015, 09:32 PM
 
Location: A subtropical paradise
2,068 posts, read 2,903,996 times
Reputation: 1359
Quote:
Originally Posted by marothisu View Post
No, or spoken like someone who's been to Texas many times and knows many Texans. There's a guy I work with who travels to NYC from Dallas who, at the beginning of the assignment, asked people if they were going to rent a car every week in *Manhattan*. Then another guy a few months ago from Dallas started up and asked the same question. Neither of them had any idea why people were laughing at them and merely said "I guess we didn't consider public transit."
Nothing in your example indicates any lack of preference for mass transit from the Texans, as well as from the various cities in the state, which you insinuate in your previous post. In fact, its quite the opposite; many Texans in each of the state's cities are increasingly in favor of mass transit, and are willing to see extensive implementations take form.

However, the icing in your cake (and the major part of what I was referring to) is when you name Austin as the supposed sole exception in regards to mass transit beliefs in the state; it is typical for people with no clue of the state to randomly tout Austin as the sole city in the state in favor of things like walkable design, creativity, outdoor activity, etc. People make such erroneous statements because they buy into hype for Austin seen periodically on the internet (i.e. "Austin is the blue island in the red sea," or similar statements).

Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101 View Post
Compared to Chicago, yeah, no city in Texas is remotely close in terms of transit. Chicago is far more transit-oriented than any Texas city. This is a case where "the internet" is apparently 100% correct.
That is bold was not what I was disputing at all in his post; what I was disputing was the notion that Texas cities will never ever see mass transit ("never say never"), and that Austin is apparently the "sole" exception.
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