Most rapidly urbanizing city (DC, LA, or Seattle)? (best, place, Atlanta)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Who is funding this underground light rail? It's still expensive to bypass the streets above, which is the primary reason for the tunnel, IMO.
A combination of federal and local dollars.
Basically you need approval from the feds for their money, which can only be approved if you show a "local commitment" (so you have to pony up local money too). And the feds won't approve if they think the cost or ridership projections are shaky.
So, for LA, to take one example, they're receiving big-time federal dollars, but they're also borrowing tons of local money, and taxing the public to pay for the transit expansion. It's a combination of local and federal.
Who is funding all of this subway development, whether it's LA, Seattle or DC? Subway lines are incredibly expensive nowadays (compared to when most legacy lines were built in this country's cities like NY and Chicago) and I have a hard time believing that the city's residents are willing to swallow ever-increasing tax hikes indefinitely to support these developments. I can see these systems eventually being built, but what I can't understand is how they're being built all at once -- that sounds prohibitively expensive, especially in some of these more difficult mountain terrains!!
There probably isn't a major U.S. city out there that doesn't WANT to build a subway or grade-separated line through town, but most/all cities have this thing called a "budget" and people called "taxpayers" which usually get in the way. I'm surprised and amazed by the success demonstrated by LA and Seattle in particular, and would love to know how this got approved and funded!
*Edit: I'm using the word "subway" here to mean a tunnel bored underground in which passenger vehicles can go from point A to point B in a fairly straight line without stopping for anything but passengers. Call it what you will, but in any city in the world that kind of transit is expensive.
Los Angeles County voters passed a half-cent sales tax in 2008 for up to 30 years. LA's system is mostly grade separated Light Rail with portions that are street running. This is what are rail system will look like from 2-10 years as rail lines are completed. This is by no means a complete map, just what is going to be finished in the first round of spending. There are also plans for a Sepulveda(405) Pass line, Santa Ana line, Green Line Extension, & Others, but they will be built after the first phase of construction projects unless sped up. LA County failed to pass an acceleration vote by missing the 2/3 majority needed with 61% in favor for (yes, a transit measure failed with 61% of the vote).
Last edited by jamills21; 03-12-2014 at 10:01 AM..
Light rail lines basically have bus line capacity, so claiming that a light rail line is "a subway" is basically equivalent to claiming that a bus line is "a subway".
Light-rail lines have higher capacity than a bus line(usually about 3-4 times higher sometimes even more) though obviously not as much as heavy rail transit which might have 10 car lines. There's a lot more room for standing passengers on a light-rail train car compared to a bus--and grade separated light rail either below or above ground can travel faster than most bus routes(shared roadways though are basically as fast as buses/streetcars). Most US cities though don't have close to enough potential riders outside of rush hour crowds to justify the expense in building heavy rail.
Seattle isn't comparable to those two other cities.
As the thread's topic is "rapidly urbanizing" and not "most urban", Seattle is definitely comparable. 10 years ago, Seattle wouldn't have maybe anybody's list of top urban anything and since then it has added two tram lines and an 18-mile light rail thru the city which is currently being expanded (underground) an additional 9 miles (3 to open next year I think). Increased bike lanes (and a bike sharing program opening soon), more pedestrian friendly street designs downtown (although quite small), and the amount of residential construction downtown is huge (4 120+ meter residential towers under construction plus numerous smaller ones). Plus one of the cities largest and most rapidly growing employers, Amazon, has almost it's entire local workforce downtown, rather than out in some suburban campus like every other tech giant in the US.
Light-rail lines have higher capacity than a bus line(usually about 3-4 times higher sometimes even more) though obviously not as much as heavy rail transit which might have 10 car lines. There's a lot more room for standing passengers on a light-rail train car compared to a bus--and grade separated light rail either below or above ground can travel faster than most bus routes(shared roadways though are basically as fast as buses/streetcars). Most US cities though don't have close to enough potential riders outside of rush hour crowds to justify the expense in building heavy rail.
Yeah I don't know what the hell MichiVegas is talking about here (or about 99 percent of the time) - LRT does not have the same capacity as a bus. Perhaps this poster is thinking about streetcars (which I think also have more capacity than a bus, but I'm not sure). LRT is able to run 2-3 cars at a time, so while it is far from the capacity of HRT, it is certainly no bus.
The Orange Line in LA is BRT - and one of the biggest complaints about this line is that it isn't LRT because it is simply way too busy to be BRT. This line gets something like 30k daily riders and every single bus is standing room only with something like 3 minute headways. By the time the bus gets from North Hollywood to the 2nd stop, it is packed and there are no seats available. it also suffers because it is at-grade on a private ROW but has at-grade street crossings, which make it so the BRT line can only operate 2-car buses and not 3-car buses.
And as mentioned above, the majority of LA's system is grade separated LRT, mostly elevated and/or underground with a few (terrible) street-running portions at grade.
Who is funding this underground light rail? It's still expensive to bypass the streets above, which is the primary reason for the tunnel, IMO.
At least for LA, it is mostly locally-funded and relies on some federal dollars to close the gap. So far there has been no issue getting the federal funding. Angelenos are very willing to tax themselves to fund transit projects, as seen twice and almost a third time (as mentioned by jmills, Measure J "lost" with nearly 2/3 of the county's vote).
Also, I don't think Metro is taking out any loans at the local level, just the federal level (and Measure R is designed to create a pool of money with which to pay the loans back over time). Measure J was proposed to extend the sunset date of Measure R, creating a larger pool of payback-money and as a result, would have speeded up the construction of lines like the RC and Purple Line).
Technically, yes, but not in practical terms. Technically even a bus tunnel can be a subway.
When people talk about a "subway system", they're typically talking about heavy rail metro (NYC subway, London tube, Moscow Metro, etc.), not a trolley line that happens to run underground at some point (NJ light rail, Cleveland light rail, Portland light rail, Pittsburgh light rail, Buffalo light rail, basically every mid-sized city in Germany's light rail).
There are dramatic differences between heavy rail and light rail systems, especially in regards to capacity.
In some cities it's "practically" part of their subway system despite being light rail. I agree with the poster Munchitup when it comes to the green line being seen as being part of Boston's subway system. I think the green line is also considered to be the oldest subway line in the United States.
If you build a grade-separated light-rail route underground it's technically a subway. A subway doesn't specifically mean heavy-rail, it's just that most major heavy rail systems are often underground subways--as well as the fact that any city building a more extensive underground system is going to use heavy rail for the most part. Just as well though there's plenty of heavy rail lines that go above ground as well(BART is mostly above-ground for example but it's heavy rail rapid transit).
Yeah, but I think people typically equate "subway" with heavy rail.
Quote:
LRT vehicles are smaller and slower than subways, but travel faster and carry more passengers than streetcars or buses.
In some cities it's "practically" part of their subway system despite being light rail. I agree with the poster Munchitup when it comes to the green line being seen as being part of Boston's subway system. I think the green line is also considered to be the oldest subway line in the United States.
But considering it "part of the system" is a bit different from referring to the Green Line specifically as an actual subway line. I've always called it a trolley. It runs straight down the middle of Commonwealth Avenue. How could it possibly be a subway?
But considering it "part of the system" is a bit different from referring to the Green Line specifically as an actual subway line. I've always called it a trolley. It runs straight down the middle of Commonwealth Avenue. How could it possibly be a subway?
I think the bigger question is "how are we defining what a subway line is"? Does a subway line have to be "heavy rail" in order to be considered a "real subway" line? I would say no because light rail should count as well. Those links I posted are legit subway lines.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
