Is San Diego more expensive than Seattle? (cons, difference, downtown)
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.
Also, trolley bus lines in some parts of the world carry more people than LINK or the trolley ever will.
That's kind of the point. You don't need a fancy, expensive light rail with no grade separation when you could just have a trolley bus line. Seattle has tons of trolley bus lines and they do great in moving people conveniently and cheaply. The LINK is grade-separated, because if it wasn't, there would be no point in having the LINK as the express buses work quite well.
I'm just going to put this in context: 1.1% of households in Seattle metro are car-free and 0.3% in SD metro are car-free. We are talking about a very small portion of the population who choose a car-free lifestyle. As far as "car-lite", I imagine Seattle has more (especially commuting), but I'd be interested in seeing data on all trips before making any conclusions.
Actually, a good number of communities along high-frequency transit lines in SD do not require a car for much of daily life. Places like UCSD/UTC have very frequent Rapid buses, local employment, and amenities. Downtown and the uptown neighborhoods along El Camino Blvd have decent access. A lot of the suburban beach communities with commuter rail have town centers with many amenities.
People in SD simply prefer driving because it is very convenient. We have a very large and extensive highway system relative to our population size. That doesn't necessarily make SD's transit system bad. It just can't compare to our really good driving option.
UTC is still not very walkable despite it's density and concentration of amenities unfortunately. It's really a shame and wasted opportunity because it was supposed to be according to original community plans.
Grade separation is the only way to get speed in urban districts. It also allows trains to be longer than your city blocks. Downtown San Diego's blocks are about 300 x 206 feet per Google Earth, so its trains can't exceed about half the capacity of Seattle's. In addition to taking a very long time to get through Downtown.
Grade separation is absolutely key. Otherwise you’re just an expensive trolley bus with dedicated bus lanes. Seattle bus system is way nicer than San Diego as it is.
In what way? Have you ridden light rail in San Diego or any other places besides Seattle? Most new light in the US is substantially more than just dedicated lanes when not running in traffic. When running in traffic, they usually don't even have dedicated lanes. I don't know if you're referring to speed, but overall the speed of light rail in Seattle is very similar to other systems.
In what way? Have you ridden light rail in San Diego or any other places besides Seattle? Most new light in the US is substantially more than just dedicated lanes when not running in traffic. When running in traffic, they usually don't even have dedicated lanes. I don't know if you're referring to speed, but overall the speed of light rail in Seattle is very similar to other systems.
Yeah I’ve ridden the San Diego one. It’s slow during rush hour. REALLY slow. I wasn’t saying the San Diego light rail is a trolley bus, I was saying it’s not a huge leap over a trolley bus. You’re not going much faster than a RapidRide Seattle bus.
Grade separation is the only way to get speed in urban districts. It also allows trains to be longer than your city blocks. Downtown San Diego's blocks are about 300 x 206 feet per Google Earth, so its trains can't exceed about half the capacity of Seattle's. In addition to taking a very long time to get through Downtown.
True, but most of the existing grade separation in Seattle is in areas that aren't very crowded and for much of that there aren't even many street crossings that would be needed. I was surprised at how much grade separation there is in areas that didn't appear to need it and was imagining that it was planning for the future.
Also, capacity isn't just how long the trains are. If SD runs trains more frequently, they could approach the same capacity. Maybe say they "don't" as opposed to they "can't".
As for time through downtown, I've already been told that the reason that Link isn't any faster on average than other light rail systems is that it takes them longer to go through downtown due to close station distancing. So they both have that same issue. Outside of downtown is Link any faster? I tend to doubt it.
Link is fast through Downtown Seattle. It sped up when it no longer had to share the tunnel with buses, as of a couple years ago. Buses were slow because boarding was more complicated, and one wheelchair could gum the whole thing up. There was also a capacity issue, as trains came through every six minutes at peak and buses had to fit the gaps between those.
I don't know how fast. But when the bus tunnel was built around 1990, they had an interesting stat. Buses on the surface took 24 minutes to travel through Downtown, but the tunnel let them do it in 8 minutes. Trains are signficantly better than that.
A third major benefit of grade separation is avoiding accidents and blockages. These are major problems on some lines. Grade separation means reliability.
A fourth is speed. Link hits freeway speeds in some areas.
Yeah I’ve ridden the San Diego one. It’s slow during rush hour. REALLY slow. I wasn’t saying the San Diego light rail is a trolley bus, I was saying it’s not a huge leap over a trolley bus. You’re not going much faster than a RapidRide Seattle bus.
I just looked at timetables and the Trolley is actually pretty slow compared to Link. The SD Trolley Green line averages 21.7 mph while Link averages 27.4 mph. They run similar distances, but Link does it quicker. The Trolley does stop at more stations though.
Eyeballing a bus schedule, it looks like Route 510/512 is probably quicker than both rail lines, but serves a different purpose. Not sure if that's the type of bus that you meant.
Link is fast through Downtown Seattle. It sped up when it no longer had to share the tunnel with buses, as of a couple years ago. Buses were slow because boarding was more complicated, and one wheelchair could gum the whole thing up. There was also a capacity issue, as trains came through every six minutes at peak and buses had to fit the gaps between those.
I don't know how fast. But when the bus tunnel was built around 1990, they had an interesting stat. Buses on the surface took 24 minutes to travel through Downtown, but the tunnel let them do it in 8 minutes. Trains are signficantly better than that.
A third major benefit of grade separation is avoiding accidents and blockages. These are major problems on some lines. Grade separation means reliability.
A fourth is speed. Link hits freeway speeds in some areas.
To me, your third benefit is the big one. So many times in LA there are accidents on or even next to rail lines that disrupt service.
Speed could be a benefit, but many light rail lines run about as fast as Link without as much grade separation. But those aren't as future proofed as Link. They could get slower over time with increased growth and density.
What were your first two benefits? You mention capacity, but that seems directed at Seattle capacity issues.
That's kind of the point. You don't need a fancy, expensive light rail with no grade separation when you could just have a trolley bus line. Seattle has tons of trolley bus lines and they do great in moving people conveniently and cheaply. The LINK is grade-separated, because if it wasn't, there would be no point in having the LINK as the express buses work quite well.
Okay, now I understand what you are getting it. You sorta tacked on your assertion to my comment that was responding to a different poster, so I interpreted it in that context. You are also looking at this from a Seattle perspective (comparing existing bus vs. LINK), so your reasoning makes more sense to me.
I agree with the general idea that if you're going to spend so much money on light rail, you might as well invest in grade separation--even more so in the context of Seattle. Ultimately there are trade-offs and my point was that grade separation is important and ideal, but in many circumstances grade separation can be subbed with dedicated ROW and transit signal priority with little impact on travel times, reliability, etc.
I disagree that light rail demands that extra investment. Sometimes light rail is preferable simply because the cars have higher capacity. Also, grade separation is ideal for all modes, not just light rail. Brisbane's transport system can attest to that.
Back to my original response...the notion that Seattle's LINK is somehow a "big city metro system" due to grade separation is exaggerated. It will be nominally different than San Diego or Denver in particular.
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.
