Map of Houston's New Light Rail System (Katy, Atlanta: crime, employment)

[robertpolyglot]

Originally Posted by Guerilla

Rail can be on dedicated areas without being heavy rail.

No, I hear you. And those are the only parts of the light-rail systems, such as Portland's, that are more likable. Where it's actually able to move along at 50 to 60 mph, to make it efficient. Heck, I can't stand it when it's going through the city streets, sharing the asphalt with the cars and buses.

[kpoeppel]

Why did Houston build a rail line right down the middle of an existing street? How is a train that runs on rails in a street any different than a bus running in a street? It would seem they both do the exact same thing, except that:

1) it costs a lot of money to tear up a street and install rails
2) trains (in streets) make collisions more likely, since drivers generally aren't used to navigating around trains
3) the train is restricted to the rail route, where a bus could go anywhere

If voters insisted on trains instead of busses, why not at least put the rails some place other than in the street? It seems the present configuration is the worst of both busses and trains, no? It clogs up traffic just like busses do, but still has the extra capital expense and limited mobility of a train.

I have recently learned that there is a fiercely anti-rail posse lead by a guy named Randall O' Toole as well as a zealous pro-rail group lead by websites like "Light Rail Now", etc. Both sides take pot shots at each other and "debunk" each others' "findings" but neither side seems care about any kind of objectivity.

Even ignoring all the propaganda, it's hard for me to believe that a street-running train is any different than a bus, other than a train being much more expensive and less flexible.

[jfre81]

kpoeppel,

Would you mind sharing your data that shows that BRT is inherently less expensive than LRT in the long run?

[crystalblue]

one thing to keep in mind

i have read that people are more willing to use mass transit if it is rail. even if busses were cheaper and quicker, people prefer rail.

call it a snob effect...

[kpoeppel]

Originally Posted by jfre81

kpoeppel,

Would you mind sharing your data that shows that BRT is inherently less expensive than LRT in the long run?

I'm not comparing Bus Rapid Transit to LRT in general. I'm comparing the Houston light rail train to a regular bus. Both do the same thing...they share the street with other vehicles, and carry passengers to designated stops.

Cost of an existing street = $0 capital cost
Cost of adding rails to an existing street = lots of capital cost, plus disruption during construction

As far as the vehicles themselves, I really have no idea how much it costs to buy a bus or a train, given that I'm not in the market for those items.

Unless a train is significantly cheaper than a bus, It's not going to outweigh the millions of dollars needed to install rails down a street.

I agree that it must be a "snob effect" that makes people pro-rail and anti-bus, even if a train running down the middle of a street is essentially no different than a bus running down the middle of a street.

I figured it was a status-symbol effect, which is basically the same thing as a "snob effect". Consider that the city of Buffalo, NY actually has a subway, even though it is a ghost town. It's not like they actually NEED a subway, it's just something flashy to "put them on the map." Just like nobody needs to drive a BMW or a Jaguar...

[Guerilla]

KPoepell, your little system is wrong. It would cost METRO more money to install BRT now, and convert to LRT later. A couple million more actually. You also need some gasoline/diesel for those buses, and buses put out pollution.

Houston also isn't the only city to have light rail in the streets. San Francisco, Newark, Baltimore, San Diego, Boston, and others all have light rail built in the middle of city streets.

And buses just add to the traffic. Open your eyes and see that. Buses run on their own schedule and are not as reliable as rail. Light rail is almost always on time and you reach your destination faster on it than buses. BRT requires many of the things rail do (the good BRT systems), so why not just install LRT (what the voters voted for anyway)? I am glad METRO has seen past the BRT (more bus) system you are seeing and are now focus on only building light rail in the core.

[jfre81]

No, Guerilla, he's saying that we just need more buses. Not BRT, just more buses.

Have you ever been to Houston before, kpoeppel?

[kpoeppel]

Some facts remain:

A train running down the middle of a street adds to traffic just as a bus does, no? Unless the train has its own reserved lane, in which case the lane cannot be used for ordinary traffic, which adds to congestion.

So prove me wrong that a train running down the middle of a street is significantly different than a bus running down the middle of a street.

If the rail were elevated (like in Chicago) or underground (like a subway), I would agree that rail would be better than a bus, from the standpoint of not interfering with (or being stuck in) other traffic.

Other things (like "have you ever been to Houston") are red herrings. Yeah, lots of cities have rails running down streets. It seems just as silly for them to do it.

[kpoeppel]

Status symbols are what they are. It's really not possible to talk someone out of purchasing a status symbol, in my experience. If that's what voters wanted, than so be it. "Busses suck."

[robertpolyglot]

Ok, ok, there is a "snob factor" and it needs to be embraced if it means getting yuppies out of cars and onto trains instead of buses (which will not be appealing to them). The end effect is better if more people take rapid transit.

Sorry, taking buses in Portland, for example,can be gross. The bulk of my relatives live in the outer Southeastern reaches of Portland where there is a huge shopping mall. It will be the terminus of the new green rail line. In the meantime, if I ever land at the airport and want to get there, it takes several buses. One bus line, in particular, is numbered the 72 and runs down a major thoroughfare which gets kind of sketchy before it gets better again (at the Clackamas mall area). It is nicknamed "The Jerry Springer line." For some reason, especially during the daytime, light rail seems to have more "conventional" people on it. That means that the line running down to Portland's Clackamas Town Center district may have more of these "conventional" people once operational, because you certainly don't see them on bus line 72.

That being said, a great rail network for Houston would be a blessing. Perhaps the water table is such that building the light rail system underground would have been expensive (in Edmonton, Canada, a city which is an icebox and hardly growing in population, the LRT stays underground in the core while in more prosperous Calgary, Canada, is stays at street level in the downtown core). However, they could have done a bunch of pre-fab trestles and put the damn thing up in the air. Miami did that with both Metrorail, and the dumb little Metromover feeder that looks like a Disneyland toy, in their center city and I'm sure that their water table issues would have been tricky.

Light rail is great when in a set-aside area that doesn't compete with on-street traffic. That is, when it's in a dedicated area, behind a fence or a barrier, so it can zoom along and a greater cross-section of the population will say "yeah, I'll ride it."