The Problem With American Light Rail
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
- Light Rail is an effective and economical way for a city to build high capacity and faster public transportation, however in a lot of cases American cities have run into problems generating ridership for light rail systems. Luckily there are solutions to this low ridership problem so let's dig into them!
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"If transit only takes you from parking lot to parking lot, then what's the point of taking transit..." 💯💯
Go Transit in Toronto says hello.
it's not considered light rail, but this is Orlando's rail outside of the downtown core to a T
Trains can't connect to city council or mails, where bunch of council members get bribed by cars auto companies.
My favorite North American light-rail system remains the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, because it does the reasons you state for what North American light-rail systems need to be a success very well (except frequencies on late nights and weekends which they can most definitely improve):
- Grade-separation. Much of the HBLR is grade-separated, even in downtown Jersey City except for street-running on Essex Street. Much of the HBLR is repurposed ROW, though the downtown JC segment was built brand-new. At-grade crossings are equipped with transit-signal priority signals to automatically change traffic lights in favor of the light rail.
- Goes where people wanna go, whether it's Hoboken, a state park, the mall, university, etc! The HBLR's most popular stop is Newport for the Newport Centre shopping mall. Newport participates in a NJ government Urban Enterprise Zone program with reduced sales tax, encouraging New Yorkers to do their shopping in NJ! The West Side Ave station is walking distance to the New Jersey City University campus and are right by the Jersey City Board of Education and Social Security offices as well. Liberty State Park station is over a mile walk to the historic Communipaw Terminal, I did the walk during the Red Bull Air Race and a lot of spectators took the HBLR! The station is right next door to the Liberty Science Center as well, home to the largest planetarium in the Western Hemisphere! When they repurposed the Conrail River Line/NJ Junction ROW in western Hoboken, they built an elevator off the cliffs so those on top can access 9th/Congress station!
- Connections. The HBLR has connections at multiple stations. Bergenline Avenue is a busy shopping corridor and not only a bus hub for seven routes but is also the only underground station on the HBLR, and Bergenline Ave is a jitney corridor as well. The HBLR serves Hoboken Terminal which is a hub for NJT rail, NJT buses, PATH, and ferries. Newport is a short walk from the Newport PATH station, and on the other side of the mall is a terminus for the NJ jitneys. Exchange Place is a hub for PATH, NJT buses, and ferries. Port Imperial and Lincoln Harbor both have ferry connections, with Port Imperial having different bus routes as well. In Bayonne, there's the MTA S89 bus which goes between Bayonne and Eltingville and allows Staten Islanders access to the HBLR. 34th Street station is also close to the Cape Liberty cruise port.
- Great land use. The repurposed ROWs the HBLR uses goes through dense neighborhoods. The southern portion of the HBLR in Bayonne is next to a highway and has parking but the west side of the stations are still next to dense neighborhoods. On the Bayonne and West Side Ave portions, the locations of stations they chose to build are the former locations of CNJ stations, so they said, "If it worked then, it'll work now" and indeed it worked! Both the HBLR and the PATH have led to lots of TOD and pedestrianization in downtown JC. JC has Citi Bike infrastructure by HBLR stations too! Outside downtown, new developments are going up by Liberty State Park station. And the West Side Ave portion being extended to the new Bayfront development complex revives the ROW further, with new TOD, with much of it affordable housing! Port Imperial in Weehawken was designed as a big TOD with its ferry operations upgraded to a terminal when the HBLR station opened. Many luxury apartments with a supermarket have been built by the station.
It is absolutely the best. Totally agree
Everything is good but sadly, seems that HBLR is running at capacity before the pandemic and has no room for longer trains or higher frequency (rush hour 4 mins b4 pandemic)
I live near the Expo line LA and I’ve noticed that transit times are competitive with car traffic during rush hour. If the line had signal priority, I could see the ridership increasing a lot. At least I would probably take it more often.
Before the pandemic the Expo Line had over 60K riders a day for a 15 mile route
The Expo line does have signal prioritization on the Westside of the route, but not yet in the DTLA or East LA regions.
LA Metro ridership increased every month in 2023, and the E and A lines have done better, too, since the Regional Connector opened in June 2023.
Until they build more lines North-South from the Valley though the Westside, none of these lines are useful for a majority of the population is why it seems like they don't work well, because they're just not convenient enough. You need one along the 405 from the Valley all the way down to the South Bay to connect to these other ones
Out in Denver I’d love to see frequency and better bus and bike connections. It’s so hard to plan around a 30-60 min frequency bus with your 15 min freq train. I love that we can toss a bike on any train (although the LRT is harder with the stairs) or bus route, and so many do. A bike feels mandatory since our trains dump you off far from where you’re headed. Recently went to Seattle and SF for the first time though and wow it’s nice to have trains that frequent and sooooo many buses especially. It’s so much easier for me to convince others to ride transit with me when you’re talkin 6 or 8 mins for the next ride.
RTD is fixing this this summer by also making two of their light rail lines run hourly. Now they match the bus! 😭
@@leaderofthepenguins I look forward to our transit system bein even more of a challenge to use. It’s the perfect way to grow ridership.
@@snafu0o0o I'm from north of Denver, so I'm about half a century out from getting B line service by RTD's own estimate.
The legislature and governor are currently planning to make some pretty significant changes to RTD's board of directors, so if HB24-1447 is passed hopefully that will somehow lead to improvements.
@@leaderofthepenguins and that line is already 25 years behind schedule despite a budget and everything being approved, am I not mistaken?
@@kenyonmoon3272 Yeah, supposedly costs ballooned and so it won't be possible until the 2040s. I misremembered the timeline; it's another 25 years delayed from now and 50 in total, not 50 from now. I at least won't be elderly by the time it's completely, just probably decades away from the last time I lived there.
If there's anything to compare MetroLink in St. Louis to, it's the Basel light-rail system. MetroLink goes through two states, Basel serves three countries, Basel's Line 3 goes to a commune called SAINT-LOUIS in France, and the Illinois section goes through farm fields similarly to the westernmost part of Basel's Line 10! In St. Louis's case for success, it helps that much of MetroLink is a reused rail right of way (besides of course serving the airport)! The Eads Bridge was once briefly used by Amtrak trains between 1971 and 1974 (stopped on the year of Eads Bridge's centennial). So when they were constructing the underground stations downtown, the tunnel was already there, using the St Louis Freight Tunnel. On the Red Line, trains use the former Wabash/Norfolk & Western Railroad's Union Depot line that once brought passenger trains from Ferguson to Union Station. When the Red Line makes a stop at the Delmar Loop station, it is located just below the original Wabash Railroad's Delmar Station building!
On the Blue Line, it follows a former Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis (TRRA)/Rock Island railroad right of way. When they were constructing Skinker and University City-Big Bend stations, they faced opposition because that section was gonna be street-running, so they opted to build them underground! So thanks to NIMBYs, they ironically made the Blue Line a better and quicker service through no street-running!
The MetroLink Blue Line has to be about THE most elaborate piece of transit infrastructure in all of Mid-America ruling out Chicago, Atlanta & most likely Cleveland (the latter two due to elaborate junctions within their Five Points & Tower City hubs alone)
Don't sleep on Charlotte's Blue Line! Direct route connecting important neighborhoods and sports/event venues downtown, grade separation at all major crossings + crossing gates everywhere else, and a ton of new TOD in South End and NoDa. Main downsides are poor frequency (currently 20 off-peak, 15-on) and poor land use around some stations (although that is definitely improving with the TOD).
I think Sacramento Regional Transit really lucked out when they built their light rail system. They were able to use former railroad rights of way to build the lines and was able to use a former planned freeway as a large park and ride lot to capture riders from northeastern Sacramento County and Roseville, CA. The nearby accessibility of light rail was why the current Sacramento Kings home area, Golden One Center, was built right next to the light rail line in downtown Sacramento.
yet their ridership is lower than vta for some reason. i guess it is too much parking and that sacrt buses are your typical hourly american bus
@@LouisChang-le7xo Ridership was higher in the past but with State offices now doing a lot of remote work, the demand for light rail has been lower.
Still a crap system
@@LouisChang-le7xo it's actually half hourly ☝️🤓
@@LouisChang-le7xoAlso, RT’s ridership is not lower than VTA
I think St Louis's metrolink has great bones. Mostly grade separated, good on time performance, good feeder bus routes on most stops. the main things to improve are bus frequencies, better land use around stations, and light rail expansion.
The Jefferson line is finally getting constructed. Now we just need to extend and prioritize r.o.w. for the Delmar Loop Trolley! :]
Only if it receives federal funding. While the local match is in place the current $1.1 billion dollar capital cost with only 5,000 daily riders is not promising.
Unfortunately, St. Louis, like lots of our cities today, is an economic and crime-rate disaster in the wake of the COVID lockdowns and riots of 2020 & 2021.
@@user-hx2wx7mk8n crime is below precovid levels in STL and has been steadily decreasing for the last 30 years.
@@user-hx2wx7mk8n turn off fox news
Something someone pointed out recently that I hadn't thought about was that in the US we largely build our metro networks to go from the city center to the suburbs/exurbs in a radial pattern like a bicycle wheel's spokes. In doing so, we basically put in something like light rail or subway, but it's acting as heavy rail or commuter rail, which then creates the need for park and rides. I agree park and rides at the station aren't inherently bad, especially at the most far flung stations, but without TOD around the station, it will always just be a park and ride in the middle of nowhere with low ridership, because who will drive to a station, park there, and then ride into the city to work when they could just drive and cut out the middle man. I have seen some park and rides that work. At the end of WMATA's orange line there is a parking garage for the metro and it's surrounded by high rise apartments and office buildings, which is great mixed use TOD.
Its almost like if you build a network of public transit and bikable and walkable areas you increase usage in transit and reduce car trips!
That and buses! Perfection!
Another less pressing issue with North American light rail is the fact that everything short of a full blown metro system can be and is called light rail. From old style tram systems like the Toronto streetcar system, Stadtbahn like systems like Boston's green line, tram-train like systems such as Seattle's SoundTransit, to medium capacity light metro systems like in Vancouver and Honolulu.
Agreed. The largest light-rail system in the US is in Los Angeles. The lines run on dedicated ROWs that are, at least, partially if not fully grade separated with high platform stations. They don't share the same area of the road with other vehicles.
They are not trams/streetcars that do share the same area of the roads with other vehicles and usually have low floors and stations. They also tend to have stations much closer together and are slower overall.
In Calgary, there’s a new development being planned that will create an infill station on the Red Line between Heritage and Chinook Stations. Building an infill station is less expensive than extending the line. The mixed use development (Midtown) is intending to have 7000 units and focus pretty much entirely on transit as transportation - so much so that the City won’t issue any occupancy permits until the station is built!
Hmm.... I just looked at some renderings for the development and that's exactly the issue I see with North American TOD. They're little pockets of density with a high contrast transition with the neighboring areas. I wouldn't really want to live there. Personally, I want to see whole new street layouts that maximize the walkshed, with gradual density changes. I suspect the province will want to run a regional rail route along that alignment too. We'll see how that goes, but greenfield developments on the outskirts of the city, with express regional rail access will be nicer places to live.
Interestingly, Calgary also has huge Park n’ Rides. The City is working on building up TODs, though! I think in 15 years, Calgary will be seeing even more success thanks to more TODs.
Though we have park and rides most of the stations are also at destinations like malls and tourism destinations like the zoo and stampede grounds with only a short walk from the station.
I'm guessing the Stampede grounds is the main reason why Calgary is the champion for ridership, any big event at the grounds hockey games, the Stampede itself, comic Expo, those trains are packed full. Once the greenline is built there will be even more people using it to get to the Stampede grounds and entertainment district. If the proposed Calgary Banff Rail gets built. It would be extremely difficult for any city to catch up to our numbers
@LoneHowler Los Angeles light rail system continues to expand and late this year or early next year it will connect to LAX airport. Once that happens, the ridership will increase to the 4 light rail lines which will be interconnected to LAX and the new automated people mover at the airport.
Covid hit LA Metro hard but it's recovering it's ridership. It increased every month in 2023, but it's still at about 70% of its 2019 ridership numbers when it was number one in the USA. It sits at number two right now.
The feeder bus point is something I noticed on my trip to London, which got me into urbanism and transportation in the first place. I feel like due to our suburb layouts, a lot of the time busses don't stop in places that are easy walks for most people, and have a lot fewer lines in the name of trying to be direct, yet having only half-hourly or hourly service.
I think light rail is only good insofar as the best transit is the one that you're able to get support to build, and it's inherently compromised as a result. However in the decades to come I think it represents opportunity, as depending on the system you have a good portion of the bones of a streetcar and a light metro already there. The systems (in my case SacRT) just need to see that opportunity and split the system as such for not a whole lot more infrastructure cost yet much better service, especially when they're in the purchasing cycle of new units as we are.
My area of Jersey has the Hudson Bergen Light Rail. By far the most important transit NJT decided to build back in the 90s. That shaped the growth of Jersey City and has since been extended to Bayonne and will be extended further west to the largest TOD under construction in JC. Its got everything this video mentioned especially good walkability, and transit connections like Ferry, Hoboken Terminal, and PATH to NYC. But lacks decent frequency on weekends and late nights. Safety is another big issue but its not as bad as other cities. They want to extend it north to Englewood which would be the biggest game changer to Bergen county in terms of transit as it sits on an old freight ROW but funding has been the issue. Keep up the good work on the videos!
People keep praising Portland's MAX system, but in reality it lacks on a bunch of the bullet points in this video. Here are my gripes and honestly a bit of a rant:
• Instead of limiting the speed in some areas, they decided to make it uncrossable to pedestrians for long stretches with barriers, creating essentially an urban divide in the same way a highway does (Interstate Ave). Pointless too, as the trains have to slow down for some intersections anyway for the few places where pedestrians CAN cross. The yellow line opened 20 years ago, and the corridor still doesn't have as much development as you would expect, and has a surprising number of gas stations, drive-throughs, and auto shops along it. 100% if they slowed it down and removed barriers where shops are they would increase development (and slowed cars down) you would actually start seeing people on the street and hanging out there. For the amount of large apartment complexes in the area, it's a bit of a ghost town.
• Getting to and from PDX airport is a pain. There's so many damn stops on the highway getting there, it's faster to take a car by a significant margin. They just need to remove some stations especially running along the interstate, but recently they added a new one! Right next to a giant interstate intersection!!
• I tried using it to get to work, but I have to cross an ugly and loud pedestrian interstate overpass, with long ramps/stairs on either side. If that was the only issue I could possibly deal with it, but at peak times the headway is only 15m!! Practically useless for commuting. Thankfully the bike network isn't terrible, but I still have to bike along a highway along some stretches to get to work (2.5miles as the crow flies).
• It's so damn slow going through downtown. Stops need to be removed to increase the speed, and better signal priority needs to be implemented. Even buses are faster through downtown sometimes. Understand it's for pedestrian safety, but it goes I swear 8mph at some points (near the Amtrak Union Station).
• The MAX has so much potential, it's just frustrating seeing all the flaws. Maybe I lived in NYC for too long that it's ruined me, but I just stopped using it as I don't find it helpful getting places.
Agreed, the stops are often in such useless places outside of downtown. Three of the lines being tied to I-84 makes riding them usually very unpleasant and out of the way. The orange line follows 17th Ave when Milwaukie Ave carries most of the nearby destinations, and then follows 99E when 17th has most of the nearby destinations so it's never a good option to actually get anywhere other than downtown or Milwaukie. It's a 30+ minute walk west to Sellwood or Westmoreland, and a 30+ minute walk east to Woodstock, and a 0 minute walk to traffic on a state highway.
They feel more like glorified commuter rails for if you live in Hillsboro, Beaverton, Gresham, Milwaukie, or god forbid Vancouver where they can't even get the yellow line over the bridge.
@@leaderofthepenguins Yes agree with you on the orange line too. Putting the stations next to a golf course -- seriously why?? what rich person takes the MAX there 😂. I guess they tried to serve both Sellwood/Westmoreleand AND Eastmoreland and failed for both. It would not have been AS insulting if they put the line west of SE McLoughlin and at grade level to give good access for people Sellwood/Westmoreleand without crossing the busy road. Alas. American transit...
I remember being so envious of Portland back in the 90s and early 00s because they had rail and Seattle didn’t. But ultimately I’m glad that Seattle didn’t emulate the Max system. Link operates more like a hybrid of Max and Skytrain.
@@guinessbeer Yep Seattle is doing it pretty well compared to the rest of the country. And expanding their lines! With better headways than Portland😢
@@atavanH Seattle benefitted heavily from already having a downtown tunnel.
Link Light Rail in Seattle also benefits significantly from almost fully grade-separated lines (we don't talk about Rainier Valley), high frequency, high-speed service, and decent station placement (with some exceptions). It also benefits from utilizing highway right of ways to speed up construction and drastically reduce costs (purchasing right of way and demolishing homes/businesses is incredibly expensive in the densely populated Puget Sound).
While you can argue highway-adjacent transit is a bad thing, the density of the region and rapid expansion of the system it enables really is beneficial, especially when local and regional bus transit can be so easily integrated into the new stations. Link also has the good habit of using large parking garages at all its park and ride stations, which really helps to reduce the footprint of the stations and improves connectivity for peds and bikes. I would even argue these park and rides do an excellent job of capturing traffic from a lot of car-dependent neighborhoods that are currently underserved by any type of rapid transit, which helps reduce the number of cars needing to drive all the way into Seattle.
If Link wants to build on its success, eliminating the at-grade Rainier Valley section (the oldest and first part of the system) could really help, along with some strategic infill stations, additional bus connections, improved walking/biking connections to all stations, further increased frequency, and a focus on improved track maintenance (some of the oldest sections are in bad shape, but more frequent maintenance could have prevented that).
I think it's worth asking if light rail is even a worthy mode to consider in many cases. You will only attract ridership if transit is time-competitive and faster than driving, and to make light rail faster you have to build or acquire a high-quality right of way. The right of way is the most expensive cost of any rail transit project, and if you're already going to dump that much money into a project you might as well not choose light rail.
Many sprawling American cities are better off choosing faster regional rail or elevated automated express metro (think Montreal REM or Vancouver Skytrain) instead of trying to endlessly upgrade light rail. One example of this mistake is Ottawa's O-Train, which is effectively a light metro using light rail rolling stock. It is really popular, with similar ridership figures to Seattle, Portland, or SF Muni Metro despite opening less than 5 years ago and being only 12km long. But the light rail tech inherently has performance and capacity issues.
The opposite is true actually. The only thing making LRT less attractive to drivers is all the cars in their way. We need to congestion price all major urbanized cores and use the funds to rebuild our lost trolley networks. Without personal automobiles clogging the streets this would be much faster and more economical than heavy rail investments (which can come later once we make it feasible to travel in most metros easily w/o a car)
@@StLouis-yu9iz LRT isn't slow because cars are in the way of trains, LRT is slow usually because the ROW quality is poor. The "lost trolley networks" you speak of would not work in today's cities, especially as a standalone network. The cities are physically too large to effectively traverse by tram. Politicians, planners, and advocates make the mistake of wanting to bring "European style" tram networks to the US without realising that a) the existing urban context doesn't support trams and b) "European style trams" wouldn't bring a '"European style urban context".
The best example of this is Japan, where almost no interurban networks remain because they all had to be upgraded to heavy rail for capacity/speed reasons as their cities grew.
On congestion pricing, it basically makes no sense anywhere in the US currently except NYC, because such a tax would be regressive without preexisting alternative transportation options.
@@chloetangpongprush3519 what do you mean by the ROW quality being poor if you’re not referring to full line ride time?
A: I never suggested they be ‘standalone networks’; just that it’s the first rail investments we should make to change from our car culture. B: I don’t want N.A. to look like Europe. I want it to look more like it used to before we bulldozed it for cars though.
C: Despite all the CARnage, most American cities still have a dense mixed-use walkable core that would absolutely benefit from this kind of passenger rail.
D: Car dependency is extremely regressive for society; so until we can start converting highways into proper metro/HSR lines, we need to employ every tactic we have to discourage car culture and raise money for active mobility investments.
You are being way too kind to leave the O-Train problems at performance and capacity issues. The initial system's quality of service has been an outright disaster that still hasn't been truly fixed. And as for capacity it's going to run up against real problems once all of Stage 2 segments open, especially on the Confederation Line.
Light rail that has a dedicated and mostly grade separated route is best for longer distances. Shorter lines in denser areas are better served with higher capacity heavy rail subways.
My hometown has a massive tram-light rail system...the main problem is that they mostly run in traffic and tend to get held up in a lot...and only half the fleet allows for level boarding.
Toronto?
We need to stop mixing up light rail with trams/streetcars. They are NOT the same thing.
Well that's a plus for Ottawa. Our LRT system is fully grade-separated!
I would argue that the OTrain is more a true metro that just so happens to use LRT trains instead of heavy rail.
@@bruceboa6384 Exactly. Ottawa as an LRT? A+. Ottawa as a metro system? C.
@@MultiCappieit's not that bad as far as being a metro service. it's frequent (4 minute headways in peak), goes to a lot of the big places, has good feeder service.
like it had some unfortunate circumstances at launch and for the next few years, i think it's mostly fixed now /cope
@@auroraiskindacool I get that all. Like I say, it's better than Edmonton's or Calgary's systems because it's grade separated. The problem is the low-floor trains.
A real metro train would have as many doors as seats so when it's crowded, you don't trip all over people. Plus a high floor train requires significantly less maintenance per km, and scales so much better.
Ottawa, for slightly more money could have had a metro that Toronto and Montreal would envy. Only slightly. Like, just build the tunnels 60 cm taller.
@@MultiCappie tbh i think we could run the trains they use on the REM on our network without modification, the only reason we don't is because train contracting for phase one was done when they still wanted to run it down sparks street at grade (a-la alberta) , and we can't switch to high floor trains without rebuilding all the platforms (which also necessitates getting rid of all the low floor trains for accessibility reasons)
I have light rail in my city. (Helsinki line 15 or trams in the center) And they just started preparation for light rail line 14 construction near my home.
Good video. Interesting that you show the LA Metro light-rail system several times in the video, but never mention it, considering it's the largest light-rail system in the USA.
It does many of the things you say in the video very well. The one area it needs improvement is implementing signal prioritization throughout the network. Right now its only done on certain lines in specific sections. There has been this push and pull between LADOT and LA Metro. Conflicting interests between transit agencies is an issue as well.
LA Metro continues to increase its ridership from its lows during the worst of Covid. It's up to 70% of its prepandemic ridership of 2019 and have no doubt it will reach and possibly surpass the 2019 number at the end of 2024.
The connection to the LAX airport in late 2024 or 2025 will result in a considerable increase in boardings on all of LA Metro's lines as well.
Los Angeles (city and county) has come a long way with its public transit over the past couple decades. Cool to witness.
For Portland, I think frequency/interlining is the biggest problem. Poorly designed junctions without grade separation merk the frequency and make delays reverberate. Flying (or underground I guess) junctions should always be used when interlining is necessary. Also, not every line needs to go downtown.
I would argue Vancouver's skytrain is a better example than c-train. Grade separated, 1-3 min frequency, great access.
I agree! 🚈
Living in Edmonton, looking at Edmonton, I think our -LRT- entire city needs: better land use; better feeder bus system; more direct routing; better transit priority; higher frequency.
Watching your video, I think: well are we awesome or what?
But spoiler alert, you can always do better. Keep your American noses to the grindstone for the long haul.
After a business trip to the Sacramento area, I was excited to use light rail to get from Folsom (where I was staying) to downtown rather than having to take a Lyft all the way to the airport. The train arrived 45 minutes late. It was then (poorly) explained to us that it would not be going all the way to its usual end of the line and would be dropping us halfway in another suburb, at which point we'd need to take a bus. None of this was ever updated accurately at the station, online, or on the app. None of it. How can people expect this to take off when it's run so terribly?
Backfilling car-centric areas with rail requires messy compromises.
For instance, San Jose's light rail has to wait at a lot of car intersections and skirts around the airport rather than going directly to it.
My home town, Shaker Heights, Ohio, has two light-rail lines that were laid out in the 1920s along with the neighborhood development. I've ridden it to the downtown Cleveland city center, and can connect with a heavy rail line to the airport.
Pre-COVID, Charlotte did fantastic work with its light rail line. 8 minute frequencies, sweeping TOD rezoning, and a decent bit of grade separation (enough to largely avoid traffic issues). Today, frequency is 15 minutes during rush hour and 20 minutes the rest of the day, but this is largely due to poor management. Hoping once they work through some maintenance issues they will be able to return frequencies to sub-10 minutes. In the meantime we can enjoy the highly walkable TOD along the line.
I think the state government of NC has a lot to do with that. They have a really antagonistic relationship with the city and transit, very similar to Georgia and Atlanta
@@scpatl4now regarding potential expansion you are absolutely right. Hopefully this year Charlotte and the state assembly can come to terms on how future projects can be funded so the ball can get rolling
I think this does a good job of being even handed. It neither fetishizes nor villifies light rail. Everyone serious about transit knows it’s not going away anytime soon, and nor should it, so instead of advocating for cities to overbloat their budgets on pie-in-the-sky heavy rail projects we should be working to reduce (but not eliminate) at-grade construction and advocating to run it through densely populated areas
The R line in Denver-Aurora is a case of build it now for development in a couple decades, where it’s allowed to be built, one type for every condition & poor existing land use without the will to transform the uses allowed now to guide development. It seems like a waste now but some development is starting & it’ll prove a good decision in the future. Since every other line is radial, this has the greatest potential of growth for connecting people in the future, just farther than desired. The speed of the alignment (due to where it was allowed) is an issue that won’t get resolved unfortunately.
The problem is the street level running, but not actually being a street car. They should've routed it parallel to 225 the whole way since all the stations are next to 225 anyway. The area it travels through is the already heavily developed downtown of Aurora. If anything they should even consider making it a streetcar service with request stops
@@mrvwbug4423 Putting City Center where it is compared to the rest of the line is a big issue, that was the result of too many cooks demanding their flavor be added to the pot. That said, a less insanely set of tight corner would do wonders to solve the problem. Alternately, putting the station west of the mall (between the mall and the freeway) with a 5-minute circulator shuttle over to the library/citty hall area would also do many wonders.
That station also has terrible access for busses, which have to go WAY out of their route as well, and most have at least one LONG wait at the left turn plus that insane spiral they do through the parking lot, I've missed so many trains by seconds...don't get me started. That both the busses AND the trains are 30 minutes at best makes a trip of 4-5 miles along that corridor into an hour+, especially if you have a bus on both ends.
We definitely need service along the corridor, but if anything I agree -- the R-line is master class in how NOT to do it.
Also: many people in many meetings have explained all the points in the video AND MORE and they still act confused as to why it has such low ridership. Sometimes I wonder how we manage to have a network at all.
6:51 yeah the signal priority is nearly as good as it can get on Valley Metro, so trains cruise at similar speed to NYC subway, 35mph, which is too slow for Phoenix's sprawl. Relaxing zoning to allow destinations to be more interspersed could be a workaround? Howabout exploiting the sprawl to add third and fourth tracks for express?... (Pretty sure elevating the track onto viaducts between existing stations is easier)
And on-time performance isn’t all that good either. If I check Valley Metro’s app at any random time during the day, the trains are usually at least 5 minutes late, though on occasion, some are also early. At least the city of Phoenix is implementing some of the good infrastructure design Mesa used in the Gilbert Road extension (mainly using a few roundabouts based on the Horne/Main Street roundabout) for their South Central extension, though it would be nice if those were implemented across the rest of the network. It’s ridiculous that the timetabled time to go between Alma School/Main Street and Country Club/Main Street is 4 minutes.
Yesss please do dedicated video of either Calgary or Edmonton or both!!
Are you aware Alberta is working on a regional rail service?
I live in Hillsboro, Oregon, and we have an end of Portland's MAX light rail. It's fairly frequent, and they've built well around some of the stations, but... MAX stands for "Metropolitan Area eXpress" and its chief fault is that there is nothing "express" about it.
I'm a bigger fan of just building straight up metro. Which I'm glad Honolulu is doing. I hope big cities in the US with little to no rail will consider building metro instead of light rail. I'm thinking San Antonio, Kansas City, Memphis, Las Vegas. To name a few.
If you thought RTD's light rail frequency was bad, just wait until the E and H lines are getting cut to hourly service for this entire summer, and the L line is completely canceled.
It’s because of construction not because they are canceling the lines completely. It’s pretty annoying though.
Im in denver the simple fix to the r line issue is to extend half of the h line trains to peoria then there's every 15 minutes along the corridor with the possibility of more 1 seat rides.
Kind of sad how you didn't mention Portland OR at all. It was just 2 b-roll clips of our system lol. The MAX isn't perfect but it spans more city area than most trains and has a tight bus network across the city.
I mean, the good news is that DART is getting better? They're currently in the construction phase of redeveloping basically all the land (including the parking lot) around a current park and ride, and are working on getting infil TOD around a minimum 12 and up to dozens of current park and ride stations.
On another note, DART actually does the 2nd part quite well, where the bus system (inneficient as it was) fed into the light rail pretty well. DART is now reworking the entire bus network to make all the routes faster, more frequent, and frankly less ghetto, especially in currently high use lines.
Granted, the got the funding for this by canceling the D2 subway, but theyre upgrading the signals to increase efficiency and frequency, some tracks, and like 25 stations to be able to accept 3 car trains to address capacity, which aint exactly a bad trade off.
Bus> Articulated bus> tram > LRT ( Light rel transit) > metro train > Commuter trains
The R line here in Denver also is the one that took a few years to learn how to stay on the freaking rails.
THANK YOU for emphasizing directness for routes. Too many urbanists seem to think there are no downsides to zigzagging all over the place.
Great video man. Keep it up!
RTD has been told all the things you mention regarding the R line (or at least after that segment, minute 10-11ish). And several more things such as the fact that most busses connecting to the various stations only run every 30 minutes, that having four 90-degree angles in a row half-way through (with non-priority signals in that stretch), and that there are no major destinations either along the line or on nearby connecting busses...
They still complain about being confused. The corridor is in desperate need of good service even though everything is commute related (eg. hospital campuses, city hall, etc) rather than a downtown area. It had higher ridership than some RTD lines that had service added in the 2010s despite being a new line...yet had service cut to 30 minutes only a few months after being opened.
On that note, if you want to do a deep dive come on over and hang out with the YIMBY, urbanism, bike/walk/roll, and transit groups in the Denver area and interviews them about the politics and fumbles RTD goes through. Most of our wounds with that agency are self-inflicted, and the R-line doesn't even scratch the surface. I am constantly amazed that we have a mostly coherent network despite the administration's seeming best efforts to the contrary, and that is not an understatement.
I'm from Denver and can't stress enough how much of a problem frequency and land use are around our lightrail. (Not gonna call it LRT because there's no way it's rapid transit, lol.)
We built a bunch of lines up north of Denver in the last 10-15 years or so, and they all run at usually 15 minute intervals, which isn't necessarily *terrible* but it does mean you need to check the schedule if you're going anywhere. There's not a huge amount of coverage downtown, especially on the east side, so our lightrail functions more as a commuter rail system than anything. And on top of that, like half the stations are park-n-rides, not just the termini either, there's a station on the G line almost halfway along it I think that has its nearest business listed as a "sand and gravel pit."
From what I've heard we've got bills being considered to encourage more mixed-use development around RTD stations though. I really hope that helps things out. The planned BRT routes along several major downtown corridors is super welcome too, even if I'd much prefer a proper metro.
I live in Denver and I use the light rail pretty often. I think most lines are pretty good but admittedly the r line is kind of annoying because it goes suburb to suburb. Other than that most lines are generally pretty good with 15 min frequencies and decent land use.
Based on your points, I have used Calgary's system and can attest to its excellent service provision. We certainly need more emphasis on bus networks to connect more places and feed into the rail lines.
It is worth noting the example you picked in the Twin Cities, the 28th/30th Ave Park And Ride, was only constructed because the Mall of America refused to allow Metro Transit to use their existing parking garages for park and ride capacity. Nearby there is the Bloomington Central Station which is located right in the middle of pedestrian and transit oriented development.
Doesn't detract from the whole video but it is still worth being fair!
Imma be real with you I couldn’t find any good photos of park and rides on other systems 🥲
@@climateandtransit LMFAO This is hilarious, I kinda figured due to the old school Hiawatha line livery on the LRVs, but that's valid!
Like you said, I would love videos on Edmonton and Calgary's light rail networks!
This contents getting increasingly good. And I love seeing footage of the San Diego Trolley!
Muni has NOT maximized TOD. There are tons of stops in the outer reaches of the L, M, and N lines where the vast majority of housing within a quarter mile of the station are single-family homes with yards and garages. San Francisco still has WAY more room for new housing densification.
Yea but SF has way smaller lots than other single family neighborhoods and even those neighborhoods still have duplexes and triplexes. Remember the N was pulling near 50k riders a day for a two car streetcar that couldn’t add capacity because of physical constraints but it still beat driving.
5 Stars for this video. Japan is particularly good at having buses arrive before a train is scheduled and 😂waiting at a station when a train arrives. Actual frequency is important. Where I live, a bus route has a schedule of 4 per hour, but when 2 run nose to tail, the next one may be 40 minutes later. Uggh!
Edmontonian here, although I've lived in both major Alberta cities. Calgary has a huge advantage having the largest office cluster in Canada outside of Toronto in the downtown oil patch towers which really juices the numbers but having an orderly plan for your system from the get go which they have helps. Too often a succession of planners will try and put their stamp on a project by tweaking it needlessly over the decades it takes to get most built and the result is often a mess. I.e. Capital Line in Edmonton which was built without any traffic modelling done.
That's where Edmonton has really suffered while Calgary has soared. Just the routing of the half-built NW LRT in Edmonton and its different plans from the late 70's until now is staggering. But having said that once you build it, people here will come! The numbers speak for themselves... Especially on a ridership per route mile basis. Outside of Mexican LRT lines, Calgary and Edmonton tend to sit #1 and #2 on these lists respectively...
Alberta could do MUCH better. TOD is often just a few highrise developments a few hundred meters from the station. They need more like 4sqkm around a station to be able to have better street layouts and separation of vehicles and pedestrians. I've been to hundreds of stations around the world and the transitional spaces are seriously overlooked over here. I think the planners could learn a thing or two from studying the philosophy behind Japanese gardens. I want to feel harmony with my surroundings when I come out of a train station, and I want to have a sense of where I am by a unique atmosphere. Take a look at Forest Hills Gardens in Queens. That's a good example of what I think we should be striving for, but with a bit more density.
Salt Lake City is working on better land use and with the Rio Grande Plan coming on I believe that will usher in a boom for transit. Hopefully that project can get moving with an integration with UTA Trax (SLC's Light Rail)
Yeah, Aurora fought hard to get LRT in the I-225 coridor because they have a lot of fabulous TOD opportunities. and then over the next couple of decades.... nothing happened. The city did very little investment north of Iliff and RTD cut the frequency because of low ridership. No one wants to live or invest in Aurora.
The area in and around Aurora has expanded at a double digit growth rate for almost two decades. How does no one want to live there? No one who is pro progressive policy and urbanism?
The R had higher numbers than the C line in the first couple years it was open.
The C-line was slated for added frequency in the same schedule adjustment as the R- was proposed for a cut. It was really bizarre. Also: one of the single-largest public comment sessions I've ever been to for RTD. That was insane (and they still claim they don't understand the blah blah blah).
I could see light rail eventually making it to chicago to fill in some transit poor areas. The west side of the city could use a north to south light rail. Or a west side to north side light rail
The RTD R line really is a joke, it trundles through downtown Aurora at 10mph at street level, but doesn't operate as a streetcar, ALL of the R line stations are still next to I-225. They should've kept the routing parallel to 225 the whole way. They also have not returned to pre-pandemic service levels. there's still 3 stations on the south end of the network that have not returned to service since the pandemic and an entire route was dropped as well. There's also the pathetic 30min frequency during off-peak and it only goes to 15min for a few trains during peak time. For a comparison, for me to get to the closest A line station to go to the airport, it is a 15min drive or 40 minutes on the R-line ... if I'm not stuck waiting the better part of 30min at the station. I will give RTD some credit though, there is some TOD around some of the light rail stations. Iliff station and Bellview stations in particular have some good TOD, there's also a decent TOD on one of the W line stations.
Deviations work when it goes directly to a key destination along the route. The R line example is a poor use because the deviation of going to a major job and activity center for a rail line to work! A key element you list as a need for the system to function. Speed in an off itself isn't a bad thing. The agency that will operate the line has to decide what is the object of the route. Is it going to be core main line or feed other lines.
Seattle Link is great, but the upcoming extensions are mostly highway-adjacent. There are plans to improve the land use, but that will take time. We also have a road median section that deviates out a bit south of downtown. In my mind, I always think it would be great to have an express, or another line that bypasses the Beacon Hill through Rainier Beach stops. But we do have some killer frequency, so I can't complain too much
"Killer"?????
I don't think we should amalgamate Canada and the US when talking about transit. Yes Canada has a lot of the problems of the US (aka car centric infrastructures, stroads, single family homes & parkade culture). However Canada is generally and almost always better at making transit than the US. Most metro and LRT systems are better thought, have higher ridership per mile, have mich better bus systems, have better TOD, better frequency and less park & rides.
You can't compare the C-Train, O-Train or ETS with any other US system besides Seattle (a city larger than any of the Canadian cities I mentioned).
Something I've noticed is that developers rarely develop effective TOD projects around buses. This is because developers want to be confident in their investment and need to ensure they can repay their loans. With light rail, the permanence of a new, modern system provides this confidence, allowing for denser construction. It doesn't make sense to focus on making light rail primarily serve commuters rather than using it as a tool for development and connecting communities with essential services.
Pittsburgh has highish ridership but the network itself is honestly really bad with 3 lines that are piggybacked off a streetcar network that honestly shouldn't have been gutted
Ridership on their LRT is honesty isn’t great per mile
@@climateandtransit i tend to see it stronger on the red mainly but again its iffy there. im only used to seeing high ridership due to my college schedule haha
but overall the pittsburgh railways streetcar network should have never been gutted in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. They could have still had the downtown subway constructed and made the adjustments to some streetcar lines to create the LRT network off of it and had them work in tandem
The Tide in Norfolk VA is an example of the “no’s” you note. Basically, it goes from one hospital to another. Sadly, this is standing in the way of linking the two military bases and the airport where there’s a real need. Drat.
I feel like better feeder busses and land use would help in Denver. It kinda sucks when your bus has so many stops before it gets to the light rail.
It's always boggled my mind how so many American cities will build LRT's connecting parking lots. That's thankfully not all of them, but woefully it's most of them. Making matters worse, it seems that many metro areas will consider a tiny cluster of mixed use buildings up to six stories a "high density transit oriented development". If you want to see real TOD, go see what Vancouver has built and is building, which is verging on insane, Hong Kong level density. Often newcomers and tourists will be mistaken that Richmond or Metrotown is downtown Vancouver, as they're more built up and walkable than most major American urban centers - the reality is that central Vancouver is the really big cluster of highrises directly on the ocean. However, that's confusing, as there are now over a dozen urban centers that fit that definition within an hour long transit ride. It's going to be really confusing when downtown Surrey is as large and dense as Downtown Vancouver. Now THAT is TOD.
Great video! One thing that drives me crazy in many US light rail systems is the use of old RR ROW's. While they can be good to use, cities like LA will not deviate off the ROW to serve regional activity centers. These RR ROW's typically go through low density housing, heavy industrial areas, and rarely are within walking distance to a major activity center. The RR ROWs also do not follow natural transit corridors which results in a forced transfer to a major activity center or dense residential areas.
Case in point is the light rail plan in Torrance (an LA suburb). The RR ROW deviates away from the South Bay's largest commercial and employment center and densest housing district in the 3 mile long Del Amo corridor. Instead the station will be located in a heavy industrial area amid oil storage tanks over 1 mile away from the heart of the area which will require an additional transfer for most people to get to work, to shopping, or to conduct business in the busy Del Amo area. It will also miss one of LA's biggest medical centers at UCLA-Harbor Med Ctr which will be about 1 1/2 miles from the rail line. One line could logically route itself along Hawthorne to serve Del Amo and then east to serve the Med Ctr on its way to Long Beach. This corridor is one of the South Bay's busiest bus corridors.
This is also true of the planned SE Gateway Line in which the RR ROW will leave a station over a mile away from Cerritos Community College and misses all major commercial centers in the region, including passing within 1000' of Los Cerritos Center and instead placing the station over 1/2 mile away from it. Another forced bus transfer in a suburb with no frequent bus service. Both of these major destinations are 2 miles apart from each other along a straight line and RR ROW goes between these two destinations. This is a feature of the RR ROW in both examples, it takes you in the vicinity of these major destinations but not close enough.
LA's Crenshaw light rail line will be over half underground when the fully underground northern extension is built. Why build an underground light rail line that will cost about the same as a heavy rail line to build? That makes absolutely no sense because you end up with an expensive subway with less speed and less capacity and unable to be upgraded.
LA's heavy rail system on the other hand does go through the heaviest populated areas of the city and, with the opening of the D Line subway extension, will finally serve the regions highest ridership transit corridor. These light rail lines show that most US cities use light rail to build cheaply along RR ROW's but end up with lines that poorly serve the region and that those without a choice will use, although many will prefer to stay on the buses they use now because the bus routing is more direct, but those with a choice will not, meaning the amount of new riders is low.
The examples you site are cherry-picked and not yet built. Nothing has been set in stone yet for either the short extension of the C line or the new Southeast Gateway Cities line. And you fail to mention that the C line extension is set to end at the Torrance Transit Center which is fairly new. That's a very good thing.
The Hawthorne route would have to be elevated and would cost more than twice the cost of building it on a ROW that LA Metro already OWNS. LA Metro doesn't have the funds to build the Hawthorne route.
The Southeast Gateway Cities proposes route will also use an existing ROW that LA Metro also has access too which reduces the cost of building the line significantly. The issues in Cerritos have more to do with the Cerritos city council and Mall. They've been fighting against the light rail coming to Cerritos and putting up obstacles and unreasonable demands. Though, I think, more recently, they've come to a better agreement with LA Metro.
LA Metro has done a great job with designing it's light rail system considering the geographic area they have to cover and the available funding.
Both the A and E lines give you convenient access to many important sites in the County. The E line has stations within a short walk to the Santa Monica pier, 3rd Street Promenade, Exposition Park with many museums and sports venues, USC, Broad, Music Center, Grand Central Market, Little Tokyo, and many others.
The K and C lines will connect to each other in the near future and then connect to LAX People Mover.
The recently approved SFV line will also have well placed stations.
BTW, the reason the Northern extension of the Crenshaw line will be an underground light rail is because there isn't the needed space to build it at ground level. Aerial would have been the second option, but residents are against it. So, it has to go underground and since the K line is a light rail, it needs to be a light rail line.
Many of the routes do deviate from the established ROWs on all the light rail lines. Again, the issues of cost or NIMBYism is what sometimes comes into play when deciding the final route and station locations. It's important for people like you to make your concerns known.
I've attended many community meetings and Metro does listen. The extension of the E line in East LA that has been approved will have underground stations along Atlantic and one at the Citadel in response to community input. Don't let the NIMBYs have the loudest voice.
@mrxman581 5 of LA's rail lines use/ will use RR/ freeway ROW's, that's not cherry picking.
The Torrance Transit Center is located in a heavy industrial area. It's already built. That's a sure indicator that the line's routing has been set in stone. That's a terrible location chosen by politicians who have never ridden transit in their lives. There is nothing there. Everyone on that train will have to transfer to a bus. That's a forced transfer created by a line that is routed poorly.
Yes, using RR ROW's is cheaper but is it worth the money when it doesn't do the job it should do? Yes, routing it on Hawthorne and then down Carson to Long Beach would cost more money, but it is the right routing. That line is only forecasted to add about 5000 riders/day. That's because the routing is terrible and not much more people than a regular bus line. That's not a good line and not worth the money.
Total planned ridership for the LAX station is about 2,000/day. That's not a lot, but it makes sense (I did an entire research study of rapis transit airport stations in the US compared to globally). That's because the train doesn't go into the terminal like at O'Hare and because the regional connections are anemic and will be for a long long time, making travel to LAX via light rail inconvenient for most.
Every transit planner knows that each transfer that is required to complete a trip drastically reduces the likelihood of someone with a choice of choosing that option. The primary purpose of a rail transit isn't just to connect to tourist places, it's to connect people to/from the places they need to go to every single day; school, work, appointments, medical centers, major commercial centers, dense neighborhoods, as quickly and conveniently as possible.
The light rail system LA Metro built cannot cope with much demand. If this was Minneapolis, then that would be appropriate, but for a city like LA, it's the wrong mode.
The Expo Line was overcrowded from the start pre-Covid, but Metro can not run more trains because it will cause too much traffic backup because of the decision not to fully grade separate the line. That was easy to foresee. The stations can not be lengthened to accommodate longer trains due to cost. So the Expo Line is maxed out. It can't handle any more riders at peak times. How is that a good rail line for a city like Los Angeles?
That should have been a heavy rail line along Venice and Pico to Santa Monica with faster and longer trains that can carry more people entirely grade separated. The Expo RR ROW was the cheap way, and now it can't be improved without grade separating it all, including the Washington Wye at a cost probably greater than it cost to build in the first place.
The Long Beach branch of the Blue Line has similar overcrowding and capacity constraints due to light rail's lower capacity and at-grade crossings. The at-grade crossings have resulted in over 800 car collisions and 120 deaths along the branch since 1990, an avg of 24 collisions/year. That's a high price for choosing the cheaper option.
Even the Van Nuys Blvd line will require a transfer to the Sepulveda Line to get to the Westside. That is a major transit corridor that should be one continuous line. The Van Nuys line won't even reach Ventura Blvd. It will also be street running, which will severely limit its speed, making it less convenient in terms of travel time. It's a cheaper but substandard mode for a city like LA that will probably become overcrowded like the Expo with no way to expand capacity, will create another forced transfer, making that line less convenient than it should be.
The light rail line from Long Beach to Azusa is 49 miles long, and will be longer. That's 49+ miles of possible delays from automobile traffic that can accumulate to wildly inconsistent train arrivals by the end of the line, ricocheting throughout the line to every other train on the line. That is very poor planning.
The alignment in Pasadena also uses the cheaper freeway ROW instead of where the people are on Colorado Blvd. It was already well known that freeway stations are not pleasant or convenient. This is also bad planning.
While the ELA line didn't use a RR ROW, almost every station in ELA has been consistently at the bottom in ridership since the line was built. It's because the light rail line requires too many transfers. One to get to the line, one to get to the Red/Purple Line, one to get from the Red/Purple Line to where they're going. That's at least 3 transfers each way. However, staying on the Whittier Blvd or Cesar Chavez bus (both of which carry almost 10x more people than that entire light rail branch) to the Red Line eliminates one transfer. It's over 1/2 mile from Cesar Chavez City College. That's one reason why the Cesar Chavez bus is so busy. The commercial center of ELA is Whittier Blvd (about 3/4 mile from the light rail line), which is why that bus is so busy.
The ELA branch follows a low activity corridor between the two high activity corridors hoping to siphon traffic from both and doing neither. With the Washington Blvd extension, it's trying to meet the needs of the entire East Side with one line. This isn't really serving the needs of the East Side. At least the low capacity light rail line isn't in danger of being overcrowded.
The Orange BRT bus line is busier than the C Line, the Pasadena branch, the ELA branch, and the Crenshaw Line. That shouldn't be the case if those rail lines were well planned.
LA is the nation's 2nd largest city with one of the world's largest GDP's and deserves a first-rate global standard rapid transit system, not a compromised 2nd rate one that was cheaper to build but doesn't serve the people as well as it should.
So, every light rail line in LA has several very poor cost-saving related planning choices that do and will adversely impact the quality and reliability of transit in LA.
Light rail was chosen for political reasons stemming from the ban on subway construction. However, that is no longer the case, and LA should not continue this pattern. This isn't the case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. It's a case of not letting the mediocre keep the region from achieving its goals.
Surprised you didn't mention Portland when talking about slow at grade running trains
Exactly!!! Busses should ONLY be for taking people to and from the train stations! Then, passenger rail should always be the main source of transportation for traveling around a city or any kind of populated area! This is the ONLY WAY to maximize the flow of riders to and from their destination the fastest! Most cities don't understand this concept and it baffles me why they don't!
Because I am a MAJOR train fan and a MAJOR passenger rail supporter, I am willing to walk farther than most others just so I can use Passenger Rail. Unfortunately, none is near my home and I can only use it when I go on vacation. Even then, I have limited time and most stops aren't near where I want to go. I will use it when it is going somewhere I want to go, if I can find a Park & Fly or some other free parking space.
DART is my favorite because of how extensive it is and the wide variety of methods they have. My only complaint is the old, ugly DART trains that look like they're from the 80s.
Without bothering to nail down the specifics, Canada generally provides much more bus service than the US does, so much of Calgary's and Edmonton's success is due to higher ambient levels of transit use and greater public acceptance of transit. It's not just a matter of attitude, either. Feeder buses are more likely to be successful if headways and thus wait times for transfers are short. I often wonder what would happen if American cities doubled or tripled their transit service to Canadian levels. Would they attain Canadian levels of transit ridership after, say, ten years? It might be worth it if we could figure out how to pay for a tryout.
I am a fan of light rail, there’s one in Norfolk but I live far away, I live near Charlottesville.
Ugh. Really wish I could disagree with you about Denver’s (Aurora’s) R line. As a transit advocate who lived in South Aurora and commuted to Denver airport, the R line “should” have been a no-brainer for me. unfortunately, it was just so slow and cumbersome to use, that driving unfortunately made far more sense. Not sure if you have taken it, but you’re absolutely right, that jig around the Aurora mall absolutely kills the rapidness of that line. I understand why this jig is there, to get the line close to all the government buildings of Aurora and Adams County, but geez, this would’ve been a place were elevating the line would have been absolutely justified. I suppose now at a very minimum they should give it aggressive signal priority. also a bit of good news is that it’s supposed to go back to 15 minute frequencies within the next year or two.
At least Denver is starting to get somewhat more on track with their transit . As far as I understand, a huge initiative to create TOD’s around existing stations has been implemented. Additionally RTD is rolling out a system optimization plan which will triple the amount of frequent transit lines in Denver and align bus and light rail much better
Including link as an honorable mention was kind of frustrating to see. All the things that make it a high performance LRT have also made it really expensive. It’s a poorly thought out attempt to do the job of a metro with light rail, so it has tons of expensive tunnels but also has a low capacity cap and some slow street running segments that will limit future growth. Link isn’t a good example of how to build light rail, it’s a cautionary tale about how NOT to build a subway.
But it looks so pretty in American downtowns :)
It does :)
The R line is so unfortunate because it is one of the only suburban-suburban light rail lines in the country, but the land use and the operation of the system is unacceptable.
Your issue with grade separation is a bit weird. I understand wanting the system to be fast but that fundamentally goes against what Light Rail is supposed to be, which is local service. Decent speed, a lot of stops over a dense area that are too close together for heavy rail. This really gets to the point of why US light rail systems are bad and that is because we try and use them as if they are proper heavy rail subways that are fast and zip across the city. That’s not what light rail is. We tried to copy Germany with their tram systems but we forgot that most of these German cities that have this tram train style systems are also connected to a regional/commuter train system that makes stops across the city, that also supplements the rapid transit part and gets people across the city fast where the trams do the local stuff. Even still I don’t think that this tram + regional “stop Bahn” system works all that well and having a proper subway or metro is simply the best solution. Let light rail do what it was intended on doing which is local services and these American cities are so big that they really don’t have much of an excuse to not build proper subways
How on earth is Link rail a ridership success? It gets a bit over 3,000 boardings per mile per weekday. That more than the overrated systems in Portland, but half of Boston's. We complain of our new light rail (L2/L3) being slow here in Sydney, yet it gets almost 15,000 boardings per mile.
Is it light-rail or a tram/streetcar? Not the same thing.
@@mrxman581 What do you mean? Streetcars in the US have even lower ridership per mile than light rail.
Why are transit costs for heavy metro rail increasing?
What about personal rapid transit?
You should look at Bergen's Bybanen, it's the best in the world and fully utilized.
One other thing. We need to make a clear distinction between light-rail and trams/streetcars. They are not the same. They are designed very differently and usually serve different constituencies, too.
You should look at DC's streetcar. It has good ridership per mile and good land use.
BUT it's hampered by political infighting that keeps causing delays in expansion. By this point it was supposed to be the number 1 best east-west transit in the city. Going 8 miles with 4-5 metro stop connections throughout. Instead it goes 2 miles with no good metro connections.
What are your thoughts on doing a “West Coast City Tier List”?
Will never happen 😉
very informative
RTD is one of the most baffling systems in the US. Denver somehow managed to not only screw up their light rail, but also their brand new ELECTRIFIED commuter rail system. The lack of TOD is criminal and the rolling stock visually looks ancient, which may turn away new riders
I do have a light rail in my city, Ottawa, Canada. To increase ridership, I would recommend the Confederation Line to be turned into a France-esque Light Automatic Vehicle system.
No.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
@@Gfynbcyiokbg8710 I disagree what you’re saying.
@@PatrickDoyle-gt9kd VAL is a terrible and there is no reason to use such a gadgetbahn
@@Gfynbcyiokbg8710 Ottawa’s LRT trains are way much worse than VAL trains.
@@PatrickDoyle-gt9kd That doesn't mean that you should spend hundreds of millions, if not billions, for something marginally better
Seattle Link is probably the best example of how to do light rail the correct way. Even on street running/median section the train has signal priority which allows for faster speeds, more frequent headways and reliability. Plus Seattle has utilized TOD.
Seattle is also one of the best examples of where NOT to use (especially low floor) light rail
Rn they are working on the ‘purple line’ in MC Maryland. It’s a sinkhole of tax money and is tearing up the streets. Hopefully it will learn from the mistakes of its predecessors but very skeptical.
I moved from the worst LRT network in North America to the best! (Norfolk to Calgary) To be fair, Norfolk has better ferries than Calgary does. ;)
Seriously though, Calgary is such an amazing transit city for this continent on a per-capita basis. I so can't wait for the Green Line to get built!
LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ANOTHER CLIMATE AND TRANSIT VIDEO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CapMetro has to be the light rail line with lowest per mile ridership in the entire world. Like 50 riders per day per mile. Not sure why that is.
Baltimore and some other cities do not have the population base to support light rail due to declining population, work from home, companies leaving downtown areas because of crime and high taxes, delivery services from amazon, Walmart, Instacart and others. Baltimore's light rail gets about 7% of its revenue from the farebox in part because students ride for free, seniors for $1 and some avoiding buying tickets, resulting in a $50M deficit per year. Now they want to spend $250-$300M to buy new rolling stock which over maybe 10-12 years will all total around $1B's.all this for fewer than 10,000 riders per day and around 1,500 paying customers, maybe less.
Applause for the absurdly impressive compilation of video here
Safety in the LA Metro. You have a bike or electric scooter good luck. I am comfortable to take one because I am a large man. But i always get asked by women or small guys if its safe. And they always say they're too afraid. Sucks.
Safety was much more of an issue during the worst of Covid because LA Metro decided not to enforce fares which resulted in many more homeless using it. That policy changed over a year ago and now things have improved noticeably. And there are also more security officers and the transit ambassadors. So, yes, it's safe now and much cleaner than during Covid.
@@mrxman581 its "safer" not safe. And it is cleaner. Never argued that.
@@Bob_SacamanoWell, no mode of transit is 100% safe, and when someone asks that, that's not what they mean. They mean is it safe enough or relatively safe. Just like asking is it safe to drive on the freeways. Yes, it's safe.
@@mrxman581 k
It's significantly statistically safer than driving a car in LA. Yeah I watch my back when I'm on the system, but I do that everywhere else when I'm out anyway. Perceived safety is obviously a different thing.
Seattle's biggest failure when it comes to light rail is its propensity for paralysis through analysis. The 1 Line was a massive success. Everyone knows it. Everyone wants more. But rather than just building more light rail, the city spends decades of R/D deciding on rail alignments and environmental impacts studies only to bend to the whim of a few rich corporations that force the transit agency to reset all their plans.
RTD desperately needs to fix the R Line, too many 90 degree turns with deviations.
It literally has one single deviated section. Have you ever even ridden it?
@mmrw I’ve ridden it before. I live in the Denver Metro Area. I think Climate and Transit is over exaggerating the R Line deviation.
@@SpaceboyYT agreed. He cherrypicked one of literally two light rail sections that can really be thought of as deviations and said it was some problem with the entire system. Urbanist people really seem to hate RTD light rail for no actual reason
@@mmrw It’s helped me quite a few times. When I did my driving school on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I walked 17 or more minutes to the Jeffco Gov’t Center Station and took the W Line to Federal Center, and took the 99 bus home. I even took a bus to the E/H line to the D Line to the 59 bus home after eating at a restaurant. I even took the 59 bus to watch a basketball game at Dakota Ridge High School. People need to find pros about RTD, not just the cons because it’s not a world class transit system like the EU or Asia.
I mean I’ll give some credit to Seattle for the amount of network that is grade separated.
There's a light rail in my city, I've never rode it. Non of them go where i need to and it's just faster to go on my bicycle.
God i love light rail. There are so many cities I have been that could be improved with some basic lines.
But it is nice to see it at least exist in North America.
My city's tram network has one fully separated branch with the speed up to 70 km/h. Th fast tramway goes above and under other roads. Stops are under bridges while bus stops are on them. At the end of the line there's a bus terminal.
You can see it in the video, though it's from before the modernisation of the tracks, so 70 km/h wasn't allowed back then, I think.
czcams.com/video/PrOZh8aXPY4/video.html
Okay so you live in the bay area. Want help? I love this channel...
Sacaramento!
well, my city was GOING to have light rail and then a certain university in blue decided to kill it.