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Instead of light rail, how about just paved roads reserved only for frequent buses and bikes?

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by burritos, Apr 24, 2012.

  1. burritos

    burritos Senior Member

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    I see the sprawling of the light rail in so cal. Great. But when you whiz by the light rail platforms on the freeway, I always notice how empty they are. I say keep the same paths for mass transit. But instead of expensive light rails, put buses in the amount commensurate to the existing light rail train capacity. Or are separate roads+buses more expensive than light rail+train? If it's not more expensive, add protected bike lanes too.
     
  2. ItsNotAboutTheMoney

    ItsNotAboutTheMoney EditProfOptInfoCustomUser Title

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    Light rail primarily depends on ridership. Highway costs a lot less to build, but at capacity buses are much more expensive to operate per passenger.
     
  3. stevemcelroy

    stevemcelroy Active Member

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    Here on the East Coast bike lanes are popping up quite a bit. Unfortunately bikes are not as great an option when you have weather extremes to deal with.

    From what I understand about light rail is that the trains are scheduled much like the commuter rail trains that I used to take to work (MBTA in Boston). In those cases I was always amazed - the trains were just about on time all of the time and commuters showed up just a couple of minutes before the train did. The platform was empty just about all of the time except for perhaps 5 minutes before a train arrived.
     
  4. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Steve,

    Boston, NY, and Washington DC are the few areas with good trains and subways. The bay area has decent trains, but not a good infrastruture to take people around once they get off of it. LA is just plain messed up:D
     
  5. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    It depends. A nearby city built a dedicated bus lane (well two, one for each direction) down the centre of a main road (so it's like a tram but it's for busses) which is silly because now the road is down one lane each way and the bus lane is really only used for rush hour for the express busses. The regular busses use the regular lanes :confused:

    Now with the elevated light rail, they cancelled the express busses and had everyone take the train instead.

    There are good and bad points.

    Good:
    - Trains are more efficient in carrying larger volume of people imo
    - They're faster (fewer stops and they travel at 60 or 70km/h top speed)
    - They're more reliable in terms of arrival and departure times because you've removed the uncertainty factor of roads (traffic volume, construction, collisions etc)
    - You don't really have to time your commute since the trains run every 3 mins at peak hours and every 15 mins during off-peak hours
    - We now have a train that goes to the airport

    Bad:
    - Some people complain it takes longer for their particular commute
    - Some people didn't like the fact that instead of taking one express bus, they have to take the bus to the train and then walk or take another bus at the destination train station to their work
    - It was pretty expensive to build the elevated railway
     
  6. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    Steel wheels on steel rails are very efficient, because the friction is so low. Also, it's very easy to add capacity, unlike it is for roads and cars.

    As for bicycle-only paths....fantastic, wonderful idea. :D I've been advocating the very same thing for a couple of years now at the municipal level, and it's starting to sound less crazy to an ever-increasing number of people. We have a usable network of what people tend to call bike paths, but they're really 'multi-use' paths full of walkers, bladers, dogs, kids in strollers, etc, and often aren't conducive to cycling. Also, the official speed limit is 10 kmh, which is pretty much useless for actually getting anywhere.

    But, given a clear path, a fit cyclist could get around the city faster than by any other mode of transportation, with the least cost and the most health benefits. Now, if only I could convince the funding bodies to portion the budget according to mode share... :)
     
  7. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    I thought it was 15km/h?
     
  8. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    Steel on steel is vry efficient, but expensive to build. Some city in Brazil does dedicated busses quite well, using double and triple trailer buses in dedicated streets. Little delay because of no cars. Busses are cheap to build, and cheap to change routes as patterns change, if not quite as efficient as rail. As long as buses don't run in traffic to get delayed it is reliable. The problem in most US cities is that busses run in traffic, and as soon as there is a traffic accident, the bus schedule and ergo the transit schedule is lost.

    Icarus