Round-up: This week in light rail
Local:
- Light-Rail Supporters Kick Off Campaign (KMBC)
- Light Rail Campaign Launches (KSHB)
- Looking into light-rail myths: What are the facts? (Kansas City Star)
- Light rail costs (Prime Buzz)
National:
- Public transit and oil dependence (Gristmill)
- Speaker touts perks of mass-transit line (Indianapolis Star)
- Metro let problems multiply, audit says (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
- Unsnarling Transportation Funding (The Bulletin)
- Transit author tracks new ideas (Fort Worth Business Press)
- The railroad not taken (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
- New Light Rail Line Coming To Baltimore (WJZ)
3 Comments so far
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I think one of the biggest weaknesses in this country, is the fact we fail to learn from our own history.
Here’s an interesting story from the Chicago Tribune, about the end of the Streetcar era.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-chicagodays-laststreetcar-story,0,1329750.story
It was 50 years ago they realized that a mode of transportation that was limited to being on a track was not functional on the city streets. And yet here in KC, people are saying it’s going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Let’s face it folks, the plans being discussed are nothing more than modern ’streetcars’, and are so severely limited that I can’t help but think you are being sold a horribly deficient bill of goods that is destined to fail.
if a grade-separated system were proposed you’d be balking at the cost. streetcars failed because they were not in dedicated lanes, didn’t have signal priority, and stopped at every corner. our system will have none of those constraints.
also, people now realize that the era of cheap oil is over and we should be diversifying our transportation/energy portfolio. to say that only the last 50 years is relevant to the discussion is exactly the kind of short-sighted logic you present as your argument. the article clearly references that streetcars lasted nearly 100 years. sorry, try again.
there’s no bait-and-switch here. voters know what they’re getting because they’ve seen these systems work in other cities like KC. regardless, they have the right to vote no if they think it’s not worth the local investment.
The reason streetcars stopped was because of General Motors.You can do the same thing with streetcars that you do with light rail. Stops can be where needed just like light rail.,signal priority installed, for less cost. Other cities don’t have the same needs as KC, and have larger density.If we talk St. Louis they already had rail installed before they started. Streetcars don’t need big fancy stations that cost a million dollars each, you don’t need to tear up bridges and streets that KC taxpayers just installed downtown,and have another 3 years or orange cones and blocked streets.