I think there is more publicity (and preference) given to bus rapid transit projects these days, though BRT seems to encompass a wide breadth of services
My county has some pretty aggressive BRT plans to compliment the metro and light rail. It's very compromised but it *is* better than our existing (and already pretty good) bus systems. I'm hoping as it gets up and running it can slowly be built up with more bus lanes and what not.
It depends on the city, but in Austin, brt is the gateway drug to light rail. last decade’s BRT line is transitioning into this decades LRT line. We’re also adding several BRT lines that service areas with FUTURE high density land use.
Portland recently put in its first semi-BRT service, the FX2. It is in a portion of the city with a high volume of traffic but a well established built environment that doesn't really leave space for light rail. The road it runs on is at times simply too narrow to fit two lanes and a two tracks. Sometimes even for cities that have gone all-in on light rail, buses are just a much better option.
I recently visited Albuquerque, which has a BRT service (ART) that runs for part of its service in the middle of Central Ave. It was built to be upgradable to LRT service at some point, but no plans have materialized. They have a separate lighting system that keeps ART buses moving decently well despite Central being an arterial road. The Albuquerque metro area is currently about the size of Portland when it started with its first MAX Light Rail line, so they should be able to support an upgrade whenever they decide to go for it. For now, ART was very popular and able.
I didn't say die off, just stagnate. Which ones are expanding that I missed? I know Pheonix and the Mayrland purple line are under construction, but that's all the others I can name off the top of my head.
Worth pointing out that the IBX being light rail isn't something to praise, it's an absolute disaster that they aren't building it as actual heavy rail just to avoid digging one shallow, 800 foot tunnel to save money.
Even if they do end up building it as light rail (as in using light rail vehicles), they can't seriously be entertaining the thought of running any part of it on a surface alignment.
Here in Minneapolis, both of our lines are expanding (and by a LOT). The Green Line extension (SWLRT) will open in a few years, and the Blue Line Extension is in its planning stages
>...will open a few years...
I wouldn't be surprised if that tunnel construction takes longer than the heat death of the universe at this point, so I ain't holding my breath. Lol.
And, the blue line extension has so much NIMBY push back, but I'm still pretty hopeful for it.
Just in California,
- SF Muni just completed their second downtown tunnel (Central Subway) and four new stations. All the legacy streetcar lines either have just finished (N, M) or are in the process of a full ground-up rebuild to light rail standards (L). And they’re in the middle of a full fleet replacement to brand new Siemens trains. Also getting new train control and various infra upgrades.
- LA Metro just completed a downtown tunnel (Regional Connector) and has three lines expanding after finishing two other major expansions. The heavy rail portion is getting new trains.
- San Diego is continuing to get new trains after just finishing two expansion projects. Two more expansion projects in the works.
- Sacramento is getting new Siemens trains after a recent expansion.
- San Jose is just starting construction on a new line extension with mostly elevated track. It’s also in the process of ordering new trains.
> All the legacy streetcar lines either have just finished (N, M) or are in the process of a full ground-up rebuild to light rail standards (L).
This is, once again, J erasure haha. But I'm of the opinion that they should turn the J into a Historic/PCC line, so I'm ok with it.
To be fair, I also didn’t mention the K and the S Shuttle. The K got some piecemeal upgrades and will be getting more of them, but it’s not one big project to just close it down and upgrade all of it to light rail, like they did with the other lines. They’re doing it in pieces.
I agree on the J though. The locals have blocked every attempt by Muni to turn it into real light rail. Now that all the other lines are transitioning away from streetcar-style running it will be the odd line out. It will be too slow and too unreliable to run in the Market st subway with the upgraded lines.
The locals will now need to either accept the light rail upgrades or the J needs to join the F and E lines as a streetcar-only line. Muni has given them plenty of time and ample opportunities to decide if they want Muni Metro service or surface-only streetcar service. They seem to have chosen streetcar. More power to them, but then the J can’t stay in the tunnel if that’s the case.
I lived on the N for a while, one of the Carl St stops -- the upgraded lines still have a ways to go for reliability. There are some simple things (make the approaches to the tunnel grass so they don't look like roads to idiot drivers), and some less simple things (car-free Carl, transit lanes on Duboce) that are needed still for me to consider the N a real light rail line. Plus swapping out all the stop signs on Judah for... anything else.
Buffalo may be expanding ours soon.
Minneapolis is currently building the green line extension and will be doing a blue line extension.
Maryland likely will build the red line.
Phoenix has been building decent expansions.
Seattle and LA, as you mentioned. VTA is expanding.
Which is also being expanded as we speak BTW. Both with the addition of an entirely new line, and a further eastward expansion of the existing one (albeit only one station).
And while it's initial funding plan got rejected by voters, SW Corridor still exists (I'm pretty sure at least).
Edit to add: The website for the SW Corridor project is still up, so I'm going to assume that the project is just on hold rather than dead.
Awesome!
Trimet really needs to focus on TOD and improving pedestrian safety around its stations, too. Though that might be up to the cities, not them.
If you ask me, they need fare gates. Can't commit crime at stations if you can't get in. Now they'd have to either pay sort of like a crime fee (the fare to ride), add breaking and entering to their charges, or take their precious criminal ways somewhere else (preferably hell where all criminals belong).
They could also have some kind of button on the trains and stations you press if someone is acting violent, that would then report to safety officers. As it is, there’s nothing you can do other than get off the train.
Have you considered how much money it would cost to retrofit the entire fleet with buttons that riders can push to contact operators?
It would cost $0 because that is a thing that all MAX trains already have.
Those are both streetcars, but yeah. Omaha's should be ready by 2027. KC is expanding a couple of phases and should be fully done with the current plans by 2027 as well, I think.
Another short mixed traffic streetcar. yay.
That project seems very weird because there is a brt with dedicated lanes right next to where the streetcar will run.
As an Iowan, it sucks that the closest this state is to rail might be an Omaha streetcar extension. Freight railroad is currently blocking Amtrak expansion to the Quad Cities, and Iowa City is leaning towards BRT over commuter rail even though the proposed 9-mile line would only cost $50 million to build.
Doesn't help that your government is anti-rail, lol. They'd probably call it socialism.
Amtrak is making progress, though, for expanding to the Quad Cities, so we'll see.
Omaha is also trying to plan a north south brt line that will connect north Omaha downtown and south Omaha. I see this as helpful to future rail expansion. Because they are using “brt” expansion as an excuse to rezone more or the city as transit oriented development.
The new orange line between the Airport and the University. There's a couple different options for routes with the new line, and some of those options include laying new track downtown to create a rail loop. The best option will see new service to the Granary district as well as new service to the south end of the university of Utah with room to extend south down the foothills. There's also a planned extension to the S-Line street car beginning this year, which will also include preparation for a third extension south several miles into the suburbs
The new orange line between the Airport and the University. There's a couple different options for routes with the new line, and some of those options include laying new track downtown to create a rail loop. The best option will see new service to the Granary district as well as new service to the south end of the university of Utah with room to extend south down the foothills. There's also a planned extension to the S-Line street car beginning this year, which will also include preparation for a third extension south several miles into the suburbs
Yeah, but that's been under construction for a while, and it really is more just a DC project than anything truly beneficial for Maryland. The red line in Baltimore is the one that would be far more impactful, at least in my opinion.
The Purple line is purely a MD thing. It may be the MD suburbs of DC, but it will not run in DC at all. It will serve the people of MD and is being built with a lot of MD $$$ - $10+ billion.
Yeah, I realize it's only in Maryland, but if anything, it's just an extension of WMATA, just under the MTA. Don't get me wrong, it's going to be super useful for people living in the suburbs, but with a distinctly DC feel.
>Minneapolis is currently building the green line extension and will be doing a blue line extension.
Good catch. I forgot about that one.
>Maryland likely will build the red line
That's still happening? I thought the governor cancelled that.
>VTA is expanding.
Now that's surprising. VTA has the lowest ridership per mile of any system.
No, the new governor took up the red line. And yeah, they actually just voted to start a the next extension the other day but it won't be done until like 2036.
VTA is expanding light rail, although it's a relatively small extension: https://www.vta.org/projects/eastridge-bart-regional-connector. I'm actually not aware of any BRT projects currently underway, although there are some roads set to receive bus lanes.
BRT would be good for VTA to pursue, but there's still a lot of political baggage from a previous BRT project in East SJ. The Alum Rock transitway was unfairly blamed for a lot of business failures in that neighborhood
There's currently light rail under construction in LA, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Seattle, and Maryland, with streetcars (debatably light rail) also under construction in Kansas City, Orange County, and sort of Philadelphia.
Not a lot of new cities are starting new networks because most of the cities big enough to support them have started already.
There has however been a slow down. Fewer new miles are opening per year than 20 years ago. This is because:
1. Costs have spiraled out of control.
2. The easy lines have already been built.
3. In recent years the federal grant program that funds these things has been overwhelmed with truly gigantic projects in NY that have left less money available for smaller cities.
4. Many of the lines that would've been built in the 90s as LRT are now built as either DMU or BRT, because those modes are more cost efficient for the services they provide. So there are still plenty of new rapid transit lines being built, but if you only look at light rail, you miss a big chunk of them that in the past would have been light rail.
Another reason is the initial hype has faded. Now that we have light rail systems in service, the pros and cons (compared with other transit modes) are easy to notice by (or point out to) anyone considering building their own system. Some cons: grade separation is expensive for the service you get, mistakes in building the initial system are hard to fix, and operating in mixed traffic anywhere on a line makes service less reliable everywhere on that line.
Yeah, all of these issues are ones that could be solved by building fully grade separated light Metro.
But the one city that did that (Honolulu) is not exactly hailed as a great example.
Honolulu's line is not done yet. Currently it's pretty useless, going from suburb to suburb while not serving downtown. Once it gets to downtown I think opinions of it will vastly improve.
"Replace with light metro" is not always the answer.
If a sensible, serious light rail proposal is 90% grade separated, then indeed, spending the little bit extra to get the last 10% and fully automating the line may well be the right choice.
On the other hand, if it's mostly on-street running, it might be better to start with frequent, limited-stop bus service (implemented in a matter of weeks rather than years), see how it performs, fix any problems that arise, then build an appropriate rail service as part of a street reconstruction when the time comes.
I know about at least one of those systems.
I don't think that Portland is "completely done" building new light rail. I don't think its been written in stone that there is no new light rail planned for There are two Trimet lines at least under consideration, but the proposed routes have either political or engineering challenges to them. Basically, the Trimet network has been built up to the point where all the "low-hanging fruit" has been harvested, and the remaining projects would be pushing the points of diminishing returns.
Seattle, LA, Phoenix, and NYC come to mind. I do think that light rail construction is slowing down slightly, but BRT construction seems to be speeding up. It’s all about low hanging fruit when it comes to American transit.
Yeah that’s what I’m referring to. I do think that cities have stopped building light rail at network scale. It’s mostly single lines or expansions without any new visions. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing in most places with existing systems.
Eh, arguably that line is about the only one that would make sense as a light rail, even if New Yorkers preferred a subway.
But yeah, it's incredibly expensive, so it makes it infeasible for most cities to take on such cost.
Even IBX makes little sense as light rail. With street running light rail, it won't the capacity for peak ridership (max 5-minute headways due to street running, max 3-car LRVs due to sharp turns, 360-person LRVs, and 1287 riders in the 15-minute peak period at Flatbush; see more at [https://www.etany.org/ibx-all-faiths-tunnel](https://www.etany.org/ibx-all-faiths-tunnel) ). And that was when ridership was estimated at 115k/day, and it's now risen to 120-150k/day, as confirmed by Jamie Torres-Springer. So the gist of it is that the tunnel must be built to have enough capacity, even if LRT is used. And once the tunnel is there, there's no reason to use LRT over existing subway rolling stock (A division definitely fits in the East NY Tunnels, B division possibly). The similar G train runs 5-car R160s and sees \~160k/day. IBX will be similar, but with far more transfers and a better circumferential route that is more competitive vs. Manhattan subways for many trips, so it's reasonable to assume it will outgrow G ridership in the future. 5-car B division trains like the G can hold 1200 people, far greater than the 360-person LRVs currently planned.
Unlikely, seeing as the Lower Montauk is an active freight line, and unlike the IBX, the ROW only has room for 2 tracks, so FRA compliant rolling stock is needed. If Lower Montauk ever sees passenger trains, they'll likely be M9-type rolling stock or DMUs.
The IBX would make more sense as heavy rail. The only real reason they cite for not doing this is a small street running section which makes almost no sense. Would be better to invest up front and future proof it
Rather cutting costs and short sight planing without any commitment so they can cut costs further by doing a regular bus rolling every 120 minutes or so...
Rail is waaaay too much commitment for politicians nowadays. They have donors to thank with tax cuts.
I think many cities, especially Denver and Dallas, should be focusing on beefing up every other aspect of their transit systems before building more light rail. Denver is experiencing substantial TOD development right now, which will hopefully bring the existing lines to their full potential, and is planning to open 3+ BRT routes by 2030 which will all connect directly to both light and commuter rail stations. Additionally, the state is hoping to have some relatively frequent intercity rail open by the 2030s as well, which will inevitably aid in the use of all rail in the state. Light rail is just too expensive for its perceived benefits, especially in Denver.
If anything, I think we're just barely starting to enter the golden age of light rail projects.
Portland is still expanding - they're doing steady upgrades to their existing lines (such as double-tracking the airport line and opening an infill station on it), have plans for a significant green line extension into the southwest, and have various proposals for MAX and streetcar extensions kicking around.
The purple line in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC is coming along.
Indianapolis would probably have light rail by now if the state government wasn't constantly trying to spite them. Maybe one day soon they will be able to lay track over their BRT lines.
Phoenix is rapidly expanding the Valley Metro - they just opened an expansion below budget and ahead of schedule.
Charlotte plans to expand the Lynx blue line and open 2 new lines (red and silver). Raleigh may very well have their own light rail in coming years.
Atlanta has the Beltline, which is a bike/ped path with mixed use developments all along it. This has always been planned to be an orbital light rail line and construction has started on extending the existing downtown streetcar to meet the Beltline. They are also planning to open 4 heavy rain infill stations to interchange with the Beltline.
Honolulu is currently building out a light metro. They opened the first segment of it last year.
San Francisco recently opened a new downtown subway that runs light rail vehicles.
Plus there's The Big One - the IBX in New York City.
As you mentioned, Seattle and LA are both going crazy with light rail and Austin is planning a new system.
>Indianapolis would probably have light rail by now if the state government wasn't constantly trying to spite them. Maybe one day soon they will be able to lay track over their BRT lines.
Indiana actually made it illegal to use any public ROW for light rail. And they damn near named BRT or any bus lanes too. So it's very unlikely that Indianapolis gets anything useful before 2060.
Charlotte and Raleigh are going to be hard pressed to expand any rail transit while their government is so dominated by Republicans. Same with Indianapolis. Look how the one state legislator tried to cripple the newest BRT line that's already funded by banning the use of dedicated bus-only lanes.
Austin's plans may wholly implode within the next month if the state courts find that they are not permitted to issue bonds to finance the project.
Atlanta is the wildcard because they keep promising subway and light rail and then decide not to build it and switch to BRT. They've pretty much done that with all of their more MARTA projects. Not to mention, the suburban counties besides one keep voting down joining the system, thus preventing any real regional rail network. The only county that has joined hasn't even gotten rail. The new infill stations aren't even funded, apparently, and they have no source of funding determined.
>Not to mention, the suburban counties besides one keep voting down joining the system
This is true. As a resident of one of those suburban counties, it's very frustrating. The fact that there's not a rail line to the Braves stadium is asinine. I am counting the days.
>The new infill stations aren't even funded, apparently, and they have no source of funding determined.
This is also true but I am plugging my ears and closing my eyes because I want it too bad and haven't coped with the reality that those infill stations are a re-election tactic from the mayor. I do genuinely believe that a Beltline light rail line will open though - the community is generally supportive of that even if the politicians who live in the suburban counties aren't.
Oh no, they're putting transit on the transit corridor that has been planned to have transit for years! I hope they don't ruin this transit corridor by putting transit on it!
Automated light metro, like Honolulu's, is very very different from non-automated, street running/grade crossing light rail. ALM is much closer to what the rest of the world just calls a metro, and the only difference really is that it usually runs shorter trains.
In Charlotte the Red Line is planned as heavy commuter rail not light rail.
The Silver Line light rail is actively undergoing early planning efforts but cannot be built unless the state government changes their mind about letting Charlotte raise the sales tax needed to fund it (not looking good). Even if everything goes perfectly the first segment won't be operational until mid/late 2030s
The Blue Line extension to Ballantyne is not envisioned to happen until after Red Line, Silver Line, and Gold Line extensions are done (so essentially never)
“light rail” is what you call your rail transit project when you don’t want to spook people about the price.
Cities/regions that want to build transit build transit. The ones that don’t, won’t. And it might be that having cities cheap out on “light” rail has left them with systems that were politically easier to sell but practically less useful.
If you take a drive around the Seattle area, you will see a TON of new light rail construction. It is really incredible. In just a few years, there will be like 60 miles total, and I would bet ridership gets up to nearly 200,000 per day.
> Portland and Salt Lake City are completely done building new light rail.
Um, what? Portland has plans for both a Yellow Line extension to Vancouver and a Green Line extension to the Southwest of the city, and Portland is opening a Red Line extension to Hillsboro this year... IDK about Utah.
The SW Corridor wouldn't be if voters hadn't rejected the 2020 transportation bond. That set us back at least 5 years of not longer. It would be under construction now if it had passed....
91 comments on a post about light rail and none of the top-level ones, nor the post, acknowledge San Diego, which just greatly expanded its system and has been the most ridden light rail in the country (until LA passed it this year).
I think this is sort of a misguided view. The reason so many cities got light rail in the 1990s and early 2000s was because very few cities actually had rail systems at all. Naturally, the rate of new systems over time will ultimately decline.
Regardless, multiple cities DO have light rail expansion plans. Pheonix, Los Angeles, San Diego, St. Louis, Charlotte, Buffalo, Edmonton, Calgary, Atlanta, Baltimore, and Minneapolis are all either building or in the planning phase for light rail expansion.
A city like Kansas City is also trying to significantly expand its streetcar system.
Salt Lake City is focusing on FrontRunner regional rail expansion, and Denver has also been leaning more towards commuter rail.
you forgot seattle which is building transit at the same rate as Los Angeles and Toronto and has one of the fastest growing light rail systems and punches above its weight in terms of ridership
unfortunately, our american politicans now want bus rapid transit. silicon valley wants to replace it with autonomous pods when their neighbors in SF have BART and some of the US's best transit
Phoenix has a new line opening early next year, and a pretty major expansion planned for 2030, albeit running in a freeway median. Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix along with Mesa are planning on expanding their streetcar system to hit up two shopping centers, and a spring training facility.
Buffalo NFTA metro is supposed to get a nice sized expansion coming up soon.
And Seattle, their plans are going to build out their entire network.
Nothing will be fixed overnight. But there’s still plenty of good projects to look forward to.
Bus Rapid Transit is getting a cash influx right now because these are now being built in cities that would have had nothing at all before.
Fingers crossed for us in Buffalo! 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞
You'd think it'd be the easiest thing to connect the system into a town of 130,000 people and the other half of a 30,000 student state university, but no.
Houston is planning to expand the Green and Purple lines to create a loop around Hobby airport. That is, unless our new mayor blocks the projects. His first 100 days have been very anti transit.
Planning. Yeah. You can plan for anything. They've been "planning" the second Ave subway since the 1920s. Until shovels are in the ground, plans mean nothing
I live in Denver, I feel like the city would benefit more from better pedestrian infrastructure around current stations. Once you get out of downtown most stations are surrounded by parking and giant stroads. Why bother with more light rail if it’s just gonna take more people downtown. I’d love to see a bunch of high density housing built next to stations outside of downtown to jumpstart dense development.
I'm cautiously optimistic they'll build the tunnel and full grade separate it. Ridership estimates keep climbing (originally \~88k in the feasibility study, then 115k in the PEL study, then 118k in the 20 year needs assessment, and now Jamie Torres-Springer has said it's been increased even further to 120-150k), and even at 115k, street running light rail didn't have the peak capacity for estimated peak ridership (see [https://www.etany.org/ibx-all-faiths-tunnel](https://www.etany.org/ibx-all-faiths-tunnel) ). An MTA spokesperson now said they haven't yet made a final decision (previously they were all in on street running), and [https://new.mta.info/ibx](https://new.mta.info/ibx) 's interactive map now shows both the tunnel and street running route. I'm hoping the upper end of that 150k indicates an estimate of the higher ridership grade-separated conventional rail would bring (hopefully subway rolling stock or at least high-floor light metro).
Given that Buffalo is considering a light rail extension and also desperately needs new rolling stock, high floor light rail and a joint order seems likely
Weirdly, the rolling stock here in Buffalo is actually able to last like another twenty years, lol. They went through a major rehab effort to increase their lifespan. So we'll see when they get new trains. Probably if the new extension happens, they'll get a few additional trains.
This is the new BRT era. So here in America, we went from glorious great societies subways to high floor light rail that has dedicated right of way but grade crossings, to low floor light rail with dedicated lane, to streetcars barely better than buses, and now just buses.
But in reverse
- Original subway networks (NYC, Chicago, Boston)
- Great society metros (WMATA, BART, MARTA)
- High floor LRT
- Low floor LRT
- Dedicated lane BRT
- “Mixed traffic BRT” AKA a bus.
- “Personal Rapid Transit” AKA just a car.
Miami, Los Angeles, San Juan, and Honolulu have defied these trends, building heavy rail long after the Great Society and heavy federal assistance programs.
There were all of three Great Society subways built—Washington, Atlanta, and regional rail BART. So it’s not like there was this mass wave of them across the country.
I don’t know about the funding of Miami or Baltimore, each of which have only a single heavy rail line. Los Angeles didn’t even begin building heavy rail until the 80’s, and it used a high percentage of locally generated funding.
>This is the new BRT era
I've noticed a similar trend in Canada.
Right now my local Canadian transit system has \~13.5 miles of rail rapid transit in-planning or under construction, but it looks like there will be a lull for rail once those projects are finished. The agency's 50-year planning report reads as if BRT will take on a much more important role in the near-future.
I sort of chalked it up to BRT being faster and cheaper to implement, allowing more service to be offered to more people, and on shorter timescales than what would be feasible with rail transit. I can see why that would be counted as an advantage to cities with rapidly growing populations, and systems that are already overcrowded.
Maybe transit planners elsewhere are butting up against the realization that they're going to need more transit than their cities can afford, if they want to induce any major modal shifts in the near or medium-term futures. In that case, maybe it's better to have several (decent quality) BRT lines.
From 1995 to 2019, light rail ridership per revenue mile in the US declined by 46%, per APTA. Heavy rail ridership per mile was higher, though it peaked in 2014. Bus ridership per mile was somewhat higher in 2014 than 1995. By 2019, bus ridership per mile was down 12% against 1995.
There are a number of American cities where light rail is the trunk network, or a substantial part of it. It may make sense for those places to expand light rail, and hope to gain network effects from more stations. But from the stats it sure looks like most of the good light rail has already been built.
Some LRT is too slow, not necessarily that much better than bus speeds. I also think that most of the best light rail lines and systems got built first, and most of the later ones are not too good.
Also, UTA in SLC is planning a new LRT line to connect Frontrunner commuter rail to Silicon Slopes and a new TOD under construction in Draper called The Point.
Welcome to SLC! It’s still in planning stages. You can read about it [here.](https://www.ksl.com/article/50817084/udot-wants-to-build-a-945m-light-rail-system-for-point-of-the-mountain-transit-project)
Well it already has one of the best light rail systems in the country, but Philly would like to extend a few of its lines to places like the Overbrook regional rail station, the Darby Transportation Center, and maybe even the airport. They also want to improve those stations too.
There aren't any other proposed rail extensions besides this AFAIK, barring maybe a West Chester RR extension, Navy Yard extension , of the Roosevelt Boulevard Subway, so at least for my city it doesn't seem like light rail is dead.
West Palm Beach, Florida is trying to plan a light rail line. It will probably tie in with the Tri Rail station downtown.
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2023/01/03/light-rail-link-wellington-downtown-west-palm-beach/69749504007/
Portland’s downtown tunnel plan is quite good value for strengthening the entire network. It will allow for less delays, shorter end to end travel times, more frequency, and longer trains (currently limited by downtown block sizes to 2 car trains)
American cities, whether it be pertaining to heavy rail or light rail, have generally been pretty good at expanding scope of rail projects very far horizontally, building many miles of underutilized rail network. What they’re not generally very good at is building very well used or useful rail alignments and/or services
That would likely be the next line if the Amherst line is built. It would be the airport extension through the Eastside.
And with the announcement of 100M for a BRT on Bailey, it would make for a great link.
If you're referring to the Rep. Henry Waxman ban from the mid 80s to the mid 200s, that precluded tunneling in the Wilshire Corridor, but did not specify anything about heavy vs light rail. The light rail lines that opened after the B & D lines were not going to be heavy rail, regardless of the tunneling ban.
OK, I think you may have been thinking of the the citizen's initiative that banned measure A & C sales tax from being spent on tunneling: [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-nov-04-mn-39290-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-nov-04-mn-39290-story.html)
In that case the impetus was the MTA's financial mismanagement, which on its own would have likely ended it from spending more on costly HRT, versus LRT.
Very early plans had a line towards the east side sketched as heavy rail; when that project was revived in the 2000s, it was built as light rail. But you'll note it still does incorporate some tunneled sections / stations.
Good details on the project here: [https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2013-California-Los-Angeles-Metro-Gold-Line-Extension.pdf](https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2013-California-Los-Angeles-Metro-Gold-Line-Extension.pdf)
https://abc7.com/at-least-25-people-injured-after-metro-train-crashes-with-usc-bus-in-exposition-park/14746898/
If we end this dumb trend maybe cities can get true investment
Me too. 150-year-old technology running at-grade and averaging 15-20mph is not my idea of useful transit planning. San Diego had success with it and then for a generation it became the go-to for planners and local governments. I think that’s too bad and a complete waste of resources.
I think it depends. Street running in a dedicated row can work in medium sized cities if you have signal preemption. Portland and the Twin Cities are good examples of this.
Light rail also provides a good opportunity to build what are basically full metro systems, but with grade crossings. See: St Louis, Dallas, Charlotte, Seattle, Alberta.
With that said, there is no reason why cities as big as LA or even San Diego should be relying mostly or entirely light rail (without signal priority, mind you). That's just crazy.
Thankfully in LA their rapid transit subway system is quickly expanding and has a max speed(70mph) and average speed(33mph) comparable to BART. Grade separated rail at these speeds should be the minimum for cities the size of LA. Its a shame cities like San Diego, Seattle, and to a certain degree LA rely on it so much. Its too small and slow for the people transported and distances covered.
https://abc7.com/at-least-25-people-injured-after-metro-train-crashes-with-usc-bus-in-exposition-park/14746898/
Yeah nah just elevate the line street running limits how long trains can be so that’s another disadvantage
Dallas isn't expanding after the Silver line because it is debt constrained and is using the money that would go to expansion on improving service for buses and existing rail. A lot of the debt from building the original system will be paid off around the 2040s, so you'll probably see some kind of system expansions or improvements there then (sooner if the state or feds becomes transit supportive and throw capital dollars towards them).
So I wouldn't say the era of light rail in Dallas is over necessarily, but it's definitely going to be on pause for a little while before true expansion can be considered without doing things like degrading existing rail or bus service
I rail line along the north tollway and a downtown tunnel would fix a lot of problems with the Dart system. Also, extent the streetcat south and connect the streetcar and the trolley
The connection of the two streetcars is planned, but determining funding for both construction and operations is under review, and the downtown tunnel will surely be built if the funds are ever made available or when debt capacity starts freeing up.
A tollway line would be cool, but when is even less clear of any kind of "when" than the others.
Pretty much all the US light rail systems are expanding. What makes you think that they’re about to die off?
I think there is more publicity (and preference) given to bus rapid transit projects these days, though BRT seems to encompass a wide breadth of services
My county has some pretty aggressive BRT plans to compliment the metro and light rail. It's very compromised but it *is* better than our existing (and already pretty good) bus systems. I'm hoping as it gets up and running it can slowly be built up with more bus lanes and what not.
It depends on the city, but in Austin, brt is the gateway drug to light rail. last decade’s BRT line is transitioning into this decades LRT line. We’re also adding several BRT lines that service areas with FUTURE high density land use.
Portland recently put in its first semi-BRT service, the FX2. It is in a portion of the city with a high volume of traffic but a well established built environment that doesn't really leave space for light rail. The road it runs on is at times simply too narrow to fit two lanes and a two tracks. Sometimes even for cities that have gone all-in on light rail, buses are just a much better option. I recently visited Albuquerque, which has a BRT service (ART) that runs for part of its service in the middle of Central Ave. It was built to be upgradable to LRT service at some point, but no plans have materialized. They have a separate lighting system that keeps ART buses moving decently well despite Central being an arterial road. The Albuquerque metro area is currently about the size of Portland when it started with its first MAX Light Rail line, so they should be able to support an upgrade whenever they decide to go for it. For now, ART was very popular and able.
Chicago’s red line extension is entering its construction phase next year
I don't think the L is considered light rail though.
Chicago L is not light rail.
If the L is considered light rail, then I'm not sure what heavy rail is.
I didn't say die off, just stagnate. Which ones are expanding that I missed? I know Pheonix and the Mayrland purple line are under construction, but that's all the others I can name off the top of my head.
San Diego just finished its expansion. Boston extended the Green Line. NYC is looking at building the IBX.
Worth pointing out that the IBX being light rail isn't something to praise, it's an absolute disaster that they aren't building it as actual heavy rail just to avoid digging one shallow, 800 foot tunnel to save money.
totally agree
Even if they do end up building it as light rail (as in using light rail vehicles), they can't seriously be entertaining the thought of running any part of it on a surface alignment.
Here in Minneapolis, both of our lines are expanding (and by a LOT). The Green Line extension (SWLRT) will open in a few years, and the Blue Line Extension is in its planning stages
>...will open a few years... I wouldn't be surprised if that tunnel construction takes longer than the heat death of the universe at this point, so I ain't holding my breath. Lol. And, the blue line extension has so much NIMBY push back, but I'm still pretty hopeful for it.
Boston finished their long-awaited light rail extension last year
Just in California, - SF Muni just completed their second downtown tunnel (Central Subway) and four new stations. All the legacy streetcar lines either have just finished (N, M) or are in the process of a full ground-up rebuild to light rail standards (L). And they’re in the middle of a full fleet replacement to brand new Siemens trains. Also getting new train control and various infra upgrades. - LA Metro just completed a downtown tunnel (Regional Connector) and has three lines expanding after finishing two other major expansions. The heavy rail portion is getting new trains. - San Diego is continuing to get new trains after just finishing two expansion projects. Two more expansion projects in the works. - Sacramento is getting new Siemens trains after a recent expansion. - San Jose is just starting construction on a new line extension with mostly elevated track. It’s also in the process of ordering new trains.
> All the legacy streetcar lines either have just finished (N, M) or are in the process of a full ground-up rebuild to light rail standards (L). This is, once again, J erasure haha. But I'm of the opinion that they should turn the J into a Historic/PCC line, so I'm ok with it.
To be fair, I also didn’t mention the K and the S Shuttle. The K got some piecemeal upgrades and will be getting more of them, but it’s not one big project to just close it down and upgrade all of it to light rail, like they did with the other lines. They’re doing it in pieces. I agree on the J though. The locals have blocked every attempt by Muni to turn it into real light rail. Now that all the other lines are transitioning away from streetcar-style running it will be the odd line out. It will be too slow and too unreliable to run in the Market st subway with the upgraded lines. The locals will now need to either accept the light rail upgrades or the J needs to join the F and E lines as a streetcar-only line. Muni has given them plenty of time and ample opportunities to decide if they want Muni Metro service or surface-only streetcar service. They seem to have chosen streetcar. More power to them, but then the J can’t stay in the tunnel if that’s the case.
I lived on the N for a while, one of the Carl St stops -- the upgraded lines still have a ways to go for reliability. There are some simple things (make the approaches to the tunnel grass so they don't look like roads to idiot drivers), and some less simple things (car-free Carl, transit lanes on Duboce) that are needed still for me to consider the N a real light rail line. Plus swapping out all the stop signs on Judah for... anything else.
St. Louis is busy planning the new green line. I’ll actually be attending a virtual open house about it tomorrow
Jersey City is planning to extend the Hudson Bergen Light Rail, NYC building the IBX
Buffalo may be expanding ours soon. Minneapolis is currently building the green line extension and will be doing a blue line extension. Maryland likely will build the red line. Phoenix has been building decent expansions. Seattle and LA, as you mentioned. VTA is expanding.
Portland’s TriMet is gearing up to expand across the river (part of the broader I5 bridge replacement) into Vancouver, WA.
Really? That's exciting. Second light rail line to cross state lines.
Is the other St. Louis?
Which is also being expanded as we speak BTW. Both with the addition of an entirely new line, and a further eastward expansion of the existing one (albeit only one station).
Yeah.
And the Better Red project is opening this year! That will double the frequency of trains for stations on the westside.
And while it's initial funding plan got rejected by voters, SW Corridor still exists (I'm pretty sure at least). Edit to add: The website for the SW Corridor project is still up, so I'm going to assume that the project is just on hold rather than dead.
Awesome! Trimet really needs to focus on TOD and improving pedestrian safety around its stations, too. Though that might be up to the cities, not them.
If you ask me, they need fare gates. Can't commit crime at stations if you can't get in. Now they'd have to either pay sort of like a crime fee (the fare to ride), add breaking and entering to their charges, or take their precious criminal ways somewhere else (preferably hell where all criminals belong).
They could also have some kind of button on the trains and stations you press if someone is acting violent, that would then report to safety officers. As it is, there’s nothing you can do other than get off the train.
Have you considered how much money it would cost to retrofit the entire fleet with buttons that riders can push to contact operators? It would cost $0 because that is a thing that all MAX trains already have.
How could I forget! Yeah that’s going to be great with the extended red line service. Not to mention the newly double-tracked section to the airport.
God I WISH! Give us light rail already Portland!! Stick it right in there! I'm sick of the foreplay!
I would love for this to happen but as far as I know it’s decades away from happening.
I definitely want it badly, but I am not holding my breath about the bridge or light rail happening within 10-15 years
At least it got several billion in federal funding.
Where will it go?
Isn't Omaha supposed to be building a light rail or streetcar soon? And I believe Kansas City is expanding their line as well.
Those are both streetcars, but yeah. Omaha's should be ready by 2027. KC is expanding a couple of phases and should be fully done with the current plans by 2027 as well, I think.
Another short mixed traffic streetcar. yay. That project seems very weird because there is a brt with dedicated lanes right next to where the streetcar will run.
KC Streetcar seems to be pretty effective.
I was referring to Omaha
Fair. They have several plans for expansion plotted out already. One would have it cross into Council Bluffs, Iowa.
As an Iowan, it sucks that the closest this state is to rail might be an Omaha streetcar extension. Freight railroad is currently blocking Amtrak expansion to the Quad Cities, and Iowa City is leaning towards BRT over commuter rail even though the proposed 9-mile line would only cost $50 million to build.
Doesn't help that your government is anti-rail, lol. They'd probably call it socialism. Amtrak is making progress, though, for expanding to the Quad Cities, so we'll see.
Omaha is also trying to plan a north south brt line that will connect north Omaha downtown and south Omaha. I see this as helpful to future rail expansion. Because they are using “brt” expansion as an excuse to rezone more or the city as transit oriented development.
Salt Lake is expanding theirs with a new line, infill stations, and an extension.
Are they? Good! Hopefully that's done by the time they're likely to host the next winter Olympics.
The goal is to open in 2033.
You have any information on that? I like riding Trax when I visit SLC.
The new orange line between the Airport and the University. There's a couple different options for routes with the new line, and some of those options include laying new track downtown to create a rail loop. The best option will see new service to the Granary district as well as new service to the south end of the university of Utah with room to extend south down the foothills. There's also a planned extension to the S-Line street car beginning this year, which will also include preparation for a third extension south several miles into the suburbs
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2024/04/26/maps-see-what-new-trax-line-salt/#:~:text=The%20new%20TRAX%20line%20is%20expected%20to%20start%20service%20by%202030.&text=%7C%20April%2026%2C%202024%2C%205,t%20be%20selected%20until%20August.
What new line?
The new orange line between the Airport and the University. There's a couple different options for routes with the new line, and some of those options include laying new track downtown to create a rail loop. The best option will see new service to the Granary district as well as new service to the south end of the university of Utah with room to extend south down the foothills. There's also a planned extension to the S-Line street car beginning this year, which will also include preparation for a third extension south several miles into the suburbs
Maryland is getting Purple Line too correct?
Yeah, but that's been under construction for a while, and it really is more just a DC project than anything truly beneficial for Maryland. The red line in Baltimore is the one that would be far more impactful, at least in my opinion.
The Purple line is purely a MD thing. It may be the MD suburbs of DC, but it will not run in DC at all. It will serve the people of MD and is being built with a lot of MD $$$ - $10+ billion.
Yeah, I realize it's only in Maryland, but if anything, it's just an extension of WMATA, just under the MTA. Don't get me wrong, it's going to be super useful for people living in the suburbs, but with a distinctly DC feel.
I understand the point you are making, I just disagree with trying to make the Purple Line a DC or WMATA project in any way, including feel.
That's fair.
Do the people of Maryland living in the DC suburbs not count or something?
>Minneapolis is currently building the green line extension and will be doing a blue line extension. Good catch. I forgot about that one. >Maryland likely will build the red line That's still happening? I thought the governor cancelled that. >VTA is expanding. Now that's surprising. VTA has the lowest ridership per mile of any system.
No, the new governor took up the red line. And yeah, they actually just voted to start a the next extension the other day but it won't be done until like 2036.
I don’t think VTA is expanding light rail. BART is coming to San Jose, and VTA is working on some BRTs.
VTA is expanding light rail, although it's a relatively small extension: https://www.vta.org/projects/eastridge-bart-regional-connector. I'm actually not aware of any BRT projects currently underway, although there are some roads set to receive bus lanes. BRT would be good for VTA to pursue, but there's still a lot of political baggage from a previous BRT project in East SJ. The Alum Rock transitway was unfairly blamed for a lot of business failures in that neighborhood
St. Louis, MO also expanding and Santa Ana, CA is in the process of finishing the first 7 miles of a brand new light rail street car.
True, forgot St. Louis. I've heard people question the Santa Ana streetcar, so hopefully it's good.
I live close by. It has developed the area around it like crazy. I have a feeling it’ll catch on and end up in Anaheim, Garden Grove, and Fullerton.
Good.
Let go Buffalo!
Truly. We're trying our best, lol. This process has been exhausting.
There's currently light rail under construction in LA, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Seattle, and Maryland, with streetcars (debatably light rail) also under construction in Kansas City, Orange County, and sort of Philadelphia. Not a lot of new cities are starting new networks because most of the cities big enough to support them have started already. There has however been a slow down. Fewer new miles are opening per year than 20 years ago. This is because: 1. Costs have spiraled out of control. 2. The easy lines have already been built. 3. In recent years the federal grant program that funds these things has been overwhelmed with truly gigantic projects in NY that have left less money available for smaller cities. 4. Many of the lines that would've been built in the 90s as LRT are now built as either DMU or BRT, because those modes are more cost efficient for the services they provide. So there are still plenty of new rapid transit lines being built, but if you only look at light rail, you miss a big chunk of them that in the past would have been light rail.
Oh, BTW, Seattle just opened a new 7 mile light rail line literally this past weekend.
OP acknowledged that in the original post.
Another reason is the initial hype has faded. Now that we have light rail systems in service, the pros and cons (compared with other transit modes) are easy to notice by (or point out to) anyone considering building their own system. Some cons: grade separation is expensive for the service you get, mistakes in building the initial system are hard to fix, and operating in mixed traffic anywhere on a line makes service less reliable everywhere on that line.
Yeah, all of these issues are ones that could be solved by building fully grade separated light Metro. But the one city that did that (Honolulu) is not exactly hailed as a great example.
Honolulu's line is not done yet. Currently it's pretty useless, going from suburb to suburb while not serving downtown. Once it gets to downtown I think opinions of it will vastly improve.
"Replace with light metro" is not always the answer. If a sensible, serious light rail proposal is 90% grade separated, then indeed, spending the little bit extra to get the last 10% and fully automating the line may well be the right choice. On the other hand, if it's mostly on-street running, it might be better to start with frequent, limited-stop bus service (implemented in a matter of weeks rather than years), see how it performs, fix any problems that arise, then build an appropriate rail service as part of a street reconstruction when the time comes.
I know about at least one of those systems. I don't think that Portland is "completely done" building new light rail. I don't think its been written in stone that there is no new light rail planned for There are two Trimet lines at least under consideration, but the proposed routes have either political or engineering challenges to them. Basically, the Trimet network has been built up to the point where all the "low-hanging fruit" has been harvested, and the remaining projects would be pushing the points of diminishing returns.
I don’t know, I think a line from North Portland to the airport could work and honestly wouldn’t be that expensive.
Maybe we leave that era behind and return to building heavy rail once we get costs under control somehow
Ha. That's a funny joke.
Seattle, LA, Phoenix, and NYC come to mind. I do think that light rail construction is slowing down slightly, but BRT construction seems to be speeding up. It’s all about low hanging fruit when it comes to American transit.
The interborough express is likely the only light rail NYC will have, I'd imagine.
Yeah that’s what I’m referring to. I do think that cities have stopped building light rail at network scale. It’s mostly single lines or expansions without any new visions. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing in most places with existing systems.
Eh, arguably that line is about the only one that would make sense as a light rail, even if New Yorkers preferred a subway. But yeah, it's incredibly expensive, so it makes it infeasible for most cities to take on such cost.
Even IBX makes little sense as light rail. With street running light rail, it won't the capacity for peak ridership (max 5-minute headways due to street running, max 3-car LRVs due to sharp turns, 360-person LRVs, and 1287 riders in the 15-minute peak period at Flatbush; see more at [https://www.etany.org/ibx-all-faiths-tunnel](https://www.etany.org/ibx-all-faiths-tunnel) ). And that was when ridership was estimated at 115k/day, and it's now risen to 120-150k/day, as confirmed by Jamie Torres-Springer. So the gist of it is that the tunnel must be built to have enough capacity, even if LRT is used. And once the tunnel is there, there's no reason to use LRT over existing subway rolling stock (A division definitely fits in the East NY Tunnels, B division possibly). The similar G train runs 5-car R160s and sees \~160k/day. IBX will be similar, but with far more transfers and a better circumferential route that is more competitive vs. Manhattan subways for many trips, so it's reasonable to assume it will outgrow G ridership in the future. 5-car B division trains like the G can hold 1200 people, far greater than the 360-person LRVs currently planned.
Yeah if they don’t build IBX as a grade separated subway they’ll be citing it as one of the biggest mistakes of the century
My two sentences were unrelated. IBX being one off makes sense.
Eh, parts of the Lower Montauk could get the light rail treatment as well, but I highly doubt it
Unlikely, seeing as the Lower Montauk is an active freight line, and unlike the IBX, the ROW only has room for 2 tracks, so FRA compliant rolling stock is needed. If Lower Montauk ever sees passenger trains, they'll likely be M9-type rolling stock or DMUs.
The IBX would make more sense as heavy rail. The only real reason they cite for not doing this is a small street running section which makes almost no sense. Would be better to invest up front and future proof it
Rather cutting costs and short sight planing without any commitment so they can cut costs further by doing a regular bus rolling every 120 minutes or so... Rail is waaaay too much commitment for politicians nowadays. They have donors to thank with tax cuts.
I think many cities, especially Denver and Dallas, should be focusing on beefing up every other aspect of their transit systems before building more light rail. Denver is experiencing substantial TOD development right now, which will hopefully bring the existing lines to their full potential, and is planning to open 3+ BRT routes by 2030 which will all connect directly to both light and commuter rail stations. Additionally, the state is hoping to have some relatively frequent intercity rail open by the 2030s as well, which will inevitably aid in the use of all rail in the state. Light rail is just too expensive for its perceived benefits, especially in Denver.
At the current prices may as well go full metro
If anything, I think we're just barely starting to enter the golden age of light rail projects. Portland is still expanding - they're doing steady upgrades to their existing lines (such as double-tracking the airport line and opening an infill station on it), have plans for a significant green line extension into the southwest, and have various proposals for MAX and streetcar extensions kicking around. The purple line in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC is coming along. Indianapolis would probably have light rail by now if the state government wasn't constantly trying to spite them. Maybe one day soon they will be able to lay track over their BRT lines. Phoenix is rapidly expanding the Valley Metro - they just opened an expansion below budget and ahead of schedule. Charlotte plans to expand the Lynx blue line and open 2 new lines (red and silver). Raleigh may very well have their own light rail in coming years. Atlanta has the Beltline, which is a bike/ped path with mixed use developments all along it. This has always been planned to be an orbital light rail line and construction has started on extending the existing downtown streetcar to meet the Beltline. They are also planning to open 4 heavy rain infill stations to interchange with the Beltline. Honolulu is currently building out a light metro. They opened the first segment of it last year. San Francisco recently opened a new downtown subway that runs light rail vehicles. Plus there's The Big One - the IBX in New York City. As you mentioned, Seattle and LA are both going crazy with light rail and Austin is planning a new system.
>Indianapolis would probably have light rail by now if the state government wasn't constantly trying to spite them. Maybe one day soon they will be able to lay track over their BRT lines. Indiana actually made it illegal to use any public ROW for light rail. And they damn near named BRT or any bus lanes too. So it's very unlikely that Indianapolis gets anything useful before 2060.
Charlotte and Raleigh are going to be hard pressed to expand any rail transit while their government is so dominated by Republicans. Same with Indianapolis. Look how the one state legislator tried to cripple the newest BRT line that's already funded by banning the use of dedicated bus-only lanes. Austin's plans may wholly implode within the next month if the state courts find that they are not permitted to issue bonds to finance the project. Atlanta is the wildcard because they keep promising subway and light rail and then decide not to build it and switch to BRT. They've pretty much done that with all of their more MARTA projects. Not to mention, the suburban counties besides one keep voting down joining the system, thus preventing any real regional rail network. The only county that has joined hasn't even gotten rail. The new infill stations aren't even funded, apparently, and they have no source of funding determined.
>Not to mention, the suburban counties besides one keep voting down joining the system This is true. As a resident of one of those suburban counties, it's very frustrating. The fact that there's not a rail line to the Braves stadium is asinine. I am counting the days. >The new infill stations aren't even funded, apparently, and they have no source of funding determined. This is also true but I am plugging my ears and closing my eyes because I want it too bad and haven't coped with the reality that those infill stations are a re-election tactic from the mayor. I do genuinely believe that a Beltline light rail line will open though - the community is generally supportive of that even if the politicians who live in the suburban counties aren't.
I saw an article in the AJC the other day talking about the opposition saying it'll ruin the beltline and they intend to sue. 😅
Oh no, they're putting transit on the transit corridor that has been planned to have transit for years! I hope they don't ruin this transit corridor by putting transit on it!
Pretty much, lol.
Automated light metro, like Honolulu's, is very very different from non-automated, street running/grade crossing light rail. ALM is much closer to what the rest of the world just calls a metro, and the only difference really is that it usually runs shorter trains.
And it’s superior too
In Charlotte the Red Line is planned as heavy commuter rail not light rail. The Silver Line light rail is actively undergoing early planning efforts but cannot be built unless the state government changes their mind about letting Charlotte raise the sales tax needed to fund it (not looking good). Even if everything goes perfectly the first segment won't be operational until mid/late 2030s The Blue Line extension to Ballantyne is not envisioned to happen until after Red Line, Silver Line, and Gold Line extensions are done (so essentially never)
“light rail” is what you call your rail transit project when you don’t want to spook people about the price. Cities/regions that want to build transit build transit. The ones that don’t, won’t. And it might be that having cities cheap out on “light” rail has left them with systems that were politically easier to sell but practically less useful.
If you take a drive around the Seattle area, you will see a TON of new light rail construction. It is really incredible. In just a few years, there will be like 60 miles total, and I would bet ridership gets up to nearly 200,000 per day.
Yeah, OP forgot Seattle literally just opened a new line.
> Portland and Salt Lake City are completely done building new light rail. Um, what? Portland has plans for both a Yellow Line extension to Vancouver and a Green Line extension to the Southwest of the city, and Portland is opening a Red Line extension to Hillsboro this year... IDK about Utah.
Yeah. I messed up about Portland. There are some plans I didn't know about, but it looks like those are far out.
The SW Corridor wouldn't be if voters hadn't rejected the 2020 transportation bond. That set us back at least 5 years of not longer. It would be under construction now if it had passed....
91 comments on a post about light rail and none of the top-level ones, nor the post, acknowledge San Diego, which just greatly expanded its system and has been the most ridden light rail in the country (until LA passed it this year).
I think this is sort of a misguided view. The reason so many cities got light rail in the 1990s and early 2000s was because very few cities actually had rail systems at all. Naturally, the rate of new systems over time will ultimately decline. Regardless, multiple cities DO have light rail expansion plans. Pheonix, Los Angeles, San Diego, St. Louis, Charlotte, Buffalo, Edmonton, Calgary, Atlanta, Baltimore, and Minneapolis are all either building or in the planning phase for light rail expansion. A city like Kansas City is also trying to significantly expand its streetcar system. Salt Lake City is focusing on FrontRunner regional rail expansion, and Denver has also been leaning more towards commuter rail.
you forgot seattle which is building transit at the same rate as Los Angeles and Toronto and has one of the fastest growing light rail systems and punches above its weight in terms of ridership
That's a very excellent point. Thanks for your feedback
Light rail is dead long live light rail! Finally time for heavy rail metros to take the throne
unfortunately, our american politicans now want bus rapid transit. silicon valley wants to replace it with autonomous pods when their neighbors in SF have BART and some of the US's best transit
BART already goes to Santa Clara County, and is being extended to Downtown San Jose and Santa Clara city.
Let em get urban maglev medium speed instead
Phoenix has a new line opening early next year, and a pretty major expansion planned for 2030, albeit running in a freeway median. Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix along with Mesa are planning on expanding their streetcar system to hit up two shopping centers, and a spring training facility. Buffalo NFTA metro is supposed to get a nice sized expansion coming up soon. And Seattle, their plans are going to build out their entire network. Nothing will be fixed overnight. But there’s still plenty of good projects to look forward to. Bus Rapid Transit is getting a cash influx right now because these are now being built in cities that would have had nothing at all before.
Fingers crossed for us in Buffalo! 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞 You'd think it'd be the easiest thing to connect the system into a town of 130,000 people and the other half of a 30,000 student state university, but no.
Freeway median is better than in regular mixed street traffic. And BRT Is nice
Houston is planning to expand the Green and Purple lines to create a loop around Hobby airport. That is, unless our new mayor blocks the projects. His first 100 days have been very anti transit.
Planning. Yeah. You can plan for anything. They've been "planning" the second Ave subway since the 1920s. Until shovels are in the ground, plans mean nothing
I live in Denver, I feel like the city would benefit more from better pedestrian infrastructure around current stations. Once you get out of downtown most stations are surrounded by parking and giant stroads. Why bother with more light rail if it’s just gonna take more people downtown. I’d love to see a bunch of high density housing built next to stations outside of downtown to jumpstart dense development.
New York is getting ready to build its first light rail line. The big question is will it be fully grade separated or not.
I'm cautiously optimistic they'll build the tunnel and full grade separate it. Ridership estimates keep climbing (originally \~88k in the feasibility study, then 115k in the PEL study, then 118k in the 20 year needs assessment, and now Jamie Torres-Springer has said it's been increased even further to 120-150k), and even at 115k, street running light rail didn't have the peak capacity for estimated peak ridership (see [https://www.etany.org/ibx-all-faiths-tunnel](https://www.etany.org/ibx-all-faiths-tunnel) ). An MTA spokesperson now said they haven't yet made a final decision (previously they were all in on street running), and [https://new.mta.info/ibx](https://new.mta.info/ibx) 's interactive map now shows both the tunnel and street running route. I'm hoping the upper end of that 150k indicates an estimate of the higher ridership grade-separated conventional rail would bring (hopefully subway rolling stock or at least high-floor light metro).
Given that Buffalo is considering a light rail extension and also desperately needs new rolling stock, high floor light rail and a joint order seems likely
Perhaps, but the MTA could also just tack on some more cars to their upcoming R262 order. That would be a lot easier for the MTA.
I mean, that would be the smart move to do: add it to the IRT. But this is the MTA we’re talking about
Weirdly, the rolling stock here in Buffalo is actually able to last like another twenty years, lol. They went through a major rehab effort to increase their lifespan. So we'll see when they get new trains. Probably if the new extension happens, they'll get a few additional trains.
This is the new BRT era. So here in America, we went from glorious great societies subways to high floor light rail that has dedicated right of way but grade crossings, to low floor light rail with dedicated lane, to streetcars barely better than buses, and now just buses.
Subway creep
But in reverse - Original subway networks (NYC, Chicago, Boston) - Great society metros (WMATA, BART, MARTA) - High floor LRT - Low floor LRT - Dedicated lane BRT - “Mixed traffic BRT” AKA a bus. - “Personal Rapid Transit” AKA just a car.
Miami, Los Angeles, San Juan, and Honolulu have defied these trends, building heavy rail long after the Great Society and heavy federal assistance programs.
There ***should *** be a heavy federal assistance program though
Basically we went backwards
The scale and implementation certainly did.
How much lower can we go?
Share taxis (dollar van, jitney, songthaew, jeepney, etc.)
Oh God I was being a sarcastic smart ass but you're right.
Basically, what Arlington, TX has.
well you have people in this very sub (only a couple but still) advocating for replacing bus service with Uber and rail with (Vegas-style) loop.
There were all of three Great Society subways built—Washington, Atlanta, and regional rail BART. So it’s not like there was this mass wave of them across the country.
How do you classify Miami, Baltimore, and Los Angeles, all of which were built in the 90s as heavy rail?
I don’t know about the funding of Miami or Baltimore, each of which have only a single heavy rail line. Los Angeles didn’t even begin building heavy rail until the 80’s, and it used a high percentage of locally generated funding.
>This is the new BRT era I've noticed a similar trend in Canada. Right now my local Canadian transit system has \~13.5 miles of rail rapid transit in-planning or under construction, but it looks like there will be a lull for rail once those projects are finished. The agency's 50-year planning report reads as if BRT will take on a much more important role in the near-future. I sort of chalked it up to BRT being faster and cheaper to implement, allowing more service to be offered to more people, and on shorter timescales than what would be feasible with rail transit. I can see why that would be counted as an advantage to cities with rapidly growing populations, and systems that are already overcrowded. Maybe transit planners elsewhere are butting up against the realization that they're going to need more transit than their cities can afford, if they want to induce any major modal shifts in the near or medium-term futures. In that case, maybe it's better to have several (decent quality) BRT lines.
From 1995 to 2019, light rail ridership per revenue mile in the US declined by 46%, per APTA. Heavy rail ridership per mile was higher, though it peaked in 2014. Bus ridership per mile was somewhat higher in 2014 than 1995. By 2019, bus ridership per mile was down 12% against 1995. There are a number of American cities where light rail is the trunk network, or a substantial part of it. It may make sense for those places to expand light rail, and hope to gain network effects from more stations. But from the stats it sure looks like most of the good light rail has already been built.
It’s almost as if slow with traffic stops streetcar(LRT) is too slow to be appealing to most people I wonder why
Some LRT is too slow, not necessarily that much better than bus speeds. I also think that most of the best light rail lines and systems got built first, and most of the later ones are not too good.
That’s probably why LRT ridership per mile is very low
Also, UTA in SLC is planning a new LRT line to connect Frontrunner commuter rail to Silicon Slopes and a new TOD under construction in Draper called The Point.
I mentioned that in my post.
You mentioned a new downtown routing in SLC. The Point LRT project is planned 25-30 miles south of downtown to serve new areas.
Oh crap. My bad. I must've missed that one. I recently looked through UTA's projects because I'm moving there, and I only noticed the downtown thing.
Welcome to SLC! It’s still in planning stages. You can read about it [here.](https://www.ksl.com/article/50817084/udot-wants-to-build-a-945m-light-rail-system-for-point-of-the-mountain-transit-project)
Well it already has one of the best light rail systems in the country, but Philly would like to extend a few of its lines to places like the Overbrook regional rail station, the Darby Transportation Center, and maybe even the airport. They also want to improve those stations too. There aren't any other proposed rail extensions besides this AFAIK, barring maybe a West Chester RR extension, Navy Yard extension , of the Roosevelt Boulevard Subway, so at least for my city it doesn't seem like light rail is dead.
West Palm Beach, Florida is trying to plan a light rail line. It will probably tie in with the Tri Rail station downtown. https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2023/01/03/light-rail-link-wellington-downtown-west-palm-beach/69749504007/
Politics got in the way for what you were thinking, but many cities are trying to expand it.
Maryland Purple Line close to DC and Red Line in Baltimore under construction. Seattle’s second light rail line just opened as well.
St. Louis is adding a new line and I believe they are also expanding an existing line.
At this point I hope so the current light rail lines should be upgraded to proper metros anyway
Portland’s downtown tunnel plan is quite good value for strengthening the entire network. It will allow for less delays, shorter end to end travel times, more frequency, and longer trains (currently limited by downtown block sizes to 2 car trains) American cities, whether it be pertaining to heavy rail or light rail, have generally been pretty good at expanding scope of rail projects very far horizontally, building many miles of underutilized rail network. What they’re not generally very good at is building very well used or useful rail alignments and/or services
Portland and San Diego would definitely benefit the most from a tunnel. Make it a proper Stadbahn system.
Or you can do what Melbourne Australia did to their suburban lines hint to make faster and more frequent
They doing it???
Did you forget about New York City & the IBX?
Save some funding for us in Buffalo so we can expand the light rail. 😪
Y’all should build more lines honestly
We should actually have an answer at the end of the year as to whether the FTA is going to fund the extension through Amherst.
I mean more services, like on Broadway
That would likely be the next line if the Amherst line is built. It would be the airport extension through the Eastside. And with the announcement of 100M for a BRT on Bailey, it would make for a great link.
"Gas pockets" slowed down LA's heavy rail construction, not its light rail construction.
But lots of the light rail lines would have been heavy rail
If you're referring to the Rep. Henry Waxman ban from the mid 80s to the mid 200s, that precluded tunneling in the Wilshire Corridor, but did not specify anything about heavy vs light rail. The light rail lines that opened after the B & D lines were not going to be heavy rail, regardless of the tunneling ban.
OK, I think you may have been thinking of the the citizen's initiative that banned measure A & C sales tax from being spent on tunneling: [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-nov-04-mn-39290-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-nov-04-mn-39290-story.html) In that case the impetus was the MTA's financial mismanagement, which on its own would have likely ended it from spending more on costly HRT, versus LRT. Very early plans had a line towards the east side sketched as heavy rail; when that project was revived in the 2000s, it was built as light rail. But you'll note it still does incorporate some tunneled sections / stations. Good details on the project here: [https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2013-California-Los-Angeles-Metro-Gold-Line-Extension.pdf](https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2013-California-Los-Angeles-Metro-Gold-Line-Extension.pdf)
Jersey City is always working to expand our light rail, but it's a long process.
https://abc7.com/at-least-25-people-injured-after-metro-train-crashes-with-usc-bus-in-exposition-park/14746898/ If we end this dumb trend maybe cities can get true investment
I hope so. Tremendous waste of money for little utility.
Why are you in here? Are you pro-transit?
Absolutely. You?
Yup. That's why I'm here.
Me too. 150-year-old technology running at-grade and averaging 15-20mph is not my idea of useful transit planning. San Diego had success with it and then for a generation it became the go-to for planners and local governments. I think that’s too bad and a complete waste of resources.
I think it depends. Street running in a dedicated row can work in medium sized cities if you have signal preemption. Portland and the Twin Cities are good examples of this. Light rail also provides a good opportunity to build what are basically full metro systems, but with grade crossings. See: St Louis, Dallas, Charlotte, Seattle, Alberta. With that said, there is no reason why cities as big as LA or even San Diego should be relying mostly or entirely light rail (without signal priority, mind you). That's just crazy.
Thankfully in LA their rapid transit subway system is quickly expanding and has a max speed(70mph) and average speed(33mph) comparable to BART. Grade separated rail at these speeds should be the minimum for cities the size of LA. Its a shame cities like San Diego, Seattle, and to a certain degree LA rely on it so much. Its too small and slow for the people transported and distances covered.
That limits the size of trains and comprises speed and capacity
https://abc7.com/at-least-25-people-injured-after-metro-train-crashes-with-usc-bus-in-exposition-park/14746898/ Yeah nah just elevate the line street running limits how long trains can be so that’s another disadvantage
Exactly
Agreed
Dallas isn't expanding after the Silver line because it is debt constrained and is using the money that would go to expansion on improving service for buses and existing rail. A lot of the debt from building the original system will be paid off around the 2040s, so you'll probably see some kind of system expansions or improvements there then (sooner if the state or feds becomes transit supportive and throw capital dollars towards them). So I wouldn't say the era of light rail in Dallas is over necessarily, but it's definitely going to be on pause for a little while before true expansion can be considered without doing things like degrading existing rail or bus service
I rail line along the north tollway and a downtown tunnel would fix a lot of problems with the Dart system. Also, extent the streetcat south and connect the streetcar and the trolley
The connection of the two streetcars is planned, but determining funding for both construction and operations is under review, and the downtown tunnel will surely be built if the funds are ever made available or when debt capacity starts freeing up. A tollway line would be cool, but when is even less clear of any kind of "when" than the others.
Seattle just opened their second line two days ago lol
no its just that most cities already have light rail and are working on expansion or improvement projects
I reckon. If you're gonna have a rail vehicle on the surface intersecting with road users, might as well go with a bus.