Tag Archives: light-rail transit

Critics of plans to build more light-rail lines in Charlotte, North Carolina say that proposed new lines will fail to serve the neighborhoods of blacks who “need it most.” Blacks are more likely than whites to ride transit, they say, so black neighborhoods need to have light rail too.

They are wrong about black’s use of transit. According to the 2023 American Community Survey, 1.5 percent of both black and white workers who lived in Charlotte took transit to work. In 2019, blacks had been more likely to ride transit — 4.5 percent vs. 2.5 percent — but since then the rise of remote working has allowed most former black Charlotte transit riders to work at home. Continue reading →

Minnesota legislators are not only considering shutting down the Northstar commuter train, they are raging at the Metropolitan Council, which is the Twin Cities’ regional planning agency which also runs its transit agency, for its light-rail cost overruns. At issue is the Southwest light-rail line, which when Metro first asked the federal government for funding was supposed to cost $1.25 billion but now, according to a state legislative audit, is costing $2.86 billion.

Twin Cities light rail: overbudget and underperforming. Photo by Central Corridor.

Even after adjusting for inflation, that’s roughly a 100 percent cost overrun. By the time the federal government agreed to share half the costs, the projected cost had risen to $2 billion. From that point on, the state or local government is responsible for all cost overruns, so what they thought was going to cost state and local taxpayers $1 billion is ending up costing them almost $2 billion. Continue reading →

Portland’s transit agency, TriMet, is introducing new “technologically advanced” light-rail trains to its system. Yet most of these “technological advancements” seem pretty lame to me. Among other things, the new cars have “Better temperature control for heating to keep trains warm in cold weather.” Is this an admission that past light-rail cars from the same builder were too hot in summer and too cold in winter?

The new cars also carry 168 people. That’s hardly a major “technological advance” over the previous cars, which carried 172 people. However, TriMet’s original light-rail cars, which the new ones will be replacing, only carried 164 people. They achieved this incredible technological advance by making the new cars four feet longer. Portland has the shortest city blocks in the country, and since light-rail trains can’t be longer than a city block, TriMet operates the lowest-capacity light-rail system in the country, yet it still calls its light rail “high capacity transit.” Continue reading →

Light rail suffers the highest crime rates of any mode of transit and this is largely due to the honor system of fare payment. St. Louis Metro is addressing this by adding gates to its light-rail stations. Unlike most cities, St. Louis can do this because its light-rail system is entirely separated from streets and sidewalks.

Gates have been installed in four of the region’s 38 light-rail stations, but Metro hasn’t yet installed fare systems. Until it does, it has security officers standing at each gate to check that customers have paid their fares before they are allowed to go on the platform. Metro expects to have gates at all 38 stations installed by January 2026, but hasn’t said how soon it will have fare payment systems installed. Continue reading →

Maryland transportation planners are considering spending a breathtaking $9 billion to build a 14-mile light-rail line that would never come close to carrying the 33,000 to 35,500 daily passengers they claim. This $640-million-per-mile cost would be incurred if they built the line in a tunnel.

Although Baltimore’s light-rail system is capable of accommodating three-car trains, two cars are more common simply because ridership is so low. Photo by Pi.1415926535.

The alternative would be to build it on the surface, which is still projected to cost around $5 billion, or more than $350 million a mile. Back in 1990, before Congress began spending billions of dollars on transit capital improvements, $50 million a mile was considered outrageously expensive for light rail. Now $350 million a mile is just routine. Continue reading →

Last week, I observed that “Transit’s failure to recover from the pandemic is due largely to its downtown-centric orientation in most urban areas.” An op-ed in yesterday’s Baltimore Sun makes a similar point about the planned Red Line light-rail project for that city. “The problem with Baltimore transit is not that it doesn’t have enough expensive rail lines; it is that its route map is mired in the past,” said the op-ed. “Most of its routes focus on downtown Baltimore.”

Rooted in the past: Baltimore’s light-rail system. As an aside, the Orioles ad features steam locomotive wheels because the Orioles play at Camden Yards Stadium, which was built on a former Baltimore & Ohio freight yard, with B&O’s passenger station incorporated into the station. Photo by Mr.TinMD.

This isn’t entirely a coincidence since the Antiplanner wrote the op-ed. “Before the pandemic, more than 20 percent of downtown Baltimore workers commuted by transit, while less than 6 percent of the rest of the region’s workers commuted on transit,” says the article, echoing what I wrote here last week. “The system’s downtown orientation simply does not work for 94 percent of non-downtown workers.” Continue reading →

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is asking a state court to cancel Austin’s light-rail plans. Capital Metro, Austin’s transit agency, persuaded voters to raise taxes to build light rail in 2020. Soon after the vote, however, the agency admitted that rail would cost a lot more than it had claimed and so less would be built than promised. Paxton says that in doing so it has breached its contract with the voters and its plans should be rejected.

Imagining light rail in Austin. Smiling happy people, no cars, and no crime make this scene a complete fantasy. Source: Project Connect.

Paxton has gotten in trouble over securities fraud and has taken positions on abortion and immigration that I disagree with. I am sure there are rail transit advocates who are gnashing their teeth over the idea that a lawsuit could overturn the “will of the people” to build light rail in Austin. But, while I am obviously biased, I think that defining the election as a “contract” and ruling it invalid if Capital Metro can’t keep its part of the contract is a great idea. Continue reading →

Metro Transit has raised the projected cost of the Twin Cities’ Southwest light-rail line to $2.86 billion, or $197 million per mile for the 14.5 mile line. The news stories say this is up from $2.0 billion, but the original projected cost was $1.25 billion for 15.8 miles or less than $80 million a mile (which is still outrageous for an inflexible, low-capacity system).

Light-rail trains pass through a half-empty downtown Minneapolis. Photo by Andrew Ciscel.

Considering that downtown Minneapolis is ranked as having the third-slowest recovery of the nation’s 56 largest urban areas, and Twin Cities light rail carried only 52 percent of pre-pandemic riders in November, this would be a good time for the region to scrap the project. As I’ve suggested before, it would cost a lot less to turn it into a rapid bus route than to complete the rail project. Continue reading →

Light rail is a “proven technology,” claims Atlanta Beltline engineer Shaun Green, so there is no need to look at alternatives to spending a couple of billion dollars or so building a 22-mile light-rail and streetcar loop around the city. He was responding to some local residents who think that alternatives should be considered because “rail is the 20th century.”

Proposed route of Atlanta beltline transit system.

It is sad that even trained civil engineers have lost the simple analytical skills needed to handle questions like this. Let’s look and see where light rail has proven itself. Continue reading →