Talk:Light rail in North America/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Discussion moved here from main article

I moved these items from Light rail to the new Light rail in North America RockyMtnGuy 19:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Problems that need fixing - "Criticisms of light rail in the U.S. . . ."

What purpose does this section serve in an article which defines and describes light rail?

Why is there no similar information in this article for any country other than the U.S.??

Clearly, this section needs to be "spun off" as a separate article.

All this section manages to accomplish is to "showcase" an unfortunate American axiom: that technical and engineering issues can be critiqued from a social-science perspective - without even bothering to address the underlying technical and engineering issues.

(The fact that, for example, the laws of physics prevail over the principles of economics is not of concern to such authors.)

Another unfortunate American axiom, is that the success or failure of public transit is measured exclusively in terms of its impact on "traffic congestion." Ldemery 04:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Problems that need fixing - "Criticisms of light rail in the U.S. . . . Spacial mismatch"

According to this theory, if I attempt to compare the number of people who travel over each km (or mi) of rail line in a U.S. city to the same statistic from a city "elsewhere," the statistic for the U.S. city "should" be lower.

At 2002, the tramway network in Zürich, Switzerland had a system length of 68.9 km (42.7 mi). The Portland light rail system, at 2002, had a system length of 53.1 km (32.9 mi). (This figure does not include the Portland Streetcar and the new light rail Yellow Line, opened 1 May 2004).

At 2002, the Zürich tramway carried, on average, 5 million passengers over each km of line.

And so did the Portland light rail system.

In other words, each carried approximately 5 million passenger-km per km of route. The Zürich figure was just a bit greater than the Portland figure.

"Spacial mismatch"?

Now I'll admit the following:

--Opening of the Yellow Line caused the Portland figure to fall significantly, because the new segment has not yet reached its full traffic potential.

--Many more passengers boarded in Zürich (196 million) than in Portland (27 million). But - key fact - the "average" tram passenger in Zürich traveled for a much shorter distance – 1.8 km (1.1 mi) – than the average light railo passenger in Portland - 10 km (6 mi).

But once again: Why is there no perceptible effect of "spacial mismatch"?


(Reminds me of that old saw about ghosts: they exist, but reveal themselves only to "believers.")

Another comparison:

At 2003, the Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, U-Bahn (light rail) network had a system length of 58.7 km (36.4 mi). That same year, the Los Angeles light-rail network had a system length of 66.1 km (41.0 mi).

At 2003, the Frankfurt system carried 5.7 million passengers, on average, over each km of line.

The Los Angeles light rail network carried 5.5 million.

Where is the influence of "spacial mismatch" ?

Again, it's true that many more passengers boarded in Frankfurt (95.4 million) than in L.A. (31.9 million). But the "average" Frankfurt passenger traveled 3.5 km (2.2 mi). The "average" L.A. passenger traveled 11.4 km (7.1 mi).

This fact is typically ignored in the U.S. (except by transit professionals), but: the "same" number of passengers, traveling on average three times "as far," implies a need for routhly three times as many vehicle-km (or miles).

The relationship between total passenger-km and total vehicle-km is not "ironclad," but it suggests that L.A. and Frankfurt have to operate "equivalent" levels of service (annual vehicle-km) on their "light rail" systems.

(Frankfurt probably gets away with considerably less, because German "transit consumers" tolerate higher levels of peak-period crowding than their U.S. counterparts.)

The spacial mismatch theory is babble, as is much (most?) of the "information" contained in this section. This needs to be spun off as a separate article - and thoroughly rewritten. Ldemery 04:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The original Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis (SMH) held that blacks in inner cities in the United States could not get jobs because the new jobs were mostly in the suburbs and they did not have adequate transportation to get those jobs. Somehow this article confused that with the fact that U.S. cities tend to sprawl, and tried to argue that light rail would not work because the jobs were scattered in the suburbs amongst the white middle-class surburbanites. They may have gotten that idea from a light rail opposition group. Some later contributors pointed out that many U.S. cities do not sprawl more than some European cities with successful light rail systems, so it's not really a valid point. However, if you get back to the original SMH, you would note that light rail could solve the Spatial Mismatch problem because inner city blacks could commute to jobs in the suburbs (reverse flow commuting). That point has been completely missed. RockyMtnGuy 14:44, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Problems that need fixing - "Criticisms of light rail in the U.S. . . . Travel time"

There are a lot of issues that "should" be discussed here, which the writer glossed over. As written, this section makes little sense.

In the "typical" suburb-to-downtown corridor in the U.S. and Canada, the "benchmark" ratio of "busiest hour, busier direction" traffic to "two-way, all-day" ridership is 13 percent.

In other words, 13 percent of the "all-day" ridership occurs during the busiest single "rush" hour, in the busier direction.

Lines that provide a great deal of peak-period capacity (i.e. heavy rail) tend to have higher ratios.

This would also be true of a line that is "auto-competitive" during peak hours, but not so during other times.

However, most "new" U.S. and Canadian LRT systems carry remarkably low shares of "total" weekday ridership during peak hours. In the case of the L.A. Blue Line, the ratio is so low that it's difficult to believe:

4,500 passengers per hour per direction / 70,000 passengers per weekday

= 6.4 percent.

A significant share of those 70,000 pass/weekday are "off-peak" and "reverse-peak" travelers - contrasting starkly with the predictions of the "travel time" theory. Ldemery 04:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the original point of the article was that LRT is on average no faster than automobiles. However, in your typical major urban area, rush-hour speeds average about 12 mph, so it's not hard for an LRT with its own right of way to beat that. One complicating factor is that an LRT system will unload adjacent freeways so that they will speed up and again be as fast as LRT. People will move back and forth to make their commuting choice on the basis of whichever system is faster, which means competitive pressures will make them run at the same speed. Ah, the joys of economic theory. RockyMtnGuy 15:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Vancouver

Do you think it's worth noting that the Vancouver "Sky-Train" uses both an elevated track, and is "driverless"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fracture98 (talk • contribs) 01:01, August 27, 2006.

Yes, it is worth mentioning, and I think I did mention it when I added the section. However, someone appears to have deleted it. This light rail article seems to attract people who delete anything that doesn't fit into their personal world view. RockyMtnGuy 14:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

POV

The cost effectiveness vs. highway section seems a bit too pro-rail. No one can debate that, for lower capacities, highways are most cost-effective. The main light rail page does an excellent job of explaining the best regime for each system. I'd like a note on that before I'd consider this NPOV.--Loodog 04:22, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I changed my mind. The problem is that these bullets are transplanted, without regard for context, from the light rail page to here. Suggestion: I thought the main light rail page had covered costs and capacity concisely and impartially, including actual data. I have changed the section to make a quick note to that and suggest this article be arguments in the political climate. That's really what the bullets on the page are, not pros and cons. I'd like to redo the section with only the following bullets:
  • Community cohesion/hard-to-measure things
  • Vehicle purchase and maintenance of highway costs being hidden (I don't see how highway right-of-way costs are hidden)
  • Network effect which would give additional expansion more bang-for-buck than systems as are built now, hence reason to expand despite existing data.
  • Cars supplement LRT ridership, reduce critical density. (Bicycles have always aided in mass transit utility. This is nothing new.)
  • Increase in cost-effectiveness and usefulness of highways by reducing congestion
I don't think the corruption thing is even worth notice. Why would we expect LRTs to be more corruption prone than highways in the first place?
Again, these are all arguments, not cold hard facts. This means they can't be stated without either:
  • A scholar/expert
  • "Some" (weasel words)
  • Detrators/supporters (again, weasel words)
saying them. Acknowledge this and this section can become a useful tool in understanding the politics.--Loodog 05:08, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
There's a lot of air space in this part of the article, so I moved it here from the main light rail article to get it out of the way of people who are not in the U.S. and for who it may not be relevant. At heart it is an apples versus oranges comparison that depends on the assumptions you make. In the final analysis the choice depends on what you assume about the costs of electric trains versus the costs of driving.
In the U.S. the discussion becomes more etherial than elsewhere because the U.S. has bet the farm on highways, so the highway costs are sunk costs, whereas other countries have spread their bets more. Based on some work I did on oil reserves, I noted that the U.S. has mostly exhausted its own oil reserves, and the countries which do have the big reserves (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela) are not all that reliable, so betting everything on highways may not be that good an idea. What is the cost of driving if you can't buy gasoline? RockyMtnGuy 05:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
This could also be thrown into the section, rather, something like, "Total highway operation costs are heavily influenced by the cost of gasoline, a commodity having the potential to abruptly increase in price, while inputs into a mass transit system have fairly consistent costs," under its own bullet. It's another argument useful to understanding American politics on mass transit systems.--Loodog 12:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Here's a couple of useful sites: one is a cost of driving calculator from Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) and the other is the Cost of driving from the AAA (an average of 52.2 cents per mile). In general, transit costs are an order of magnitude lower than driving costs, but in the US the cost of owning a car is viewed as a sunk cost because it's not feasible to live without one. However, I'm not in the US, I'm in Calgary, Canada, where it is possible to get around without a car, the transit system estimates its operating costs of light rail at 27 cents per trip, not per mile, gasoline taxes are higher, and downtown parking averages $275 per month. That really skews the numbers versus the US situation. RockyMtnGuy 14:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Another argument to be added to the page. Actually, there's a wonderful comprehensive report on automotive ownership and how it affects what fraction of total income transit costs take up, on a city-by-city basis mentioning the transit system in each city and correlating it to car ownership even:

[1]

As I've said, another bullet is right there: "Those who take mass transit in place of owning cars spend a far smaller fraction of their total income on transit costs(citation to report). Additionally, the money spent stays local, which is not true of gasoline costs nor automotive insurance payments to nonlocal companies. However, in places where most own cars regardless, out of necessity, residents do not have much economic incentive to utilize public transportation."
On a side note... this is really the core of the road/rail debate: people wanting a system that's convenient, and that they get to choose details of. It happens to be a less efficient system more devasting to the environment and the country's economic independence, but I think the main thing is that people would rather pay out of pocket for an item that reflects individuality, stands for status, and is (most of the time) faster than face higher taxes for less choice, even if the net cost to them is far lower. At the risk of overgeneralizing, I think it's a result of America being less socialist than Europe and Canada and so vehemently capitalist that it has taken the transportational path it has.--Loodog 23:43, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that it's a matter of America being less socialistic than Europe or Canada. I think it is a result of the fact that after WWII, Europe was largely devastated by war and had no money to build new freeways, so it improved its streetcar systems instead. In Canada the federal government contributes little money to highways (the Trans-Canada Highway is still a narrow, winding, two-lane road in many places) or to urban rapid transit, whereas the U.S. government heavily subsidizes both. RockyMtnGuy 05:34, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
The Eisenhower Interstate system was modeled after the very impressive German autobahn. If anything, some European countries were far ahead of America in automotive infrastructure. As for the TCH, Canada is like Wyoming in places, completely lacking the traffic to need serious highwayage, not because the individual provinces don't want to pony up the money. The United States embraced the car as a cultural icon. The government responded appropriately.--Loodog 12:01, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Wyoming has three interstate highways, I25, I80, and I90, all of them four-lane, divided, grade-separated, limited access highways. This in a state with less than half a million people. If they had to do it on their own nickle, I don't think they could, but it was 90% federal money. By contrast, in Ontario (which has over 12 million people) the TCH has long stretches of winding, two-lane road, very little of it is limited access, and it goes nowhere near the country's largest city, Toronto. The main reason is that there is not much federal money invested in it. OTOH, the TCH and many other main highways in Canada (especially in the in West), are designed to carry much heavier trucks than the US interstate system, which probably shows where the provincial governments' interests lie. RockyMtnGuy 03:29, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I've made a rather bold edit, and am satisfied with POV now. Let me if it's ok.--Loodog 00:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
The section is still somewhat disorganized and lacking in cohesion. Some other things that could be researched:
  1. According to Apta, light rail transit is the fasted growing transportation mode in the US (presumably because of gas price increases.)
  2. According to CalTrans, California has built its last urban freeway. They have nowhere else to put one.
  3. And, California now has a law against greenhouse gas emissions and is suing the automobile companies over it (does this means everybody is going to have to stop driving?) RockyMtnGuy 05:34, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
  1. How many transportation modes can you think of, anyway?
  2. They didn't have space to put highways into existing cities like Boston, New York, or Baltimore, yet they are there now. And California may be the most populated state, but they've still got lots of wide open spaces.
  3. That's asinine.
But if you can find information on any of these things, feel free to add them to cost-effectiveness arguments in the article.--Loodog 12:01, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I've done so in the past, but in my experience people get upset if you start doing discounted cash flow and net present value analyses on freeways and rapid transit. For instance, if you plug the numbers into a spreadsheet for the $14 billion Big Dig in Boston (see "they didn't have space to put highways into existing cites like Boston", above), you arrive at per-trip cost of over $100. Now, nobody in their right mind would pay $100 to drive anywhere in Boston, so the conclusion is "In a rational economic system they wouldn't have built it." Similarily, if you do an analysis on wheelchair accessibility for transit systems, you get a cost of over $100 per trip. You could send a chauffeured limousine to their door to pick them up for considerably less than that, so in a rational world that is what you would do, rather than modifying the transit system. But people aren't used to thinking outside the box, so they make sub-optimal decisions based on irrational considerations. And when someone tells them they're not rational, they get upset. RockyMtnGuy 15:16, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
The limousine example is a continuing cost while you only have to make your system wheelchair accessible once. How can a "per trip" cost be calculated for any system that continues to rack up trips with primary cost (construction) already paid for? --Loodog 04:56, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
It's quite easy - you apply a discount rate to the capital expenditure equal to the rate that you can borrow money for. For instance, if your capital expenditure is $100 million, and you can borrow money at 10%, your annual cost is $10 million. If you have 100,000 annual passengers in wheelchairs, your cost is $100 each. You might be able to negotiate a deal with a limo company to move them for $50 each. Even if you don't have to borrow the money (unlikely for a transit system), you should analyze it as if you do to ensure that the expenditure is economically rational. Governments usually don't because they can just raise taxes, but private companies go bankrupt if they get the economics wrong. By the way, one of the things I do is design software to do these kind of analyses for major companies. RockyMtnGuy 23:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Other factors influencing the choice of light rail

I added a bunch of additional bullets to the article. I called them "Other factors" although they are mostly pro-LRT. I don't think the pro vs. anti format contributes much to the article. If you are writing an article on Chicken soup, you don't normally have a section for Pro chicken soup arguments and another for Anti chicken soup arguments. You either like chicken soup or you don't; and if you don't like chicken soup you probably wouldn't write about it (other than to vandalize someone else's chicken soup article). RockyMtnGuy 21:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

LRT is unarguably controversial in North America. People are writing books, writing articles, and comprehensive websites about whether it will improve liveability of cities or just waste money. That being said, I worry that this article may become pro-smart growth/LRT biased and violate NPOV.
My reasons for the current format:
  1. It's far better than throwing all the reasons together in a mixed up order if nothing else than for readability and organization.
  2. It helps us keep track of POV, that is, if the arguments are discussed more in length in one than the other (which is the case), if there are more arguments for one than the other (which is also the case), as well as keeping the amount of detail mentioned in each (i.e. exact statistics) consistent between both.
If anything, I think the arguments for and against cost-effectiveness are becoming so lengthy and possibly asymmetric that they warrant their own pages. Every light rail page wikipedia has had has become distended into the pro/anti rail debate. To keep this off the light rail page, we created a North America light rail page. Now it too is seeming to become subsumed by pro/anti rail arguments. The only solution to this problem may be just to give each set of arguments its own page.--Loodog 02:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
This peculiarly American fixation on automobiles makes it difficult to have a rational discussion on a topic like light rail. If you were writing an article about automobiles, you wouldn't give equal time to light rail, and in fact the article on automobiles says nothing at all about light rail. There are pros and cons to every transportation mode, and in other countries the parameters may be quite different, which is why I moved this part into its own article - so people in other countries wouldn't complain about the excessive amount of material only relevant to Americans.
One of the major sources of dissension in the U.S. seems to be that the economic parameters are changing - in 1950 the U.S. produced about half the world's oil, today it imports about 2/3 of the oil it consumes, and the price is rising as many other producers are at or near their production peaks. As fuel prices rise, it tilts the economics in favor of transportation modes which don't use gasoline and diesel fuel, and light rail is the least expensive of these alternatives. Hence, the ridership on U.S. light rail systems has been rising rapidly in the last few years as people notice that they are cheaper than driving. Apparently many people in the U.S. are actively resisting this trend and are fudging the facts. A lot of the arguments I have seen are specious, a lot of the data is incorrect or taken out of context.
My advice, is to get used to this trend to alternatives. Canada is the largest foreign supplier of oil, gasoline and diesel fuel to the U.S. and is one of the few countries that can actually ramp up its production, but there are limits to how fast. At the moment U.S. demand is far outrunning our ability to produce because the consumption levels are just too big. The other major suppliers are either in decline or politically unstable. I don't think Americans can count on having enough gasoline to keep their cars running in the long term, so it would be a good time for them to take an unbiased look at alternatives. Light rail is one of the more practical of those alternatives (there are lots of impractical ones), which is why I am trying to write material for this article. It's an uphill struggle under the circumstances. RockyMtnGuy 14:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

More (or less) light rail

I moved this here from my talk page since the discussion is more relevant to this article. RockyMtnGuy 20:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

  • 18 October 2006 RockyMtnGuy (Talk | contribs) (→Criticisms of light rail in the U.S. - You can design an LRV to go 160 km per hour. You can go 160 km/hr in your car, too, but some policeman will stop you (except in Germany).)
    • Light rail's being too slow to compete with the automobile is based on 1) time to get to and from nearest light rail stations at each end and 2) travel times owing to many stops made. I know driving is far faster than my commute to work on Boston's Green line, but then again it has to wait for lights. Additional point, most light rail systems have max speeds of around 50-60mph since the small distance between stops limits the system from getting up to higher speeds.
  • 18 October 2006 RockyMtnGuy (Talk | contribs) (→Criticisms of light rail in the U.S. - And why would the US, with 300 million people, 80% of whom are within 50 miles of the coast, be more spatially disadvantaged than Germany? Provide details.)
    • This argument refers to the sprawling low-density layout of America cities. Or more specifically, its suburbs. No matter where you run a rail in suburbia, you won't be walking distance from a large population.
  • 18 October 2006 RockyMtnGuy (Talk | contribs) (→Travel time - Three points. Is it the US second busiest LRT line, does it carry 70,000 passengers/day (sounds low), and in Hotel California you can check out but you can never leave?)
  • 18 October 2006 RockyMtnGuy (Talk | contribs) (→Travel time - First sentence sounds dubuious. Cars in major U.S. cities average about 12 mph during rush hour. LRT running at half that rate sounds like a major design screwup.)
    • LRT makes many stops, and if it runs in the street, still must wait in traffic, though, if on its own right of way, I'd expect better speeds during congested highway jams.--Loodog 22:49, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

--Loodog 04:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, some more commentary on these points:
  • I haven't been on Boston's Green Line. As I understand it, it largely pre-dates the modern LRT techniques. The more modern LRT systems I have ridden on do not mix with traffic and do not wait for stop lights (at least not often). Where there are stop lights, the trains preempt them. The stations in the suburbs are much farther apart than downtown. Outside of downtown, the drivers (on those systems that have drivers) push the little GO lever all the way forward and hold it there until the next stop.
  • The United States now has 300 million people. American cities in some areas, including Southern California and the Boston-Washington corridor where you are, reach European population densities. California, in particular, has more people than all of Canada in a space half the size of the average Canadian province, so I think many of its cities would be a good location for light rail systems. By contrast, Canada has only a few places where densities are high enough.
  • It is not efficient run LRT everywhere or to have everybody walk to LRT stations, so the ideal solution is to provide local bus service from the stations to their neighborhoods. In Calgary, which sprawls as much as the average US city (it looks like a half-size version of Denver), most LRT riders take a bus at one end of their trip.
RockyMtnGuy 20:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


Point 1. Many modern LRT systems are, tragically, no more modern in terms of having to wait for lights. Take, for example, the Baltimore Light Rail built in 1992. When LA can have a bus that preempts lights, you'd think Baltimore or Boston could do it for their trains. I've actually written the MBTA about this.
Point 2. New York is the only very successful mass transit story in US history and they're up at 10,000/kn2. For moderately successful systems, we have: Chicago (4900/km2), Boston (4500/km2), Philadelphia (4200/km2), and DC (3500/km2). However, density alone does not guarantee mass transit success. LA's subway/rail system, which is laughably unsuccessful (by ridership), is right near DC's density at 3200/km2. The error lies in making extrapolations about large areas from small ones. California's density is 217/mi2, New England's is about 2002, which would lead one to believe Californians are at least as heavy users, if not heavier, of rail-based transit, but we know this to not be so. It seems very high densities for small areas are far more conducive to mass transit than moderate densities over large areas. It'd be interesting to model mass transit usage as a function of area and density. Hmm.. actually... I'll do this sometime.
Point 3. Having to take a bus to a system that's already slower than your car (most of the time) I figure would be a huge hindrance to ridership. Yes, you can make everyone walking distance from access to public transit, but if that means waking up a half hour earlier and getting home a half hour later (which is the case for me in Boston, and was the case for me in Baltimore), most people won't be willing.

--Loodog 22:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Point 1. Any rational LRT system does signal pre-emption. Baltimore (I read in the article) actually has the software installed in the traffic signal controllers to do light rail pre-emption, they just don't use it. Sounds like a case of traffic engineering pig-headedness to me. Some other things about the system sound equally dense.
Point 2. NYC wouldn't work without its subway system. There's no way to move that many people in and out of Manhattan using cars. Speaking of which, did you know that they had a subway in L.A. until 1955? (See http://www.westworld.com/~elson/larail/PE/tunnel.html). Did you know that Southern California once had the largest interurban electric railway system in the world? (See Pacific Electric Railway). But after WWII they abandoned everything in favor of freeways and diesel buses, because they're so cheap and efficient and you get used to the smog after a while. Unfortuately it will take another $140 billion dollars to keep the freeways working, and nobody's going to give it to them.
Point 3. Well, if you don't like buses, you can also have park-and-ride facilities at your convenient local station. There are any number of options. My choice is to walk to work using a handy pedestrian walkway built under the LRT bridge. But that's because I live really close to work and it's a really pleasant walk. The trains are so quiet.
RockyMtnGuy 00:27, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
The LA subway article is interesting. It seems LA's subway got its starts in the same function as the Boston subway did: providing uncongested grade separations for trolleys. I wonder what turned LA to the dark side and why Boston kept with its rail ideas.--Loodog 02:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I may be dating myself here, but I remember how this all happened. Back in the 50's the United States produced about half the world's oil, and California was one of the major producing states. California was relatively unpopulated, with a fraction of its current population. You could drive anywhere in L.A. without encountering traffic congestion. Having won the war and seen the German Autohbahn system, the United States decided to build the Interstate highway system (what's good enough for Adolf Hitler is good enough for us.) So, the US in general and California in particular built freeways everywhere, and since people could drive everywhere, they stopped taking the trains. However, they glossed over a few niggling details: 1. the U.S. had only a certain amount of oil and it's mostly gone now, 2. the Arabs have a lock on most of what's left and they aren't all that friendly, 3. growth means that California's population is much, much greater than back then, and 4. Los Angeles has a thermal inversion problem that means there's only enough air for about 250,000 cars. OTOH, Boston is a very old city, and while it may have enough air for more cars than L.A., it has nowhere to put the freeways for them (except underground which is insane.) OTOH, neither does L.A. any more. RockyMtnGuy 04:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Criminal Conspiracy

The loss of local rail service in Los Angeles is an interesting and still argued story. Some historians try to point to a conspiracy, but there's a video available through the Orange Empire Railway Museum that presents a few more details. Specifically, one factor mentioned is that PE was required to help pay for street maintenance on the streets where it had trackage while truckers, taxis and other commercial carriers didn't; as more and more cars used the streets, the maintenance became more and more expensive. Slambo (Speak) 11:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The conspiracy (and they were convicted in court of criminal conspiracy, which means it is legally speaking a "fact" rather than a story) was between General Motors, Standard Oil of California (now known as ChevronTexaco), Firestone Tire (now owned by Bridgestone of Japan) and Phillips Petroleum (now ConocoPhillips). They conspired to buy up and shut down 100 streetcar systems in 45 cities, including the aforementioned Pacific Electric Railway system in L.A. which was the largest interurban electric railway in the world. They replaced all the electric trains with GM buses running on Firestone tires, burning Chevron and Phillips diesel fuel. Of course, the electric railways didn't make a profit back then, but neither do the buses and freeways that replaced them (except for the aforementioned companies, of course.) RockyMtnGuy 04:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
This is more significant than I thought, and probably should be in the article. Criminal conspiracy is a lot less nebulous than spatial mismatch in explaining why the US has so few surviving electric railways compared to other countries. I knew in a vague sort of way that GM and Chevron had conspired to shut down electric railroads in the US, but I didn't realize the scale of it. 100 streetcar systems is a lot of streetcar systems to buy, even for GM and Chevron. However, it doesn't really fit into the format of the article - does criminal conspiracy count as a pro-LRT or anti-LRT argument?. Somebody should be able to find the court documents for the inline citations, they're probably on the Web somewhere, like the tobacco company documents. This is kind of exciting in a "CSI-LA" sort of way. RockyMtnGuy 02:08, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Criminal conspiracy isn't so much a reason for expansion of light rail systems or a count against it. It's light rail history and an explanation of why light rail isn't more common. If we can pull some scholarly research into this (i.e. not "GM and Chevron are evil greedy corporations who wanted a monopoly"), it definitely warrants mention in an article about Light Rail in North America.--Loodog 01:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Sites opposing light rail

Once you've got a good conspiracy theory going (see General Motors streetcar conspiracy it's interesting and fun to see how big a conspiracy it is. I have had serious doubts about the links to sites opposing light rail, so I decided to see how many of them might be shills for automobile and oil companies (see shill):

  1. 'Breech of Faith: Light Rail and Smart Growth' highlighting alleged wastefulness and ineffectiveness of light rail projects. This purports to be an Urban Transportation Fact Book about a light rail project proposed for Charlotte, NC. The facts are fairly good but the interpretation is pretty flakey. The site publicpurpose.com is a vehicle for Wendell Cox Consultancy. Who is Wendell Cox? Well, according to exxonsecrets.org, Wendell is Senior Fellow at Heartland Institute and Heartland Institute has received $561,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998. See their report Interestingly the Charlotte report, under Cost per New Passenger says the annual cost per passenger would be $5,575, and then "The same amount of money could lease each new commuter a Ford Taurus or similar car in perpetuity (Figure #11)." Figure 11 is a picture of a new Ford Taurus that you could lease for the same price. It then assumes that the cost will escalate to "$16,749 annually This is enough to lease each new commuter a Jaguar XJ8 and a Chevrolet Suburban in perpetuity." Then it shows a picture of a Chevrolet Suburban and a Jaguar XJ8. I kind of wonder if Ford, Chev and Jaguar slipped him a little money for those promos.
  2. 'Reason Foundation Policy Studies on Light Rail' The Reason Foundation presents a series of reports documenting the poor ridership and financial performance of light rail systems in the U.S. However, according to sourcewatch.org, the Reason Foundation has the Koch Family Foundation of Koch Industries fame as one of their major contributors. Others include General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil, and Shell Oil. A veritable who's who of automobile and oil companies.
  3. 'Rapid Transit, Light Rail & Monorail Index' The Public Purpose has a catalog of articles showing the problems of light rail. This is Wendell Cox Consulting, again. The first site was just a sub-site of this one.
  4. 'Jonathan Richmond's Professional Section' Jonathan Richmond has written many papers on the shortcomings of light rail. This is a self-promoting site about Jonathan Richmond. Jonathan seems to be doing the Wendell Cox thing, but without the car ads. You can read his resume, a biographical note, and his professional profile. Or you can read some of his material slagging rail transit.
  5. LightRail POW! - A website documenting the safety hazards of light rail. This is a collection of links to stories about people killed by light rail systems. Not much about the 36,000 or so people killed annually by automobiles. The number killed by light rail ranks somewhere around the number killed by lightning.
  6. The Monorail Society - A pro-monorail web site that promotes grade-separate rather than street-based transit. They appear to be a legitimate group obsessed with monorails.

So all and all, I think there are few legitimate sites here, and the ones that are legit are low quality. I'd be inclined to toast the whole section. DISCLAIMER: I have made a fair bit of money consulting to oil companies, but none of the ones above, and I own stocks in several oil companies, but none of the above. And I know more about them than I should, but if I told you the details, I'd have to kill you. RockyMtnGuy 01:12, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Merge Discussion

I vote NO, since streetcars are fundamentally different from Light Rail. Also, both of these articles can grow to be large enough to fill an article length page. Skabat169 20:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Subsidies to light rail in criticisms of light rail section

Actually the edit regarding the subsidies to light rail vs. roads did address that criticism. The study cited claims that user fees in the form of gasoline taxes, currently at roughly 40 cents per gallon, are between twenty to seventy cents per gallon lower than the actual cost of paying for the road network. The remaining costs (and talking only about internalized costs captured by the market) come out of the general fund of the various level of governments, either local, state or federal. This would imply that far from the "bulk" of highway costs are paid for by user fees and the level of subsidies may actually approach the level of subsidy given to light rail (and this again is not counting in the significant externalities of automobile use).—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.234.132.23 (talk • contribs)

Editor, please sign your posts with 4 tildas like so ~~~~:
The point is that the bulk of operating costs for a highway system are the vehicles, the purchase and maintenance of which are paid for by private users.--Loodog 02:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
That's an interesting point which suggests to me a flaw in both of our approaches to this question. Namely, we were both operating on the assumption that what matters is what percentage of the total costs of a given transportation system is paid by the users and what percentage is paid by the government. Obviously, percentages are fairly meaningless: imagine light rail cost $1 in total to carry a certain amount of people a set distance, while a road network cost $5000 for the same. In this case, it would be better to go with the government paying 100% of light rail costs, even if the government would only have to pay $50 of the road network while leaving the 'bulk of the costs' to users. Now I am of course not suggesting that these hypothetical facts correspond to the real ones; I would suggest, however, that coming up with the real facts is exceedingly difficult because light rail and highways deal with different kinds of trips and isolating the right kinds and comparing them will be exceedingly difficult. Then, there is the problem, of course, of market externalities as well as with regulations that effectively require private subsidy of the road network (commercial and residential development in most of the US is required to provide a certain amount of parking, thus even if I don't arrive at the grocery store by car, I am required to pay for part of the parking costs of others; the same can be said for someone without a car renting a house). How are these to stack up in our evaluation of the comparative cost? Or that some people buy more expensive cars as symbols of status rather than for reasons of transport? 71.234.132.23 23:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)Dave H
The fundamental flaw with a comparison of system costs is that automobile costs scale relatively linearly (up to a point) whereas light rail costs approach the axes asymptotically. That is to say, because of the large fixed costs of a light rail system, if the ridership is low the per-ride costs approach infinity, whereas if the ridership is high the per-ride costs approach zero. Most U.S. systems are in the low ridership category, hence the per-ride costs are high. Canadian systems are quite different - they have high riderships and hence very low per-ride costs. However, a fundamental flaw with freeways is that the costs scale linearly only up to a point. Beyond that point the capital costs rise exponentially. As a result, a lot of U.S. cities are caught in a conundrum - their freeways have excessively high loadings which would cost a fortune to fix, while their rail systems have too little ridership to be cost effective. This conundrum is nicely modeled by catastrophe theory, but talking about that would likely be considered [original research?] around here. RockyMtnGuy 00:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Who is Wendell Cox?

...and why does he hate streetcars? I was doing a quick review of this article to see how it was doing over the past year, and it doesn't seem to be doing all that well. One of the primary culprits seems to be a certain Wendell Cox, who, it is claimed is a "prominent light rail critic" (several times.) This may be Wendell's opinion, but after reviewing the references I would be inclined to say he is more of a lobbyist for the automobile and petroleum industries. If you check Wendell's data against other sources, e.g. the Transportation Research Board, it seems to be heavily cooked (and I use the word "cooked" in its scientific sense, as in "someone has cooked the results") in favor of automobiles and against light rail. Also, the section entitled "Criticisms of light rail in the U.S." completely glosses over the main driving impetus behind light rail in other countries: it doesn't use any petroleum. Having driven through half a dozen Western U.S. states in the last month, I noticed there were an awful lot of rusty pumpjacks sitting out in the oilfields missing functional parts, and a lot more stacked up and ready to go to the scrapyard. A quick glance at the Energy Information Authority website (www.eia.doe.gov) reveals the truth - the U.S. oil companies are running on empty, U.S. oil production peaked 37 years ago in 1970, and the U.S. is consuming 3 times as much oil as it produces. Now, this doesn't really affect me because I live in Canada, I have a lot of money invested in Canadian energy trusts, Canada now exports more oil to the U.S. than it consumes itself, Canada has 150 years of oil reserves at this rate, the Canadian dollar is now worth more than the U.S. dollar, and my Toyota gets really terrific fuel economy - but I think it should bother Americans a bit more. Over to you. RockyMtnGuy 19:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

He's got a wikipedia article. He was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. His amendment on a 1980 bill is responsible for the funding of LA's rail projects. He makes very compelling arguments against many light rail systems based historical and present data, as opposed to full ridership, which is what pro-LRT arguments regarding cost-effectiveness and efficiency are often based on. Give him a good read; he's changed a number of my opinions.
In terms of light rail being chosen because it doesn't use oil, that's iffy, and I'm sure not the political impetus given when a city proposes a new project. CNG buses don't use oil, but I hardly think that's the reason they're being used.--Loodog 21:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Los Angeles in particular and California in general seem to represent really good examples of how not to run things, IMHO. My concern with Wendell Cox goes back to what was probably the single most useful book I read in high school many years ago, called How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff. It should be required reading in schools, since most people know almost nothing about how statistics work and how they can be manipulated. In it, Huff suggests five questions to ask about the data people throw at you in an attempt to prove a point:
  1. Who says so?
  2. How does he know?
  3. What's missing?
  4. Did someone change the subject?
  5. Does it make sense?
So, now any time I see statistics, I check them to see how they are being manipulated. Checking Cox's statistics against his sources, I usually come up with different numbers than he does. Reading the fine print, I discover he is leaving important facts out, answering a different question than you think he is, or selectively using numbers at the extreme ends of the data ranges. So I'm not impressed.
CNG buses actually are a response to oil supply problems (as well as air pollution), but it's not really helpful since the U.S. is running out of natural gas as well as oil. Cities don't generally worry about oil supply, since that's a national responsibility. Unfortunately George W doesn't worry much about it either, since his solution was to invade Iraq. That wasn't really helpful, either. RockyMtnGuy 22:36, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Take a look at the report that has been cited in the article. If I've been misled, and you see points or figures that need rebutting, I'd appreciate knowing.--Loodog 00:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay, let's start with Page 1:
"Annual per capita ridership is at its lowest level in more than 100 years, having dropped 27 percent since 1980."
That's a misleading oversimplification. In reality, according to the [American Public Transportation Authority] total transit ridership rose from the start of the 20th century until the Great Depression in 1930, when it fell, then rose again during WWII until it hit an all-time high in 1946. It then declined until 1972. However, in 1973 the first oil crisis hit, and transit ridership has been increasing ever since. In 2007 it reached its highest level in 49 years.
Page 2: "Proponents have claimed that light rail can carry the passenger volume of up to six lanes of motorway traffic. In fact, light rail averages 1/5th the passenger volume of a single motorway lane".
Note that he changed the subject, from what light rail can carry to what it does carry - in the U.S. The proponents of LRT have actually understated the case. If you look at the [Transportation Research Board] data, you will find that few freeways can carry more than 2,000 passengers per lane per hour without suffering chaotic flow breakdowns, whereas a number of European light rail systems carry 20,000 passengers per track per hour.
"Page 3: "The cost to build and operate light rail averages $1.79 per passenger kilometer, of which approximately 10 percent is recovered from passenger fares. Because comparatively few new riders are attracted, the cost per new one-way ride averages over $36."
This is using selective examples. Because many U.S. cities bet the farm on freeways, and then hit capacity limits on their freeways, they are trying to spend their way out of the problem. As an extreme counterexample, take [Calgary Transit], in the 60's the city made a conscious decision not to build any freeways. As a result, the light rail system now carries 250,000 passengers per day at an average cost of 29 cents per ride, (while the street system is hopelessly congested). Calgary Transit as a whole recovers about 50% of its costs from the fare box, but since they charge $2.25 for a 29 cent trip, they are making a profit on LRT, which they use to subsidize the suburban feeder bus system.
I could go on for the other 48 pages but this is already getting a bit lengthy. RockyMtnGuy 03:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Your first and third points stand, but on the second point, there has been no misdirection. The more relevant statistic is how much a light rail system actually carries. You can't very well talk about the cost per imaginary rider when the goal is to move real people. Non-LRT Example: you can sell the Detroit People Mover on cost per possible rider as a successful system since 12,000 per hour/direction can fit, but what does it matter when only 7300 people ride it a day?--Loodog 20:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Cox is talking about something quite different from what you think he is. He changed the subject again. His $36/ride figure is a rather questionable FTA measurement of cost effectiveness and actually means incremental cost per incremental ride, which is quite different from average cost per ride. In economic terms it's marginal cost, and most people don't understand marginal costs if they haven't taken microeconomics in college.
But since I went through all the trouble of figuring out how Cox arrived at his $36/ride number, let me bore you with the endless statistical details. First, although he calls it "average cost", it is in reality, marginal cost. And then he selectively picks new and proposed systems rather than old systems, where the marginal costs are much lower. Now, on the proposed systems this would be the basis of a go/no-go decision, since if you were a federal bureaucrat you would take a red marker and draw a line through all the bigger numbers until you were within your allocated budget. However, Cox uses all of them whether they were built or not. Then, he calculates the "average". He does not state which average he uses, but statisticians have a choice between median, mode or mean, and they would avoid the arithmetic mean because it tends to exaggerate large numbers. I'm betting that's the one Cox uses. At the end of it all, he comes up with a value which he calls "average cost of a new ride" but which I would say is more like "arithmetic mean of selected marginal costs per ride of newly built and unbuilt systems," which is a thoroughly meaningless measure. Then he doubles it, multiplies by 235, and multiplies by 40 to get a lifetime meaningless statistic. Then he compares it against the cost of leasing a Jaguar, ignoring the fact that leasing costs exclude fuel, maintenance (try replacing the brakes on a Jag sometime!), tires, registration, license, insurance, taxes, etc - whereas the LRT costs (if they were meaningful) would include all of the above. Don't ever lease a Jag, it would be a bad experience (my friends claim, but Jaguar dealers and Wendell Cox may disagree.) RockyMtnGuy 17:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
The cost the Detroit People Mover article indicated was $3.50 per ride, of which 50 cents was recovered in fares. However, the vehicles Detroit used were inappropriate for a people mover - they used the same Bombardier Advanced Rapid Transit vehicles as the Vancouver Skytrain, which carries 220,000 people per day and is designed for up to 25,000 passengers per hour per track. It's more expensive rapid transit than light rail, but I think Translink (Vancouver) has estimated a cost of 79 cents per ride for the Skytrain. Much more expensive than Calgary CTrain, but still relatively cheap.
I should note that both Calgary and Vancouver estimate the cost per trip of their rail systems to be about 1/3 the of cost their bus systems. This is relevant to another misleading statement Cox made on page 3: "Express buses are capable of carrying passenger capacities as great as light rail, and they can do so for 1/7th the cost." As per the example of Calgary and Vancouver: not necessarily. It depends on volume. Both cities operate Bus Rapid Transit on routes where volumes don't justify rail, and switch them over to LRT when the volume gets high enough. And this makes a mockery of the "new rider" measure because they aren't so much trying to attract new riders as carry existing riders cheaper and faster. RockyMtnGuy 04:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Removal of Bias

I deleted the entire section discussing GM conspiracies, anti-rail statements, pro-rail responses, etc. This is an article documenting existing and planned systems in North America, not a debate forum for funding highways vs transit. Further attempts to politicize this page will be deleted.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.73.168.2 (talk • contribs)

Editor, please add new topics to the bottom of the talk page for convenience, and please sign your posts with 4 tildas like so: ~~~~.
The reason all this discussion is on this page is that it originally was on the Light rail page. When that page became dominated with this debate, it became obvious a separate page was necessary for Light rail in North America, just to separate the American politics from the simple objective facts of light rail. All "existing and planned systems in North America" are already included in objective fact on the Light rail page.--Loodog 01:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Apologies for not placing the comment in the right place on the talk page - I am a little unfamiliar with talk page formatting. In any case, it is not objective nor accurate to imply that the topic of light rail in North America is dominated by the opinions of a small group of antirail activists. Their members have vandalized this page on US, Canadian and Mexican systems repeatedly in an effort to legimitize their viewpoints, which is why it is best to simply strike the "debate" from this section. A separate page, with a more appropriate heading referring to the specific politics of sprwal and transit in postwar American cities, would be a better place to discuss the skewed views of Wendell Cox et al. 162.84.210.90 03:32, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

The lead succinctly explains why this page is distinct from a general light rail information page, which we already have:


ALL of the content you propose stripping this page down to is already included in the light rail page. That being said, I would not be averse to a moving of this page to something like "Politics of light rail in North America" to field the issue of misconveyance.--Loodog 04:13, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Then by all means, please move it and rename the title. The current title is misleading if the intent of the page is to feature the views of vandal anti-transit activists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.73.168.2 (talk) 13:15, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I looked through and realized how much factual content there was here that was not in light rail. It seems I agree with you and went ahead and created Politics of light rail in North America for the political tangents here.--Loodog 21:02, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Umm... imbalance?

The title is "Light Rail in North America". The article is "A summary of LRTs that exist in the United States, rail conspiracy, and a comprehensive list of systems in Canada". This has got to be redistributed. If we have this much depth on the five Canadian systems, what about the twenty one major US systems?--Loodog (talk) 23:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, Americans are not sufficiently interested in their own light rail systems to add more information about them, which lack of interest appears to differentiate them from Canadians. Feel free to research all 21 U.S. systems and fill out the article with more detail to your heart's content. Wikipedia is all about researching subjects and adding information of your own, not deleting other people's contributions. If the U.S. section gets too big, we can split it out into an article of its own. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 20:15, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I guess it was a matter of I hadn't previously realized how much comparitive depth the Canadian section had gone to while the American part just sat still. Eventually, I'll fill these in more, though I don't think any of them are going to take the level of detail Calgary has right now.--Loodog (talk) 22:48, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the great edit - this page really needed something to spur more detail on the US systems, as Wikipedia was sorely lacking in basic information about the many US light rail lines. I'm sure over time that this will fill in nicely. Now, should you add a short list of Mexican cities as well? After all, the title does refer to North America, not just the US and CanadaDgthom (talk) 05:26, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Vancouver

I reinstated the Vancouver section. The Vancouver Skytrain is borderline light rail. It is actually a category called light metro, or light rapid transit, but if you type in either you will be redirected back to light rail. Until someone writes a light metro article, maybe we should keep it here. I don't know what this is clearly rapid transit. automated guideways are necessarily distinct from light rail means, because the Vancouver SkyTrain uses standard gauge rail tracks. In fact, part of the route runs in Dunsmuir Tunnel, built in 1932 to handle steam trains. It uses fully automated trains and a third rail power system, but so do several other systems mentioned in the light rail article, notably the Docklands Light Railway in London. Its most novel feature is that it uses linear induction motors, which seems pointless because normal rotary electric motors work perfectly well to propel trains. However, the new Canada Line will use conventional electric motors, and the Evergreen Line will use straightforward light rail technology. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 04:24, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. It seems to me any automated system running on elevated tracks, running on the same trains as the Detroit People Mover (which we've filed under "Rapid Transit that is not light rail") betrays the general idea of light rail. All the other systems are grade level and partially submerged, have overhead power, and are manned. Certainly, the majority (all?) of other light rail systems do not have complete grade-separation. Yes, the definition of "light rail" isn't solid, but I think a fuzzy line can be drawn here. Cheers.--Loodog (talk) 15:52, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Besides the fact that the Canada Line and Evergreen lines haven't been built yet, being connected to a light rail doesn't make you a light rail. Or else, the entire Boston T is comprised of light rail lines.--Loodog (talk) 19:37, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Tough call. SkyTrain, and for that matter the AirTrain JFK, are descendents of the same system as the Scarborough RT in Toronto and really not thought of as light rail by either the public or rail experts. The vehicles are much bigger and heavier than Docklands, which itself should probably not be thought of as light rail. I would delete SkyTrain. Dgthom (talk) 05:26, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
It's more of a technological dead end than anything else. The word gadgetbahn leaps to mind. The original concept was the same as light rail (a lower capacity, lower cost system than subways or elevated systems), but the implementation leaves something to be desired. I was astounded at the SkyTrain when I first rode it: the vehicles were half the size of the LRT vehicles used in Calgary and Edmonton, and the linear induction motors actually made more noise than rotary ones. The Siemens LRVs that make up the bulk of North American light rail systems are actually bigger than the Bombardier ART vehicles, and can move just as fast, but can also be operated as streetcars where desired. Toronto continues to use drivers on the Scarborough RT line, although that might be a union thing. The Scarborough RT system is really in a box because they're out of capacity, the old vehicles are out of production, the new ones won't handle the curves, and it would cost a fortune to rebuild the line so the subway could be extended over it. The rail gauge isn't even the same. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 13:57, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Vote delete SkyTrain lest we include the AirTrain JFK and the Detroit People Mover.--Loodog (talk) 21:15, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Huh? To quote from the AirTrain JFK web site: "AirTrain JFK is the 8.1-mile light rail system that connects JFK to the New York City area's mass transit system." By NYC standards it's light; by yours, maybe not. RockyMtnGuy 19:13, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
While we're looking at web sites, the Detroit People Mover also identifies itself as "a fully automated light rail system" RockyMtnGuy 21:52, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, I personally don't like that since it seems distinct enough, but if that's the most official stance we have, I guess we have to go with it. Actually, what does APTA says about the latter two systems?--Loodog 20:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
APTA classifies them both as automated guideway transit systems - "electric railway (single or multi-car trains) of guided transit vehicles operating without an onboard crew." Unfortunately, the Wikipedia article on automated guideway transit calls it a "a fully automated, grade-separated transit system in which rubber-tired vehicles are guided, usually by horizontally running guide wheels, on a guideway." and unsurprisingly has a "The factual accuracy of this article is disputed" flag on it. This isn't really helpful. I think we're into an area of terminology in which nobody agrees on anything. RockyMtnGuy 21:52, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay. The wikipedians of this article hereby declare automated guideways to be a type of light rail. All future editing should keep this convention.--Loodog 20:21, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Reversion of note on Interstate Highways

I added a note about how light rail has been accused of being a pork barrel project. RMG, you added a note about the interstate highways falling under the same sort of accusation. Reasons for my reversion:

  1. Article is about light rail, not interstate highways
  2. Interstate highways aren't being built like mad these days while Dallas, Houston, Charlotte, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Baltimore have all started building systems lately.

I didn't want the addition to bias the article. It seemed like the appropriate counterpart to your edits in the Canada section. The Canada section says that the feds don't help so systems are under more limited budgets. The US section should say feds help, so budgets (also cost-effectiveness, system capacity) are more liberal. If you have to spend your own money on a transit system, you won't just spring for the higher capacity system, while you might on someone else's bill.--Loodog 00:20, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, the issue of bias does arise in these articles. It was intended to balance the P.O.V. that light rail resulted from pork barreling by pointing out that the US government also subsidizes freeways with considerable pork. New interstates may not be being built, but existing ones are certainly being widened at at a frantic rate, if my personal driving of them and reading of signs ("Federal government $90,000,000, State government $10,000,000, local government $0.00") are any indication.
The problem with an accusation of pork barreling is that most developed countries, not just the US, subsidize urban transportation heavily as a matter of policy. The note on Canada was intended to point out that the Canadian government subsidizes urban transportation less than other OECD governments, which is a problem for cities. It really should be moved to the politics of light rail in North America section.
However, that brings me to what I consider a big gap in the politics of light rail debate as elaborated here, which is that it completely avoids discussion of the main reason European and Asian governments tax gasoline and subsidize electric railroads - electric railroads don't use any petroleum. Historically, since these countries had to import most of their oil, so they took steps to reduce oil consumption to prevent a major trade deficit. This didn't concern the US when it had a surplus of oil, but US oil reserves and production peaked in 1970 and US oil production is half of what it was then. Consumption has increased 50%, so the US is now importing two-thirds of its oil, resulting in a HUGE trade deficit. However, the US government doesn't seem to have a viable strategy for dealing with this. Note that within North America this is (or should be) a specifically US concern which does not apply to Canada or Mexico, both of which are major oil exporters.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 21:48, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
You raise a good point, that all public transit is subsidized. Here's the differentiating question: Do the feds subsidize BRT and local bus like they do light rail?--Loodog (talk) 00:59, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
The US government subsidizes BRT and local bus to the same extent (50%) as light rail systems, and there are more bus systems than light rail systems, so they get more dollars. However, there are a few relevant points about bus systems:
  • Their costs are typically 80% salaries, so equipment costs are a minor part of their budgets.
  • Diesel buses typically last less than 10 years, so their largest capital item is replacing existing buses.
  • Most of the dedicated bus lanes in the US have since been converted to HOV lanes.
The result is that there isn't much to show for your tax dollars at work. In contrast, light rail systems are capital rather than labor intensive, the rolling stock typically lasts for decades, and the tracks are generally separated from commuter traffic, so you get to see a lot of flashy hardware for your tax dollar.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 15:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
That being the case, I motion for a simple reduction of the US section to read "Unlike in Canadia the federal government in the United States does subsidize light rail construction so that a smaller proportion of funds used are local." or whatever is a correct version of that sentence. Statement of fact, no allegations.--Loodog (talk) 16:38, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I've changed it. All we need now is a citation for the fact that the US feds provide more money than Canadian feds for LRT.--Loodog (talk) 16:47, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
As written it was somewhat misleading, so I adjusted the phrasing from "far more money for light rail" to "considerably more funding for transportation". The Canadian government doesn't fund urban freeways, either. Case in point: The City of Calgary has been working to expand the Trans-Canada Highway from four lanes to six lanes for the last 30 years. The end is in sight, maybe in a decade. There are no plans to replace the stop lights with grade-separated interchanges, ever. And this is for the single most important national highway running through a city of 1 million.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 11:20, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Not including proposed systems

I'm going to reiterate my edit summary (on removing Detroit's proposals) so I can just refer to it here if the problem arises again. Let's not include proposed systems in cities where no light rail has been built at all. In these cases, the systems could be never built or built as BRT or other modes. At least with existing systems, (1) proposals are at least intuitively more likely to be built and (2) are virtually guaranteed, if built, to be light rail.--Loodog (talk) 21:24, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Light rail in Mexico

There aren't as many as in the US or Canada, but we've got an article on Xochimilco Light Rail. What else can be said about Mexican systems? What others are there? Slambo (Speak) 19:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Guadalajara and Monterrey for two. Wlindley (talk) 05:59, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Split

I know it's a little bold on my part but I decided to go ahead and split off the entire section on the United States into its own article (Light rail in the United States) due to the length of this article, which was approaching 50K and taking quite a while to scroll through. I didn't think this would be controversial so I have already performed the split. Let me know if anyone find this unacceptable. Shereth 19:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

You're right. It has gotten big enough to have its own article (I did the original split of Light rail in North America from the main article when it got too big.) I was actually thinking of doing the same thing myself. When I get a bit of time I'll do a "Light rail in Canada" and maybe a "Light rail in Mexico" article to match. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 21:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I reverted this. It seemed strange to me to have only cursory coverage of the US and a full-depth coverage of Canada just because the latter has fewer examples to put on a page.--Loodog (talk) 03:17, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Hmm looks to me like they should both be split... and just have rough overview here. TastyCakes (talk) 03:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree that this article is way too long and we should split out the country-specific listings into seperate articles.
--Arturoramos (talk) 18:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Light rail in North America/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I found the section here on Edmonton uninformative. Nearly all the writing in the two paragraphs is about how costly and undersubcribed Edmonton's system is, when compared to Calgary's. That should be a side-comment to an actual description of Edmonton's system. 66.235.37.209 (talk) 03:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 03:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 20:42, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

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