 |
Re: San Jose's Light Rail after 25 years: inefficient: land speculation did this
Author: mook
Date: 12-29-2012 - 20:21
Another consideration for location of modern light rail is where it's relatively cheap to build, which is often affected by where you can get somebody else to pay for it (e.g. VTA in the median of 85/87) and where the land is cheap (e.g. lightly- or disused freight lines). Neither of those influences, of course, has anything to do with where it might actually serve some useful transportation purpose except by accident (Sacramento worked out to some extent; VTA didn't do as well).
Similar thing in LA: MTA had the old PE line to Long Beach which operated until 1964 - converted it to the Blue Line light rail - it was a heavily used line for PE which is why it survived to the very end and it worked out the same for MTA. They've had somewhat less luck with others that used old RR r/w (Gold, Expo lines) and much less luck with the one built in the middle of the 105 freeway as a "mitigation" measure by Caltrans that LAX prevented from accessing the airport and lackamunny kept from meeting Metrolink in Norwalk (Green line). The saving grace there is that there so many people in LA that even a relatively poorly performing line still carries a lot of passengers especially with lots of bus connections -- SJ didn't and doesn't have that luxury.
Some have noted that VTA's light rail does in fact have a fair number of riders. If they're not commuters who are they? In Sac there is a base ridership that doesn't seem to have any particular destination - does VTA have that too?
Similar thing in LA: MTA had the old PE line to Long Beach which operated until 1964 - converted it to the Blue Line light rail - it was a heavily used line for PE which is why it survived to the very end and it worked out the same for MTA. They've had somewhat less luck with others that used old RR r/w (Gold, Expo lines) and much less luck with the one built in the middle of the 105 freeway as a "mitigation" measure by Caltrans that LAX prevented from accessing the airport and lackamunny kept from meeting Metrolink in Norwalk (Green line). The saving grace there is that there so many people in LA that even a relatively poorly performing line still carries a lot of passengers especially with lots of bus connections -- SJ didn't and doesn't have that luxury.
Some have noted that VTA's light rail does in fact have a fair number of riders. If they're not commuters who are they? In Sac there is a base ridership that doesn't seem to have any particular destination - does VTA have that too?
