Comments on: Major Transportation Plan for Indianapolis Could Link Region with Light and Commuter Rail

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:04:38 +0000

I am hopeful for this rail system, but I agree that the plan is not ambitious enough, which will not change due to the political climate. I’ve lived in St. Louis and enjoyed the line there, but as mentioned in a previous comment the conservative nature of that city equals a lack of momentum for expansion–also, the comment on integration is apparent there as well, as an early weekend curfew was set in place that stopped runs from eastern St. Louis, which is largely African American, to areas in central St. Louis. I would much prefer to bike and ride that sit and fume, but I can only send so many letters advocating for this/other plans each time they come around.

By: Jim from Denver

Jim from Denver — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:46:51 +0000

The light rail lines in Denver run near empty most of the time, it is only in drive time they are full or during events in Downtown Denver. It like all other lines are heavily subsidized. I have no views on this fact either way, just stating a fact. No transit system can be paid from just from the farebox, can’t be done. This from a guy who loves any thing rail,but who is also a realist

By: Jim from Denver

Jim from Denver — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:36:54 +0000

What are you talking about? Pitssburgh has had light rail for years. Here is a list of cities east of the Miss that have light rail
1 Pittsburgh
2 Philadelphia
3 Boston
4 Buffalo
5 Charlotte
6

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:44:38 +0000

You also have to consider getting the people from the stops to the mall. Example: I’d expect a rail stop in castleton with a bus running from the stop to the mall/theater/restaurants.

By: Thad

Thad — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:17:03 +0000

Cities in the Northeast and the Great Lakes region of the Midwest are way different from Western and Southern cities in that they are much older and really grew tremendously in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s and built their transit systems early on. Chicago, Philadelphia, DC, Boston, and New York all have much higher transit ridership and are alot more denser which means they require higher capacity than light-rail can provide. All of th cities you mentioned built their systems in the 80′s and 90′s and are more recent and more significant examples of successful systems for cities without rail seeking to implement their first systems. A city that grew after the advent of the car isn’t going to refer to how successful Cleveland’s LRT was in 1916 when development wasn’t geared toward the car.

By: You Bet Ya lol

You Bet Ya lol — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:21:05 +0000

St. Louis has a very nice light system and is in the top 10 for light rail ridership at some 60,000 riders per day. The only problem is that it doesn’t serve some of our densest red brick neighborhoods and suburban counties think it traffics crime. Other than that I believe St. Louis is the second rail city after Chicago with about 45 miles of rail in Missouri and Illinois. I hope Indy, Cincy, Detroit, and KC get rail. We are really lacking in this region.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:42:29 +0000

Minneapolis is close to committing to a second (and more important) light rail line, the St. Paul-Minneapolis line, and also built a commuter rail line. There’s also a third light rail line in an advanced stage of planning which seems likely to actually get built, although it may not be routed properly. St. Paul, meanwhile, is working on reviving its grand train station for intercity travel, and is within striking distance.

I have no idea whether the Twin Cities will serve as an example for others in the Midwest; they never seem to, except in Wisconsin. But they will be an impressive example within 5 years.

Meanwhile, there’s a sort of Transit Dead Zone in the Rust Belt, east of Chicago and west of the Alleghany Mountains. On the actual Eastern Seaboard, there seems to be all kinds of activity; Charlotte, North Carolina seems to be the city pointed to by residents of NC and VA as the dramatic “We Want to Have What They Have” example.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:36:00 +0000

Actually, Buffalo’s line is startlingly successful; it attracts high ridership and is cheaper to operate than the replacement buses would be.

The trouble is that *Buffalo* is unsuccessful. In a city with vacancy rates hitting 30% in many neighborhoods, you’re not going to see much transit expansion. (And the initial design was odd, fad-ridden, and therefore too expensive — it could easily have run on the surface the entire way). Notably, the corridor where the Metro rail line runs is one of the few surviving corridors in the city; get too far from it in any direction and you start to hit blight. If they could find the money to pull the tunnel at the north end of the subway to the surface, they’d probably scrape together the money for the first of the planned expansions, connecting the two campuses of the university.

By: George

George — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:32:11 +0000

OK thanks. This article says Washington Ave for some reason. Maybe that’s the same street, maybe it doesn’t matter.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:49:15 +0000

The East has a decent example of heavy rail, plus a couple of examples that look good by the standards of the rest of the US. It doesn’t need light rail as a central transit spine, which is how it’s built in the Sunbelt; it might need light rail circumferential lines complementing the existing subways, as in Paris, but that’s not what other US cities are building.