[PRCo] Installment 2 Modern North American Light Rail/Subway

Mon Feb 28 00:41:24 EST 2011

SEATTLE STREETCAR ... a very short project with a handful of cars running north from downtown Seattle.   It was originally named the South Lake Union Trolley until the promoters realized what the initials spelled.   Opened in 2007.   The ex Melbourne cars are in storage in a bus garage.
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv9A5k6lLJI&NR=1

SOUND TRANSIT operates two lines...the first is a free service in Tacoma, Washington that opened in 2003.  The problem with making this a paying operation is that it connects downtown with the train station and Burlington Northern refuses to add more commuter trains to Seattle because they clog up the freight railroad.      Other light rail lines are under construction ... most immediate to the university district.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlW6Q0iOCwY

     and the second is the line from the original bus subway in downtown Seattle to the SEATAC Airport which opened in 2009.   Much of this is on or parallel to the interurban line between Seattle and Tacoma that was torn up in the late 1930s because no one went there.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1TbRyvxOJc&NR=1

TRI-MET in PORTLAND, OREGON opened its first light rail line in 1986 and continued to add lines in 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2009.   The Milwaukie line is scheduled to open in 2015.   This week it was listed as one of the ten most transit dependent cities in the United States.    Tri-Met peaked at over 36,000 riders a day before the recession.   When Frits van Dam told me the Tri-Met people were in Hague to see how to run a streetcar system in the early 1980s, you had a distinct feeling this was going to work.  It has.   

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ncu5D_6WhE&feature=related

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEjh02Vk2hA

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk8aOzA28_k

And if Tri-Met didn't push things to the MAX, The city of Portland added its own streetcar lines.   How many new places can you go today where you can find newly constructed trolley lines crossing newly constructed light rail lines on downtown streets?   Portland is one of them.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKSt8NA1ees&feature=related

SACRAMENTO REGIONAL TRANSIT AUTHORITY had seven light rail opening dates between 1987 and 2006.  Three more were scheduled for 2010, 2011 and later.   It took a while to catch on but they were claiming 59,000 daily riders in 2009.  State capitals usually have high riding because bureaucrats need to cluster together and hold meetings to reassure themselves that they are doing things right.  Not a whole lot really good on line for such a stunningly beautiful system ... this may be the best.  It shows the junction between the south and Folsom lines.  

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWo9-GrpALQ

In 2007 SAN FRANCISCO MUNICIPAL RAILWAY opened the T line into South San Francisco, a route that Market Street Railway had converted to motor coach before World War II.   The second one is ultra high definition misspelling.
Muni claimed around 150,000 weekday streetcar and riders and an additional 21,000 on the cable cars before the recession.   It is also one of the most densely populated US cities.   I wonder how many they don't count on the F line because they can't count them?????

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLyF3BDRjXA

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rcWNTDoZeQ&feature=related

SANTA CLARA VALLEY REGIONAL TRANSIT AUTHORITY in San Jose claims weekday light rail riding between 26,000 and 34,000 depending on who they are trying to impress.  Let's see ... that's four lines or about 7000 or 8000 per line and that might even be stretching the truth a tad.    I was impressed by the empty parking lots both at light rail stations and at local factories   I suspect a lot of this system was built because one local favorite son was Secretary of Commerce under Clinton and Secretary of Transportation under George Bush.   Yes, Norman Mineta change parties.   From 1975 to 1995 Mineta was the local congressman to Washington.   VTA had eight light rail openings between 1987 and 2005 and at the same time the computer industry was leaving town.   By the way, the local airport is named after Mineta too.  

    The video is at the Children's Discovery Museum station, West San Carlos Street and Woz Way.   The Bridge is the Guadalupe Parkway.   This is at the south end of downtown.  Santa Teresa - Alum Rock trains go through the station. 
Winchester - Mountain View trains skirt it.   Here is the map:  http://www.vta.org/schedules/pdf/bus_rail_map_e.pdf

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XTlsOPkHcg&feature=related

Remember when we figured LOS ANGELES would be totally captured by the automobile and all the transit would be in the east?  The weekday average riding in Los Angeles before the recession was about 140,000 on the Red Line subway and another 140,000 on the light rail lines and that was before the Gold Line extension into East L. A.    It's not New York City or Chicago or Washington DC, but to quote my father, "Who 'da thunk it?"   :<)

     The Red Line runs through the spine of the city ... North Hollywood >>> Hollywood >>>> Downtown replacing  RTD's  
     Los Angeles Motor Coach's old Wilshire bus line (that was a joint LARy-PE line) ... one of the heaviest bus lines in the 
     system.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpF_AQwYtxw&feature=related

     The Blue Line replicates PE's line to Long Beach.   When the opening day speeches were made 20 years ago.
     I doubt that anyone believed this single line would be hauling 75,000 people a day!  Pacific Electric didn't come
     anywhere near that.   By the way, Southern California gas prices are usually the highest in the country.   Today
     the range from $3.49 at Cosco in Santa Clarita to a Mobile in West Covina that has the highest price in the nation
     at $4.69 for regular.   That ought to put 'em back on the rails.   

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh-YB5G4pgw&feature=related
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsWmekkiuls&feature=related
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiChxLgE5eg&feature=autoplay&list=PL7F330AF959C767AD&index=16&playnext=2  
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-NUP6hqnYE&feature=related 

      The Green Line is probably the weakest of all the MTA lines .. 
      It runs west from Norwalk to the airport and then south to El Segundo

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CadxT4NxbGs&playnext=1&list=PL7F330AF959C767AD

      The Gold line is roughly a combination of the old Pacific Electric "South Pasadena" line, but built using the Santa
      Fe tracks, and the LATL East First Street car line.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otlTwH8ie9M

The first new light rail line in the United States, following on the heels of the two Canadian lines in Edmonton and Calgary, was the line from downtown San Diego to the Mexican border in the San Ysidro section of San Diego.  Since then San Diego Trolley and its successor, the Metropolitan Transportation Development Board, have eight additional openings.   This system was hauling around 110,000 to 112,000 riders on a weekday before the recession.    Not too shabby for southern California.   

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEW6PnnRreo

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hildbUw5hA&feature=related

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhxhQWR7RK8