They haven’t paid attention to the ‘high speed rail’ to nowhere in California
At $46 million per mile, it certainly isn’t the most money spent on light rail in the country in terms of capital cost; AFAIK, that dubious honor belongs to the Newark NJ light rail extension, at $275 million (for one mile) in 2016 dollars. (Even though there’s an underground segment, the tunnels were already there from the time of the Cedar Street Subway.)
This is a great example of how the massive state just lumbers along without regard to the reality of its citizens’ situation. The city is bankrupt and parking is readily available, yet the state churns out yet another spending project. The project’s utility isn’t to relieve congestion or make the transportation system better. Its utility is that without it, a lot of city bureaucrats would have nothing to do and could not justify their existence on the public payroll. Until someone kills off these departments in their entirety, the workers will churn out spending projects whether they are necessary or not.
John Frum Thinking. If we build it they will come only works in the movies.
They should concentrate on currently needed infrastructure like the International trade crossing bridge. As the economy grows as a result of that, then they can look at whether they need light rail.
Until them, privately owned bus companies like the Detroit Bus company are the way to go.
Just laying in new infrastructure for the soon to come booming resurgence of Detroit.. Or sumthin’.
“America’s Greatest Boondoggle?”
I dunno, here in Jacksonville Fl. where we have a sports complex consisting of an NFL stadium, an excellent minor league baseball park and a fairly new and very nice 15,000 seat indoor arena all within walking distance of each other we also have a people mover that cost millions and DOES NOT go to any of those venues...........Never been able to understand that one.
“A $137 million three-mile train is coming to a nearly deserted avenue in a bankrupt city.”
Wow! We have one of those here in Tucson! In fact the ribbon cutting is scheduled for today along with street closures in the business district to accommodate the ceremonies today and tomorrow! In addition they expect a large number of people to take occasion to ride for free Saturday and Sunday as part of the Grand Opening of the line.
Mahvelous darling. Mahvelous.
The Democrat mayor in Boise wants light rail in the downtown area.
Downtown Boise is all of 1.5 miles long.
http://www.mapquest.com/us/id/boise
I don’t know, Tucson’s (which starts service today) is like 4 1/2 miles, 200 million bucks, and will screw up one of our big money draws. We might have Detroit beat.
Yeah, me too.
He'll ride forever 'neith the streets of Boston.
He's a man who'll never return......
Chump change compared to Boston’s “Big Dig”.
IMAGINE!
Next time you drive past a light rail train, imagine 3 things;
1. Each light rail passenger in a full size car instead of the train car.
2. Driving on paved over light rail track line.
3. All the empty space between those cars being used by cars on your road.
—
Think of how much faster your own travel would be with an emptier road!
Nope. CT’s $60 million dollar a mile busway is.
I can see exactly one use for “light rail”: connecting an outlying airport with a city center and population centers or secondary-business cores on the far side of the city. The El’s blue line in Chicago, the Seattle light rail system (one line just as I described), SEPTA’s train to Philadelphia International,. . . all get a great deal of ridership just as airport links, and I suspect, between that and their ridership as public transit for locals would all be profitable as stand-alone rail lines (unlike most public transit).
Light rail will be obsolete with the first self driving vehicle. Why started this now?
Does Motown still have the monorail deal they termed the “mugger mover”
“”’As I started visiting [other] great American cities, it hit me—man, how did we blow this so badly?’”” Easy. They kept electing stupid democrats.