Two issues most slow light rail in downtown: long dwell times for loading passengers at mini-high platforms and train car steps (Human Transit: Passenger-stop delay, Dwell due to boarding/alighting), and being stuck behind motor vehicles, particularly turning motor vehicles (Human Transit: Traffic delay, Congestion). Long dwell times, the length of time a transit vehicle spends at a stop, are the most important determinant of travel speed in many urban areas.

Dwell Due to Boarding/Alighting

Speeding dwell time is largely under the control of SacRT, and other transit agencies. For both buses and trains, effective actions that can be taken are off-board payment and all-door boarding. Off-board payment moves payment time off the transit vehicle and into the wait time. Light rail already has these features, with the Connect Transit Card, RideSacRT smartphone app, and paper ticket vending machines, and of course all-door boarding. There are issues to be resolved with payment options, spacing of vending and tap kiosks, availability to people without credit cards and bank accounts, but on the whole, this already works for light rail.

On SacRT light rail, every stop that boards ADA passengers or others using the mini-high ramps, dwell time is quadrupled, for the operator to deploy and retract the ramp, and for passengers to enter and exit, one at a time. Of course not every stop has people using the mini-highs. Low-floor, level-boarding rail cars would solve this by allowing all-door boarding and not requiring any operator intervention. But this is far from solved. SacRT would like to purchase low-floor rail cars, but has never identified a large enough funding source to do so, and so is “duct taping” the old cars together. Actually, there are three sets of cars, one ready for retirement, one ready for major rehabilitation, and one recently rehabilitated but aged. All are high-floor, steep-stair cars.  Low-floor, level-boarding cars would probably reduce average dwell time by 2/3.

There are few such SacRT-like systems left in the US. The San Francisco Mini Metro, which some Sacramentans may be familiar with, is a combination, using level boarding within underground stations and some lines (T Third), and stair boarding when on streets without boarding platforms, which have mini-high ramps similar to Sacramento. The cars have retractable stair covers that act a bit like the fold-down ramps used by SacRT for front-of-train ADA boarding, for all stations with level-boarding platforms.

One system in the US (Dallas Area Rapid Transit, DART) has adopted mixed cars, with high-floor ends and low-floor middles, created by splicing a low-floor section into existing cars. Though DART seems happy with this solution, and it has been mentioned as a solution for Sacramento, no other systems have adopted it, and the effect would be to carry very old technology far into the future, locking in a boarding style that has never worked well.

So, the solution to the dwell time issue is low-floor, level-boarding light rail cars.

Congestion

The second, and perhaps more prominent issue is delay due to congestion caused by motor vehicles. Vehicles turning right and left are most likely to cause delay, because they are slowed in proceeding by congested cross streets and pedestrian flow. Though the law is very clear that vehicles should not enter the intersection until they can clear the intersection, vehicles regularly enter and stop, preventing cross traffic including light rail from proceeding. Trains are also often delayed by private vehicles dropping off and picking up passengers in the travel lane, with ride-hailing services such as Lyft and the other one being the worst. This happens frequently on K St. Sometimes wandering pedestrians also delay trains. Midblock crossings are illegal only between two signalized intersections without intervening streets, but midblock crossers must yield to street traffic including light rail, and many do not.

The solution is dedicated rail transit lanes, not shared with private vehicles. In some situations, there could be bus/rail lanes, which in less busy areas could also include taxis and bikes, though probably not in congested areas like downtown. Below is a general diagram, from NACTO’s Transit Street Design Guide, showing an exclusive transit lane, or side transitway (https://nacto.org/publication/transit-street-design-guide/transit-lanes-transitways/transitways/side-transitway/). The next post, specifically about 7th St & 8th St, will show a more specific design.

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