light rail or bus?

We have provided a series of posts on potential light rail extensions and infill (see links below), and a post on SacRT’s High Capacity Bus Service Study. The implication of our focus on light rail is that we think light rail is a great solution in many cases. The implication of SacRT’s study is that buses are a great solution. Neither are necessarily true. The mode or technology is actually the last in a series of decisions about transit service.

Technology choices do matter, but the fundamental geometry of transit is exactly the same for buses, trains, and ferries. If you jump too quickly to the technology choice question but get the geometry wrong, you’ll end up with a useless service no matter how attractive its technology is. What’s more, the most basic features that determine whether transit can serve us well are not technology distinctions. Speed and reliability, for example, are mostly about what can get in the way of a transit service. Both buses and rail vehicles can be fast and reliable if they have an exclusive lane or track. Both can also be slow and unreliable if you put them in a congested lane with other traffic. Technology choice, by itself, rarely guarantees a successful service, and many of the most crucial choices are not about technology at all.

Walker, Jarrett. Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives (p. 7). Island Press. Kindle Edition.

So, a better way to approach the subject of better transit service would be to identify routes based on criteria, and then decide which mode/technology best provides that. Nevertheless, since SacRT has focused so much on light rail to the airport as being a top priority, STAR feels it necessary to demand that they study potential light rail extensions and infill based on clear criteria. The next post will provide a draft of that criteria for comment.

There is overlap between SacRT’s High Capacity Bus Service ideas and STAR’s light rail ideas. Both identify Watt Avenue as a prime candidate, and also identify El Camino Avenue, Florin Road, Stockton Blvd, and Sunrise Blvd as having strong potential.

Light rail serves as a backbone of the bus system, with many important and high frequency routes connecting to it. As one of the few high frequency services in the area, it is critically important. But it is also important to remember that if the light rail system did not exist, and one were being designed today, it would probably look very little like the one we have. The light rail system, which started in 1987 and had its first extension in 1998, was designed to serve suburban commuters to the central city employment center, and was placed largely along existing rail lines to reduce costs. A system designed today would look much more like it does in the central city, between Alkalai Flat and Broadway stations on the Blue Line, and Sacramento Valley Station and 29th Street station on the Gold Line. It would serve higher density areas of housing and jobs with frequent stations, and would not extend out into farflung suburbs and agricultural fields. Though density of origins and destinations is only one of the design criteria, it is an important one.

More articles on light rail with the tag ‘light rail‘.

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