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Matt3989 t1_j46fxx7 wrote

Reply to comment by megalomike in A reminder that "light rail" (as a concept) and "The Light Rail" (that we have) are not synonymous by gaiusjuliusweezer

> major stretches go through some of the least densely populated parts of the metro.

It was planned to go through Towson originally, Towson pushed back on it. And honestly, with the state of the light rail now, I don't blame them. We just rehabbed the cars and now we won't even have low floored cars until at least 2050

Major Transit projects shouldn't be undertaken in a half step. The Red Line as Light Rail Transit in a shared Right of Way for 4.2 Billion vs a true subway for 5.5 Billion is a no brainer. (Also that 4.2 billion is going to get blown out of the water 15 years after it's built once the prior rights for utility relocations have been worked out in court)

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bmore t1_j46h91x wrote

But the state of the system has a lot to do with the forced alignment and local funding building it on the cheap to get it done over opposition from all of the idiots that are now using the half-ass product they forced as the excuse to not build more. It's a tried and true NIMBY advocacy tactic: water something down until even advocates can't defend it, then point to it as a failure and the reason we shouldn't have more.

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Matt3989 t1_j46ht15 wrote

"Look what we built, See no one uses it."

I use the Green Line almost every day and it's pretty great 90% of the time. The light rail is a snail of a train that's main purpose is to bus people from Hereford down to sports.

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gaiusjuliusweezer OP t1_j46jvh2 wrote

It’s funny, so few people people have any reason to use it, but once somebody does they are immediately like “oh yeah, that whipped, we should build more heavy rail”

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RealName1234567890 t1_j48acqu wrote

💯 this

I take the subway whenever it makes even a little sense to use it (which, luckily, is anytime I’m going to work). Of all the ways I’ve tried to get around the city, it has consistently been the least annoying and lowest stress way of doing it.

It sucks that putting transit underground is so damned expensive to build, because it makes a huge difference in functionality. (I’d probably even be fine with BRT if it was tunneled the whole way.)

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todareistobmore t1_j4a9uxt wrote

> I use the Green Line almost every day and it's pretty great 90% of the time.

Ok, but this beside the point? If the LR would've been built with the same care as the metro, it'd have been a lot more useful.

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Matt3989 t1_j4axw5l wrote

You can't build a light rail with electrified third rail cars, that requires RoW separation.

So yeah, if the light rail had been built in a tunnel as HRT it would've been a lot more useful. Which is exactly my point, the Red Line shouldn't be LRT.

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todareistobmore t1_j4c3ww4 wrote

> You can't build a light rail with electrified third rail cars, that requires RoW separation.

So? Philly's trolleys run underground and they're fine. What's wrong with our light rail isn't that it's light rail, it's that it was built largely as a gimmick to get suburbanites to Camden Yards.

The problem with trying to do HRT across the city is that it's currently totally unaffordable, both in terms of what it costs and any realistic source of revenue for such a project. So if there is any feasible way to still build the version of the red line that Hogan asked, it's worth doing not least because we have absolutely no idea when federal money may be available again.

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