Light Rail on streets

The streetcars in Zagreb, Croatia use a mix of street running and dedicated ROWs.

wigwagfan wrote:AgentSkelly,

It's illegal to drive in the MAX lanes in downtown Portland (unless you are accesing a driveway, of which there aren't very many of) or in Hillsboro (it is legal to make a left-hand turn out of the MAX lane within a block but not travel down).

It is also illegal to drive on 1st Avenue from the Steel Bridge to Yamhill Street in downtown Portland (not to mention a very bad idea, especially around Skidmore Fountain.)

The only time where autos and MAX are together is eastbound on the Steel Bridge; automobiles may legally travel in the inside lane which is also used by MAX. Westbound, cars cannot access the lane because there is a curb separating the two lanes. The left lane comes out of the Rose Garden TC, so busses and MAX share a lane. However there's a traffic light at the east end that gives priority to MAX trains over busses (although MAX trains have a 10 MPH speed restriction on the bridge, and busses can travel 25 MPH.)

HOWEVER: Portland Streetcar (as a co-worker calls it, Maxine) is nearly entirely within a vehicle lane; the exception being between the Marquam Bridge and the Gibbs Street stop, when the Streetcar runs on a separate alignment to the west of Moody Avenue.

Ah, okay....thats what I thought...but I do remember when I was 10 a bunch of cars driving in the tracks and the train operator not caring.

I know you can drive on the Portland Streetcar lane because I end up working out that way more often.

Everyone: SEPTAs sub-surface LRT lines 10-11-13-34-36 all run partially on street outside the CCP tunnel. The Red Arrow 101 and 102 routes have street running on their routes also. MACTRAXX

The rule of thumb is, the more separate ROW, the better.

However, there's no real problem with shared lanes on low-traffic streets. The problem comes with high-traffic streets. New build light rail will avoid shared traffic lanes on high-traffic streets. But for instance the River Line in Camden, NJ runs down several small local streets ("Local access only/no through traffic" for autos). This works quite well.

The River LINE in Camden also runs on Cooper Street and Delaware Avenue, which are wide enough to allow a lane of automobile traffic in each direction between the curb lanes shared by traffic and the River LINE LRVs.

Right now, light rail signal pre-emption is being tested on Howard Street. I've acctually noticed it on the smaller side streets between Lexington and Cultuiral Center. They are still working out the kinks in it but from what I've been told, the new MTA Administrator really wants to boost light rail ridership so they are making it happen.

One of the largest concerns for the red line is that there really is no where to put it except above ground or in a tunnel and neither of those are affordable options. I believe that the results of the Howard Street system will be the future of light rail in Baltimore. If the test is successful, it will give the red line as a light rail a big boost.

In Buffalo, the light rail line runs on-street in the downtown area (and as a subway outside the CBD - go figure).

IIRC, the subway portion of this line was built with the heavy snow fall in mind that the area receives. The transit mall concept for downtown was quite in favour at the time (30 years back), though now proved I think everywhere in NA where tried was failure.

In fact, due to the economic problems Buffalo has faced over the last several decades, this entire line is deemed a failure. Ridership continues to decline every year since opened. There are no retail anchors downtown now either, but the same has happened to many small and medium sized cities over the last 2 decades. Even cities like Columbus, OH (which has or had a large downtown mall with 3 dept stores - 2 new in 1988) no longer has any major anchor stores.

The transit mall concept for downtown was quite in favour at the time (30 years back), though now proved I think everywhere in NA where tried was failure.

Really? What about Denver, Portland, Long Beach, Ottawa? Transit malls might not have worked every where or even most places, but they can and do work even in North America.

drewh wrote:

In Buffalo, the light rail line runs on-street in the downtown area (and as a subway outside the CBD - go figure).

IIRC, the subway portion of this line was built with the heavy snow fall in mind that the area receives. The transit mall concept for downtown was quite in favour at the time (30 years back), though now proved I think everywhere in NA where tried was failure.

In fact, due to the economic problems Buffalo has faced over the last several decades, this entire line is deemed a failure. Ridership continues to decline every year since opened. There are no retail anchors downtown now either, but the same has happened to many small and medium sized cities over the last 2 decades. Even cities like Columbus, OH (which has or had a large downtown mall with 3 dept stores - 2 new in 1988) no longer has any major anchor stores.

I think looking at the whole picture, the City of Buffalo built it while they had a great chance and I think while right now things haven't been the greatest since 1899, things will bounce back for the city.

Thanks for pointing out some of the successful transit malls. I completely forgot about them. Does Portland prohibit cars though - I dont think so, but not entirely sure?

At its height, the transit mall was found in some 200 NA cities. State Street in Chicago, for example, is one that didn't work out.

AgentSkelly wrote:I think you can drive actually on the portion of light rail tracks that go through Downtown Portland.

Same at Essex Street on the HBLR.

Otto Vondrak wrote:Philadelphia's SEPTA Route 15 is a true streetcar operation that runs down Girard Avenue...

So is the surface portion of the five Philadelphia Subway Surface Lines ( Mentioned by Paul). These lines don't merely date from the streetcar era, they are streetcar lines. They merely have newer ( 26 year old) LRV equipment.

walt wrote:

Otto Vondrak wrote:Philadelphia's SEPTA Route 15 is a true streetcar operation that runs down Girard Avenue...

So is the surface portion of the five Philadelphia Subway Surface Lines ( Mentioned by Paul). These lines don't merely date from the streetcar era, they are streetcar lines. They merely have newer ( 26 year old) LRV equipment.

Here are examples of SEPTA's Route 101 Media light rail, subway-surface, and Route 15 sharing streets with motor vehicles.

chuchubob wrote:

walt wrote:

Otto Vondrak wrote:Philadelphia's SEPTA Route 15 is a true streetcar operation that runs down Girard Avenue...

So is the surface portion of the five Philadelphia Subway Surface Lines ( Mentioned by Paul). These lines don't merely date from the streetcar era, they are streetcar lines. They merely have newer ( 26 year old) LRV equipment.

Here are examples of SEPTA's Route 101 Media light rail, subway-surface, and Route 15 sharing streets with motor vehicles.

There is also street running on a portion of SEPTA Route 102 ( Sharon Hill Line) on Springfield Road and Woodland Ave in Aldan.

UTA Trax in Salt Lake City has about a block of shared street running trackage on the Sandy line on a small residential street south of downtown. That bit of street running that connects the Trax-only in-street reservations of downtown to the former DRGW ROW that runs to Sandy, accounts for most of the system's route miles, and allows much faster speeds between less frequent stations. I think the odd bit of street running is there because that's one of the very few narrow streets in SLC.