History of houston rail propositions

[livincinco]

Interesting perspective on BRT vs LRT from Australia.

http://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/publications/files/LightRailVSBus.pdf

[mfastx]

so I stand by my last comment about  how difficult it has been, and will continue to be, to persuade taxpayers to ok the spending of billions more tax $ by an agency with a sketchy history of competence in order to build "quality" transit to attract people who don't need the service.

 

That's a very fair assessment. 

 

It is my opinion that it is beneficial to have good quality transit for a major metropolitian area, and it is beneficial to have many riders of public transit who don't necessarily "need" to ride it.  The more cars off the road, the better. 

 

I know that a lot of people in the Houston area disagree with me.. but voters have approved an inner city rail system twice now.  Shame that only a portion is actually being built. 

[Slick Vik]

Interesting perspective on BRT vs LRT from Australia.

http://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/publications/files/LightRailVSBus.pdf

 

That makes perfect sense. Basically saying grade seperated rail is the way to go instead of light rail, and bus rapid transit is a cheaper imitation of light rail. Having ridden both many times, bus rapid transit is just a bus with right of way. In the cities I've ridden them people like them at first, but end up hating them and want rail instead. They are cheaper but not as efficient in their acceleration, deceleration, top speed, and how many people one bus can hold in comparison to a train car.

[samagon]

Buses are great for public transit b/c, as Christof notes above, buses can get closer to where more people live and work than fixed guideway transit.

 

Keep in mind that in most transit systems that utilize rail, there isn't just rail.

 

There are major stations in activity centers, and buses do the local transit from those stations.

 

So I respectfully disagree with Christof's comment.

[IronTiger]

Unfamiliar as I am with the bus fleet, I've found that buses tend to stop at major and busy roads, slightly depressing themselves to the ground to let people in and out. While buses certainly have a pre-existing network to go on (a major plus), with buses stopping at relatively inconvenient times, I would think that the argument that light rails slowing down traffic (minus the left turn problem) is negated somewhat.

[livincinco]

That makes perfect sense. Basically saying grade seperated rail is the way to go instead of light rail, and bus rapid transit is a cheaper imitation of light rail. Having ridden both many times, bus rapid transit is just a bus with right of way. In the cities I've ridden them people like them at first, but end up hating them and want rail instead. They are cheaper but not as efficient in their acceleration, deceleration, top speed, and how many people one bus can hold in comparison to a train car.

Actually, that's not what he's saying at all. What he's saying is that there are attributes of mass transit that are judged as desirable and not desirable and that those attributes remain consistent regardless of the transit system that they are applied to.

[Slick Vik]

Actually, that's not what he's saying at all. What he's saying is that there are attributes of mass transit that are judged as desirable and not desirable and that those attributes remain consistent regardless of the transit system that they are applied to.

 

You seem to have interpreted it differently.