Light Rail Myths and Realities 4941

That might be true of portland. In chicago, the 'L' (a train) is used extensively, but seeing empty buses is a rutine of city life. A frequent sight is two CTA buses running nose-to-tail with 5 pbuttengers between them. Yes, I know a lot of people use the buses in chicago, but wrt percentage of capacity, just by observation, the 'L' is more popular.

Allowing private concerns to compete in transit would be a good thing. However it will be opposed by forces that benefit from the status quo. The government doesn't want to be shown a better job can be done.

This is not a problem with rail, but rather a management problem in Portland.

False thinking. What would the traffic growth have been WITHOUT the rail? My guess is that it would be higher yet. In a growing area, transit can only slow the rate of growth of traffic.

This is a management issue, not a fundamental problem of rail. I recently read a post by someone who was annoyed with the CTA having bus stop frequently, increasing his travel times. He inisted the stops should be more widely spaced.

So can a well managed rail system. This is a false comparison of a poorly managed rail system to a well managed bus system.

How long do the buses last? How often do they need to be replaced? What is the cost of the road? You include the cost of the rail to the trains but do not charge the bus system with it's wear and tear on the roads. What is the cost in congestion to other traffic due to the buses? It seems the author found every direct and indirect cost for rail, but did not do so for buses.

Management issue.

But your transit authority sees no cost for building the roads, skewing the previous calculations. One could argue that since motorists pay the burden for the road, they shouldn't have to be slowed by buses. If we are to use the management model you are using to disqualify rail, buses would be banned from the roads. Once again, you are using a management issue as if it were the only way rail can be done. It's not.

The author is even more bus-uptopian than Adam over in chi.* Most times a bus uptopian is just against park and ride, but this guy appears to be even against buses taking people to the train station.

Having ridden a bicycle in Chicago and getting stuck behind CTA buses, I can say for a fact the electric powered 'L' is far cleaner than the black soot cloud that comes from the bus. Of course that might just be a 'mismanaged' bus system. Of course the author ignores that such a thing could happen and has treated poor management decisions as if they fundamental parts of rail like tracks.