Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
I wouldn't read too much into the terminology of "light rail" in that report.
"Light rail" back then was not strictly the tram concept we're familiar with today... it was kind of a catch-all term for anything between a streetcar and a full-fledged subway system. People still use the term flexibly today sometimes - the Honolulu Rail project is often called "light rail" despite being identical to SkyTrain or the People Mover.
Also, the renderings in those reports, while pretty vague, clearly show a system with short, subway-style cars, elevated tracks, and no overhead wires... so definitely not a tram.
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I mean it was definitely light rail. They had different alternatives and some of them had some very intense grade separated sections, but most of it in most of them was either at grade in the median or mixed with traffic. The overhead wires are there but got lost in the scanning, and the platforms don't look very long. Some of the alternatives were more on the higher end range of the light rail spectrum but none of them were metros. Seattle is light rail and they have a lot of grade separation too. imo a lot of "light rail" systems are so watered down that they're really streetcars, but they want to get in on the light rail fad.
Honolulu is definitely a metro system. I've seen it called light rail too, but I think it's just people not knowing what to call it because transit terminology isn't well known and kind of fuzzy to begin with. I've been following the project though and I can't remember if it's ever been called light rail from an official source. I think it's usually generically "rapid transit".
But Honolulu is also not actually related to the Skytrain/People Mover. Early on that seemed to be their intention, and they referenced the SkyTrain and other systems a lot, but in the end they went with conventional motors instead of linear induction motors, so it's more like the Copenhagen Metro, which is also automated.
The switch was a bummer because it would have been nice to have an American LIM-based system to have as a comparable for future transit systems. Right now in the US there's only the Detroit People Mover, and the JFK Airtrain which despite being 8 miles long is still an airport people mover.
And speaking of terminology the SkyTrain has its own issues. The specific transit product's original name was the Intermediate Capacity Transit System, then rebranded to Advanced Rapid Transit, and then rebranded to Innovia Metro (and it might get renamed again with Bombardier selling their rail division). Vancouver called it "light rapid transit" in their planning documents to avoid referring to a specific vendor, until eventually just started calling it rapid transit. Japan and China call it "linear metro" but that includes any LIM-based train, from maglevs to rubber tire systems.
The problem with it not having a general name is that a lot of people think that it's some kind of obscure abandoned proprietary technology, even though several train manufacturers have product pages for them on their websites right now and just about any big train company is capable of making them. And it's not just people on the internet saying it, it's actual professional transit planners in alternatives analyses saying it. I mean you have over 300 miles of it built around the world in the last 20 years and actual transit professionals here don't know anything about it.