Quote:
Originally Posted by davehogan
It's probably better the Portland went with a surface route for the first run at it or we might have ended up like Buffalo's Metro Rail with a small rail stub that's awesome for the area it directly serves, but doesn't really go anywhere.
The Blue Line can be fixed through Downtown just like a HCT line could be fixed in the future even if it opens as BRT. Insisting it has to be LRT from day 1 seems like putting the cart before the horse. Powell should get higher capacity transit, but replacing the 9 with LRT would leave a lot of local stops without any service.
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A much better apples-to-apples comparison would be to Vancouver BC's Translink, which operates the incredibly successful and cash-positive Skytrain system. Vancouver's metro area is on par with Portland area and population wise, yet it has ridership far in excess of our MAX system:
MAX: 52 miles of track; 130,000 riders/weekday (2012 wiki)
average speed:
14.3 mph
Skytrain: 42 miles of track; 396,000 riders/weekday (2012 wiki)
average speed:
28 mph
Skytrain runs automated trains sometimes only 90 seconds apart - on fully grade-separated infrastructure (elevated and in a tunnel downtown).
img from urbanrail.net
Quote:
Originally Posted by davehogan
As a side bonus it would take less infrastructure costs if, for example, the first BRT route went Powell/50th to Foster, then they wanted to add a Powell/50th to Gresham via Powell they could add extra lanes as ROW was available for each without needing to add overhead wire and rails.
LRT is great, but it's inability to share ROW with cars and trucks helps make BRT seem like a plausible phase 1 option for a few corridors around the region. As a major state highway removing lanes doesn't seem like a practical idea either.
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Actual BRT has its own dedicated ROW, typically wider than rail lines, and allows NO sharing with cars - that defeats the entire purpose of BRT.
This is a typical BRT infrastructure:
img from lantanews.blogspot.com
img from
http://imspatial.wordpress.com/
Anything else is called "a bus running in mixed traffic." Now, if the goal is to quickly move people from outer SE Portland to downtown quickly and using transit, go see my first point about Vancouver BC's Translink elevated Skytrain.