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Originally Posted by plutonicpanda
The Phoenix light rail is successful!?!? By what measure? When I was there and rode very few others were on it and it took twice as long to travel as it did in my car.
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1] Total daily riders have greatly exceeded estimates.
2] Even though it's currently a single line of just 26 miles,
Average Daily Boardings per Mile is greater than light rail systems in Denver, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, Dallas, Sacramento, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore etc.
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As for placing gates at intersections... no thank you. That impedes car travel and for one is unnecessary when you can grade separate which will allow trains to run at higher speeds than a system even with gates and secondly will piss off a population overwhelmingly comprised of automobile drivers who already are gaining clout to shut the light-rail down with no future expansions. In that case tread carefully.
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Gates aren't perfect, but it's a cheaper alternative than grade separated, fly-overs or tunnels. The only time you would be inconvenienced if you were on a surface street and crossed the tracks at the exact same time a train were approaching.
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Buses don't have to be bad. Maybe people don't like them because in much of country especially in auto oriented cities like Phoenix they are ran half assed. Give nicer buses(more amenities), keep the homeless off from loitering, add real protected bus stops, and increase frequencies to a maximum of 12-15 minutes outside of rush hour with most non rush hour running at 10-12 minutes and I bet you find ridership would increase. At any rate I would think Phoenix should go crazy with a mass transit system. It seems to be doing nice with what it has. I very enjoyed much Phoenix and I'm considering a place there to get away from LA.
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Busses are awful. Nobody wants to ride the bus. They're loud and jerky. They're even worse in
Mhays Urban Areas because not only are they jerky, they're packed full of people, you're constantly bumping into people and everybody is wearing a backpack and coats and you start sweating your ass off as you hold on for dear life.
I used to ride a Cool Urban Area bus back in the day. It sucked then and it sucks now.