Light Rail Boom

[Nexis4Jersey]

Northeastern Megapolis LRT projects over the next 40 years....the unofficial list...Starting with NJ

New Jersey

Diesel Light Rail lines > Hybrid of LRT and Commuter Rail , its used in South Jersey to bridge the gaps in the system.

Glassboro LRT line - 2015? - 15 stations - 25,000 Projected Riders by 2030

Bergen - Passaic LRT line - 2015? - 12 Stations - 15,000 Projected Riders by 2030

West Trenton line - 2020s? - 10 Stations - 10,000 projected riders by 2030

RiverLine - In Operation - 20 Stations - 11,000 Daily Riders , w/ 25,000 by 2020

Electric Light Rail lines < Most of the Electric LRT have been used to stimulate growth and connect the once broken Urban Jersey Transit system

Northern Branch LRT line - 2017? - 9 Stations - 25,000 Projected Riders by 2030

Newark LRT extension along the NS line - 2020s? - 8 Stations - 30,000 Projected Riders by 2030

New Brunswick LRT - 2020s? - 13 Stations - 30,000 Projected Riders by 2030

Newark - Paterson LRT - 2030s? - 22 Stations - 50,000 Projected riders by 2040

5 Additional Stations for the HBLR - 2020? - 30-40,000 Projected Riders for those stations

Newark Light Rail System - In Operation - 20 Stations - 21,000 daily Riders w/ 30,000 Projected by 2020

Hudson Bergen LRT system - In Operation - 24 Stations - 43,000 Daily Riders w/ 100,000 Projected by 2020

[MolsonExport]

I was in Reims (France) very recently, and I was extremely impressed by the Tramway in that city. Efficient, silent, ultra clean, cheap, frequent...takes you through much of the core...much of the area between and within the tracks is real grass.


snclavalin, ville-de-reims


more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reims_tramway

[LAofAnaheim]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

I say 'stuck in traffic' as an umbrella term, though I probably shouldn't. Because of car-related issues, like streetlights etc., he arrived late. Issues that wouldn't be prevalent in a real 'metro'.

He didn't arrive 'late'. He should have known the timetables...unless there was an accident on the track. The Blue Line is not a guessing game, neither is any of LA's light rail lines. They're usually no more than 1 minute variance from the timetable. The guy didn't plan well and that's not Metro's fault, unless there was an accident. It was his fault in planning. We can't just "pass the buck" because Blue Line is not "traditional heavy rail". The Blue Line is a light rail line, but it's not a streetcar. Let's not blur the lines here.

[Illithid Dude]

Originally Posted by LAofAnaheim

He didn't arrive 'late'. He should have known the timetables...unless there was an accident on the track. The Blue Line is not a guessing game, neither is any of LA's light rail lines. They're usually no more than 1 minute variance from the timetable. The guy didn't plan well and that's not Metro's fault, unless there was an accident. It was his fault in planning. We can't just "pass the buck" because Blue Line is not "traditional heavy rail". The Blue Line is a light rail line, but it's not a streetcar. Let's not blur the lines here.

But, as I said the issue is that the Blue Line is referred to as a Metro, something it clearly is not. So, the man could be forgiven for thinking he was going to get to hid destination quicker then he did. Besides that, any time something has to interact with traffic, there is an element of chance (getting stuck at multiple streetlights in a row, for example).

[llamaorama]

To reply to the list by Joke Insurance...

I think Richmond, Milwaukee, Cincy, Louisville, could support a rail system that justifies its existence with solid ridership because they are old school urban cities with dense neighborhoods and concentrated downtowns. I never understood why these places don't have more robust transit, could politics in each play a role?

The others...forget it. Some of those are actually suburbs and do have light rail systems passing through them or will

[ssiguy]

Many new LRT lines built in the last 15 years in the US have been a failure.
Dallas DART and Seattle Link are stellar examples of where massive amounts of money have been invested with little to show for it. They also made the mistake of using current rail corridors that are in industrial areas where TOD is difficult.
Those funds would have been far better spent on TRUE Ottawa-like BRT. Not just bus lanes on the side of the road but mostly completely segregated bus roadways. The savings of not having to built rail track and overhead power lines is huge. As for idea farce that Americans won't take a bus that is nonsense. Pittsburgs MLK Transitway and Cleveland's new Healthline have ridership levels as high as many new LRT systems but cost a fraction the amount. Cleveland's Healthline is not even much faster than a regular bus but with bus lanes, attractive shelters, POP, identifyable silver modern articulated buses, good frequency, and public art and improvements. It goes along Euclid Ave, the city's main throughfare and has doubled ridership in one year on what was already the system's busiest bus route. Even with Cleveland's high level of abadoned houses it has sparked massive amounts of new condos, businesses, entertainment, and a thriving street scene. The LRT lobby of course poo=pooed it when it was being built but Clevelanders proved them wrong.

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by Brandon716

Minneapolis and Denver both have good starter systems, Denver slightly more advanced, but Denver has tried to make it's LRT a one-size-fits-all solution, both a rapid transit city-wide mode and a local transit mode in the central core... Its not my favorite implementation. Denver and Minneapolis are bona fide, suburban type American cities. There isn't much urbanity there, so the street portions work downtown I suppose, but they strangle the entire solution as a "rapid transit" network.

American cities are implementing LRT in ways that are unheard of in Europe, again Berlin is my favorite model. The backbone of transportation in Berlin is the heavy rail metro/rapid transit, then it has tons of feeder LRT streetcar systems/trams that are 5, 8, 10km in length.

American metros will have LRT lines that go for 30-50km, mixed as local transit and rapid transit. It literally makes no sense what-so-ever, and I didn't realize it until the past 5 years when I really started to examine the different uses of LRT around the world. But save for New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and a handful of other cities there really isn't much urbanity in America to speak of. It is amazing a nation with over 300 million people has so few urban settings, so few in fact you could count on your two hands.

IMO, the major part of the problem with LRT in the US is that the States has few, outside of the Interstate Highway System, traditions of cities, counties, and, the state working together for the "common good." This hesitation to cooperate in the sense of 'sharing the spoils' caused the Balkanization* of metropolitan areas into many seperate cities, and, reflects traditions that include racial, ethnic, and economic issues that are many decades old.

The Metropolitan LRT, unlike the Urban freeway system that grew to serve suburban interests, in the US, is urban core city centered (many US metro areas have core cities with under 25% of the metro's total population). That is, the power players behind the urban planning, the design, and, the implementation most often are property developers intent on developing property pieces that have been bought and sold many times since Tear Down debacle of the 1950s and/or developing parts of the vast urban rail yard acreage that essentially was abandoned in the 1970s and 1980s. These interests are primarily interested in selling LRT and commuter rail as ways to get commuters to their new office buildings and residences into their new condos. Combine this tendency with the desires of urban building property owners to renovate buildings, and, the final right-of-way design tends to not serve the through traveler (times through the urban core to the otherside become excruciatingly long) and affects commuters who would board and exit along a segment of a spoke (stations too often put in poor locations and too many stations are almost solely designed for automobile park'n'ride commuters).

Denver, in my opinion, is a classic example where spokes end at stubs downtown, or, after passing through downtown, go to slow street running.
This was the result of planning that was the consequence of improperly overseen property speculation on the part of a major player, combined with the influence of property owner consortiums on a lower level (players that bought pieces from the first owner).

IMO this creates horrible problems for future metrowide commuting as the spoke and hub layout will lock the rider into the terribly limiting 'Chicago' type model that has no steel rail loop to bypass downtown (had the vast numbers of city governments and the State cooperated on this years ago, Chicago steel rail, IMO, would move more passengers today than Washington, Toronto, or Montreal).

Many in the US have stridently pointed out the need for high speed steel rail spines that run through downtowns with LRT and bus feeder lines. Those of us who have traveled in Europe and in the Far East have seen such a layout in action. The resistance to such logical approaches, IMO, in the US, tends to the deliberate result of urban core property owners and the politicians they control.

*This type of politic Balkanization is only now showing in Canada, in particular metropolitan Toronto.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Many new LRT lines built in the last 15 years in the US have been a failure.
Dallas DART and Seattle Link are stellar examples of where massive amounts of money have been invested with little to show for it. They also made the mistake of using current rail corridors that are in industrial areas where TOD is difficult.

Huh? What drugs are you taking? It is easier to get higher density TODs built in former industrial zoned areas than in single unit residential neighborhoods. It is also far easier to get the needed political support to build light rail on rail corridors than not as well. If DART didn't build their light rail lines where they did, they would NOT be building any light rail lines at all. So get off your high horse. The value of DART's rail lines should be valued 10 to 20 years from now, not over the past decade.

I'm pretty sure the same can be said for Seattle as well. In case you were NOT aware, Seattle is building far more grade separation in their light rail lines than Dallas has. Seattle isn't following existing rail lines that closely either. Throwing both into the same bucket having the same planning failure is being dishonest. Maybe its you that is wrong?

[Metro-One]

Vancouver's grade separated Canada Line is now reporting 116 000 passengers per week day (the line is only 2 years old).

To me this proves that grade separation and speed are key in developing proper mass transit.

in fact, correct me if i am wrong, but Vancouver has been the last North American city to build a true metro for its mass transit backbone (true metro being a fully grade separated system IMO, which I believe is the commonly used definition for a true metro, regardless if it is LRT, HRT or ALRT)

I guess with Honolulu building its new system they will become the most recent to do so in North America.

[bardak]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Vancouver's grade separated Canada Line is now reporting 116 000 passengers per week day (the line is only 2 years old).

To me this proves that grade separation and speed are key in developing proper mass transit.

in fact, correct me if i am wrong, but Vancouver has been the last North American city to build a true metro for its mass transit backbone (true metro being a fully grade separated system IMO, which I believe is the commonly used definition for a true metro, regardless if it is LRT, HRT or ALRT)

I guess with Honolulu building its new system they will become the most recent to do so in North America.

I believe that LA built it's subways after Vancouver.

[mhays]

Seattle's starter light rail line was built through a combination of permanent industrial areas and lower-density core/suburban residential areas.

TOD is a long-term process. Our line opened in 2009...projects opening concurrently would have had to move forward in 2007, when most development was grinding to a halt. Further, the transit agency owns a lot of the key sites used for rail construction, and has chosen to wait for values to rise before selling or ground leasing them.

We've also been backwards in our thinking. While Vancouver encourages highrises around its stations, Seattle limits development to a few floors sometimes. We even have single-family zones in station areas.

If you want big ridership right away, you either go where the density is, or include parking. We did neither, mostly. Further, we restricted the length of trains (due to a construction project at one end) and frequency of trains (due to sharing the Downtown Transit Tunnel with buses, and overzealousness on the part of regulators). But the city will grow around the line over time (the residential parts). In 2016 the trains can get longer and more frequent, and finally hit real density outside the CBD, which is anticipated to multiply ridership overnight.

Things are looking up on TOD, sort of. Sound Transit is still holding their land. Two stations already have significant TODs, one a 350-unit apartment that just opened and is a bit of a test case for developers (can the poor part of town justify high enough rents?), and the latter phases of a Hope IV public housing redevelopment that have been completing or are currently underway. Another station has 400 units planned within a block.

Ridership goals were never ambitious for the starter line. We're around 90% of projections if I recall.

There might be 3,500 housing units under construction in Seattle, not counting dorms, but nearly all of them are right in the core, or in higher-priced "urban village" districts served by buses...in many ways those count as TOD too.

[Illithid Dude]

Originally Posted by bardak

I believe that LA built it's subways after Vancouver.

That we did. Vancouver built theirs for the Expo 1986. Ours (L.A.) opened up in the mid 90s.

[Metro-One]

Cool, didn't know that, I thought that the LA subway was initiated long before that.

[ssiguy]

One of the reasons US systems have such poor ridership levels is due to the poor frequency and service levels.
Many new systems only run every 15 minutes during the day and every 8 to 10 minutes during rush hour. That is more like commuter rail frequency but with the high LRT price.
I'm very surprised how US cities have not embraced automated technology. Vancouver is the best example of automation and allows very extremely high frequency. Living next to a SkyTrain station is like having a taxi at your door.
Rapid transit must be exactly that to pry people from their cars and high frequency is as essential as the speed of the vehicles themselves. Most don't mind taking transit but they hate taking it.

[Dr Nevergold]

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

IMO, the major part of the problem with LRT in the US is that the States has few, outside of the Interstate Highway System, traditions of cities, counties, and, the state working together for the "common good." This hesitation to cooperate in the sense of 'sharing the spoils' caused the Balkanization* of metropolitan areas into many seperate cities, and, reflects traditions that include racial, ethnic, and economic issues that are many decades old.

The Metropolitan LRT, unlike the Urban freeway system that grew to serve suburban interests, in the US, is urban core city centered (many US metro areas have core cities with under 25% of the metro's total population). That is, the power players behind the urban planning, the design, and, the implementation most often are property developers intent on developing property pieces that have been bought and sold many times since Tear Down debacle of the 1950s and/or developing parts of the vast urban rail yard acreage that essentially was abandoned in the 1970s and 1980s. These interests are primarily interested in selling LRT and commuter rail as ways to get commuters to their new office buildings and residences into their new condos. Combine this tendency with the desires of urban building property owners to renovate buildings, and, the final right-of-way design tends to not serve the through traveler (times through the urban core to the otherside become excruciatingly long) and affects commuters who would board and exit along a segment of a spoke (stations too often put in poor locations and too many stations are almost solely designed for automobile park'n'ride commuters).

Denver, in my opinion, is a classic example where spokes end at stubs downtown, or, after passing through downtown, go to slow street running.
This was the result of planning that was the consequence of improperly overseen property speculation on the part of a major player, combined with the influence of property owner consortiums on a lower level (players that bought pieces from the first owner).

IMO this creates horrible problems for future metrowide commuting as the spoke and hub layout will lock the rider into the terribly limiting 'Chicago' type model that has no steel rail loop to bypass downtown (had the vast numbers of city governments and the State cooperated on this years ago, Chicago steel rail, IMO, would move more passengers today than Washington, Toronto, or Montreal).

Many in the US have stridently pointed out the need for high speed steel rail spines that run through downtowns with LRT and bus feeder lines. Those of us who have traveled in Europe and in the Far East have seen such a layout in action. The resistance to such logical approaches, IMO, in the US, tends to the deliberate result of urban core property owners and the politicians they control.

*This type of politic Balkanization is only now showing in Canada, in particular metropolitan Toronto.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Denver has the RTD Light Rail, and is better than never having built anything, but on my several visits to Denver over the past decade, I've never felt the system serves an urban purpose. It is mostly an office worker shuttle between very suburban housing and those lucky enough to have a downtown or tech center job. Once the worker gets home to Littleton or wherever, they go to their suburban home and drive their suburban car to a suburban big box store and suburban lifestyle when they're done with the business of the day and riding to work on the train. It is an Americanized slightly urban, mostly suburban environment.

But again this isn't a Denver problem, it is an American problem. Well, not a problem for most people as most Americans prefer this suburban type development.. But obviously not for someone who wants to live in an urban setting like me.

In regards to Toronto, they no longer have the light rail 'problem' of sorts. The Transit City plan has effectively been altered so that the new line makes sense. Toronto was getting ready to make the mistake of crosstown LRT lines to take the place of true rapid transit, and while I dislike the new mayor the one thing he did right was convert the 25km Eglinton Crosstown LRT line into a metro-style underground LRT system integrated with the old Scarborough RT. It'll be true rapid transit even though it uses LRT technology. So Toronto is on the right pathway now, on this one issue...

The old Toronto streetcar network serves the city just like the Europeans do it... They are 100% local traffic lines that go several km's, and the TTC Subway is the backbone of the rapid transit network, along with GO Transit servicing far out suburban commuters.

I'm still trying to figure out what you're trying to say about Toronto, because I think Toronto's problem was just solved by how they're dealing with Eglinton Crosstown LRT. It is a viable rapid transit line.

Chicago and New York are obviously good examples when we get back to American cities, but I guess what I'm saying is that America has no "second tier" cities that have a sensible urban model. I know Portland is America's poster-child of urban delight, but I lived there for nearly a year and didn't get the feeling it was an urban city. I felt the central city was a better, more urban accessible version of a typical American city, but that it's overall feel was quite suburban.

I was shocked and utterly disappointed that out in Beaverton the locals were crying foul over any new development around stations that would try to become urban developments. They won't allow highrises or midrises or truly high density development to be built along the MAX in the suburbs like urban cities in Canada or Europe would allow. They build "demo" projects but they really aren't significant.

So even Portland - while better than the average - wasn't quite 'urban' in my opinion. It felt like a suburb where I lived, and the region had decent transit overall but was still highly suburban.

Again, I love Portland, but I'm just offering the opinion that even Portland isn't an urban gem, it is almost entirely single family housing. We need to market to Americans that single family housing isn't the end-all be-all to American identity. Everyone wants a single family house... Such a small percentage of people actually want to live in an urban environment where it is shared, so Americans have few quality condo developments and choices for urban living. Sure, you can get a condo in a vacation spot in Florida, but most of our cities have very poor choices for condos and urban housing. Even new urbanist villages model themselves around single family homes.

I'd love to see more housing choice become available in my lifetime in American cities, housing that is modeled around an urban choice of new construction that is affordable rather than elite condos or the single family house being the only real choice.

[Dr Nevergold]

Since Toronto is my city, I keep up with the transit developments. Toronto is actually doing a very good thing in the coming years by replacing it's entire fleet of older streetcar vehicles with new LRV's on it's streetcar LRT network.

The future of Toronto looks like this:


These LRV's are being delivered starting in 2013.

The current streetcars are smaller, less roomy, and certainly are showing their age:


The TTC currently runs the streetcars in single and articulated versions:



And last, but not least, the TTC streetcar network certainly runs as a feeder to the TTC subway network. Toronto's 12 light rail lines are the largest in North America already.

[Nexis4Jersey]

The TTC streetcar network not LRT is the largest in NA , there LRT system is small....

[electricron]

Originally Posted by Brandon716

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Denver has the RTD Light Rail, and is better than never having built anything, but on my several visits to Denver over the past decade, I've never felt the system serves an urban purpose. It is mostly an office worker shuttle between very suburban housing and those lucky enough to have a downtown or tech center job. Once the worker gets home to Littleton or wherever, they go to their suburban home and drive their suburban car to a suburban big box store and suburban lifestyle when they're done with the business of the day and riding to work on the train. It is an Americanized slightly urban, mostly suburban environment.

But again this isn't a Denver problem, it is an American problem. Well, not a problem for most people as most Americans prefer this suburban type development.. But obviously not for someone who wants to live in an urban setting like me.

I was shocked and utterly disappointed that out in Beaverton the locals were crying foul over any new development around stations that would try to become urban developments. They won't allow highrises or midrises or truly high density development to be built along the MAX in the suburbs like urban cities in Canada or Europe would allow. They build "demo" projects but they really aren't significant.

So even Portland - while better than the average - wasn't quite 'urban' in my opinion. It felt like a suburb where I lived, and the region had decent transit overall but was still highly suburban.

Again, I love Portland, but I'm just offering the opinion that even Portland isn't an urban gem, it is almost entirely single family housing. We need to market to Americans that single family housing isn't the end-all be-all to American identity. Everyone wants a single family house... Such a small percentage of people actually want to live in an urban environment where it is shared, so Americans have few quality condo developments and choices for urban living. Sure, you can get a condo in a vacation spot in Florida, but most of our cities have very poor choices for condos and urban housing. Even new urbanist villages model themselves around single family homes.

I'd love to see more housing choice become available in my lifetime in American cities, housing that is modeled around an urban choice of new construction that is affordable rather than elite condos or the single family house being the only real choice.

Dallas has the same zoning problems too. DART is quick to publicly point out the TODs at the Mockingbird and Cedars stations, but they're exceptions than the rule. Just one station further north than Mockingbird station is Lovers Lane station. It is also sited directly adjacent to North Central Expressway with office buildings along the freeway. To the east lies huge tracks to two and three story suburban apartments with tons of parking ripe for redevelopment into higher density urban apartments and condos with stores at street level. Yet, Dallas only changed the zoning to allow new mixed developments up to a maximum of just 4 stories tall. It took the city council years to allow one additional floor in the zoning laws at this station.

It is not DART's or any other transit agency's fault new urban style TODs aren't being built near their train stations, it is usually the city's zoning laws at fault. The property around train stations aren't cheap to buy, and developers need higher density zoning to make any profits on these TOD projects.

So why did Dallas allow the Mockingbird TOD to build high, but not the Lovers Lane redevelopment? The answer lies many on how close to the freeway was the project. Mockingbird's TOD was directly adjacent to the freeway (which was zoned commercial already) while Lovers Lane project was two to three blocks away from the freeway (which was zoned residential).

This reinforces what I've been stating all along, it's easier to rezone commercial and industrial areas for higher densities than residential areas. Therefore, it isn't always a bad idea to route light rail lines through commercial and industrial areas.....

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by Brandon716

I'm still trying to figure out what you're trying to say about Toronto, because I think Toronto's problem was just solved by how they're dealing with Eglinton Crosstown LRT. It is a viable rapid transit line.

Your observations on US LRT are accurate, but, I thought you might want to hear my logic on the quoted portion.

All this is IMO.

A) Toronto is more like NYC than any other city in the world (I might add that it is cleaner, safer, and, friendlier). Like NYC, Toronto is made up of four progressively inclusive components.

1) The City, with a population of some 2.5. (NYC with 8.0)

2) A 'close' (a lot of kms here, but this is relative) metropolitan ring with about 5.5 million people, including the City (NYC with about 19 milion)

3) A 'further' ring, often called the 'Golden Horsehoe' which includes 1 and 2 with a population of 6.5 million. (NYC with about 22 million)

4) An outer 'Golden Horsehoe with some 8.1 million (NYC portion of the megalopolis is harder to define, but, somewhere around 25 million.)

The relative population ratios between city and metro area are surpisingly similar with Toronto city have about 38% of the standard Golden Horseshoe's population, and, NYC about 35% of it's equivalent.

Toronto and NYC, together, when compared to most US large cities, have extremely good steel wheel public transit (Montreal does too, but Montreal is a delightfully different entity, riding on rubber tires ). In addition, near the borders and extending out of the city limits of each city, other than commuter rail (GO and LRR/North Metro/Jersey), both cities have very autocentric metro areas (the 401 can be a world class nightmare, and Long Islands I-495 can be horrid too).

Also, both cities, outside of their affluent urban residential cores,have wide swaths of rich and upper middle class suburbs outside of the city limits (yes NYC has Jersey and Toronto has Hamilton, etc) . Centimillionaires (and a few billionaires) live in the suburbs of both cities (also clustered in Lower Manhattan and in the areas defined by the Bloor Street Line to the north, University to the West, and, Yonge to the East.)

Both cities have significant concentrations of the poor, many of whom receive government assistance.

Both cities have tensions with their suburbs and their provincial and state governments concerning social welfare costs, educational equality, public transporation funding, policing, etc.

Toronto is now a great city- a great city where much of its growth reflects the auto age (thank G*d for the enightened thought behind building the subways in the 1950s- 1960s and not tearing up streetcar lines) While NYC became a great city before the auto age, much of it's growth since WWII reflects the auto age.

The differences between ethnicity, income levels, and, race, while older in NYC, affect each city similiarly in terms of finance, and, sharing power.

Don't get me wrong. I would far rather live in Trana than in the Big Apple, but, Toronto is beginning to reflect some of the social angst that has affected the greatest city in the US for generations. However, like in NYC, the price being paid is less than the rewards the city provides.

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by electricron

It is not DART's or any other transit agency's fault new urban style TODs aren't being built near their train stations, it is usually the city's zoning laws at fault. The property around train stations aren't cheap to buy, and developers need higher density zoning to make any profits on these TOD projects.

So why did Dallas allow the Mockingbird TOD to build high, but not the Lovers Lane redevelopment? The answer lies many on how close to the freeway was the project. Mockingbird's TOD was directly adjacent to the freeway (which was zoned commercial already) while Lovers Lane project was two to three blocks away from the freeway (which was zoned residential).

This reinforces what I've been stating all along, it's easier to rezone commercial and industrial areas for higher densities than residential areas. Therefore, it isn't always a bad idea to route light rail lines through commercial and industrial areas.....

I agree with you with a simple caveat:

What came first, the zoning, or the influence of the enpowered people to create and change that zoning?

The Metroplex has grown huge over the last 30 or so years, and, like metropolitan Phoenix or Houston, has grown outward into a intricate patchwork of cities, spread across many counties.

The demographic changes associated with this growth have been extremely rapid, with an huge outward migration of whites into the new suburbs, combined with comparable influxes of Latinos. Afro-American populations, as their population split along economic lines, have moved to different neighborhoods within Dallas and Ft. Worth, as well as moved out to the suburbs.

This fast change has made neighborhoods sensitive politically to changes in what these neighborhoods consider their quality of life. Upper Middle and Upper class enclaves want to remain isolated from public transit, poorer neighborhoods want access to public transit to go to work downtown, etc.

These dynamics, among others, IMO, affect the zoning.

In addition, your observation about putting lines through industrial areas, likely is a consequence of old rail line ROWs being available, whereas lines that once went through areas that are now affluent residential areas, have long since been ripped up and redeveloped.