I like your thoughtful analysis. I recently really started to resent my city, Houston after spending time in eastern cities like NY and witnessing how effective their public transit was. I really hate our dependency on cars and how not having one practically condemns you to poverty. Your video reminds me to be greatful for the parts we do get right, although small in scale. I really hope the city starts to plan around people instead cars in the next 30 years. Anyway, new sub. Looking fwd to more.
Thank you for posting this! The Rio Grande Plan sounds wonderful! I've heard nothing but good things about Trax and UTA, and the quality of the service that they actually manage to provide, especially given their relatively low budgets.
Amazing video! I agree that frequency is an import part of any transit system, but outside of downtown light rail should travel fast because there probably won't be so many pedestrianized areas, although regional mainline rail would work well of sprawling cities and long distances, specifically in reaching the more outer rings of the city. In case you're wondering tons of the cities geographically constrained tried to be Houston (seattle, sf, etc) but ended up in stupid housing prices. At least SLC will have frontrunner be a competitive mode, given they upgrade tracks, upgrade frequency, and in able to do that, buy FLIRTS
I take issue with the word “slow” to describe the downtown light rail as a good thing. The the to slow to be useful argument has started to cause problems in places like Atlanta with the green belt. Slow has started to be associated with tourist trap or failed street car projects.
I don't understand either, why a slow speed should be a goal. If the street car can't go faster, f.ex. because of safety concerns for the pedestrians, I am fine with it. But why aim at a low speed? I live in Stuttgart, Germany, with excellent public transport and I don't have a car. A low speed makes public transport immediately much less attractive. Are the numbers you mentioned average speed (with stops) or the speeds it reaches between stops? If it's the speed the streetcar goes between stops, 10 mph (≈ 17 km/h) is really bad. (As an average speed it is not good either.) And please do not encourage Salt Lake City planners to look to Housten as a model. I am sure they find better examples elsewhere, both in the US or abroad.
If you ever return to Texas, come to Dallas. You can get a direct connection to Downtown Dallas by DART's LRT system, from both Love Field and DFW. I think you'd enjoy the 28 miles per hour average speed, 65 miles per hour operations, and overall strangeness of the four rail lines.
I'm from Houston but was in Dallas recently for work. Dallas' downtown is much nicer than Houston's, hands down. This is coming from someone that typical gives Dallas nothing of credit, but this I can't deny. It's just better in nearly every way.
So, basically repeat Portland's mistakes? Portland's light rail, on a good day, takes as long to get from one end of downtown to the other as it does from the edge of downtown to major destinations. Most Portlanders, myself included, would rather have a root canal that take a crosstown trip on the train because the trains normally move at half the speed of smell. It makes the west side inaccessible to the rest of the transit system and vice versa. Throw in a bridge lift or a parade, both of which are routine and regular occurances, and the resulting meltdown of five light rail lines simultaneously gridlocks the city until the end of service. There's no reason to put a metro at surface level in the city. Even Portland's looking to invest billions of dollars to sink most or all of the downtown light rail into a subway tunnel, which is how it should have been built in the first place.
I am eagerly following the Portland subway development! It's a great project for moving people THROUGH downtown. But I am also a fan of the surface light rail which is very convenient for people heading TO downtown. It is interesting how there is so much demand for our transit system to do two things at once, but most cities still have only 1 major transit system. In order to do two things well (local access and regional trips) we will need to diversify how our transit systems work. A slow surface system combined with speedy tunnels seems like a good solution to me!
@@CSLenhart I feel like Portland would have neen better served by a streetcar at surface level and a subway for metro level stuff. Even in the 70s, Portland was too big of a city not to have a proper metro.
@@CSLenhart I still disagree with the "TO downtown" argument, as downtown is often a lot more than just a single city square, and if you have to travel the opposite end of downtown you're coming from, a surface segment can still be an absolute slog. Surface "Light Rail" really should only be used for short haul Streetcar routes, similar to what you'd see in cities like Toronto, or various larger European cities. To use Houston as an example, the North-South Line really should have grade separation with something like a subway, meanwhile those small east west lines would be perfect for a pedestrianized Main Street. The key part however should be that these streetcar routes are deeply interconnected with the greater Rapid Transit Network (again, see Toronto for how to do this). This makes the streetcars not only a good way to have surface views, but also properly interconnected so that its useful for a greater RT network for actual utility, rather than just a tourist trap that most modern US streetcars fall under.
I like your thoughtful analysis. I recently really started to resent my city, Houston after spending time in eastern cities like NY and witnessing how effective their public transit was. I really hate our dependency on cars and how not having one practically condemns you to poverty. Your video reminds me to be greatful for the parts we do get right, although small in scale. I really hope the city starts to plan around people instead cars in the next 30 years.
Anyway, new sub. Looking fwd to more.
Thank you for the kind words! I'm happy to have built back a little pride in your city - I really did enjoy my time there!
Fort Worth's Central Square is also an inspiration for this sort of car reduction project; it used to be a parking lot.
Thank you for posting this! The Rio Grande Plan sounds wonderful! I've heard nothing but good things about Trax and UTA, and the quality of the service that they actually manage to provide, especially given their relatively low budgets.
Great video & thanks for including the eclipse footage at the end!
Amazing video!
I agree that frequency is an import part of any transit system, but outside of downtown light rail should travel fast because there probably won't be so many pedestrianized areas, although regional mainline rail would work well of sprawling cities and long distances, specifically in reaching the more outer rings of the city.
In case you're wondering tons of the cities geographically constrained tried to be Houston (seattle, sf, etc) but ended up in stupid housing prices. At least SLC will have frontrunner be a competitive mode, given they upgrade tracks, upgrade frequency, and in able to do that, buy FLIRTS
I take issue with the word “slow” to describe the downtown light rail as a good thing.
The the to slow to be useful argument has started to cause problems in places like Atlanta with the green belt.
Slow has started to be associated with tourist trap or failed street car projects.
Fair point. I could have been clearer that there is an appropriate place for lower speeds, but that overall faster travel times are always preferred.
I don't understand either, why a slow speed should be a goal. If the street car can't go faster, f.ex. because of safety concerns for the pedestrians, I am fine with it. But why aim at a low speed? I live in Stuttgart, Germany, with excellent public transport and I don't have a car. A low speed makes public transport immediately much less attractive. Are the numbers you mentioned average speed (with stops) or the speeds it reaches between stops? If it's the speed the streetcar goes between stops, 10 mph (≈ 17 km/h) is really bad. (As an average speed it is not good either.)
And please do not encourage Salt Lake City planners to look to Housten as a model. I am sure they find better examples elsewhere, both in the US or abroad.
If you ever return to Texas, come to Dallas. You can get a direct connection to Downtown Dallas by DART's LRT system, from both Love Field and DFW. I think you'd enjoy the 28 miles per hour average speed, 65 miles per hour operations, and overall strangeness of the four rail lines.
I'm from Houston but was in Dallas recently for work. Dallas' downtown is much nicer than Houston's, hands down. This is coming from someone that typical gives Dallas nothing of credit, but this I can't deny. It's just better in nearly every way.
So, basically repeat Portland's mistakes? Portland's light rail, on a good day, takes as long to get from one end of downtown to the other as it does from the edge of downtown to major destinations. Most Portlanders, myself included, would rather have a root canal that take a crosstown trip on the train because the trains normally move at half the speed of smell. It makes the west side inaccessible to the rest of the transit system and vice versa. Throw in a bridge lift or a parade, both of which are routine and regular occurances, and the resulting meltdown of five light rail lines simultaneously gridlocks the city until the end of service.
There's no reason to put a metro at surface level in the city. Even Portland's looking to invest billions of dollars to sink most or all of the downtown light rail into a subway tunnel, which is how it should have been built in the first place.
I am eagerly following the Portland subway development! It's a great project for moving people THROUGH downtown. But I am also a fan of the surface light rail which is very convenient for people heading TO downtown.
It is interesting how there is so much demand for our transit system to do two things at once, but most cities still have only 1 major transit system. In order to do two things well (local access and regional trips) we will need to diversify how our transit systems work.
A slow surface system combined with speedy tunnels seems like a good solution to me!
@@CSLenhart I feel like Portland would have neen better served by a streetcar at surface level and a subway for metro level stuff. Even in the 70s, Portland was too big of a city not to have a proper metro.
@@CSLenhart I still disagree with the "TO downtown" argument, as downtown is often a lot more than just a single city square, and if you have to travel the opposite end of downtown you're coming from, a surface segment can still be an absolute slog. Surface "Light Rail" really should only be used for short haul Streetcar routes, similar to what you'd see in cities like Toronto, or various larger European cities. To use Houston as an example, the North-South Line really should have grade separation with something like a subway, meanwhile those small east west lines would be perfect for a pedestrianized Main Street. The key part however should be that these streetcar routes are deeply interconnected with the greater Rapid Transit Network (again, see Toronto for how to do this). This makes the streetcars not only a good way to have surface views, but also properly interconnected so that its useful for a greater RT network for actual utility, rather than just a tourist trap that most modern US streetcars fall under.
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