Opinion of Light Rail

[Citizen Hats]

I vote horrible transit.  Light rail has the nearly the capital costs of fully seperated systems and nearly the operating costs of buses (if not greater). It fits no great niche that couldn't be done either cheaper or faster by buses or metro systems

[H. Ross Peron]

Aesthetically pleasing, although it needs to be implemented only when cost effective.

[Citizen Hats]

Aesthetically pleasing, although it needs to be implemented only when cost effective.

But when (in North America) is it actually cost effective?

[Sol]

Certainly better than building more highways, though buses are usually more sensible if the infrastructure is not yet in place.

[Linus Van Pelt]

Transit construction costs are so variable by project that it is not really worth forming a general opinion about mode based on cost. But there are many cases in which your claim about capital costs is not correct. In Toronto, for example, there has been a recent controversy about a new extension is Scarborough where the authorities are quoting C$182M per km for LRT and C$401M for subway. Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway in New York is coming in at US$1390M per km. To compare this to Vancouver, the 2nd Ave Phase 1 is 3.2 km, which would get you just from VCC-Clark to about Cambie, but the cost at US$4.5 billion is significantly higher than what TransLink is quoting for SkyTrain all the way to UBC. The undergrounding cost premium over street-running appears to be unusually low in Vancouver.

Also what exactly cities calls "LRT" can vary a lot too, but that's a separate issue.

[Citizen Hats]

Vancouver has cheaper, shorter stations since it runs a high-frequency automatic system with shorter trains, and since the trains are powered by linear induction rather than rotary motors, the trains have a shorter loading gauge and thus need smaller tunnels.  Other than that, the construction costs we're hearing out of New York seem just outright obscene. 

By LRT, what I mostly mean is non-grade seperated transit rail systems, with grade separation being the key difference, but LRT still being the messy common term