Quote:
Originally Posted by eldondre
I think lrt fits a lot of sun belt cities better since they have lower pop densities but it also works for pitt, which is building a new tunnel right now.
|
which our esteemed Governor just called "an unfortunate mistake."
I hope the North Shore Connector does what PAT hopes it will, but even though Pittsburgh just had its near-death experience while we're several years past ours, I still think that city has further to go before it really turns around -- and if they needed to build an LRT extension anywhere, it should have been to Oakland. But I believe that's in the direction of the Martin Luther King East Busway BRT.
If you buy the premise of that
City Journal article being discussed elsewhere on this board, then even though it's probably a less wise use of mass transit construction funds, putting rail lines in not-so-dense cities in the hopes of seeding dense development a la Toronto 1955-present or Arlington 1977-today has a certain logic to it, as does building a subway down the spine of the densest urban corridor on the Pacific Coast (LA's Wilshire Boulevard). The hitch is, the planners and electeds need to be ready to enable that density, the way the two communities I mention in this paragraph did (Arlington having rewritten its zoning code to encourage density around subway stations it knew would come back in 1961, eight years before WMATA broke ground on the Metro).
But in terms of bang for the buck, repairing and expanding the already well used systems in the East and Midwest will produce greater returns.