Austin’s light rail to share lanes with cars

Unlike most systems

Marci Gilbert, Apr 05, 11.

Austin’s light rail trains, at least in the city’s current plan, would share traffic lanes with cars for about half of the 16.5-mile route, according to a story in the Austin American Statesman.

That approach, while avoiding the politically dicey consequences of reducing car capacity or eliminating parking, would put Austin’s system well outside the mainstream of US light rail systems. Electric light rail built over the past three decades, according to University of Pennsylvania transit engineering professor Vukan Vuchic, typically does not share lanes with cars for safety reasons and to avoid the delays associated with car traffic.

Of 18 light rail systems listed in the National Transit Database, established by Congress in the 1970s, nine run their entire length in their own lanes and four (including the Houston and Dallas lines) share 3 percent or less of their travel with cars. Long stretches of those systems are elevated or buried and thus do not even encounter cars at cross streets. The system with the highest percentage of shared lanes — in Sacramento, Calif. — still has trains mixing with car traffic for only 10 percent of its 37 miles.

Not so here, although everything about the proposed “urban rail” system is subject to change at this early juncture. And, to be fair, some cities (like Portland, OR) have begun to install “modern streetcar” systems in their cities’ core that tend to share lanes with cars.

Those short lines generally have stubbier, slower train cars with fewer seats, and they can maneuver more easily on city streets and make the sort of right turns that are envisioned in the Austin plan downtown. Those smaller train cars, however, might not be best suited to the outlying parts of the proposed Austin system, or to the ridership the city hopes the line will achieve.

Source: Austin American Statesman