December 17, 2010 at 9:07 am
Much of the drive for light rail (or it's sexy cousin, high speed rail) is driven not by pragmatic thinking but by the desire for political photo ops. There is a current, largely undeserved, green patina to various kinds of rail*. But there's not much glamour in adding bus service compared to obscenely expensive sparkling rail installations. The image is hip, happening, emulating the perceived 'sophistication' of Europe and Japan. The reality is that it is expensive, innefficient, and virtually guaranteed to lose lots of money.
The recent hubbub over high speed rail just in time to provide election support for key politicians (and the inevitable 'create jobs' mantra--why create jobs buiding an expnsive project that will not pay for itself?) is such an example. The states that have rejected this with good reason (it would cost them plenty in the long run) and have pointed out that they need to rebuild their road and other infrastructure (which benefits virually all people in an area) vs the Quixotic rail structure, which will never benefit more than a small subset of the population.
*Passenger jets are often more efficient energy wise, and while airports are a messy use of land near the city, they consume much less than the unbroken ribbons of land needed by rail. Interestingly the US ships a much larger percentage of its goods by rail than does Europe; this is an application that really utilizes the strong points of rail rather than trying to complete with passenger jets.
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