Regional High-Speed Light Rail (HS-LRT)

[#Metro]

Background

A lot of people appear to hold a misconception that Light Rail as a mode is only for inner-city areas and frequent stops.
In reality, the suitability of a mode depends on its engineering - the vehicle speed and stop spacing, among other things.

Cars for example are used for local, regional, inter-regional, and even interstate travel. Nobody in transport departments thinks or argues that cars are only for local travel around a city on local roads. It is a given. It's the different engineering of the roads that allow cars to play these different roles. A similar perspective can be taken with buses and rail.

Visiting Switzerland, I came across some local train services that run a bit like light rail between Swiss towns and villages. Sometimes single track parallel to the road and crossing people's driveways. I am thinking how this could be adapted to the Queensland case. Sure, we have lower density and longer distances but those two issues can be dealt with by longer stop spacing and higher speed plus feeding passengers in on buses and park and ride services rather than walk-up.

Light Rail is very versatile and flexible, much more so than commuter heavy rail.

- Can be used in lower-demand areas
- Can climb grades and turn corners more easily and run in the median or parallel to roads than heavy rail
- Isn't as heavy as heavy rail or metro, so bridges and river crossings are easier
- Can also match the speeds of heavy rail along most alignments given the station spacing.
- Signalling is much simpler and rolling it out does not remove train paths from the core of the heavy rail network.
- Capacity can also be expanded to handle around 15,000 - 20,000 pax/hr which is plenty.
- Generally cheaper to construct than heavy rail.

- Is available in higher speed versions (80 - 100 km/hr)

Light Rail isn't as flexible as buses, but this isn't necessarily a drawback as it forces an uncompromised high-quality alignment without the temptation to add divergent or circuitous sections that plague bus routing.

[#Metro]

Examples

Seattle, USA is an interesting example of a region that uses LRT. There are two lines with 25 stations pulling 26 million passengers (2019).
A second line (Line 2) to Redmond (Microsoft HQ etc.) is being constructed. The Link Light Rail system was built instead of a heavy rail system that local voters rejected.

The Link light rail system was originally conceived in the 1980s following several earlier proposals for a heavy rail system that were rejected by voters. Sound Transit was created in 1993 and placed a ballot measure to fund and build the system, which was passed on a second attempt in 1996.

(Wikipedia).

The system uses Siemens S70 and S700 series LRT vehicles. From the Siemens website, these vehicles hold about 300 passengers (can be coupled to increase this). The S70 and S700 LRT vehicles have a design speed of 105 km/hr. When we are dealing with longer distances and lower density, we do need that speed.

If we place an upper limit to a journey time as 35 - 45 minutes (one way) at about 100 km/hr that implies a useful distance of around 50 to 60 km when station stopping etc. is accounted for.

S70 and S700 Vehicles

Link 1 Line | Angle Lake to University of Washington

References

Link Light Rail - Seattle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_light_rail

Siemens - 40 Years of Light Rail Vehicles
https://www.mobility.siemens.com/us/en/portfolio/rail/rolling-stock/trams-and-light-rail/light-rail-vehicles.html

[verbatim9]

I have been on the Seattle LRT, it's very good.

When they were doing the initial community feedback for Bne Metro, I mentioned to model Brisbane Metro off Seattle's LRT system. This is because they shared tunnels and stations with buses in the CBD very efficiently.

[#Metro]

Noosa High-Speed LRT Concept

Service Summary

Concept: Construct HS-LRT line from QR Cooroy station to Noosa. Increase QR services to Cooroy station to connect.

Route and Type - 21.7 km (approx); Travel time ~ 25 minutes (approx);
High-Speed LRT fed by bus services; QR Rail-Extender; Service Goal - Maximise patronage

Basic frequency - every 15 minutes or better, all day (7 am - 9 pm). More during holiday periods if required.

Service areas: Cooroy, Tewantin, Noosaville, Noosa Civic, Noosa Waters, Noosa Heads, Noosa Beach

Concept Map: Noosa HS-LRT (Click Here)

Comments:

Noosa is a growing population distant from the Queensland Rail heavy rail network. Noosa is
a popular holiday destination which - due to the lack of high-quality transport - is almost
exclusively accessed by car by Brisbane holidaymakers. This causes significant local congestion
and contributes to serious traffic congestion along the Bruce Highway. This is likely to get much worse as
Noosa and the Sunshine Coast develops.

Ideally, the Queensland Rail heavy rail network could be extended to Noosa. However, the likely
low frequency of a new Noosa rail line (one or two trains per hour), the high expense of extending
heavy rail and the very restrictive engineering requirements (slopes, curves etc) of heavy rail,
particularly closer to Noosa Headland, make HS-LRT a more attractive option to consider.

The first 11 km from Cooroy to Tewantin can be designed to emulate heavy rail with non-stop
service at a speed of 100 km/hr running in Priority A (exclusive) alignment. This would take
~ 7 minutes to reach Tewantin. The remainder of the line - mostly Priority A until transitioning to
Priority B (street level, exclusive lane) after Noosa Junction Plaza is expected to take around 16 minutes.

To avoid construction impacts, the service does not enter Hastings Street.

Patronage is expected to be mostly from passengers fed into the system by buses under a
terminate-and-transfer pax model (e.g. Perth WA, Gold Coast). Walk-up patronage
is expected to be minimal. Park and ride will be necessary at most stations as the service
is expected to attract both local and regional (e.g. to Brisbane) passengers.

The system will be designed so that buses drop passengers at LRT stations, similar to the Gold Coast LRT system.

Higher speed LRT vehicles - vehicles will be capable of matching or exceeding street speeds (e.g. above 70 km/hr)
and have fast acceleration. Stations will be placed far apart (1.3-1.5 km spacing) so that maximum speeds
can be reached. The capacity of the system would be scalable to around 10,000 - 20,000 pax/direction/hour which is
plenty.

Potential TOD opportunities exist at Noosa Civic and Noosa Junction.

Estimated cost (total, all stages) $1.8 billion.

Attachment - CLICK TO ENLARGE