Light rail

QuoteKRAKOW Transport Authority (MPK) began three months of trial operation with a Solaris Tramino low-floor LRV on February 23 to evaluate the performance of a vehicle equipped with a supercapacitor energy storage system on the city's standard-gauge tram network ...

ozbob · March 05, 2015, 03:13:19 AM

Ecns --> Shanghai's downtown trams to return after 40 years

ozbob · March 25, 2015, 03:21:01 AM

Twitter

Railway Gazette ‏@railwaygazette 53m

#Dallas Area Rapid Transit and Brookville Equipment unveil off-wire capable light rail vehicle http://bit.ly/1OwAiwf

johnnigh · April 20, 2015, 11:47:43 AM

In The Concversation today: How to build light rail in our cities without emptying the public purse by Peter Newman.

How to build light rail in our cities without emptying the public purse

The way forward? Light rail helps urban development far more than roads do - the challenge is how to pay for it. AAP Image/Dave Hunt
In cities all around Australia, light rail is being considered as a solution to a range of urban problems. Perth, Newcastle, Parramatta, Bendigo, Canberra, Cairns and Hobart have all considered trying to do what many European and American cities have done – create new development around light rail.

Often, though, the high costs of these projects mean that the debate can soon become a question of whether buses might do the job just as well. But what if private financing could allow the preferred option of light rail to stay on the table?

Advocates of the cheaper bus mass transit option might ask whether there is truly any fundamental difference between steel wheels and rubber ones. My answer is that it's not just a question of trams versus buses – it's really an issue of rail-based versus road-based urban development. The former can attract private financing, while the latter does not.

Driving development

Most of the world's urban development over the past 50 years has been road-based. The assumption has been that most people will drive, with the odd bus laid on to pick up those who don't.

Yet in recent years there has been a revival of rail-based urban development, which brings reduced traffic, creates more walkable and lively places to live and work, and most of all attracts developers and financiers to enable denser, mixed-use development.

Perth's beleaguered MAX light rail project – now mothballed in favour of a bus rapid transit service – was designed to deliver precisely these benefits. But when the bus lobby sidles in and whispers "we can do exactly the same for half the price", they get a sympathetic ear from transport planners who are trained to get people efficiently from A to B, without thinking about whether they are also delivering good urban development.

Rubber-wheeled public transport does not create dense, mixed-use urban centres. Having examined examples around the world, I have found none that can be claimed to have resulted in more focused urbanity apart from already dense third world cities where BRT's have been successful in attracting patronage as they get people out of traffic. In the United States, the past 20 years of dramatic growth in public transport has seen light rail grow by 190% and heavy rail by 52%, while bus transport has contracted by 3%.

It is no surprise that developers, banks and governments in developed cities have returned to light and heavy rail to help regenerate urban centres, while cities with rubber-wheeled public transport continue to be dominated by cars and urban sprawl. On current trends, Perth itself could conceivably turn into a 240 km sprawl stretching from Myalup to Lancelin, most of it made of nothing but car-dependent housing – more Mad Max than MAX.

Perth's planners know that they must redevelop and create activity centres, but they do not control the decisions on transport. Transport planners, meanwhile, do not seem to see that their choices have impacts that go beyond simple modes of transport.

Enter the private sector

Here is my possible solution, which Infrastructure Australia has previously tried to get state governments to adopt: get the private sector involved in the planning stage, as well as the delivery and operations, of any light rail project. Light rail lends itself to private-sector involvement, but only if the development outcomes being sought are built into the whole project, rather than being an afterthought.

The model for Infrastructure Australia's approach was the A$1 billion Gold Coast Light Rail, which runs through areas that had lots of potential for redevelopment. Thus the funding was provided by a public-private partnership, with expressions of interest sought from private bidders to design, finance, build, own, operate and develop land as a basis for funding.

Government base funds and a general set of guidelines were delivered and bids were sought. Five consortia from around the world competed on this basis and included most of the world's main consulting groups with expertise in light rail.

However, the group of transport experts (mostly main roads engineers) set up by the Queensland Government to deliver the light rail argued that they did not have the expertise to manage the land-development part of the exercise, and successfully appealed to avoid this approach. Instead, funding was delivered through an annual transport levy across the whole Gold Coast local government area.

The private sector consortia were well prepared for the land-development option but of course went ahead without it. Keolis won the tender and delivered a first-class light rail. As soon as the route was announced, developers from around the world bought up all the best sites and are now delivering them, albeit for their own interests rather than channelling back to the project.

This is the way to do it if you have tax funds to provide the capital and the operational expenses, and if you can find the initial public funding. But most politicians today say they do not have sufficient government funds for a light rail so they need to consider the cheaper bus option. Do we have to take second best?

The rubber-wheel option is never going to deliver the regeneration that many of Australia's cities need. We need to be brave enough to go for the better option, the rail system, and that means embracing the public-private partnership financing model.

Bringing the private sector on board

To go for a full private-sector approach you must integrate redevelopment into every stage of the project. This is how you do it. Call for expressions of interest for private companies to design, build, finance, own and operate the light rail link and, crucially, make sure this includes land-development options (rather than letting in outside developers). This would help to create funds that can be used to finance and to operate the system.

Government needs to contribute a base grant and an operational fund that could be more specifically focused along the areas where the biggest benefits are felt in the corridor itself, where land values will go up most. Private expertise will ensure that the best sites are chosen for the light rail route. These land-value increases will flow through taxes into treasury and can be set aside in a dedicated light rail fund for ongoing operations and/or for raising finance (rather than instituting a city-wide levy as the Gold Coast did).

The approach, called tax increment financing, allows infrastructure to be built where it can be shown that the taxes would not have been generated without it. A bus instead of a light rail would not generate such land-value increases, and hence the extra tax dollars would not flow. For instance, Perth's southern rail line raised land values around stations by 42% over 5 years and could have raised 60-80% of the capital cost if tax increment financing had been used.

Across Australia we should accept that there is a real choice over steel or rubber wheeled development. We can choose MAX over Mad Max. But are we brave enough to go one step further than the Gold Coast and involve private financing?

Some might object to our public transport being in private hands, but if we manage it well, this kind of partnership with private expertise can deliver beautiful cities as well as beautiful trains.

dancingmongoose · May 27, 2015, 12:43:25 PM

I have no idea if this is best place to post this but

QuoteMan has arm and legs ripped off after getting caught in between tram carriages in Germany

http://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/news/world/man-has-arm-and-legs-ripped-off-after-getting-caught-in-between-tram-carriages-in-germany/story-fnj94lfw-1227370794587

ozbob · May 27, 2015, 12:47:15 PM

^ sad story indeed. Something seems amiss. People get run over by all types of transport. Guess being light rail gives the media a chance to beat it up a bit.

colinw · May 27, 2015, 15:25:27 PM

Indeed. Google "pedestrian hit by bus Brisbane" and you will get a litany of such horrors.

https://www.google.com.au/?gws_rd=ssl#q=pedestrian+hit+by+bus+brisbane

ozbob · June 09, 2015, 03:23:04 AM

IRJ --> Alstom launches SRS catenary-free electrification

ozbob · June 09, 2015, 05:37:55 AM

Twitter

Taras Grescoe ‏@grescoe 7s

#Detroit's M-1 streetcar, due late 2015, to run "off-wire"—on battery charge—for 60% of route.
http://m-1rail.com/charge-up-the-batteries-for-m-1-rail/ ...

ozbob · August 09, 2015, 17:15:21 PM

Jerusalem light rail - הרכבת הקלה בירושלים - tram - Chords (Calatrava) Bridge

ozbob · October 01, 2015, 03:29:45 AM

Twitter

Metro Report ‏@MetroReportInt 8h

Turkey: Konya opens tram extension, including catenary-free section http://bit.ly/1O7mU3u

ozbob · February 06, 2016, 07:17:22 AM

Reuters --> New York mayor to back $2.5 billion light rail in key speech

ozbob · May 11, 2016, 15:20:07 PM

Regis Hennion - Keolis - Trends in Light Rail in Europe

>> http://www.slideshare.net/informaoz/regis-hennion-keolis

ozbob · July 22, 2016, 07:43:37 AM

Pretty setting for trams in Bordeaux, France. Neat power system laid between tracks. @Robert_Dow @TheTrainHacker pic.twitter.com/haFX77yQqg
— Jim Booth (@JimBooth29) July 21, 2016

ozbob · July 30, 2016, 15:02:29 PM

The Jewish Press --> Jerusalem Light Rail Expansion Approved, City to Add More Lines

Girls from Bnei Akiva "Chevraya Bet" with a driver on the Jerusalem Light Rail.
Photo Credit: Bnei Akiva / Tazpit News Agency

QuoteThe Jerusalem municipality has approved two more lines for the city's Light Rail and an extension of the current Red Line.

The city of Jerusalem has approved two more Light Rail lines in the holy city, a Green Line and a Blue Line. The go-ahead was given at a municipal planning meeting last month.

The current Red Line is also to be extended, north to the Neve Yaakov neighborhood, and south to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center.

"I am happy to see that Jerusalem will go from having one successful Light Rail line to a network of three lines," Transportation Minister Israel Katz said after the approvals were passed. "Light rail has significantly changed the city's transportation... Jerusalem deserves a light rail system like that in Europe."

The approximately 19.6 kilometer route set for the Green Line begins in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo and will pass through the Jerusalem Convention Center, known in Hebrew as Binyanei Ha'Uma, where the "A-1" fast line railway has a terminus. It will cross the current Red Line on Herzog Boulevard, and run up to Mount Scopus.

The Green line is currently set to include 36 stops to service an expected ridership of 200,000 passengers per day, according to the Railway Gazette website.

The Blue Line is set to run about 23 kilometers from the northwestern Ramot neighborhood through the center of the city out to the eastern Talpiot neighborhood, and then on to Gilo.

The Blue line will include branches to the Malcha Mall and to Mount Scopus as well, with 42 stops and an expected ridership of some 250,000 passengers per day.

ozbob · August 02, 2016, 17:30:19 PM

Paris Tramway - Line T6 - Extention to Viroflay

Trams on rubber tyres!

>> http://www.alstom.com/products-services/product-catalogue/rail-systems/trains/products/translohr-tramway-on-tyres/

verbatim9 · August 02, 2016, 20:04:09 PM

We must be getting those for Brisbane I guess!?

ozbob · October 13, 2016, 14:45:00 PM

The Urbanist --> BRT Is Not Cheaper Than Light Rail

verbatim9 · March 21, 2017, 10:37:04 AM

Patronage soars one year on due to the Light Rail rail Tunnel connection to Capitol Hill in Seattle

http://www.king5.com/mb/news/local/seattle/light-rail-stations-shift-lives-of-commuters/423817291

SEATTLE

QuoteLight rail stations shift lives of Seattle commuters

KING12 hour ago

Sunday marks one year since Sound Transit opened light rail stations at the University of Washington and Capitol Hill.

For some commuters in Seattle's Capitol Hill, this is life one year after the light rail,

"It's made life a lot easier," Oliver Krengel said.

ozbob · September 25, 2017, 15:57:00 PM

https://twitter.com/vitdavid/status/912084437692817410

verbatim9 · September 25, 2017, 16:01:46 PM

Seattle has the same boomgate traffic management system to seperate light rail vehicles from buses and general traffic.

red dragin · September 25, 2017, 18:50:07 PM

Boom gates do not stop Queensland drivers

verbatim9 · September 25, 2017, 19:07:35 PM

^^People would either drive through them or wait until they open LoL

ozbob · July 07, 2018, 10:11:18 AM

The Star --> Most new TTC streetcars to be recalled to fix welding defect, Bombardier says

QuoteTues., July 3, 2018

In a stunning setback for the TTC's problem-plagued streetcar order, Bombardier now says most of the vehicles it has already delivered to the transit agency will have to be taken out of service and shipped to Quebec to correct a serious welding defect.

The Star has learned that after a lengthy investigation into long-standing welding problems with the vehicles, Bombardier has concluded the first 67 of the 89 cars it has supplied need to be fixed, or they could fail prematurely.

A TTC streetcar along Queens Quay. The Star has learned that after a long investigation, Bombardier has decided the first 67 streetcars it shipped to the city need to be fixed. (Randy RislingToronto Star)

The cars will be sent to Bombardier's plant in La Pocatière, Que., and according to the company will each take 19 weeks to fix. The repairs to all 67 cars are expected to take until at least 2022 to complete.

The recall is only the latest problem to affect the TTC's repeatedly delayed vehicle purchase, and appears to undermine the claim made by both the transit agency and the rail manufacturer that while the cars have been delivered late, they are extremely reliable.

A spokesperson for the company stressed the welding problem, which originated at Bombardier's plant in Sahagun, Mexico, poses no safety risk to the public. Eric Prud'Homme described the work as "preventative maintenance" and said Bombardier made the decision to take the vehicles out of service for repairs because without the work they may not last their contractual 30-year service life.

Prud'Homme said such problems are "not uncommon in the industry."

"The question you have to ask is how is it handled. The way Bombardier is handling it is fair, is transparent, and of course we're assuming responsibility," he said.

Prud'Homme couldn't say how much the repairs will cost, but Bombardier has agreed to pick up the bill.

In an emailed statement Tuesday, Mayor John Tory expressed "extreme frustration" with the streetcar deal, which he noted "was signed by a previous city council back in 2009," and criticized "Bombardier's slow progress in actually delivering the vehicles bought and paid for by Toronto taxpayers."

Tory added that he had asked acting TTC CEO Rick Leary to ensure Bombardier would compensate the transit agency if the repairs inconvenience transit riders.

Bombardier has repeatedly failed to meet delivery targets on the $1-billion order for 204 low-floor, accessible streetcars. By the end of 2017 it was supposed to have delivered nearly 150 of the vehicles, but managed only 59.

Although the company says it has been meeting a revised schedule in the first half of this year, the TTC says the delivery delays have caused a shortage that has forced it to keep older streetcars in service past their intended lifespan, and replace some of its streetcar service with buses.

TTC spokesperson Brad Ross called the latest problem "incredibly disappointing."

"We need these cars in service," he said.

Ross vowed the agency "will ensure that there is little to any impact on our customers" by sending only a few cars for repairs at a time. He said the first car to be taken out of service would likely be sent to La Pocatière sometime in the fall.

According to Bombardier, the company first discovered the welding problem in 2015, but it took an 18-month investigation to discover the extent and the cause.

Company representatives said the problem is a "lack of fusion" in some of the welds on the car's skeleton, particularly around bogie structures and the articulated portals where different sections of the articulated vehicle are joined. The company says it brought the issue "under control" last June and it won't be repeated in future deliveries.

Ross said the TTC became aware last October the repairs would be required, but decided to accept the vehicles anyway on the assurance that Bombardier would perform the necessary maintenance.

"It was more important to us to have those cars available for service for our customers" than refuse cars with defects, Ross said.

He said the transit agency hadn't made the issue public before now because it was working with Bombardier on a repair plan and "we needed to have as many details as possible before advising the public."

Both the TTC and Bombardier said the problem shouldn't affect the company's ability to deliver the entire fleet of 204 cars by the end of 2019, as originally scheduled. In order to do so, the company will have to ramp up production to far exceed the rate it has accomplished to date. The company is opening a second production facility in Kingston, Ont. later this year to complement the factory in Thunder Bay, where the cars are currently assembled.

Even though the weld repairs will continue for years past the delivery deadline, the TTC believes there will be "no contractual impacts" to Bombardier as long as the company supplies the full fleet by the end of next year.

verbatim9 · April 11, 2019, 01:12:04 AM

Chiang Mai Thailand's second largest city embraces Light Rail as a mass transit solution

IRJ------------------------------------------>https://www.railjournal.com/passenger/light-rail/thai-light-rail-projects-gain-royal-assent/