"Modern" Light Rail: Worth the Investment?

by Panos Prevedouros, PhD, Fix Oahu April 15, 2014

The answer comes quickly in the introduction of this well-researched article in The Atlantic Cities: No!

Five U.S. metros (Buffalo, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Jose) opened light rail systems in the 1980s to great fanfare.  Portland became a transportation model for the country, pointing toward a transit-friendly urban future.

Based on the decisions to build these projects, which were made by hundreds of local officials and often endorsed by residents through referenda, you might think that the experience building light rail in the 1980s had been unambiguously successful. Yet it doesn't take much digging to find that over the past thirty years, these initial five systems in themselves neither rescued the center cities of their respective regions nor resulted in higher transit use — the dual goals of those first-generation lines.

According to an analysis of Census data, in four of the five cities with new light rail lines, the share of regional workers choosing to ride transit to work declined.

Read the article: The Perfect Commute: Have U.S. Light Rail Systems Been Worth the Investment?