Light Rails and Dallas's DART

[FaxModem1]

First, some background

I live in Denton, TX, currently and in December the town is opening up a rail system. At the same time, the DART rail, is completing the Green line, which will connect Denton's A rail to the Green line, so the metroplex will be a lot more open for me than before. If all goes well, by 2016, the DART rail will connect to the DFW airport, Love Field Airport, and Fort Worth.

Now, Dallas is of course very behind on this. We still have one of the most complicated highway systems in the country and probably have some of the worst drivers to show for it.

I'm obviously in support of this being expanded as much as possible, but I wanted to get ya'lls' opinions on Light Rails, city trains, monorails, etc. Also, How does Dallas compare to other cities in public transportation?


Also, because I know you people:

[FaxModem1]

Also, I thought this might come in handy.

Don't post overly large images. It makes the voices in my head angry.

Edited by Alyeska

[General Zod]

What the fuck? Link that bullshit. There's no fucking excuse for being a douche and inlining massive images in a SLAM thread.

We've had the lightrail in Denver for as long as I've been here, and it's easily one of the most convenient ways to get around. The problem is convincing anyone to fund expansions and build more than a couple locations. But no seriously, don't fucking inline massive images like that.

[Alyeska]

What the fuck? Link that bullshit. There's no fucking excuse for being a douche and inlining massive images in a SLAM thread.

I don't recall seeing you at the last Moderator Clubhouse meeting. Next time just report the post and be done with it.

[General Zod]

What the fuck? Link that bullshit. There's no fucking excuse for being a douche and inlining massive images in a SLAM thread.

I don't recall seeing you at the last Moderator Clubhouse meeting. Next time just report the post and be done with it.

We're allowed to use the report function for images that break formatting? Since when?

[Alyeska]

We're allowed to use the report function for images that break formatting? Since when?

If its against the rules, looks wrong, or someone posted a bad image, feel free to report the post. Just don't abuse the function.

[Sea Skimmer]

Well Phily could always use more public transit, and the fares not being the highest in the nation would be nice, but when comes to stuff that runs on rails the city has got to be one of the top in the US. Its mainly proper heavy rail with swarms of Sliverliner EMUs, with trolleys coming in second, and two subway-elevated lines coming in behind that. Only one line is actually what would be considered light rail, though New Jersey has another across the river, plus connecting heavy rail service over the Delaware. Rail is great as long as it has its own right of way. Trolleys in the streets blocking traffic just suck, and make people generally hate SEPTA and want to starve it of public money.

A much better solution when you don't have a right of way, or at least a partial one down the street center, SEPTA used to use a fair bit was electric buses powered by the same style of trolley overhead wires. However when the old ones wore out a few years ago they could only afford new ones for one route. The others are all converted to diesel bus now just in time for average oil prices to double. Doesn’t help that SEPTA is run by corrupt assholes, though even if they wanted to be honest the city politics and the state contracting laws would completely screw up every purchase anyway.