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Light Rail Transit on the West Coast By Demoro & Harder Soft Cover 1989 96 pages
Light Rail Transit on the West Coast by Harre W Demoro and John N Harder
Soft Cover
Copyright 1989
96 pages
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Return of the Streetcar 4
San Francisco 14
San Diego 30
Portland 46
Sacramento 62
San Jose 76
Los Angeles 86
Brochures, timetables 93
Signs 94
Predecessors 95
Bibliography 96
In less than a decade, five new light rail transit systems have opened on the West Coast of the United States. Since February 18, 1980, when the first Boeing Vertol cars began running through San Francisco's new Market Street subway and on reconstructed surface lines in residential neighborhoods, brand new light rail transit systems also have been established in San Diego, Portland, Sacramento and San Jose. In the early 1990's at least one light rail line will open in Los Angeles County. Seattle is building a tunnel for electric buses that is designed for conversion to light rail technology in the 21st. century.
Light rail development is continuing on the West Coast. San Diego has a major extension of its East Line to El Cajon under construction, plans to begin work on the Bayside Line in 1989, and has ordered 41 more cars. A local sales tax increase passed in 1987 will finance additional San Diego lines in the 1990's. In 1988, San Francisco is about to begin construction of the first of four extensions and is evaluating the need for more extensions and cars as well as a new generation of rolling stock.
The light rail operations were all built because of increasing automobile traffic congestion in a section of the United States with an international reputation for being wedded to automobiles and freeways. Generally, light rail was selected because it offers much more speed and efficiency than buses, yet is less expensive than high-capacity subway and grade-separated rapid transit systems. Because a light rail line was little more than a modern streetcar in concept, it could be constructed in street medians with grade crossings. It could use standard equipment already on the market and proven to be reliable and economic on systems in European cities, where the technology had been intensely developed after World War II. during the same period that street railways were being junked in North America. Several European cities have built light rail lines as "pre-Metros" with the idea they ultimately could be upgraded to grade-separated rapid transit.
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