Quote:
Originally Posted by ndrwmls10
Has light rail ever been considered to connect neighborhoods?
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A less sarcastic answer is that Chicago used to have the largest streetcar system in the world, but tore it all out and replaced it with buses. Sometimes when they do construction on the streets, you can see the remnant rails still embedded in the streets under pavement.
In the late 1980s-early 1990s, there was a downtown lightrail Circulator proposed that would have run through and around the Loop to connect the West Loop and the Michigan Avenue area. When I first moved here in 1995, there were still posters in the Presidential Towers talking about the plan. That went nowhere for a variety of reasons, including that having light rail in one of the densest areas in North America wouldn't have really added much value.
Finally, in general light rail wouldn't add much, if any, value over either a regular bus line or a Bus Rapid Transit implementation. In the few places it would, heavy rail (like the "L") might be the better choice simply from a system integration standpoint. Grade-separated lightrail would likely cost nearly as much as new "L" service to implement and wouldn't be able to be integrated with any other existing "L" lines. Street-running lightrail would be relatively cheap to implement but would be slower than buses in nearly every case. The places where it might be most interesting to add, such as through Lincoln Park (the actual park, not just the neighborhood), or along the Boulevards system, would create safety issues or run into opposition because it would take some park land.
In general, improvements to the existing bus service would be cheaper and probably more effective than anything light rail could add. Even in the American city most famous for light-rail, Portland, it provides a mix of service that Chicago's "L" already provides, or when it runs through downtown on surface streets is often slower than buses running parallel routes.
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