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Originally Posted by hughfb3
This is great news. Is Miami expanding its Metro Heavy Rail or is this some different modality?
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All of the above. Miami is considering expanding their heavy rail system (called MetroRAIL in local parlance), their downtown-centric, elevated, automated people mover small rail service (called MetroMOVER), plus considering a new commuter rail line and additional bus rapid transit routes.
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Originally Posted by electricron
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The Green Line, Boston's light rail line, stands up very well against Boston's other heavy rail lines individually.
That's just one city, all that you asked for.
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The Green Line had three times as many stations as the Red Line in roughly the same track length and more branches, and the Orange Line has less than a third as many stations and half the route length, yet all three carry between 200-300k riders in your list. To me, that doesn't seem all that comparable by any metric other than just raw number.
Quote:
Originally Posted by electricron
The longer the train, the longer it takes the driver to switch ends and cabs.
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I don't think that's a huge component of the time and even if it is, could fairly easily be mitigated with a variety of practices.
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Originally Posted by lrt's friend
Automatically controlled trains eliminate this problem.
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At the scale of heavy rail, like Line 14 in Paris, they have their own issues, and their infrastructure is more expensive and less flexible. At a MetroMover scale, though, it's probably a decent solution.
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Originally Posted by wanderer34
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Also, Metrorail does have the potential to be a major rail system with the like of the MBTA and BART, and a third line would help that system since a heavy rail transit line would do wonders for Miami Beach and communities like Bal Harbour. The Metromover can be expanded to Miami communities like Edgewater and Wynwood. A 9-mile Metromover expansion to Miami Beach sounds like a waste of money to me and upgrading to heavy rail, whether it's a line going all the way to Bal Harbour, or a spur to South Beach, would greatly help especially during the weekends where everybody is out in the clubs and bars until the wee hours in SoBe!
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Personally, I would guess that ability to run smaller, but more frequent service on MetroMover due to its automatic nature would better fit the use model of getting club-goers to take transit. Late night, except right on South Beach, making transit competitive with cars is very difficult. Speed is lower than cars, it's not point to point, and the perception of crime is higher for any transit compared to cars. MetroMover with high frequency cuts wait times, which improved actual trip time, plus less waiting means less perceived crime risk. MetroMover running every five minutes most of the night would likely be far more popular than MetroRail running every 20 minutes until 1:30am.
I also wonder if Miami has enough density points to have a transit system utilized like Boston, etc. In my visits there, the number of transit-friendly areas seemed smaller than even their existing system requires. Will they force through denser zoning requirements to support the investment?
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Originally Posted by wanderer34
I'm not a big fan of expanding the Metromover to Miami Beach. I'd rather see the Metrorail extended to South Beach, with the possibility of expanding the line further north to Mal Harbour. The Metromover can only carry so much people, while the Metrorail is suited for longer distances.
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But what's the actual ridership potential to South Beach? MetroMover covers some of the areas with the highest daily use potential, and do tourists to Miami really want to take any form of transit to the beach? Honest question, I just never think if taking a train to a beach myself, and I'm a big rail fan.
I also think they should include the entire island and run whatever rail service they settle on all the way from Miami Beach to Bal Harbour. I do agree that if they really wanted to get the island to use rail, MetroRail would be better long term, but, realistically, how much longer is Miami Beach viable, and can the area successfully cultivate a transit culture enough to actually justify full "heavy rail" service before the sea swallows it?