Don’t let inertia consultants and federal policies short-change you.

1. Light rail vehicles are less expensive in the long run, with useful lives of 40 to 60 years. Reconditioned LRVs from the 1950s are still running in San Francisco and Philadelphia. Where do you see a 40 year old bus in regular service?

2. Light rail vehicles have better acceleration than buses do, and can run a route much faster than buses. This means that you need fewer LRVs and fewer drivers to cover the same route.

3. Light rail vehicles can run in much narrower lanes than buses can, so they take up less space. This is especially important in crowded urban areas.

4. Light rail vehicles only use energy when they are accelerating. When they decelerate, the momentum is turned back into electric energy. When they’re at rest, their motors use no energy at all. Most buses use energy continually, whether they are accelerating, decelerating, or standing still.

5. Light rail vehicles give a smoother, bump-free ride far superior to the bouncing around bus passengers are subject to.

6. Operating expenses for light rail vehicles are significantly less than for buses, according to the Federal Transit Administration’s 2001 National Transit Database. Boston’s light rail line had costs of $1.25 per trip vs. $2.04 for buses. If you want the figures expressed as costs per passenger mile, Boston spent $0.51 for LRVs and $0.71 for buses.

7. In city after city (St. Louis, Denver, Phoenix, Boston, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Salt Lake City, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas ……) people prefer light rail to buses. Ridership on the entire transit system increases when even a single light rail line is opened.

8. Light rail stations often spur development around them that doesn’t happen around bus rapid transit stations.

For extensive information about the benefits of light rail, go to http://www.lightrailnow.com.

With more frequent service, it really becomes worthwhile to treat the Long Island like a European S-Bahn where it is just a big fast bus with its own lanes. This means a common fare and zone structure. You don’t even need SMART cards. Many European countries have been doing it with paper and laminated passes for years using proof of payment (if you don’t like European proof of payment check San Diego or Florida Tri-rail versions). Light rail operating on the surface can give good cross-island travel on heavy routes with less disruption to traffic than buses will. Buses can feed the higher speed nodes where appropriate. By making better use of the higher speed, higher capacity modes the buses will be strengthened where they make the best sense. By having buses with timed connections with rail at given nodes, you also have buses that connect with each other. Run a good quality transit and the fares can be higher meaning the general taxpayer has to pay a smaller portion.