Lightrail Is A Good Idea :: essays research papers

     The installation of a light rail transit system in capital of Texas would be a step in the direction of progress for Austins vocation problem. Austins present traffic situation is atrocious. in that location seems to be no real plan on how it will be fixed and paid for. The Capital Metro buses be the only form of tummy transit in Austin. The buses run for college students and go around campus and off campus. The buses that only travel on campus never have a very high ridership, where as the buses that go off campus always tend to be overfull. This is where light rail comes in.      Light rail is a term that come into being only in the last thirty or forty years. It refers to an electric railway system, constructed in the 1970s or later, characterized by its ability to operate single or ternary car consists, trains. It travels along exclusive rights-of-way track at ground level, on aerial structures, in subways, or in streets. It can board and discharge passengers at station platforms or at street, track, or car-floor level. Light rail can also refer to an electric railway with a "light volume" traffic capacity, as opposed to heavy rail. Light rail may use shared or exclusive rights-of-way, high or low platform incumbrance and multi-car trains or single cars. Also known as "streetcar," "trolley car" or "tramway.      Opponents of Austins proposed light rail system usually state that a better solution to Austins traffic problem is to add to a greater extent lanes to the highways and add more miles of road. They also say that the city postulate to maintain the current streets better. Houston is a good example of what good roads can do to help traffic problems. Houston Metro, Houstons transit agency, spent $700 one thousand million on 88 miles of carpool lanes in Houston. Carpool lanes, or high occupancy vehicle(HOV) lanes, are lanes that are separated from the m ain highway by barriers and require that a vehicle be carrying at least two people to use them. The extra HOV lanes have reduced Houstons overall traffic congestion by sextette percent. In Katy, southwest Houston, the HOV lanes have reduced congestion by 14 percent.      Houston has done a good job with improving their highways, but there are some downsides. Even though the HOV lanes have helped to reduce traffic congestion in most places by up to six percent, they are now carrying more people than designed for.