Light Rail Success

• Popular, Proven, and Growing in nearly every major western U.S. city
• New and revitalized neighborhoods

Light rail is key in the movement toward livable, sustainable cities instead of highways and sprawl.

As Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy wrote in Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence (Island Press, 1999), “The sustainability agenda demands transit, especially the development of rail systems that are competitive with the car in passenger appeal and speed.”

Portland, Oregon is famous for its MAX light rail and livable downtown — imagine if L.A.'s downtown felt more like this, instead of traffic and parking lots.

Sacramento's light rail line passes beneath tree-lined streets near the State Capitol. A new extension just opened to Auburn.

BART is classified as "heavy rail" like Los Angeles' Red Line-Purple Line subway. It connects the East Bay (aerial in El Cerrito, left) to San Francisco's Muni light rail system.

Here is a San Francisco Muni line approaching the ocean, serving the Sunset neighborhood south of Golden Gate Park.

VTA passes through downtown San Jose on the way to Silicon Valley businesses.

Los Angeles's Metro (MTA) has become an extensive light rail system — Long Beach Blue Line (most successful new light rail line in the United States, carrying over 80,000 average weekday boardings), Green Line, and Pasadena Gold Line (left, in South Pasadena). The Eastside Gold Line and Expo Line are next.

Here is the San Diego Trolley — the first new U.S. light rail line, opening in 1981 — in downtown, near the new baseball stadium.

Salt Lake City opened in 1999 to great popularity and is expanding as part of the city's "smart growth" vision.

Denver is building an extensive network of lines. Shown here is the original section crossing the downtown mall.

Dallas riders like their light rail so much that 77% voted for bonds to expand it faster in August, 2000! (DART photo)

Houston is the second Texas city to open light rail, with sleek new cars.

This is Minnesota's new Hiawatha Line. A second line between Minneapolis and St. Paul is now being planned. (Metro Transit photo)

(Not shown — St. Louis, and the under-construction initial lines in Phoenix and Seattle.)

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