Light Rail (Trams, Streetcars)
Quick Facts
- Setting: Cities large and small, suburban areas
- Station spacing: Ranges widely depending on use
- Avg. effective speed: 15-45 mph
- Vehicle capacity: 60-180 passengers per vehicle set
- Upper route ability: 7,500 passengers per hour
- Typical daytime frequency: 4-15 mins
Overview
Light rail is a type of transit that typically has lighter-weight vehicles than heavy rail rapid transit, with lower passenger demand, and lower average speeds. Light rail routes can be on private rights-of-way, have separated right-of-way on surface streets, or share roadways with motorized traffic.
Today, light rail is typically provided by multi-unit or articulated "tram" vehicles, which have replaced the streetcars/"trolleycars" of years ago; some light rail services operate over the same infrastructure of streetcar predecessors, or even continue to use historic PCC streetcars such as the "F - Market" line in San Francisco, or the St. Charles Line in New Orleans.
Light rail is quiet, clean, higher capacity than buses, and reliable, and has a lower initial cost than building a rapid transit line. It has a small footprint, and new technology and design methods even allow for power delivery (such as overhead wires) to be camouflaged or altogether hidden from sight.
Technology
Light rail vehicles typically now consist of articulated or multipart trams that operate at surface level, crossing or sharing roadways, but sometimes appear on private rights of way, as well (i.e., SF MUNI subway in San Francisco, SoundTransit Light Rail via Seattle Transit Tunnel, etc.). Rails are typically at standard gauge and power is typically drawn from overhead trolley or catenary wire.
Some newer systems do away with overhead wires for power delivery altogether by either having trains draw current through a slot in the street, or, more technologically advanced, a surface-level "contact rail" that is energized section-by-section and only when a vehicle is fully covering it (otherwise, the rail is completely power-neutral).
Modern vehicles are bright, clean, practically silent, have modern audio-visual communication systems, and are fully accessible.
Examples
- MBTA Green Line (Boston, MA)
- MUNI (San Francisco, CA)
- TriMet MAX Light Rail (Portland, OR)
- SEPTA "Trolley" lines (Philadelphia, PA)
- NJ Transit Hudson-Bergen, River LINE, and Newark Light Rail (NJ)
- Metro Transit Hiawatha Line (Minneapolis, MN)