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| Re: Study Re: Here comes Staten Is. Light Rail (268788) | |||
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Re: Study Re: Here comes Staten Is. Light Rail |
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Posted by WillD on Sun Jun 18 21:26:41 2006, in response to Re: Study Re: Here comes Staten Is. Light Rail, posted by AMoreira81 on Sun Jun 18 18:25:51 2006. While a bit off the initial topic (but still SI LRT related), what is there stopping the installation of LRT from SI Mall to Saint George?As others have said, money and politics. The aim is to get people off express buses and to the ferry. It's debatable as to whether or not the installation of an LRT system from the SI Mall and Arlington to St George would really bring folks off the express bus and onto the ferry. With the slow speed of the subway from Whitehall and South Ferry the travel time to midtown just isn't competitive enough. The MTA could simply chop the express bus service, but would have to deal with the political backlash from that. Still the light rail system seems to work as a way to reduce headways on the express bus system. A faster way into midtown would be to run the SI Mall branch over the Bayonne Bridge, interline with the HBLRT (yeah yeah Olog, STFU), and have the passengers change to PATH at Hoboken for 33rd. The MTA already has run their express buses through NJ, so there's certainly a precedent for this kind of service, and there is at least one bus that does this routing, the 122 or 144 I believe. (Part of the ROW to be used would be where expressways in central SI were cancelled Interesting idea. I'd assume you mean skirting through Willowbrook Park rather than using Richmond Ave. It does straighten out the alignment when compared to running up Richmond Ave to Victory or I-278, and it allows a grade separated crossing of Victory right into the median of 440. Along Richmond Ave south of the park at Rockland Avenue the median is certainly wide enough for two tracks down to the Staten Island Mall. The few left turn lanes which would be displaced could become jughandles on the land to west or the southbound lanes could simply be shifted slightly west to make up for the lack of room in the median for the turn lane. However, the possibility would always exist that folks wouldn't take kindly to having an LRV through the park. It's only too bad you can't take such people to Europe to show them what's possible. The other issue is that an alignment through Willowbrook Park could pull the LRV away from the residential areas southwest of Richmond and Victory Blvd. If the LRV sticks to the western edge of the park this should present only the most minor of problems. |
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