nolightrail

[nolightrail]

Every time someone advocates for “cheaper” light rail or street cars instead of subways, show them how frequently people drive their cars into streetcar and light rail right-of-ways.

[nolightrail]

The Houston light rail system is the most dangerous light rail system in North America.

[nolightrail]

That is the remains of a Toyota Prius BTW.

[nolightrail]

Mayhaps the fact that it’s not grade separated.

[nolightrail]

Apparently Surrey’s LRT pushers, haven’t learned from Edmonton’s poor LRT design about not crossing roads in two directions, and decided to cross three.

The correct solution here would be to grade separate the 101 and 102 Ave crossings to avoid creating a bottle neck where people will be stuck in traffic perpetually

[nolightrail]

It takes a lot of bad luck to be hit by two trains.

[nolightrail]

Keep in mind that a firetruck is a lot heavier than a car. In this case the Firetruck was likely destroyed (the captain had to be extracted, which suggests the cab was crushed) , and the train was derailed.

The eighth photo in the roll shows how much damage was done to the train

Usually if a light rail vehicle hits a car, the car is crushed and usually by being run into poles holding the catenary wires. From the damage seen from the photos, it looks like the firetruck cab took the brunt of the damage.

[nolightrail]

Reminder that Houston still has one of the most dangerous light rail systems in North America.

[nolightrail]

I don’t usually mention non-rail-vehicle incidents/issues because they tend to not be reflective of light rail systems on the whole, and also apply to all forms of transit.

However in this case I want to draw attention to the fact that there were 149 arrests during the three months that they increased security.

Light rail systems do not typically have fare gates, and one of the reasons for pushing for light rail is “being cheap to build at-grade stops”, not stations. So this comes with the consequence of requiring more transit security than an otherwise grade-separated system with fare gates.