Re: Carls' double announcements [Re: More promises...]

[rffergus@socs.uts.edu.au]

In article <730vmk$6f9$2@news.mel.aone.net.au>,
  dbromage@fang.omni.com.au (David Bromage) wrote:
>
> The Transitway is being designed such that it can be converted to light
> rail or heavy rail at a later date. This actually makes a lot of sense.
> There is obviously enough traffic to justify SOME sort of new corridor,
> hence the dedicated busway. There isn't enough to justify spending over
> $1 billion on heavy rail, but if the reservation is already there in the
> form of a busway then it won't cost as much in the future. This sort of
> incremental approach does have merits, and I suspect the Cumberland Line
> may have been an experiment to test the waters for this sort of project.
>
> If the Transitway was built as light rail at the outset, it becomes
> politically difficult to change to heavy rail in the future (although
> technically quite easy).

The future conversion to light rail option is little more than a red herring
that is used to try sweeten the appeal of the busway. If it gets built as a
busway now, I won't be converted to either rail mode any time in the
forseeable future. Governments would be more likely to spend money developing
new corridors, than facing the expense of converting an existing corridor's
modes.

Building light rail at the outset could well make conversion to heavy rail
politically difficult in the future (unless of course the line got huge
numbers of passengers), but light rail could offer a service that is better
than heavy rail for that corridor, so conversion to heavy rail may not be
desirable.


Rob

Sydney (Australia)
>
> Cheers
> David
>

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