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Why Pinellas County wants narrow
elevated rail
On October 11, 2000, the Pinellas County Florida MPO Board approved the plan to go forward with a project to put in a fixed guideway transit system. That's not the big news. The big news is how they decided to move forward. They are extremely interested in getting a demonstration project in the ground quickly. Not only that, it will NOT be a light rail system. Below is an excerpt from the Locally Preferred Alternative Report; Pinellas Mobility Major Investment Study. Our thanks to the MPO and Grimail Crawford for permission to reprint it here.
Do these arguments look familiar?
For reasons that have surfaced during the course of the MIS technical studies and the public involvement/intergovernmental outreach campaigns, where guideway transit is recommended for further study and refinement, Class III (elevated) is now the focus and Class II at-grade technologies should not be considered further:
At-grade guideway requires a significantly wider 'envelope'
(footprint) than elevated guideway. Given the already built-up
nature of most of the recommended guideway corridor, and the high
land acquisition costs owing at least partly to Florida's liberal
eminent domain laws, acquisition of new rights-of-way needs to
be minimized to the extent practicable. The narrower footprint
of elevated guideway is attractive in this context.
Elevated guideway would not be constrained by highway crossings.
There are very real concerns about safety. Therefore, minimizing
(or eliminating outright) the potential for collisions between
guideway trainsets and motor vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians
is of utmost importance to the community. There are also very
real concerns about causing additional delay to motor vehicles.
Elevating the guideway (thus eliminating grade crossings) would
mitigate this problem. There are many major highway crossings
along the guideway corridor, and most likely many of these would
have to be bridged over anyway. Full elevation would eliminate
the "roller coaster" effect of frequent up-and-down
grade changes. Elevating guideway would also assure a higher operating
speed for the premium transit, as there would be no stops at traffic
signals (stops would take place only at stations). The higher
operating speed of Class III would make guideway transit more
attractive to the traveling public, assuring greater ridership.
The narrower footprint of elevated guideway should, in most cases,
obviate the need to reduce the number and/or width of traffic
lanes.
