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Buffalo also hopes to lure new riders with its 6.4-mile Light Rail Rapid Transit (LRRT) system, an unconventional marriage of streetcar and subway technologies that is costing $500 million from state and federal treasuries. The initial 1.2-mile street-level segment, scheduled to open some time this year, will cut through a ten-block-long mall in the city's central commercial district that will be closed to most other traffic. Trips within the transit mall will be free, giving shoppers an incentive to patronize downtown businesses...
Relying on updated versions of traditional trolleys is not limited to older cities. In Oregon, Portland's 15-mile light-rail line linking the city's downtown core to the fast-growing suburb of Gresham is expected to be ready for riding in 1985. The Federal Government has funded $300 million of the project's $310 million capital costs, thanks in large measure to the lobbying efforts of Neil Goldschmidt, former Portland mayor and Secretary of Transportation under President Carter. Despite Washington's munificence, Portland, with an unpopular mass-transit tax on employers and a noisy...
...will follow the densely built, heavily trafficked Wilshire Boulevard corridor, cut through Hollywood and end up hi the San Fernando Valley. The underground will be the centerpiece of an eventual 160-mile network, second in size in the U.S. only to New York City's. Supporters see the rail plan as the last best hope for unclogging the city's fabled 715-mile morass of freeways. Predicts George Gibbs Jr., a local insurance executive and rail cheerleader: "The subway will save Los Angeles from drowning in its own congestion...
Even humming Silicon Valley is planning a new transit system. This spring, Santa Clara County will begin construction of 20 miles of light rail and twelve miles of new freeway. The project's $382 million price tag is modest by mass-transit standards, in part because the system does not strive to be as high-tech as the computer culture it will serve. Says Susan Wilson, chairwoman of the Santa Clara County Transit District: "We're looking for a good Chevrolet, not a Cadillac...
Indeed, concern for function over form is advisable. The federal gravy train is slowing down. The Reagan Administration, which is cool to mass transit, initially declared a ban on funding for new rail systems and sought to phase out operating assistance by 1985. Pork-barrel-hungry Congressmen, however, objected to both moves. With the passage of the 5?-per-gal. gasoline tax, and its one penny for mass transit, the Administration agreed to lift the ban. But Reagan did persuade Congress to whittle operating subsidies by 21%, and in this fiscal year alone won an overall $400 million...