Quote:
Originally Posted by craigs
Has the mixed bus/light rail tunnel in Seattle been successful? It seems like a great idea to allow buses and light rail to share a tunnel, especially for a city that needs to grow feeder bus service but faces a lot of surface level congestion like Austin.
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It's now rail only. A new line to the eastern suburbs will share the tunnel, and it being built now including tunnel revisions. Combined there will be trains every three minutes, with no room for buses.
When buses and rail were shared, it worked, but not perfectly. Trains were slower because buses are slower, particularly because of wheelchairs.
As a bus tunnel (originally just buses) it was far more expensive than it would need to be for rail only. Stations are I'd guess around 32 feet curb to curb including a passing lane, and 60' total station width. For rail alone they can probably be 20 feet for the trains. Just guessing here. Plus they can more easily do center platforms, reducing total platform space. In our case, the added width meant exponentially more difficult construction.