Auckland: light rail & harbour crossing annoucements

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Forums › Politics › Auckland: light rail & harbour crossing annoucements

rogercruse

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#293532 28-Jan-2022 12:22

Auckland transport: Progress on light rail route, second harbour crossing decision in 2023 - NZ Herald

More progress announcements from the NZ government...

I wonder if these announcements will last as long as the previous annoucements. Is there a danger of annoucement congestion????

GV27

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#2857871 28-Jan-2022 16:31

If there is any announcement congestion you can be sure the Shore will get priority for the solution, for sure.

quickymart

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#2859514 31-Jan-2022 20:44

That would be nice.

alexx

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#2859767 1-Feb-2022 10:15

It looks like we might get the worst of both worlds solution. Expensive because so much of the Light Rail in the plan is underground. But if you are going to spends billions more than surface Light Rail, just to keep the Dominion Road nimbys happy, then you might as well take the next logical step and make it Light Metro.

From a carbon emissions and congestion perceptive, any light rail system is better than cars, but a tunnelled solution has huge carbon emissions during the construction phase. After several decades tunnelled Light Metro can potentially comes out on top because it can carry a higher capacity than Light Rail, except we don't appear to be doing Light Metro.

Underground almost certainly means wider spacing between stations. I'd probably use it if it went near me, although I'd prefer the convenience of a street level solution.

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quickymart

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#2859770 1-Feb-2022 10:17

What's the difference between Light Rail and Light Metro? I thought they were the same?
I guess trams are different again eh?

Edit: is Light Metro like the L-train in Chicago?

alexx

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#2859780 1-Feb-2022 10:34

Light rail is closer in concept to a Tram service. Mostly street level and somewhat flexible if you want to add/move a station.

Light metro is grade-separated which means trains never mix with traffic. They are separated from the road and therefore can be automated/driverless.

The downside is that once you start with Light metro, you can't just add in a piece of shared rail/roading to save money over the next few km, it's all grade-separated.

There is an additional cost involved in creating that grade-separation, especially if it goes underground. That cost might never be paid off if demand/usage isn't high.

https://www.thetrams.co.uk/whatisatram.php

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