What will run on the rails? Part IV

By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post Only routes in very dense cities with limited parking can justify the high capital cost and passenger capacity of traditional LRT. Kansas City does not meet either of those requirements. Our population is not dense, and there is ample parking in our urban core. Whenever the conversation about light rail comes up, the most talked about issue is cost. The cost per mile of fifty, sixty, even seventy million dollars is a difficult project to undertake for even the wealthiest of communities. I made my analysis with several constraints. That's what we geeky engineer-types do. We design within constraints. My self-imposed constraints were cost, route, aesthetics, minimal infrastructure and low environmental impact. Of course these constraints led me to Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) but I also chose to honor what I feel was the intent of the voters when they passed our current plan. The voters wanted rail. Fair enough. So I added rail to my constraints. For aesthetics, it is purely my opinion that overhead catenaries are not desirable, so that eliminated traditional LRT like Denver and Minneapolis. Surface transit cannot have a third rail providing power unless it's in a dedicated transitway unaccessible to pedestrians. Not my idea of an attractive urban transit system so that leaves that out. The fabled "new ground level power supply system" from the ballot proposition? Not practical or affordable. With no wires and no third rail, that left me self-propelled options. Part I and Part III are both self-propelled. The Colorado DMU is not practical. The diesel-powered light rail has potential but it's not very environmentally friendly. That left me with today's proposal. Ultra Light Rail (ULR). The first ULR system to run that I could find began at Bristol in the late nineties. The 35 passenger tram used a flywheel from a 70 volt DC supply picked up from a short stretch of third rail situated at two stops. The extremely popular service ran for two years and carried some 50,000 fare-paying passengers. That technology has morphed into a hybrid-drive system using off the shelf components borrowed from the automotive industry such as high efficiency diesel or Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) engines and sophisticated battery banks. Advantages: - Low emission hybrid drive. Zero emission if plug-in EV technology is utilized - Lighter weight, low cost vehicles. The picture to the left is a ULR running on a wooden ocean pier - Rails can be laid over existing streets and there is no need for ground-level conductors or overhead catenaries. - Capacity up to 50 passengers per car - Single or dual car configuration available - Potential for onboard auxiliaries to be powered by roof mounted solar panels - Potential system cost less than 10% of conventional LRT - Easily retrofitted when new technologies appear Disadvantages: - New technology. First adopters assume significant risk of unforeseen problems - Very few commercial installations up and running. Southport ULR in the UK is the longest running but it is an all-electric plug-in EV - European companies are only just now beginning to develop manufacturing relationships in the United States - Smaller than LRT. Typical ULRVs carry around 70-100 passengers at one time meaning more vehicles will have to run more frequently during periods of high demand Conclusion: Kansas City has an opportunity to step forward and lead the way for 21st Century transit. Sometimes the most expensive option is not the best. In this case I believe ULR to be not only the lowest cost option, but the best option. Modern, low impact, scalable to ridership demands and completely customizable for our needs. I know it is a Kansas City tradition to enumerate all the reasons "we can't" instead of asking "why not?" So let the "why we can't" group begin here in the Comments section. For the rest of us, let's look forward to the 21st Century instead of re-living the 19th.