Non-rail public transit: primer on concepts

New Urban News Technical Page by Andres Duany, Michael Morrissey, and Patrick Pinnell

The higher the initial cost of a given public transit technology, the less likely a system using it will be built. From the outset, this tough reality must be recognized. The last Technical Page considered the higher levels of technology and infrastructure investment: in descending order heavy rail, light rail, streetcars, and trolleys. All require fixed rail, a layer of supporting infrastructure, and, in most cases, dedicated rights of way. Consequently many communities will be either unable or unwilling to build them.

The lower orders of transit require less of almost everything, which is both their virtue and their problem. Various kinds of bus and assorted species of taxi systems are consequently more common, in both senses of the term. Planning for less expensive systems must therefore be no less thorough than for rail systems, but different in its considerations.