Executive Governance: Presidential Administrations and Policy Change in the Federal Bureaucracy: Presidential Administrations and Policy Change in the Federal Bureaucracy by Cornell G. Hooton

Author:Cornell G. Hooton [Hooton, Cornell G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781315503639
Google: pjKoDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 5336792
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1997-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

Light Rail Transit

Background: Policy Dissent/High Detail

Light rail transit (LRT), as the name suggests, includes lighter duty railway systems, typically including streetcar systems, which trade speed and passenger capacity for a reduction in construction costs. The savings stem from the smaller cars and lessened railbed preparation (e.g., no tunnels), as compared with those for “full-scale” subways and railroads.

Light rail fit relatively well the expertises and procedures that UMTA used to analyze, develop, and administer heavy rail projects, since LRT employed similar technologies, transportation planning techniques, and financing methods. Additionally, UMTA had some direct experience with light rail cars through an effort in the early 1970s in which the bureau worked with Boston and San Francisco to design a replacement car for those cities’ existing light rail systems. UMTA began exploring light rail more systematically on a technical basis in approximately 1975, when it contracted with an outside firm to produce an introductory survey of LRT systems in use world-wide.

The potential for difficulty and delay in the development of the option existed, though, because much of the detail for a contemporary light rail technology remained to be developed. Indeed, from World War II through the mid-1970s light rail had received scant attention in local transit agencies, the professional community, and UMTA. In fact, localities had been eliminating entirely streetcar systems through the middle of the century as the personal ownership and use of automobiles flourished.8 Existing heavy rail expertise provided a foundation of relevant technical knowledge, yet the specifics of modern cost, capability, analysis, and implementation were as of yet little developed in both UMTA and the professional community.

LRT faced another problem: it threatened supporters of rail, because LRT competed directly with the larger, heavy rail subway systems. HOV lanes can, for example, complement a rail system within a larger transportation system, but LRT and heavy rail systems are mutually exclusive for most cities because of cost, overlapping coverage, and local controversy. Thus, for some people in UMTA (and in the transit community) who were concerned with the development of comprehensive (i.e., subway) transit systems in support of long-term urban growth, LRT was a potential threat. For other more conservative analysts, LRT also lacked appeal as a relatively unknown transit alternative with an (at best) unclear financial promise. In brief, the combination of relevant, if incomplete, technical knowledge and practices with an absence of wide enthusiasm suggests that UMTA had the capability to support LRT but that the option would require special managerial attention to overcome the lack of enthusiasm among some of the necessarily involved career officials.

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