Comment 97270

By transporter (registered) | Posted January 29, 2014 at 14:23:42

This comment is about the cost of construction of lrt systems, compared with the cost of rbt systems. Many people say: "rbt systems are the same as lrt systems, only cheaper. My reply was always: "It's true that construction costs of lrt's are higher, but that cost is more than made up for, by the fact that the trains last a lot longer, so it doesn't cost nearly as much to maintain and ultimately, replace them. But recently, I read an article written by a transportation advocate, Lyndon Henry. He claims, in an article entitled: "Research: RBT can be truly pricier than LRT", that sometimes, the construction costs of BRT's are higher, waay higher, more than four times as much, in fact. I invite you to go to his website, to see how he makes this case.

Automobiles incur other costs that trains do not, such as: Pollution: Tailpipe emissions cause declining health. That costs a lot, in and of itself, in lives, and of course, money. Noise: Trains are quiet, automobiles are not. Some say that street noise is as bad as pollution, causing as much of a decline in health. What does that cost? Car-nage: A report from the Campaign for Road Safety states: "Some 1.3 million people die every year on roads around the world. That amounts to 3500 people every day. Millions more - 50 million people annually - are injured. And those numbers are probably underreported." It also states this: "Road traffic is the leading cause of death for young people between the ages of ten and twenty-four." The Pulitzer Center recently posted a map, called The Roadskill Map, which shows the rate of global roadkill, by country. As an introduction, they state that the annual death toll "has already reached 1.24 million/year, and is on course to triple, to 3.8 million/year by 2030. If I can extrapolate the 50 million injuries/year now, to 2030, that means 150 million injuries/year, by 2030. How's that, for a cost?

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