Don't Mourn the Maryland Light Rail (...Too Much)
The RTC recently voted unanimously to deploy a Bus Rapid Transit route along Maryland Parkway, from downtown to McCarran, rather than install the Valley's first light rail route along the same corridor. While many public transit advocates and progressive political activists are lamenting the Commission's decision to keep buses rolling along the Parkway, they honestly shouldn't be-- or at least, not enough to distract them from pushing the RTC to design a high-quality transit system. As author and transit consultant Jarrett Walker notes on his blog Human Transit , most of t he cultural preference for trains over buses is just that-- cultural. What really matters for the reliability of a transit service is not the underlying technology but the priority given to it by planners . Does the line stop frequently or only at important locations? Does it have its own, dedicated space to travel, like a tunnel or elevated track? Or does it have its own lane, but have to stop at cros