San Jose Case Study Part Two: Light Rail

16 December 2002 - 5:00am

Part two of this two-part series examines the likely failure of San Jose's light-rail system.

"Like San Diego, Portland, and St. Louis, San Jose jumped on the light-rail bandwagon in the early 1980s... Light rail is an obsolete technology that doesn't really work anywhere. But it is especially unsuitable in post-automobile urban areas such as San Jose, whose jobs are spread throughout the area rather than concentrated in a downtown. San Jose made a major mistake in committing itself to such an inappropriate form of transit. It is compounding that mistake by continuing to build light rail even as congestion increases and funds run short to operate its transit services."

Source: The Thoreau Institute, December 13, 2002
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New Suburbanism is not a new design paradigm that seeks to compete with or discredit principles of New Urbanism. Instead, our perspective represents a broad-based attempt to find the best, most practical ways to develop and redevelop suburban communities.