Light Rail in North America - Light Rail in The United States

Light Rail in The United States

The United States has a number of light rail systems in its mid-sized to large cities. In older systems, such as in San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and Boston, the light rail is vestigal from streetcar days but were spared the fate of other streetcar systems by some grade separation from traffic and high ridership. A number of systems were built in the 1980s, a few more in the 1990s, and many more were opened in lower density cities in the early 2000s. The older systems attain higher ridership.

United States use of light rail is low by European standards. According to the American Public Transportation Authority, of the 20-odd light rail systems in the United States only five (Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Portland, OR), achieve more than 25 million passenger boardings per year, and only Boston exceeds the 50+ million boardings per year of the London Docklands Light Rail system.

Compared with that of Canada, the United States federal government offers considerably more funding for transportation projects of all types, resulting in smaller portions of light rail construction cost to be borne at the local and state levels. This funding is provided by the Federal Transit Administration though as of 2004 the rules to determine which projects will be funded are biased against the simpler streetcar systems (partly because the vehicles tend to be somewhat slower). Some cities in the U.S. (e.g. San Pedro, California) have set about building the less expensive streetcar lines themselves or with only minimal federal support.