Great seeing this expand so much in the northern Bay Area

During the design phase, BART's tunnel was moved from 8th to 9th Street to avoid a hardware store. This change required a tighter turn radius, and therefore slower trains at the Oakland Wye, which still impacts riders today.

Note: This is not speaking to anything regarding capacity, grade separation, user experience, etc. This is simply a discussion about cost.

Something I have seem repeatedly in this subreddit is that while light rail (LRT) requires a higher upfront construction cost compared to bus rapid transit (BRT), the lifetime maintenance and operational costs will end up being cheaper than BRT. In my experience as a transit planner, that is not true.

I guess if you were building both systems from complete scratch, maybe? But you have to consider that most cities already have bus systems. They already have trained bus operators, and a pipeline for scouting, hiring and onboarding of new operators. They already have mechanics familiar with working on buses, and maintenance facilities that are designed for buses. With a BRT network, you can utilize all these things and leverage them in your operation. Its much less cost to just pay the mechanics working on your normal bus fleet to work on some extra BRT buses than to build an entirely new maintenance facility, pay and train new mechanics to work on rail vehicles, and completely hire and train new rail operators. These lead to higher operational costs in the long run. 

Another point of consideration is that the operations for most transit systems in the USA is contracted. As in, the local jurisdiction pays a private company to hire operators and run the day-to-day service. If you build a new mode (LRT in this case), this would often mean you need to procure a new contract to operate the service. This is not required with BRT, as you can usually just use the existing bus operations contract to run service on the BRT system. Having one contract, even if it needs to be amended/expanded will almost always be cheaper than having two.

Another point is utility pricing for overhead wires. LRT systems require extensive coordination between transit agencies and utility providers. Often times, utility providers will allow overhead wires to pull power based on a pricing scheme called "traction power tariffs." These are specialized electric utility rate structures applied to the high-voltage electricity supplied to electric railways, light rail, subways, and electrified trolley systems to power trains. Transit systems face steep peak-demand charges because multiple heavy trains starting simultaneously create massive instantaneous loads on the local utility grid. Obviously, this adds a lot of cost to operating and maintaining an LRT system, compared to a BRT system which does not need to use overhead electricity.

Final point I have is road maintenance vs. rail maintenance. When accounting for a per-passenger basis, rail maintenance often actually ends up cheaper than road maintenance on average. However, this figure is again in a vacuum and is not taking other factors into consideration. First point of consideration is that, in most cities, transit agencies effectively pay nothing to maintain roadways. Usually, the city's traffic department uses the same contractors that repair automobile lanes to conduct maintenance on BRT lanes. This means that the transit agency does not need to pay for the upkeep and maintenance required by buses driving on the BRT lanes. However, for railways, the responsibility for maintenance almost always falls on the transit agency, which increases their costs considerably. Additionally, the same point about contract efficiency as discussed with mechanics/operators comes into play here. Because the city already contracts these companies for standard roads, adding a BRT lane or a bus-only lane to an existing municipal contract is highly efficient, compared to having to procure and pay for an entirely new contract to maintain rails. Because there are very few qualified transit rail contractors in any given U.S. region, they hold immense market power. This lack of competition leads to significantly higher bidding prices for public transit agencies, a phenomenon often referred to as the "rail tax."

Finally, I want to leave this with some data. Thanks to u/bardak for the very insightful comment with study linked: old study from Vancouver so the absolute numbers aren't up to date but thier proportionality should be. BRT 1 vs LRT 1 has the LRT being twice as expensive both on initial construction cost and with lifecycle cost including operations and maintenance.

Unfortunately, the route will be open but not all of the construction will be done. There is still repaving work (complete halves of the street have to be repaved!) all the way through to December, but the route had to start because that is when the driver shakeup is. I don't see a ribbon cutting scheduled so they may wait until that is completed.

https://marylandparkway.com/red-line-service-update/

Video of the August 18th 2026 Town Hall. Focuses on the proposed CoCo delivery plan rollout. This is planned to be the final town hall prior to the anticipated November 2026 ballot initiative.

the train is 5 hours late, not to destination, to departure. It's 1:30 AM, I'm in a foreign train station (Amsterdam Central) waiting for a train that was planned to arrive at 10:30 PM.

From what I can see I am only eligible to a 50% refund, this should be fucking illegal. 5 F*CKING HOURS OF DELAY

edit: it's now 6 hours of delay

Of all the benefits Alan mentioned, there's one benefit that needs emphasizing. And it's psychological.

When people usually see freshly installed tracks in the ground with overhead wiring, they know that there's going to be a train that'll get them from A to B in a fixed, timely fashion. With buses, routes can change on a whim by simply relocating a few stops, and that creates uncertainty, delays, and frustration.

So naturally, properties that are closer to LRT will go up in value.

Bus‑only options marked with three asterisks***

Distances are station to stadium according to Google Maps

Let me know if I should add anything!

AFC North

• Pittsburgh Steelers (Acrisure Stadium): Pittsburgh Light Rail - Allegheny Station | 100 feet
• Baltimore Ravens (M&T Bank Stadium):
  • Baltimore Light Rail - Stadium/Federal Hill and Hamburg Street stations | 0.2 miles
  • MARC Commuter Rail - Camden Station | 0.4 mikes
• Cleveland Browns (FirstEnergy Stadium): RTA Waterfront Line - West/3rd Station |100 feet
  • Future Brookpark Stadium - RTA Brookpark Station & future in-fill station
• Cincinnati Bengals (Paycor Stadium): Cincinnati Connector (streetcar) - The Banks station | 0.4 miles

AFC East

• New England Patriots — Gillette Stadium
  • MBTA Franklin/Providence Lines — Foxboro Station | 0.2 mi (~4 min)
• Buffalo Bills — New Highmark Stadium
  • NFTA Gameday Express Bus Only***
• New York Jets — MetLife Stadium
  • NJ Transit — Meadowlands Station | 0.13 mi (~3 min)
  • Coach USA 351 Bus***
• Miami Dolphins — Hard Rock Stadium
  • Brightline Shuttle from Aventura***
  • Shuttle from Tri-Rail Golden Glades***
  • Shuttle from Hard Rock Casino***
  • Metrobus Route 297 from Earlington Heights Metrorail station***

AFC West

• Denver Broncos — Empower Field at Mile High
  • Empower Field Station (via Union Station) — 0.43 mi (~12 min)
  • Decatur–Federal Station — 0.58 mi (~17 min)
    • Proposed Denver Stadium — Burnham Yard - 10th/Osage Station & Future CoCo commuter station — 250 ft (~1 min)
• Kansas City Chiefs — Arrowhead Stadium
  • KCATA Chiefs Express Bus Only***
    • New Kansas Arrowhead Stadium — Shuttle Bus Only***
• Las Vegas Raiders — Allegiant Stadium
  • LV Monorail — MGM Station | 1.17 mi (~23 min)
• Los Angeles Chargers — SoFi Stadium
  • Metro C Line — Hawthorne/Lennox | 1.55 mi (~30 min)
  • Metro C Line — Downtown Inglewood | 1.18 mi (~23 min)
  • Free Gameday Shuttle from Airport Transit Center Bus Only***

AFC South

• Indianapolis Colts — Lucas Oil Stadium
  • Red Line BRT — Maryland Street Station | ~0.3 mi (~6 min)***
• Houston Texans — NRG Stadium
  • METRORail — Stadium Park/Astrodome | 0.41 mi (~8 min)
• Jacksonville Jaguars — EverBank Stadium
  • JTA Gameday Xpress Bus***
  • Water Taxi
  • 2027 Orlando Season — Camping World Stadium - SunRail — Church Street Station | 1.3 mi (~30 min)
• Tennessee Titans — Nissan Stadium (current and future)
  • WeGo Train — Riverfront Station | 0.34 mi (~7 min)
  • WeGo Express Buses***

NFC North

• Green Bay Packers — Lambeau Field
  • Private Coach Bus***
• Chicago Bears — Soldier Field
  • Metra — 18th Street | 0.3 mi (~6 min)
  • CTA “L” — Roosevelt | 0.9 mi (~18 min)
    • Future stadium sites: Both have nearby rail stops
• Minnesota Vikings — U.S. Bank Stadium
  • Metro Light Rail — Stadium Station | 276 ft (~1 min)
• Detroit Lions — Ford Field
  • People Mover / QLine — Grand Circus Park | 0.40 mi (~8 min)

NFC East

• New York Giants — MetLife Stadium
  • NJ Transit — Meadowlands Station | 0.13 mi (~3 min)
  • Coach USA 351 Bus***
• Washington Commanders — Northwest Stadium
  • WMATA — Morgan Boulevard | 1.03 mi (~20 min)
    • Future RFK Stadium - WMATA — Stadium–Armory | ~0.5 mi (~10 min)
• Dallas Cowboys — AT&T Stadium
  • Shuttle from TRE CentrePort/DFW Station Bus Only*** | 3.5 mi
• Philadelphia Eagles — Lincoln Financial Field
  • SEPTA — NRG Station | 0.44 mi (~9 min)

NFC West

• Seattle Seahawks — Lumen Field
  • Sounder — King Street Station | 0.2 mi (~4 min)
  • Link Light Rail — Stadium/International District | 0.25 mi (~5 min)
• Los Angeles Rams — SoFi Stadium
  • Metro C Line — Hawthorne/Lennox | 1.55 mi (~30 min)
  • Metro C Line — Downtown Inglewood | 1.18 mi (~23 min)
  • Free Gameday Shuttle from Airport Transit Center***
• San Francisco 49ers — Levi’s Stadium
  • Great America Station (VTA/ACE/Capitol Corridor) | 0.29 mi (~6 min)
• Arizona Cardinals — State Farm Stadium
  • No rail/BRT access

NFC South

• Carolina Panthers — Bank of America Stadium
  • Gold Line — Mint Street | 0.45–0.5 mi (~9 min)
  • Blue Line — Brooklyn Village | 0.4 mi (~8 min)
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers — Raymond James Stadium
  • No rail/BRT access
• Atlanta Falcons — Mercedes‑Benz Stadium
  • MARTA — Vine City / SEC District | 0.2 mi (~4 min)
  • MARTA — Five Points | 0.8 mi (~10 min)
  • MARTA — Garnett | 0.8 mi (~18 min)
  • MARTA Streetcar — Centennial Olympic Park | 0.9 mi (~15 min)
• New Orleans Saints — Caesars Superdome
  • Rampart–St. Claude Streetcar — Poydras | 0.2 mi (~5–8 min)