BRO submission by Rudra Chakraborty, who is sharing an idea that would help the NFTA to extend and modify its light rail, even at a time when the authority is experiencing financial woes…
(I don’t know if sharing this will achieve much (especially given the NFTAs financial woes), but , I thought getting some attention and maybe (hopefully) some interest behind it might get people talking at least.:
I’m a UB alumnus, currently living in DC. I saw an article from Next City that talked about an LRT system recently built in Taiwan using supercapacitors (essentially a highly rechargable battery that stores less energy at once) that runs without overhead wires (see article here). They created a 22 mile long system with 36 stations for 540.1 million USD, which I’m pretty sure was less than the cost it took to build Buffalo’s initial light rail line in 1985 (and in 1985 dollars nonetheless).
As someone who pays attention to and cares about Buffalo’s future, my immediate thought was how this could be a useful tech to bring to Buffalo with the NFTA struggling to build out its own light rail system, as the cars would enable them to use existing tracks without needing to build and power third rails or overhead catenary, essentially allowing for expansion at the cost of cars and stations.