Exemplar: Mixed-Modal Transport System Concept

In 2000, LA Metro gambled that it could increase both ridership and transit efficiency by making a bus a little more like a subway: The Metro Rapid. Mixed-modal goes even further to suggest that any bus has the potential to go “local,” “rapid” or “express” at coordinated points along its route to flexibly serve transit demand.

A bus may go “express” by entering grade-separated express lanes shared with planned or existing rail modes, with the help of new friction-less electric power-transfer technologies and hybrid rail/road drive surfaces.

The Mixed-modal project offers a vision of what the Expo line might look like if it operated as the “trunk” of a regional transit tree with “branches” extending up and down existing Metro Rapid lines.

Tom Beresford