San Jose, California

Road and highway construction is extremely expensive and environmentally damaging. Today, new roads are being built and existing ones widened in the Rochester area to handle sprawling development. By using rail transit as a land-use planing tool, we can control sprawl, and hence reduce the demands on our roads.

A double track rail transit line can carry as many people as 16 lanes of highway, and can do it faster, more reliably, safely and economically. It is no wonder that larger cities have long relied on rail transit. Today, smaller cities are discovering that rail transit can be the economical solution to their transportation needs.

Rail transit can be built economically in smaller cities by using existing rights of way (strips of land such as old freight rail lines and highway land) and by using rail systems such as light rail and low-volume commuter rail, which are designed for lower passenger volumes.