LRT car clearances profile (excerpted from presentation).

Interested in designing a conceptual light rail transit (LRT) line for your own community? If you’ve been wishing you had something like a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) planning manual or set of basic guidelines for doing that, a report presented to the 13th National Light Rail & Streetcar Conference (co-sponsored by Transportation Research Board and American Public Transportation Association, and held last month in Minneapolis, Minnesota) may be just what you need.

Titled «Developing Infrastructure-Relevant Guidelines for Preliminary Conceptual Planning of a New Light Rail Transit System», the report has been prepared by Urban Rail Today principal Lyndon Henry (also a technical consultant for the Light Rail Now Project, and a Railway Age online writer). As the abstract indicates, the report represents a step toward publishing “readily accessible guidelines to provide a resource for developing conceptual design and evaluation plans, particularly involving infrastructure and fleet requirements, for new light rail transit (LRT) systems in their communities.”

Links to the original paper and PowerPoint presentation are available (both as PDFs). ■