Freeways, one could argue, were also seen as engins of development, and in fact did determine the shape of post WWII development, and they also cannot be moved.

Unless there is some new technology out there to pick up buildings or entire business districts, or perhaps a new trend towards putting new sub-divisions, big box stores, and strip malls on wheels, the ‘flexiblity’ of changing bus routes seems to me to be an aspect of busses that is insignificant.

Too bad I did not find this page until now, I suppose this post has an audience of one.

There are 34 tram lines which are served by over 900 trams. The tram system is being expanded every year with plans for substantive expansion in next decade (especially in the suburbs).

During communist rule Czechoslovakia was the main supplier of trams for whole Comecon. Also the modern trams in US were built in the Czech Republic (i.e. Škoda trams for Portland, or recent shipment of Inekon trams for Washington D.C.). The Oregon Iron Works streetcar is licenced version of Škoda’s older design.

There are also other tram systems in the Czech republic, the smallest serve town of about 25k inhabitants (though it is connected with other system covering 70k town).

I guess it is quite safe to say, that tram networks really work well in the Europe, and especially in the Czech Republic.

More information about trams in CR:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_town_tramway_systems_in_the_Czech_Republic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_tram_system
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=621329

As to moving people on and off, that can be handled fairly easily, have enough stations, which reduces the number of people coming on and off, and have wide or multiple doors. Our cars have two, but based on length, give up a few seats, and you could raise that to three. Or set up a station that allows unloading from both sides.

See: http://www.americandreamcoalition.org/transit/ZeroSumGame.pdf

I’m an associate with Los Angeles Streetcar, Inc., and we’ve been working really hard to raise funds from local, federal, and private sources. We’ve gained quite a bit of attention and made a ton of progress in a short span of time. Take a look at our website for current conceptual alignments, and be sure to let us know your opinion!

Feel free to contact me directly if you have questions or comments (emetz@lastreetcar.org).

I’d prefer a monorail, which worked out so well in North Haverbrook.

The Portland streetcar (not its light rail) is cute, but it’s a nutty system because it GETS STUCK IN TRAFFIC. What were they thinking? I rode it during a busy shopping day before Xmas and the conductor announced, 3 blocks from a busy street-crossing, “folks it’s gonna take about 10-15 minutes to go the next 5 blocks so you may want to get out here and walk if your destination is one of the next few stops”.

And the streetcar doesn’t go anywhere that was formerly served by a busy bus line.

And each streetcar doesn’t carry any more passengers than a well-equipped accordion bus, thus there are no labor savings due to fewer drivers needed.

Streetcars are a great idea IF:

- they replace bus routes that are overcrowded

- they are installed so that they can travel faster than buses would over the same street

- they go somewhere people actually want to go, NOW, as opposed to going to new condo developments that are designed for car-culture (as they all are, with massive parking garages)

C’mon! Don’t leave us out in the cold!

Then, the MBTA overpays it’s employees, and allows them to retire with full pension and free medical insurance after 23 years.

Also, the Seattle light rail thru SE Seattle (Rainier Valley) which I believe is up and running. They spent the last few weeks of the school year with presentations for the local kids in the hope that they would educate their parents. So far there are about 2 collisions a day (car vs. train).

And lastly, don’t forget the SLUT (South Lake Union Trolley - whoops - someone forgot to double check the acronym!), in operation for quite some time. It’s very popular and seems to be revitalizing that area of town.

That is one of the advantages of buses. They can go where they need to go and a rail line doesn’t need to be laid down to get them there.

But buses are limited in the number of seats they offer, whereas trolleys could just add a car and increase capacity. The idea is moving people from point A to point B efficiently and quickly, and rail does this the best. It also adds aesthetics as opposed to taking them away.

I’m not holding my breath on this, though. Chicago government is so inept and corrupt this won’t happen… but it’s nice to imagine!

This speaks to the point, that streetcar and light rail vehicles (along with other electrically propelled vehicles like main line motors and emu’s, and heavy rail subway cars) tend to last significantly longer then their diesel powered counterparts. Buses vs street cars are the biggest example of this. Look at any transit organization in the country and I doubt you will find few if any buses still around from before 1990.

Living along Baltimore Ave in Philly along the Rt 34 trolley was a very enjoyable experience. That trolley brought that neighborhood together in a way that I doubt a bus ever could, at least in my experience exploring urban areas. Not that they are suitable for every situation but when planned properly can be a valuable addition to any neighborhood.

That is a lot of post hoc ergo proptre hoc reasoning.

You falso failed to mention that Portland throws almost every development dollar they can at any bad idea wihthn a stone’s throw of the streetcar along with tax breaks for developers. In addition, now the streetcar is being used as justification for a $250M boondoggle called a convention center hotel - an idea that has failed everywhere outside of Orlando and Las Vegas. Let’s not forget that the monies that got diverted to streetcars came from pothole, police protection and schools.

THis lead to a ghost town in SoWa in Portland that only needs about another $500M to finish and gave us lovely 250ft tall condos less than 100 ft from the river bank. Great future.

What you dont mention, however, is that in 2009 most of that “development” is still unsold and empty. There are nearly 3,000 unsold condos alone right now in downtown, and this all happened before the economy went south.

All this development has buried our city, not helped it. We’re in hock to our eyeballs. (except the developers of course.) And all stuff that needed fixing in the rest of the city has been forsaken for the downtown projects, just so Portland can look “cool” to the rest of the world.

Don’t buy the hype folks.

Starting after WWII a holding company “National City Lines” started buying up streetcar and trolley operations in Cities such as L.A., Columbus, Dayton, Buffalo,
Minneapolis, and numerous cities across the U.S.
“National City Lines” was bankrolled by General Motors, Firestone Rubber, Texaco Oil,
Union Oil, and many automotive & truck vendors interested in building “busses” !!!

Get the PICTURE ??

The streetcar was “Toast” !

Cities methodically reduced schedules of service, abandoned routes, deferred

maintenance to equiptment, cryed a ” tale of Woe” about horrendous losses and no

“profit” and pleaded to shutdown their systems in the “Name of Progress”!

That was THE WORD in the 50’s and 60’s, “PROGRESS” !!!!!!!!!!!!

These events all mysteriously transpired after the cities involved had sold their

OPERATIONS to NATIONAL CITY LINES !! What a coincidence!

So here comes the stinky Busses! GM, White, Flexible, Blue Bird, Crown, you name it

they all jumped in the big Money Swimming Pool!

Some cities, San Francisco, Chicago,Dayton,had “half a brain”, like a gifted

scare crow and converted some of their Heavy Routes to “Trackless Trolleys”, with

new equiptment and infrastructure but not all that many cities cared.

Chicago had good segments on Irving Park, Diversey, Grand, and North Ave.

These intersected with the North Side “EL” trains complementing the El routes

as feeders for passenger traffic. Marmon Herrington 46 seaters where the work-

horse of the System. They did a “Hell of a Job” for 30 more years .

But for the rest of the Country the rails were “paved over” the copper was pulled

down, the substation rotarys were junked for copper and brass and the end of

a era of rational, practical, efficient transportation ended in the U.S.

“ANYBODY” would rather ride on a train or streetcar than a bus ! Ask them, they’ll

give you the “thumbs up”. Safety, Speed, Comfort, Seating, Surroundings, Thats it.

So What do you know ! The once “Largest Corporation in the World” is now in the

tank ! What do they say? “Every little Doggie has his Day”!

Too Bad, So Sad!

Maybe all the nasty, underhanded, unethical schemes they pulled years ago are

coming back to haunt. Such is the sad commentary on American Business and its

unethical practices.

Well, This is a good article about something important to our Transportation Future !

Pray for More Transportation Sanity in Congress. We’ve got good Cheerleader’s

in the Administration in Pres. O’Bama, V.P. Biden, Secr’y LaHood,Chrmn Oberstar,etc.

“Let’s get it DONE” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Passengers prefer streetcars against buses for the reasons already mentioned by other posters. One may summarize most advantages by considering that streetcars (roughly) move in one direction while buses are often forced to move quite abruptly in two.

The appeal of streetcars and light rail train to “riders by choice” (as opposed to “transit dependant” people) has been discussed many times in various websites. If there’s no electric railway available, I’ll ride a bus and not be too concerned about it, but there are some who “would rather die than take a bus to the hospital” (my ex-wife being a prime example.) As a transportation history enthusiast I even find buses interesting, especially the pre-1960 old-look models, although there may be more pre-1960 streetcars than similarly aged buses in running condition.

To someone that asked: there are several cities that have trolleybuses in the USA, Dayton, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle. There were a lot more but those were withdrawn with the same arguments that demise the streetcars: inflexible, expensive to mantain, obsolete. http://www.trolleybuses.net/index.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Line_(New_Jersey_Transit)

http://www.progressiverailroading.com (has a blog site for rail-discussions with the pros)

http://www.railwayage.com (in publication since the early 1800’s !)
http://www.transalert.com (Simmons Boardman Publishing-Railway Educational Bureau-part of RailwayAge)

http://www.railpro.co.uk (UK and European rail news)

http://www.ridethetide.com/