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If you want a system that really attracts riders and investment, many transit experts will attest that streetcars are the best dollar-for-dollar investment a city can make.
Of course, there are plenty of situations where old-fashioned bus service or newfangled bus rapid transit (which usually has dedicated lanes) are just the thing. But for cities facing a choice between building a streetcar system or high-end BRT–and the cost difference can be smaller than might think–it’s handy to know that transit riders overwhelming prefer streetcars. Well, overwhelmingly if the comments section from a recent story on this site can be taken as a fair sample. One reader posed the question, “buses or streetcars?” and the responses–from laypeople and transportation experts alike–came fast and furious. In the end, we were left with dozens of reasons why streetcars are superior, ranging from the obvious to the wonderfully creative.
As the comments added up, we became more and more intrigued. So we’ve edited the various reasons into a proper list. Did we miss anything? Do any of these not hold up? Disagree entirely? Let us know in the comments section and we’ll update the story–and the headline–as worthwhile additions come in.
- New streetcar lines always, always, get more passengers than the bus routes they replace.
- Buses, are susceptible to every pothole and height irregularity in the pavement (and in Chicago we have plenty). Streetcars ride on smooth, jointless steel rails that rarely develop bumps.
- Streetcars don’t feel “low status” to transit riders. Buses often do.
- Mapmakers almost always include streetcar lines on their city maps, and almost never put any bus route in ink. New investment follows the lines on the map.
- The upfront costs are higher for streetcars than buses–but that is more than made up over time in lower operating and maintenance costs. In transit you get what you pay for.
- There is a compelling “coolness” and “newness” factor attached to streetcars.
- Streetcars feel safer from a crime point of view.
- Steel wheel on steel rail is inherently more efficient than rubber tire on pavement. Electric streetcars can accelerate more quickly than buses.
- Streetcars don’t smell like diesel.
- Streetcars accelerate and decelerate smoothly because they’re electrically propelled. Internal-combustion engines acting through a transmission simply cannot surge with the same smoothness.
- The current length limit for a bus is 60 feet, but streetcars can go longer, since they are locked into the rails and won’t be swinging all around the streets, smashing into cars.
- Streetcars have an air of nostalgia.
- New streetcar and light rail lines usually come with an upgraded street experience from better stops, landscaping, new roadbeds, and better sidewalks, to name a few. Of course, your federal transit dollar is paying for these modernizations, so why wouldn’t cities try to get them!
- Perhaps the most over looked and significant difference between street cars and buses is permanence. You’ll notice that development will follow a train station, but rarely a bus stop. Rails don’t pick up and move any time soon. Once a trolley system is in place, business and investors can count on them for decades. Buses come and go.
- Streetcars are light and potentially 100% green. Potentially they could be powered by 100% solar and/or wind power. Even powered with regular power plant-derived electricity, they are still 95% cleaner than diesel buses. [Source? -Ed.]
- Streetcars stop less. Because of the increased infrastructure for stops, transit planners don’t place stops at EVERY BLOCK, like they do with buses (SEPTA in Philly is terrible for this). Instead, blocks are a quarter to a half mile apart, so any point is no more than an eigth to a quarter mile from a stop.
- People will travel longer distances on streetcars. At one point, in the 1930s, a person could travel to Boston from Washington solely on trolleys, with only two short gaps in the routes.
- Buses are noisy. I ride them every day in Chicago, and I am constantly amazed at how loud a diesel bus engine is–even on our latest-model buses [and] the valve chatter is an irritant to the nervous system. By comparison, streetcars are virtually silent.
- Technological advances already make the current generation definitely NOT your grandfather’s streetcar. Low floors are standard, for easy-on easy-off curbside boarding. Wide doors allow passengers to enter or exit quickly. So streetcar stops take less time than buses.
- Passengers can take comfort from seeing the rails stretching out far ahead of them, while ever fearing that the bus could take a wrong turn at the next corner and divert them off course.
- Once purchased (albeit at high cost) streetcars are cheaper to maintain and last way the hell longer (case in point, streetcars discarded in the US in the 40’s, snapped up by the Yugoslavs, which are still running).
- Streetcar tracks are cheaper to maintain than the roadways they displace.
- People get notably more excited about the proposed extension of the streetcar system and expect revitalization of the neighborhoods around the planned stops.
- Streetcars create more walkable streets. This is because streetcars, as mentioned above, are more attractive to riders than buses, which in turns prompt to more mass transit usage in general, which in turns prompts to more walking–a virtuous cycle that creates more attractive city streets.
- Most European cities and countries kept investing in public transit during the decades when America was DISinvesting. Now I look across the pond and see dozens of European cities extending or building new rail transit systems, including many streetcar lines, and conclude: ‘They probably know what they are doing; we should do some of that too.’
- You know exactly where a streetcar is going – but have you ever tried looking at a bus route map?
- Streetcars are faster than buses or trackless trolleys (aside from 2 lines in Philly, do any other cities run trackless trolleys, or trolley buses anymore?) because trams tend to have dedicated lanes. Even if they don’t, if they operate on streets with multiple lanes, people stay out of the tram lane, because it’s harder to drive a car along tram tracks (the wheels pull to one side or the other as they fall into the groove).
- In buses you’re still jostled by every pothole and sway at every bus stop. I thought bus rapid transit would be a significant improvement – there’s still a bit of sway and they concrete was not installed as smoothly as line of steel rail.
- With buses transit planners are pushed by funding formulas to capture every pocket of riders thus you can get a very wiggly route – something that’s less practical on a fixed rail system
- Buses lurch unpredictably from side to side as they weave in and out of traffic and as they move from the traffic lane to the curb lane to pick up passengers. In streetcars turns occur at the same location on every trip, so that even standees can more or less relax knowing the car is not going to perform any unpredictable lateral maneuvers.
- Most streetcar riders don’t consciously think about the differences between a bus ride and a streetcar ride. But their unconscious minds–the spinal cord, the solar plexus, the inner ear and the seat of the pants–quickly tally the differences and deliver an impressionistic conclusion: The streetcar ride is physiologically less stressful.
- An internal-combustion engine is constantly engaged in hammering itself to death and buses tend to vibrate themselves into a sort of metallurgical dishevelment. Interior fittings–window frames, handrails, floor coverings, seats–tend to work loose and make the interior look frowzy and uncared-for. By age 12 the bus is a piece of junk and has to be retired. A streetcar the same age is barely into its adolescence.
- Streetcar stops are typically given more attention than most bus routes and the information system is more advanced. In Portland, the shelters even have VMS diplays that tell you the times of the next two streetcar arrivals. This valuable information gives people the option to wait, do something else to pass the time, or walk to their destination.
- One great advantage of streetcars is that the infrastructure serves as an orienting and wayfinding device. The track alerts folks to the route and leads them to stops. Because they are a permanent feature of the streetscape, the routing is predictable and stable (unlike bus routes). So unlike a bus, a streetcar informs and helps citizens to formulate an image of their city, even if folks don’t ride it. It is a feature of their public realm. Because of this, these streets get greater public attention.
- When you ride one of the remaining historic cars in Toronto or San Francisco you can tell they’re “old” in the sense of “out of style,” but when you look around the interior everything still seems shipshape, nothing rattles, the windows open and close without binding. The rider experiences a sense of solid quality associated with Grandma’s solid-oak dining table and 1847 Rodgers Brothers silver. And that makes everybody feel good. Unlike, say, an aging bus.
- For those of you who cannot see the difference between a bus and a streetcar, I suggest riding a streetcar when you get the chance. Then, if you can locate a bus that more or less follows the same route, give that a try. Compare the two experiences.
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ALSO CHECK OUT:
AMERICA’S STREET CAR RENAISSANCE (MAP)
COMPARISON SHOPPING FOR TRANSIT (CHART)
Tags: THE RAIL WORLD
…and there would have never been a play called “A Bus Named Desire”.
[...] Originally Posted by oakparkdude Street cars are essentially the equivalent of buses. Not really. Ever been to Europe? http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009…er-than-buses/ [...]
Charlie -
“A bus named desire”? Well, that title has been used for a film and a cool album by Ashley Cleveland (check Google)
Following this debate from outside the USA (I’m in the UK), I find it fascinating to see how strongly buses are, well, hated. Here in the UK, they are used, if not always liked: the bus system in Edinburgh, Scotland carries 110m passengers per year in a population of less than half a million. Portland carried about 100m passengers per year in a population of 2m. That’s a useage rate more than 4 times as high.
Now, I know the comparison is not quite a fair one, as car ownership levels in the UK aren’t nearly as strong as the States; but even in Canada, bus and transit use rates are about twice what they are in the USA. Why?
I think the reason why buses are viewed lesser then streetcars is it dates back to school days. In fact our school buses where so packed to the gills that I wish they had BRT type double linked buses to pack the kids in more. I mean they packed them in three or four to a seat. Also once you got on to the school bus you couldn’t really move around around and if some hillbilly wanted to beat you up for the fun of it there was really nothing you could do it was like a cage for animals. So as soon as you are old enought to drive you wanted to drive and say good bye to the bus forever.
Another going angist the bus would be the Bus system in Richmond Virigina is that you don’t have a blue’s clue where it goes. Such as a example you see the bus leave VCU in downtown Richmond and across one of the James River Bridges into the suburbs and then it becomes kind of a mystery where it goes you hear legends and romors that it stops off at one of the major malls in the area or stops about a few blocks away from them but even that is unknown and you don’t find out intill you phyiscaly have to follow the bus in a car to find out where it pops out at. And some of the bus stops are in some really crazy spots such as you will see a bus stop with a roof shelter in the middle of no where with a 20 foot ledge and drop off behind it with no sidewalk acess. When you do see it pop out you have really no idea where it has been between point A and B.
Richmond Virginia used to have a streetcar system that was so big you could go from Hopewell Virginia and to Ashland Virginia with only a one city block gap between vast streetcar system with Richmond Petersburg and Richmond inbetween. Also one of the streetcar system builders had dreams of extending his system up to Fredricksburg VA which is only a few miles south of the vast Washingtion DC streetcar system at the time. But sadly we ripped it all out for a bus system that is many a mystery of where it goes.
I think it’s all about options and possibilities. No one wants to choose something that’s slow or dirty or uncomfortable. If your mode is slow, dirty or uncomfortable, then you won’t be happy. This is made worse when others have better options, because you will feel unloved, and they will look down on you. The rest (permanence, bike issues, etc) is secondary, or lower.
The reason why the situation in the US is different, is that it is so easy to own and use a car. If driving is not a good option (be it Tokyo, Riga, or NYC), then people will use transit, bus or whatever. Plus, having more people in the same situation makes everyone feel better. In Tokyo, which I know well, people don’t use buses and trains because they’re transit fanatics, but because they are more practical than driving. Parking, congestion, tolls, gas cost, all of these are important factors, much more than what anyone would ideally prefer, altruism, concern about the environment, etc. If people hate buses, it’s because they’re RELATIVELY slow, dirty, inconvenient, uncomfortable, unreliable or unsafe. If that’s their best option, then people will use it.
So, bottom line is the transit has got to make sense. More than what the vehicle looks like or what kind of wheels it has, people won’t use it unless some (not all) of these questions are answered ‘yes’:
1. Does the bus/tram/train save me time?
2. Does the bus/tram/train save me money?
3. Does the bus/tram/train save me hassle?
4. Is the bus/tram/train clean and safe?
By the way, I choose the train in LA (yes!), even though driving is faster (15-30 min vs 45). Transit doesn’t have to be absolutely cheaper or faster than driving. But it has to be close. Then, the added benefits (which are undersold) can make the difference. Examples:
1. Train is predictable (driving time is too unreliable)
2. Freedom of what to do during travel (catnap, reading, daydreaming, writing, chatting)
3. Other risks (no speeding tickets, fender benders, wear and tear on car)
In the US, if we want people to use transit (do we really?), then we must make it a better option than driving. There are many ways to do this, but all have some cost, whether financial, political or whatever. It’s not easy to change the equation, but rest assured that every bit helps. The bar need not be set so high (everyone doesn’t need to use it). Small increases in transit use result in larger reductions in congestion (and therefore pollution and energy consumption).
So, transit promoters, let’s not kneecap each other by saying one mode or another just sucks. Each transit mode has benefits, and the borderline where one should be chosen over another isn’t perfectly clear. This is a great debate, but the real question is how do we get more people out of their cars. If streetcars do that, great, but we’ll still need lots of buses, too.
And about walking (@ Greg Says, et al):
When we look back to a time when people used streetcars and walked all over downtown, that was necessity! Many didn’t have cars, stores didn’t have lots of free parking, and there wasn’t cable TV, wireless internet, X-Box or rental DVDs to hurry home to. Walking around downtown was people’s best entertainment! People spent time sitting (yes, just sitting!) on their front porches!
I love streetcars and porches as much as the next guy, but you can’t always go back to the past.
It could be very well that we could start going back into the past as a default as driving becomes far more expessive such as though rising gas prices. Another thing that is starting to happen is that many Citys live to tow you away. The City of Richmond favortie thing to do is tow people. They once had ten cop cars and ten tow trucks going along a street towing people at will. It also costs $125 to get the car out of jail. Also many of the stop lights in the suburbs and the cities keep getting harder and harder to understand. Also the Richmond City Bus system doesn’t help eather in that you don’t know where they go once they go beyound a cirtan street.
We may soon start going back in time as the Oil also runs out but many it’s the pain and cost of driving.
Woody Says:
June 4th, 2009 at 12:57 am
Peter Smith makes an excellent point about schoolbuses. That is probably where the first indelible negative impression of riding the bus is formed. We force our kids to ride ugly, ungainly, uncomfortable, graceless schoolbuses and then we act surprised that everyone thinks the bus experience is not so nice. Well, duh.
woody
school busses are meant for one thing to transport kids back and forth safely to school they don’t need to be pretty or comfortable just functional of course if you would like to increase your property taxes to give them more luxorious busses be my guest
Just a correction on the trolley bus point (#27) seattle, San Francisco, and Vancouver run trackless trolleys.
“If buses are antiquated, noisy and unpopular, we don’t need to throw them away. We need to modernize them and change peoples attitudes toward them.”
Sure. Put ‘em on rails and power them by overhead electric lines, and you’ll find people’s attitude towards them becomes much more positive.
More seriously, the key issue is exclusive right-of-way in congested areas. If buses have it, they will be perceived as “OK”. If they don’t, they’re crap and people know it.
If streetcars don’t have exclusive right-of-way in congested areas, they will be perceived as slow and unreliable. But they’ll *STILL* be more popular than comparable buses for reasons I don’t fully understand (probably ride quality).
And if you *are* building exclusive right-of-way, you *should* be putting in rails, because (1) you don’t need shoulders on rail lines, so you take up less width, (2) the rail lines can drain through, less impervious surface, (3) rail vehicles can be run as trains without fishtailing, road vehicles can’t, (4) ride quality is better, (5) electrification is easier.
As one who sold light rail transit (lrt) for over thirty years, one of the things I stressed heavily is the ability of light rail to effect land use positively. Moreover, lrt has the capability to effect sucjh land use over a very large area since the mode covers much more land area.
My concern is that an awful lot of attention is being focused on streetcars which detracts from the far more important mode, lrt. One cannot argue the benfits of streetcars as they have proven their worth time and again. But the overpowering need is for rail transit SYSTEMS that can eventually obviate the absolute need for an automobile. When one examines cities such as San Diego, Portland, and Dallas, one sees that the essentially of automobiles is being lessened which is a very good thing for our country.
>“At one point, in the 1930s, a person could travel to Boston from Washington solely on trolleys, with only two short gaps in the routes.”Really? What were the lines?<
The 2 gaps were:
1. Across the Hudson River, although you could take the Hudson & Manhattan – Port Authority Trans Hudson subway or tube, or a ferry boat operated by Public Service Railways, a New Jersey trolley company.
2. Between New Castle, Delaware and Overlea, Maryland.
To simplify a bit and skip a few mergers, bankruptcies, and other changes of names and ownerships, many of the trolley lines SouthWest of Boston ran into the City or connecte3d with the Boston city lines. Some also connected with the Rhode Island Company or the Springfield, Massachusetts city system, and both of them connected with the Connecticut Company. The intermediate lines, like Providence & Danielson or Shore Line Electric Railway, were sometimes independently owned. The Connecticut Company sometimes owned the New York & Stamford (Connecticut) Railway, which connected with New York City’s 3rd Avenue Railway System at Mount Vernon, New York. Public Service Railways of New Jersey ran across that state to Trenton, New Jersey. Torresdale, Bristol & Trenton Electric Street Railway crossed the Delaware River and connected with Philadelphia Rapid Transit lines, which connected with the Wilmington, Delaware system at Darby and Chester, Pennsylvania. That’s how you got to New Castle, Delaware. Baltimore city lines connected Overlea, a NorthEast suburb, with the Washington, Baltimore & Annapolis Electric Railway, which had its own tracks from downtown Baltimore and used the Washington city systems tracks to get downtown in the nation’s capital. In some cases, the tracks were the same, to allow through running between different companies.
2 gaps could also refer to getting between the NorthEast and the upper MidWest by trolley. You were on your own between Hoosick Falls and Troy, and between Fonda and Little Falls, New York.
#22 Streetcar tracks are cheaper to maintain than the roadways they displace.
HA HA HA What fool wrote this? Certainly nobody anywhere north of the frost line. Check out the constantly breaking up and being repaired track system in Toronto. No the tracks don’t break its just that the ties holding them move and the concrete surrounding them moves (heaves in winter). You have to see the repair job to believe it. No way is this cheaper. Maybe in San Diego but not in the north. Great way to spend money though – banksters will love ya fer that!
Also, can anyone tell us how many cyclists and motorcyclists DIE each year trying to cross the tracks?
Like John says, this is just a fad.
The best system is one that was torn out of Hamilton ages ago – two wire electric buses. Most of the advantages listed but much more traffic friendly and no extra track costs.
Interesting…
Busses and trolleys are different and either mode is more appropriate under certain circumstances. Sometimes bus lines can be used to “preview” a trolley line before the investment can be made in the more permanent mode.
I have ridden great bus lines in Dijon, France and I have been very frustrated at times with the subways in NYC (I never in 8-months tried a bus there cause they didn’t fascinate me). However I am a rail enthusiast. There is something about vehicles which ride upon a mechanically-fixed course…on a track like a train or a rollercoaster. The vehicle which must stay on a track is simply more fascinating to me. Track-bound vehicles also seem to take up less space because they cannot swerve. Only once has there ever been a serious subway crash in NYC (in the 20s or 30s I think…see the book “722 Miles”).
Trolleys definitely do enhance the street experience for pedestrians too (as stated in the list). They do engender a sense of place and they help to orient me directionally. I experienced this in San Jose, CA, and Portland, OR this summer. Then I returned to Pittsburgh and had my eardrums damaged by a passing Port Authority bus.
Again, sometimes trolleys are appropriate, sometimes busses are, and sometimes automobiles are. DON’T FORGET THAT BUILDING WALKABLE NEIGHBORHOODS SHOULD BE OUR FIRST CONCERN!
Nice collection of opinions. I agree with ‘em myself. Two links come to mind: Wm. Lind’s article in The Conservative American that is pro transit (but anti-bus): http://t.co/oSrAbIw
And then the film “Taken for a Ride” on the organized destruction of streetcar companies in the US and their replacement by buses and the rise of the highway lobby: http://culturechange.org/issue10/taken-for-a-ride.htm
(it was available on youtube until last week, but now seemingly gone).
Cambridge, Watertown, and Belmont, MA all have trolleybuses. The 71 along Mt. Auburn St., the 72 along Concord and Huron Aves., the 73 along Belmont St., and the 77A along Mass. Ave. I think they’re actually better than streetcars (just as efficient, surprisingly faster compared to the HORRIBLE green line, and more flexible, as in regular buses can run if they ever need to repave [which they often do in Cambridge
])
I remember growing up in Baltimore, Md. as the streetcars ended their era. On Belair road whenever one would past the air would be electrically ionized. I don’t know if it affected the ozone layer, back then we (The common middle class) didn’t know about the ozone. I do remember how good I felt when this occured. Later on; especially during the winter; I would breath in the busses diesel fumes and almost vomit from the smell. If anything, electric transportation may be cleaner. But, will it also increase the ozone layer’s depleation? Which is worst?
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Although I want Cincinnati to install a streetcar, one of the advantages you named might be a disadvantage for us. You noted that the route is very regular. What about police blocking the street, water main breaks, or snow? We get twitter updates when the bus has to detour, but would streetcars have that flexibility?
Here’s 19 reasons why streetcars have limitations that make them slightly less than the greatest invention ever, and why bus transit shouldn’t be so eagerly pooh-poohed.
1. Streetcars will never be able to go as many places as buses do.
2. Streetcars offer no comparable level of service to match the smaller, 20 and 30 seat shuttle buses that are widely used around UC, by the Access sytem, etc.
3. Streetcars get old, too. Their brakes get squeaky. Their rides can become herky-jerky. Just like any train. Anybody who has ridden aboard Chicago’s “el” train can testify. “Modernizing” an aging streetcar system costs a fortune — look at San Diego.
4. Double-decker buses in London are cool. Old-style wheeled trolleys are quaint. Brand new standard buses look just as sleek and cool and modern as streetcars.
5. Mapmakers also may not put bus routes on maps because their routes are so much more diverse and spider-like and extensive compared to streetcars. And you forgot to mention that those maps DO show the roads that buses use.
6. Commuter bus lines from “safe” neighborhoods to “safe” working centers feel quite safe.
7. Buses don’t have to run on diesel. They can use electric motors — even overhead electric wires. Many did back in the old days of this city.
8. Old clunky streetcars that go years without repainting or even washing can look just as ugly as old clunky buses. Just look at those old grainy shots of streetcars from the 1930s. Maintenence is everything!
10.Streetcars accelerate and decelerate smoothly because they’re electrically propelled. Subways also are electriclly propelled. And in many cases you better hold on, because starting and stopping isn’t smooth at all.
11. Mosdest sized buses can serve places that would have very difficult times filling up 100-person streetcars.
12. New streetcar stops won’t stay new. They aren’t any more immune from grafiti and vandalism than any other public property. And upkeep is just as exposed to budget cutting as anything else.
13. Yes bus routes can be changed more easily than streetcar routes. But in point of fact, the most heavily used bus routes don’t change very much at all. Many bus stops in Cincinnati have been at the exact same locations for decades.
14. Rapid Bus Transit and Express commuter bus routes can move fast by limiting stops, too. But that eats away at their local convenience.
15. People travel all the way from Kings Island to downtown Cincinnati by bus, every day. And they ride Greayhound all over this nation to thousands of destinations — espeically rural stops — that will NEVER be served by any form of passenger rail.
16. There’s no reason at all that major stops along a bus system cannot use the modern card-swiping pre-pay systems that streetcars brag about.
17. Bus transit allows many, many more nodes of walkable areas than streetcars ever will. Look at how many little neighborhood squares and old main street areas exist in Cincinnati — Hyde Park, Mount Lookout, Oakley, Madisonville, Price Hill, Northside, etc. And lots of village squares outside the city — Wyoming, Mariemont, etc., etc. Very, very few of those will ever see a streetcar. Nearly all of them have bus service.
18. Streetcar maps are simple because they don’t go very many places. Bus maps are complex because they actually take people where they choose to live.
19. There’s no reason not to make bus stops more user-friendly. The reason they aren’t is more about lack of planning and lack of funding than anything inherient to buses using wheels. And all those pretty computer screens break down sooner or later. But no city anywhere ever pays as much attention to maintaining the old versus fawning over the new.
Oh yeah…one more (two part) point.
Bus routes can and certainly have spurred development in our city. And that fact raises issues about how much of the hoped-for new development spurred by streetcars will be welcomed.
Take a walk through any older city neighborhood. Look at all those four-plexes and eight-plexes plunked right down in the middle of nice streets of houses. Those nasty brick boxes that often tried for a bit of art deco style but failed.
Every one of those apartments was/is located within walking distance of a bus line. (or a streetcar line if they are old enough in a few places) Many, many ads for those apartments specifically said then — and still say now — how close they are to bus transit.
Has anybody ever counted up how many millions of dollars of investment those places reflect?
And how many folks feel that those apartment boxes were positive developments? They used to be called block-busters, didn’t they? And how many streets of homeowners watched their property values vanish because of those things?
Now, jump to right now. AReas near UC are seeing a fair amount of new infill development. Yet the criticisms of that development are intense. People are howling about how ugly the new developments are compared to the nice old houses.
Does anybody seriously think that the “new” development spurred by the streetcar in OTR won’t be similar to those old block-busters or the new infill scandals? I have a strong feeling that a whole bunch of the new development that actually does get inspired by the streetcar will be opposed vigorously by various urban interest groups — including anti-gentrification folks, historic preservation folks and architectural design enthusiasts.
Yet if the people who want high standards for new development actually win the day, then lots of that hoped-for new development will be chased away. Be careful what you wish for.
Quikboy wrote:
>>>Barely anyone likes to walk or bike here [Houston] because of the city’s low-density nature.
But then Quikboy also wrote:
>>>I’d use it [MetroRail] all the time if I didn’t live in the suburbs.
Which is probably where Quikboy’s misconceptions come from. Houston is really three cities, and the transit system is geared towards that.
Houston inside the loop is as walkable and bikeable a place as you’ll find anywhere. I’ve lived in both cities, and I’ve lived -carfree- in both cities, and the density and scale of places like the Montrose, Heights, Third Ward, and Rice Village is every bit as urban as transit-and-bike-mecca Portland, Oregon. Actually, inner Houston is somewhat denser than Portland; since there’s no zoning, you get all these quirky one-off condo projects, whereas Portland just blankets the city in an R5 zone to “preserve” bungalow neighborhoods from any new development except in small, specially-designated corridors.
It’s this denser-and-more-bikeable-than-Portland core where Houston is building all of their LRT lines, forgoing easy alignments like old railroad grades for relatively-more-expensive street running along major boulevards. The whole thing is basically an express, urban streetcar – which is fantastic.
The Houston city limits outside the loop mostly date to the mid 20th century, so you lose the hip, “urban” vibe in favor of stripmalls and six lane arterials. But this is not a low-density sprawl; since there’s no zoning, outer Houston city is full of affordable apartment complexes. The densest census tract in 2000 was in Sharpstown, in a neighborhood of garden apartments and 50′s/60′s ranchers.
Because it’s so dense, and because the affordable housing attracts upwardly-mobile immigrants, Houston outside the loop is in some ways more transit-oriented than it is inside. At any time of day you’re just as apt to see a latino cyclist on Hillcroft then a white hipster cyclist on Heights. Major bus routes like the 81 and 25 run half-full inside the loop, only filling up as they enter the dense morass of “auto oriented” apartments, retail, and office blocks that populate the outer reaches of Houston city.
And it’s in this sprawling, vibrant mass of humanity where Houston is implementing it’s version of BRT, “Quickline” and “Swiftline” routes with limited stops to ferry riders efficiently between major employment centers and crosstown bus connections. This is also where Houston runs a gigantic network of “limited” buses, trips that run local in the sprawl and then switch to the HOV lane for the trip downtown. These quasi-express routes are some of the most packed in the system.
Finally, there is the outer ring of Houston, which is mostly unincorporated Harris county and surrounding areas. The Houston metro outside Beltway 8 is as autocentric as any place you’ll find. Deed-restricted subdivisions limit everything from residential density to the color of brick and signage on stripcenters. Master-planned communities of meandering collector streets defy easy understanding by nonresidents, and long distances make nonrecreational walking and cycling impractical.
And it’s out in this region where Houston sends its premium-priced express buses. Outer Houston sprawls well beyond the Metro service area, so Metro-run expresses to places like Kingwood and Katy and Cy-Fair mix it up with the Woodlands Express buses to the development of the same and the TREK buses to Fort Bend County.
These services don’t really promote “sustainable,” walkable mixed-use development – but they do make maximum use of the city’s highway infrastructure, and they help stem the flight of jobs and employment centers to the outer reaches. All the places these buses end up are also served by a dense web of local routes, most by limiteds, and a majority by planned or under construction LRT lines.
Houston was but a small ‘burg before the advent of cheap A/C made its summers bearable, so it missed out on the first transit-building boom entirely. The original streetcar network was limited in scope and slow in speed – Galveston and Baytown interurbans excepted – and the tracks were gone by the 30′s. It’s thus pointless to compare Houston’s transport infrastructure with cities like Philadelphia, which have done little more than perform minimal maintenence on infrastructure which the Reading and Pennsylvania Railroads constructed a century ago. And when you subtract out the cities with legacy systems, a different picture emerges.
Houston’s transport network is one of the most well-tailored, thoroughly-thought-out networks to be found anywhere. No money has been wasted building LRT extensions to nowhere simply because there was an abandoned right-of-way available. The trains have been put where they’ll serve the most people, with a smorgasbord of different bus options to serve the rest of the city. The next phase, once LRT connects the major inner-loop destinations, will be commuter rail.
Moreover, this system has been constructed in the face of incredible political adversity. When Delay and the GOP defunded the first LRT line, Houston came up with the money on its own – without federal assistance. When a previous city administration forced Metro to “return” 25% of its sales tax revenues to the general fund, they soldiered on, and built one of the leanest and most efficient bus systems in Texas, ranked at or near the top for several years now. Just recently, the feds killed Houston’s attempt to acquire Spanish-engineered rail vehicles for its extensions – they would’ve been the first 100% low-floor LRVs in America.
I can understand if out-of-towners want to drop generalizations about the City of Screw. They haven’t been, and they don’t understand. But a Houstonian? Perhaps Quikboy needs to move his ass out of the suburbs, stop listening to his complainy-face neighbors who’ve never even ridden a Metro bus or train, and experience what life is like inside the Loop. It just might surprise the guy.
I am willing to bet that very few of the people boasting about how wonderful streetcars are in comparison to buses, have never relied on a streetcar for day to day travel on a deadline. Or you have taken the “trolley” in a touristy fashion to travel during your leisure time, or you think somehow they are aesthetically pleasing in a quaint way.
I have relied on buses, subways, and streetcars during most of my adult life to get to and from work in downtown Toronto. Let me tell you, streetcars are fine – as long as you don’t require them for regular and reliable travel.
1. They tend to stop permanently when their tracks are obstructed – in contrast a bus can go around and accident
2. They halt 2 lanes of traffic when they stop unless you have dedicated infrastructure in the form of a lane specifically taken up by the streetcar. As such you reduce the availability of the particular road (often a major artery) to other vehicles, thereby aggravating congestion.
3. The constant repair and replacement of streetcar tracks becomes ridiculously expensive when it happens once every 5-10 years, and often done with union labor; but I’m thinking that’s an undiscussed benefit in some people’s books.
4. The tracks are a hazard to every other vehicle on the road. These tracks can damage cars driving over them, are downright dangerous to cyclists, and I’m sure wheelchair users are not fond of them.
5. They require a dedicated and inflexible implementation. You cannot adjust the route as needed, you need several months etc, to plan then wait while city workers lay out new track.
6. The piercing noise of metal on metal wheels to tracks is far more obtrusive than a bus engine, while the engine might be louder, it’s a dull noise that fades into the background.
I could go on, but I’m sure I’ve already repeated many arguments listed here. I don’t hate streetcars, but I see a lot of arguments here in favor that seem rather naive so I figure that some of you need to be warned of some of the problems with this mode of transport before you try to push your local politicians to get an LRT. They are “charming” and “quaint” and add so much “character”….until you rely on them…then you want to strangle the person that invented them. Picture being late for work while watching the streetcar you are riding not be able to weave around an accident, but at least you will have company, the other 5 streetcars behind you will also be filled with people also late.
Jason said “I am willing to bet that very few of the people boasting about how wonderful streetcars are in comparison to buses, have never relied on a streetcar for day to day travel on a deadline. Or you have taken the “trolley” in a touristy fashion to travel during your leisure time, or you think somehow they are aesthetically pleasing in a quaint way. I have relied on buses, subways, and streetcars during most of my adult life to get to and from work in downtown Toronto. Let me tell you, streetcars are fine – as long as you don’t require them for regular and reliable travel. They are “charming” and “quaint” and add so much “character”….until you rely on them…then you want to strangle the person that invented them. Picture being late for work while watching the streetcar you are riding not be able to weave around an accident, but at least you will have company, the other 5 streetcars behind you will also be filled with people also late.”
I cannot disagree more. I rely on the College streetcar (Toronto) to get to work myself as I have for 10 years, and I have had very few problems with it. Now to debunk some of his ridiculous points.
1. Not a problem with the streetcar itself. The problem here is the irresponsible motorist/cyclist/pedestrian who caused the accident in the first place.
2. Buses are no better. Unless parking rules and/or intersection bypass lanes dictate otherwise, buses cannot pull over to the curb properly and the ass-end of the bus juts out into traffic, clogging up the whole street. Dedicated rights-of-way do not increase congestion as a portion of would-be car traffic is shifted to transit.
3. This perennial construction is specific to Toronto. From the 1960s onwards the TTC built very sloppy track in anticipation of the abandonment of the streetcar system. Although the SAP was reversed in 1972, the TTC didn’t return to its original track specifications. New cars delivered in 1979-81 were designed for eventual use on high-speed suburban LRT routes and thus had very heavy trucks which completely destroyed the track structure, among other factors. The TTC’s much-improved track construction methods are expected to last 40 years.
4. How is it even remotely possible that the tracks could damage cars? Fair point about cyclists but that’s a problem with the lack of infrastructure to support them.
5. The last time a streetcar route was changed was in 1955 when the Queensway was built. Rail transit tends to be used on trunk routes that would not need to be changed. That’s why streetcars/LRT are built. Try a few months every 40 years.
6. This is absolutely dead wrong. I’m not sure where this ridiculous notion came from. Take it from me, someone who lives right next to a 24-hour streetcar route. There is almost no noise at all, and what little noise there is fades away rapidly. There is no “piercing sound” of steel on steel unless a turn is being made (and that is rare). As for riding the vehicle, streetcars are extremely smooth and exceptionally quiet. Buses, especially low-floor models, rattle and vibrate so much you’d think parts would fall off at regular intervals. Plus, there’s the loud, constant roar of the engine to contend with.
Now for a few of my own points:
7. Streetcars are safer than buses. The smoother ride and acceleration means passengers are thrown around less. I once broke my wrist after crashing into the wall of a turning bus, turning, I might add, at exceptionally high speeds. Buses are more likely to get into accidents due to their erratic movements. Notice how streetcars are guided…..yeah… Despite the beef you might have with boarding in the middle of the street and potentially getting hit by a car, remember that it’s the motorist’s fault for speeding right by the stop signs on the doors.
8. Streetcars are faster than buses. Why are you snickering? They are! When the TTC’s Dupont streetcar was converted to bus operation, scheduled speed dropped 15%. The buses simply could not keep up. End of story.
9. Streetcars carry more people. The streetcar:bus ratio is roughly 2:3. Let me put it this way: 60 streetcars are scheduled to be in service on King street, 30 East and 30 West. To provide equal capacity with buses, 90 vehicles would be required. The TTC would love to add more vehicles to King, but there’s a reason they don’t: bunching. Bunching sets in if there are too many vehicles. Can you imagine how bad bunching would be if another 30 vehicles were added to the street? This makes for unreliable service and increased congestion, plus there’s the additional cost of paying 30 more drivers.
10. Streetcars are cheaper. While the vehicles cost more up front, each vehicle can last up to 50 years if properly maintained. Some of Milan’s streetcars are approaching 90 years old! Toronto’s current fleet of streetcars dates to 1977-1983, and every car save for 1 is still running, whereas buses from the same era were scrapped long ago. Modern buses are built with a tubular, lightweight frame that is extremely susceptible to corrosion and rot, thus buses are now only lasting 10-12 years before they need to be removed from service. Therefore you would need a greater number of buses in total. Let’s compare a fleet of 200 streetcars and 200 buses. We’ll assume each streetcar cost $1 million and each bus costs $750,000. We’ll throw in another $150 million for streetcar infrastructure. That’s $350 million for streetcars and $150 million for buses. Let’s assume streetcars and infrastructure last 40 years, and buses last 10 years. That’s an additional $100 million every 10 years. At the end of the observation period, the total cost of the bus fleet will have been $600 million, just under twice the cost of the streetcar fleet, and that doesn’t include the fact that more buses would be needed for equivalent capacity and the cost of fuel which will only continue to rise.
While streetcars definitely have their problems, they’re not nearly as bad as Jason makes them out to be. I hope everyone understands that.
I found this list of advantages and disadvantages on the Wikipedia article about trams. This article has a few ideas that we have not talked about so far.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram
Advantages
• Unlike buses, but like trolleybuses, (electric) trams give off no exhaust emissions at point of use. Compared to motorbuses the noise of trams is generally perceived to be less disturbing. However, the use of solid axles with wheels fixed to them causes slippage between wheels and tracks when negotiating curves. This produces a characteristic squeal.
• They can use overhead wire set to be shared with trolleybuses (a three wire system).
• Trams can adapt to the number of passengers by adding more cars during rush hour (and removing them during off-peak hours). No additional driver is then required for the trip in comparison to buses.
• In general, trams provide a higher capacity service than buses.
• Multiple entrances allow trams to load faster than suburban coaches, which tend to have a single entrance. This, combined with swifter acceleration and braking, lets trams maintain higher overall speeds than buses, if congestion allows.
• The trams’ stops in the street are easily accessible, unlike stations of subways and commuter railways placed underground (with several escalators, stairways etc.) or in the outskirts of the city center.
• Rights-of-way for trams are narrower than for buses. This saves valuable space in cities with high population densities and/or narrow streets.
• Trams can trackshare with mainline railways, servicing smaller towns without requiring special track as in Stadtbahn Karlsruhe and at greater speed than buses.
• Passenger comfort is normally superior to buses because of controlled acceleration and braking and curve easement. Rail transport such as used by trams provides a smoother ride than road use by buses.
• Because the tracks are visible, it is easy for potential riders to know where the routes are.
• Because trams run on rails, the ride is far more comfortable than that of a rubber-tyred bus. Blemishes in the road surface are far less noticeable.
• Vehicles run more efficiently and overall operating costs are lower.
• Trams can run on renewable electricity without the need for very expensive and short life batteries.
• Consistent market research and experience over the last 50 years in Europe and North America shows that car commuters are willing to transfer some trips to rail-based public transport but not to buses. Typically light rail systems attract between 30 and 40% of their patronage from former car trips. Rapid transit bus systems attract less than 5% of trips from cars, less than the variability of traffic.
Disadvantages
• Tram infrastructure (such as island platforms) occupies urban space at ground-level, sometimes to the exclusion of other users, including cars.
• The capital cost is higher than for buses, even though a tramcar usually has a much longer lifetime than a bus.
• Trams can cause speed reduction for other transport modes (buses, cars) when stops in the middle of the road do not have pedestrian refuges, as in such configurations other traffic cannot pass whilst passengers alight or board the tram.
• When operated in mixed traffic, trams are more likely to be delayed by disruptions in their lane. Buses, by contrast, can sometimes manoeuver around obstacles. Opinions differ on whether the deference that drivers show to trams—a cultural issue that varies by country—is sufficient to counteract this disadvantage.
• Tram tracks can be hazardous for cyclists, as bikes, particularly those with narrow tyres, may get their wheels caught in the track grooves. It is possible to close the grooves of the tracks on critical sections by rubber profiles that are pressed down by the wheelflanges of the passing tram but that cannot be lowered by the weight of a cyclist. If not well-maintained, however, these lose their effectiveness over time.
• When wet, tram tracks tend to become slippery and thus dangerous for bicycles and motorcycles, especially in traffic. In some cases, even cars can be affected.
• Steel wheel trams are noisier than rubber-wheeled buses or trolleybuses when cornering if there are no additional measures taken (e.g. greasing wheel flanges, which is standard in new-built systems). In older trams, the wheels are fixed onto axles so they have to rotate together, but going around curves, one wheel or the other has to slip, and that causes loud unpleasant squeals. A related improvement is rubber isolation between the wheel disc and the rim, as used on Boston (Massachusetts, U.S.) Green Line 3400 and 3600 series cars. These cars are much quieter than those with solid metal wheels. (This construction requires a flexible cable to electrically connect the tire to the wheel body.)
• Trams usually have less effective suspension systems than buses, which tends to negate the ride quality benefits of steel rails.
• The opening of new tram and light rail systems has sometimes been accompanied by a marked increase in car accidents, as a result of drivers’ unfamiliarity with the physics and geometry of trams.[40] Though such increases may be temporary, long-term conflicts between motorists and light rail operations can be alleviated by segregating their respective rights-of-way and installing appropriate signage and warning systems.
• Rail transport can expose neighbouring populations to moderate levels of low-frequency noise. However, transportation planners use noise mitigation strategies to minimize these effects. Most of all, the potential for decreased private motor vehicle operations along the trolley’s service line because of the service provision could result in lower ambient noise levels than without.
• In the event of a breakdown or accident, or even roadworks and maintenance, a whole section of the tram network can be blocked. Buses and trolleybuses can often get past minor blockages, although trolleybuses are restricted by how far they can go from the wires. Conventional buses can divert around major blockages as well, as can most modern trolleybuses that are fitted with auxiliary engines or traction batteries. The tram blockage problem can be mitigated by providing regular crossovers so a tram can run on the opposite line to pass a blockage, although this can be more difficult when running on road sections shared with other road users. On extensive networks diversionary routes may be available depending on the location of the blockage. Breakdown related problems can be reduced by minimising the situations where a tram would be stuck on route, as well as making it as simple as possible for another tram to rescue a failed one.
[...] Streetcars Are Better Than Buses – Infrastructurist.com By admin 09/06/11 Check out 36 Reasons Streetcars Are Better Than Buses – nice piece from Infrastructurist.com. My favorite reason – “unlike a bus, a [...]
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[...] large urban areas, streetcars are by far “the people’s choice,” you’ll find generally. In The Infrastructurist blog, for instance, in “36 Reasons Streetcars Are Better Than Buses,” read the [...]
@Madam_S, May 18, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Well said. Every transit technology has its advantages and disadvantages. It’s better for policy makers and voters to specify the level of service desired an financial restrictions and then let engineers see what technology is most cost effective to serve those needs.
What really matters to transit riders are the practical aspects of the service- reliability, frequency, effective speed including delays, and user costs. The main determinant of these parameters is the quality of the right of way and stop spacing, not whether the vehicle runs on steel or rubber tyres.
It is very well possible to build a bus rapid transit system that has a smooth, unobstructed right of way, with full signal timing so it never hits a red light, running on electricity. How much would it cost? I don’t know, but transportation professionals should.