Streetcar resurgence USA?

[Swadian Hardcore]

I looked through the Los Angeles transit map since I may be visiting LA in the near future. This is a quick plan I thought of to solve the Orange Lines problems:

1. Launch a new Rapid route running North Hollywood-Warner Center. Basically this will use exisiting Orange Line equipment and infrastructure rebranded into Metro Rapid. This would be different from the 750 running further south on Ventura and take care of local traffic in the area.

2. Launch an Express running Downtown LA-Chatsworth on the US 101 (Hollywood Freeway) and California 118. This will divert through passengers from Downtown LA riding to Chatsworth, which right now probably ride the Red Line then the Orange Line.

3. Launch an Express running Downtown LA-Warner Center which will take care of through passengers to Warner Center. They can also connect to the 161 for coninuation to Thousand Oaks.

That's the best plan I could think of in a few minutes that will use minimal new resourses. Los Angeles has a huge freeway network, so might as well make a bunch of Metro Expresses to run on them. Congestion issues could be solved with a bus lane as as far as the junction of Hollywood and Ventura Freeways. This bus lane would get more use if another Metro Express was to be started running Downtown LA-Sylmar Station.

 

[Anderson]

I would really like to see more trackless trolley BRT using bi-artic buses. Make them high-floor with ADA-compliant high-level platforms. That should be a great cheap alternative to light rail.

Except for the fact that it would cost *more* than light rail, provide lower capacity, require vehicle replacement more often, require roadbed replacement more often, and provide a bumpier ride...

This is why BRT gets a bad name. Buses are simply not a substitute for trains. Buses are great in their own niche -- which is relatively low-capacity. Once you need high capacity, you want to articulate... and double-articulate... and triple-articulate... and then it becomes cheapest to just assemble a train. If you're going to create exclusive right-of-way, trains take *narrower right-of-way* than buses, making for *cheaper bridges*, *cheaper tunnels*, etc. This has been discovered in every busway project ever done -- they cost more than comparable railway projects.

Trains are a high-capacity solution for high-demand corridors. Buses are a lower-capacity solution for lower-demand corridors. Use the right tech for the right purpose. Austin, TX didn't need a passenger rail line meandering around the unpopulated outer edges of town, and nobody needs a busway on their biggest most busy commuter corridor.

I see your point, but with most American cities using a grid system, it's hard to find just the right corridor for high-capacity service. When there is huge demand, a heavy rail mainline is often better to serve it. Buses are good for those large grid cities that have a lot of straight, parallel routes to cover and not really any major lines. For example, in Chicago, the L radiates from the city center to serve high-demand commuters, while each bus route covers its own straight street in the grid. This prevents the buses from being too overcrowded because someone can just take the other parallel bus on the next street.

This is where streetcars can really shine. Because they are compact (sometimes smaller than a bus) and capable of tight turns (tighter than LRT if using just one vehicle body), they can often mix with regular traffic without much impact. Also, because of their slow speeds and smaller size, they can react more like a bus stopping for traffic (meaning better collision avoidance) where LRT is more like an actual train (something both citizens and city planners in Texas failed to realize when they put LRT right through the middle of dense city traffic corridors). hboy: Streetcars are highly successful when its understood their key purpose is to provide expanded options for pedestrians, NOT DRIVERS! Streetcars allow those on foot to travel a little further, a little faster, a little easier than if they were just walking. This allows already walkable areas to be expanded and connect immediately adjacent high density residential to commercial centers or nearby transit hubs. Streetcars (and cable cars and trams) can do this much more efficiently than a bus, however because of their speed, they are terrible replacements for mainline innercity buses or private vehicles on distances of more than a few blocks. Anyone who thinks streetcars are the answer to getting people to abandon their cars clearly doesn't understand transit dynamics.

But because streetcars and LRT are essentially related, if not the same solution being applied to two distinct problems, you can combine both into one system (as Atlanta seems to want to do). So Just because a streecar slows to pedestrain speed in walkable downtown areas, that doesn't mean it can't speed up a notch or two when outside that area.

What I'm trying to say is this. Classic old school transportation planning thought like this when it came to public transportation. You have a backbone system, say a metro or urban rail system covering several blocks if not tens of blocks between stations. Then you make every one of those stations a mini hub and have buses (or streectacrs if you like) radiating out of those hubs and stopping at every block. So the theory goes people hop on the bus or streetcar at the nearest opportunity, ride to the nearest mini hub, then take the metro to the mini-hub closest to where they want to go and then hop on an another bus. So three rides for one journey. In a mega city you can even increase that by having a a super metro overlaying the metro, again only serving every 10th stop or so, so adding even more changes of mode. If you want to consider the NEC one mega city, the Acela is the next level up on that.

But now moving down again to a city that has only two levels, say buses and a metro, and most large cities in the US are in that category, more or less. An LRT can under conditions do the job of a metro if traffic is not too high. And a streetcar can do the job of a bus. But as I said before, they are more or less the same technology. So why force passengers to change at the hub? This is the real beauty of streetcar / LRT when done properly. A stop at every block local can suddenly switch tracks and become an express before going back to being a local.

My observation is this. A lot of people ride long distances on buses, even though they could save minutes by getting of at the first hubm catching a metro, and maybe getting back onto the same bus route afterwards, but being one bus ahead. But they don't. For many people having a seat and staying there is worth more than that slightly extra speed and those minutes. And with more people getting older, this is going to increase. But we can at the same time make that streetcar more attractive by letting it do the job of the metro on those in-between sections. Or having alteernati services be fast or slow or something like that. The details have to be taylored for the individual circumstances and travel patterns.

I agree with this. I would rather ride the same vehicle in the same seat than transfer to save a trivial amount of time. But for express and local LRT/streecars on the same line would require four-track rights-of-way, and I don't know if much of those have existed. Buses can kinda do it if they have a dedicated wide busway or with intercity buses on the expressway. Some buses exit the expressway to stop, which others drive right past. It dosen't work in the city because the buses would get clogged up by traffic anyway.

LA Metro didn't either, The Orange line exceeded passenger volume expectations from the first day. They run jam packed most of the day. They are now building an about 4 mile extension. They have looked into buys buses that are 15 to 30% larger and are running them in small packs at rush hour.

In short, the Orange Line needed to be a rail line, because it's exceeding the capacity of buses.

LA had a long and deranged political history which prevented the Orange Line from being a rail line like the Blue and Gold and Expo lines. It is a history which other cities would do well to avoid. (Toronto seems to be repeating that history.)

The Orange Line is a story of buses sucking.

If you want a "success story" for "BRT", you would do much better to look at LA's "Metro Rapid" system, which has won universal acclaim and is "sized right" for the demand -- rail would be overkill on most of these corridors (apart from Wilshire, where they're building the subway).

Looking at the ridership figures, I see that the Silver Line is just right for an artic bus route but the Orange Line has so much demand they should have just made in an extension of the Red Line. they could have made it a kind of surface metro like the BMT Brighton Line or the IRT Dyre Avenue Line in New York.

IIRC, the Orange Line was hamstrung by federal funding rules. Mind you, in theory LA could have just blown the Feds a raspberry and worked something out with the state...but it's not too common to see a project both constructed and operated with only state/local cash.

 

[RRUserious]

"Portland, WA"? Never heard of that town.

It's right across the river from Vancouver, OR. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Here's someone who has watched too much Portlandia and lost his mind!

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I would really like to see more trackless trolley BRT using bi-artic buses. Make them high-floor with ADA-compliant high-level platforms. That should be a great cheap alternative to light rail.

Except for the fact that it would cost *more* than light rail, provide lower capacity, require vehicle replacement more often, require roadbed replacement more often, and provide a bumpier ride...

This is why BRT gets a bad name. Buses are simply not a substitute for trains. Buses are great in their own niche -- which is relatively low-capacity. Once you need high capacity, you want to articulate... and double-articulate... and triple-articulate... and then it becomes cheapest to just assemble a train. If you're going to create exclusive right-of-way, trains take *narrower right-of-way* than buses, making for *cheaper bridges*, *cheaper tunnels*, etc. This has been discovered in every busway project ever done -- they cost more than comparable railway projects.

Trains are a high-capacity solution for high-demand corridors. Buses are a lower-capacity solution for lower-demand corridors. Use the right tech for the right purpose. Austin, TX didn't need a passenger rail line meandering around the unpopulated outer edges of town, and nobody needs a busway on their biggest most busy commuter corridor.

I see your point, but with most American cities using a grid system, it's hard to find just the right corridor for high-capacity service. When there is huge demand, a heavy rail mainline is often better to serve it. Buses are good for those large grid cities that have a lot of straight, parallel routes to cover and not really any major lines. For example, in Chicago, the L radiates from the city center to serve high-demand commuters, while each bus route covers its own straight street in the grid. This prevents the buses from being too overcrowded because someone can just take the other parallel bus on the next street.

This is where streetcars can really shine. Because they are compact (sometimes smaller than a bus) and capable of tight turns (tighter than LRT if using just one vehicle body), they can often mix with regular traffic without much impact. Also, because of their slow speeds and smaller size, they can react more like a bus stopping for traffic (meaning better collision avoidance) where LRT is more like an actual train (something both citizens and city planners in Texas failed to realize when they put LRT right through the middle of dense city traffic corridors). hboy: Streetcars are highly successful when its understood their key purpose is to provide expanded options for pedestrians, NOT DRIVERS! Streetcars allow those on foot to travel a little further, a little faster, a little easier than if they were just walking. This allows already walkable areas to be expanded and connect immediately adjacent high density residential to commercial centers or nearby transit hubs. Streetcars (and cable cars and trams) can do this much more efficiently than a bus, however because of their speed, they are terrible replacements for mainline innercity buses or private vehicles on distances of more than a few blocks. Anyone who thinks streetcars are the answer to getting people to abandon their cars clearly doesn't understand transit dynamics.

But because streetcars and LRT are essentially related, if not the same solution being applied to two distinct problems, you can combine both into one system (as Atlanta seems to want to do). So Just because a streecar slows to pedestrain speed in walkable downtown areas, that doesn't mean it can't speed up a notch or two when outside that area.

What I'm trying to say is this. Classic old school transportation planning thought like this when it came to public transportation. You have a backbone system, say a metro or urban rail system covering several blocks if not tens of blocks between stations. Then you make every one of those stations a mini hub and have buses (or streectacrs if you like) radiating out of those hubs and stopping at every block. So the theory goes people hop on the bus or streetcar at the nearest opportunity, ride to the nearest mini hub, then take the metro to the mini-hub closest to where they want to go and then hop on an another bus. So three rides for one journey. In a mega city you can even increase that by having a a super metro overlaying the metro, again only serving every 10th stop or so, so adding even more changes of mode. If you want to consider the NEC one mega city, the Acela is the next level up on that.

But now moving down again to a city that has only two levels, say buses and a metro, and most large cities in the US are in that category, more or less. An LRT can under conditions do the job of a metro if traffic is not too high. And a streetcar can do the job of a bus. But as I said before, they are more or less the same technology. So why force passengers to change at the hub? This is the real beauty of streetcar / LRT when done properly. A stop at every block local can suddenly switch tracks and become an express before going back to being a local.

My observation is this. A lot of people ride long distances on buses, even though they could save minutes by getting of at the first hubm catching a metro, and maybe getting back onto the same bus route afterwards, but being one bus ahead. But they don't. For many people having a seat and staying there is worth more than that slightly extra speed and those minutes. And with more people getting older, this is going to increase. But we can at the same time make that streetcar more attractive by letting it do the job of the metro on those in-between sections. Or having alteernati services be fast or slow or something like that. The details have to be taylored for the individual circumstances and travel patterns.

I agree with this. I would rather ride the same vehicle in the same seat than transfer to save a trivial amount of time. But for express and local LRT/streecars on the same line would require four-track rights-of-way, and I don't know if much of those have existed. Buses can kinda do it if they have a dedicated wide busway or with intercity buses on the expressway. Some buses exit the expressway to stop, which others drive right past. It dosen't work in the city because the buses would get clogged up by traffic anyway.

LA Metro didn't either, The Orange line exceeded passenger volume expectations from the first day. They run jam packed most of the day. They are now building an about 4 mile extension. They have looked into buys buses that are 15 to 30% larger and are running them in small packs at rush hour.

In short, the Orange Line needed to be a rail line, because it's exceeding the capacity of buses.

LA had a long and deranged political history which prevented the Orange Line from being a rail line like the Blue and Gold and Expo lines. It is a history which other cities would do well to avoid. (Toronto seems to be repeating that history.)

The Orange Line is a story of buses sucking.

If you want a "success story" for "BRT", you would do much better to look at LA's "Metro Rapid" system, which has won universal acclaim and is "sized right" for the demand -- rail would be overkill on most of these corridors (apart from Wilshire, where they're building the subway).

Looking at the ridership figures, I see that the Silver Line is just right for an artic bus route but the Orange Line has so much demand they should have just made in an extension of the Red Line. they could have made it a kind of surface metro like the BMT Brighton Line or the IRT Dyre Avenue Line in New York.

IIRC, the Orange Line was hamstrung by federal funding rules. Mind you, in theory LA could have just blown the Feds a raspberry and worked something out with the state...but it's not too common to see a project both constructed and operated with only state/local cash.

They at least could have done the aforementioned plan of Metro Rapid combined with Metro Express. After all, Metro Rapid is not really technically different from the Metro Liner, they use the same equipment except that Metro Liner seems to be a 65-footer instead of a 60-footer.

 

[RRUserious]

The last time street cars were built, they didn't have automobiles in gridlock already. I think the enthusiasts need to chill and look rationally at what is going to happen during the building phase of such antique forms of transportation. Maybe they can't be built on the same grade as auto traffic this time.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

The last time street cars were built, they didn't have automobiles in gridlock already. I think the enthusiasts need to chill and look rationally at what is going to happen during the building phase of such antique forms of transportation. Maybe they can't be built on the same grade as auto traffic this time.

I agree, like I said, it's probably best to build a surface heavy railway with grade separation. It's surely less expensive than an EL or Underground, while carrying just as much passengers at the same speed. Plus, it carries more than LRT and avoids congestion.

Maybe surface metros aren't very suitable to mid-size cities like Portland or SLC, but it would be the best option for LA, Atlanta, and Houston.

 

[Nathanael]

IIRC, the Orange Line was hamstrung by federal funding rules.

No, actually the Orange Line in LA was hamstrung by a specific provision in a *local law*.
From http://metrotransportationlibrary.wikispaces.com/Metro+Orange+Line :

The California Legislature passed a law in 1991 introduced by Alan Robbins which prohibited the use of the corridor for any form of rail transit other than a "deep bore subway located at least 25 feet below ground". Later Los Angeles County passed Proposition A in 1998, promoted by supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, which prohibited Metro from using its county sales tax funding to build subways anywhere in the county.

The subway prohibition was later repealed, but the "Robbins law" is still on the books in California. "Deep bore subway located at least 25 feet below ground" would be wild overkill for the Orange Line corridor.

https://www.change.org/petitions/robbins-bill-sb-211-repeal-the-robbins-bill-for-possible-orangeline-conversion-to-light-rail

 

[RRUserious]

IIRC, the Orange Line was hamstrung by federal funding rules.

No, actually the Orange Line in LA was hamstrung by a specific provision in a *local law*.
From http://metrotransportationlibrary.wikispaces.com/Metro+Orange+Line :

The California Legislature passed a law in 1991 introduced by Alan Robbins which prohibited the use of the corridor for any form of rail transit other than a "deep bore subway located at least 25 feet below ground". Later Los Angeles County passed Proposition A in 1998, promoted by supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, which prohibited Metro from using its county sales tax funding to build subways anywhere in the county.

The subway prohibition was later repealed, but the "Robbins law" is still on the books in California. "Deep bore subway located at least 25 feet below ground" would be wild overkill for the Orange Line corridor.

https://www.change.org/petitions/robbins-bill-sb-211-repeal-the-robbins-bill-for-possible-orangeline-conversion-to-light-rail

Just how deep is necessary for a functioning subway? And what is it exactly that makes elevated trains unwanted everywhere? There's one running in Germany still, built in the late 19th century. Even does part of its trip over the river that runs through town. I hope to ride it if I ever get to Germany. http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/germany-incredible-hanging-railway/20672

 

[CHamilton]

'Use it or lose it grant' to help Cincinnati streetcar

Cincinnati's streetcar will get some help from the past.
Transportation officials said the choice was simple: transfer old, unused federal rail money awarded to the region in 1996 to the Cincinnati Streetcar project or give the money back.

The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority board Tuesday chose the former. The nearly $270,000 infusion of cash will supplement the City of Cincinnati's streetcar "unallocated contingency fund."...

Earlier this year, the Federal Transit Administration told SORTA $876,762 in rail-related grant money awarded to it in 1996 must be used soon – or it would be forfeited....

FTA officials agreed SORTA could spend $608,484 on the bus system. But rather than losing the balance of the grant, FTA suggested that SORTA transfer the remaining $268,278 to the Cincinnati Streetcar project, which is the only active rail project in the region.

No other SORTA or regional projects qualify for these funds, meaning they would be forfeited.

 

[cirdan]

The last time street cars were built, they didn't have automobiles in gridlock already. I think the enthusiasts need to chill and look rationally at what is going to happen during the building phase of such antique forms of transportation. Maybe they can't be built on the same grade as auto traffic this time.

Running streetcars in mixed mode on heavily grdlocked streets doesn't make sense

But the ebauty of streetcars is, it can do amny things and be many things.

On lightly trafficked streets, mixed running is absolutely feasible. Then as traffic gets heavier it can switch to a reserved lane. This reserved land can be a bus lane and be shared with buses and not cause more gridlock than a pure bus lane would. It doesn't need a special taylored solution. Then, maybe you can add some tunnel sections to bypass awkward junctions or sections where there genuinely isn't surface space. A streetcar has a far greater hill climbing ability than a heavy metro and thus the ramps can be kept relatively short, sweet and compact.

Basically there is nothing new about this. Study Philadelhpia for example and you can find examples of all this, old maybe and not optimally managed, but its there in principle.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

The fall of the streetcars in LA was the result of non-use by the public with the availability of the low cost private automobile. The streetcar companies went bankrupt (some more than once), or were just shut down. They were originally built to carry customers to new and mostly undeveloped suburbs and with infill and cars, that did them in then. No great "rubber tire barons" as villains, although the car companies did nothing to help them.

For those who are not aware, in 1987 Morley Safer interviewed witnesses related to his 60 Minutes examination of the 1936-1950 National City Lines streetcar conspiracy and resultant federal convictions against major American companies and individuals involved in the acquisition and subsequent dismantling of over 100 streetcar lines and electric railways in 45 American cities and their quick conversion into bus operation. Apparently those claims and records and interviews were all just made up out of thin air. According to leemell. His evidence to counter the original claims consists of...nothing in particular.

 

[leemell]

The fall of the streetcars in LA was the result of non-use by the public with the availability of the low cost private automobile. The streetcar companies went bankrupt (some more than once), or were just shut down. They were originally built to carry customers to new and mostly undeveloped suburbs and with infill and cars, that did them in then. No great "rubber tire barons" as villains, although the car companies did nothing to help them.

For those who are not aware, in 1987 Morley Safer interviewed witnesses related to his 60 Minutes examination of the 1936-1950 National City Lines streetcar conspiracy and resultant federal convictions against major American companies and individuals involved in the acquisition and subsequent dismantling of over 100 streetcar lines and electric railways in 45 American cities and their quick conversion into bus operation. Apparently those claims and records and interviews were all just made up out of thin air. According to leemell. His evidence to counter the original claims consists of...nothing in particular.

Well. this is first hand I used to ride the Red Cars. For years they were running very light loads and sometimes we were by ourselves. Plus CBS refuted the 60 Minutes story with this. The Red Cars had been in bankruptcy twice before this in the very early and mid thirties. So it was not like they were robust financially.

This reply is to my post a years ago.

 

[jis]

It is not like any of the city bus lines that replaced those were ever very robust financially either. Someone made a choice to subsidize one as opposed to the other. I don't know who. But in the process they made a mode selection.

 

[leemell]

The Red Cars were started with aid of the realtors in the LA outskirts to transport potential customesr for their property in the twenties. When cars came along in large numbers the realtors discovered that the customers preferred to drive to lots and homes for sale. The original impetus and financial incentive went away.

 

[JayPea]

There had been talk of streetcars returning to Spokane. Whether this comes in the form of actual streetcars or electric buses remains to be seen. There are a few places left in the oldest neighborhoods in Spokane where there are still trolley tracks visible in the streets, so if there ever was a citywide trolley system again, that's all the less infrastructure to build. :lol:

 

[Ispolkom]

There had been talk of streetcars returning to Spokane. Whether this comes in the form of actual streetcars or electric buses remains to be seen. There are a few places left in the oldest neighborhoods in Spokane where there are still trolley tracks visible in the streets, so if there ever was a citywide trolley system again, that's all the less infrastructure to build. :lol:

This spring the potholes in St. Paul are so deep that I managed to blow out a tire hitting the old street car track visible at the bottom of a particularly deep pothole on a St. Paul street that used to have a trolley line. I would have thought that it would have been worth it to remove the tracks for scrap value, but apparently they just paved over them.

 

[JayPea]

These tracks in the Spokane streets are in plain view. The last trolley in Spokane ran in 1936; shows how often they pave some streets there. :lol:

 

[cirdan]

There had been talk of streetcars returning to Spokane. Whether this comes in the form of actual streetcars or electric buses remains to be seen. There are a few places left in the oldest neighborhoods in Spokane where there are still trolley tracks visible in the streets, so if there ever was a citywide trolley system again, that's all the less infrastructure to build. :lol:

This spring the potholes in St. Paul are so deep that I managed to blow out a tire hitting the old street car track visible at the bottom of a particularly deep pothole on a St. Paul street that used to have a trolley line. I would have thought that it would have been worth it to remove the tracks for scrap value, but apparently they just paved over them.

I don't know about this example but I have heard of cases where streetcar tracks could not be touched because utilities had electrically bonded equipment to them to assure an earth return path. I have even heard of instances where workmen digging holes in the road were instructed to dig around the old tracks carefully, even though ripping them out would have been faster and more efficient. I assume that if the owners of the tracks wanted to rip them up for scrap, the utilities found it cheaper to compensate them for the scrap value rather than paying for a new cable, which would have been more costly.

 

[George Harris]

It's real easy: If the cost of removal and subsequently required street repair approaches the scrap value of the rail the low cost solution is to leave it there. We are talking stel here, not aluminium or copper. It is highly likely that for many areas unless the streets had to be dug up for other reasons the scrap value was not worth the cost of removal of the rail.

 

[cirdan]

It's real easy: If the cost of removal and subsequently required street repair approaches the scrap value of the rail the low cost solution is to leave it there. We are talking stel here, not aluminium or copper. It is highly likely that for many areas unless the streets had to be dug up for other reasons the scrap value was not worth the cost of removal of the rail.

That might explain why they were not taken out immediately. It does not explain why they're still there today, in some cases 70 or 80 years later. The streets must have been dug up and repaved countless times since then.

I once read that in the UK, streetcar operators were given legal permission to install tracks in the streets on the understanding that when they closed down at some point in the future, they would at their own cost remove the tracks and restore the street surface to the condition it had before they moved in. When the lines were closed, the companies went to the archives to find out what condition the streets had been in at the time. As it turned out, many streets had previously been unpaved but just had mud or gravel surfaces or at the best stone setts (often poorly maintained ones at that). Local governments thus actually renegotiated operator contracts to prevent the original surfaces being put back. The result of this was sometimes that the streetcar folks said, okay, we will agree to a change in contract if you take ownership of the tracks and don't require us to dismantle anything or clean anything up. Many tracks thus remained in place after closure and are a common feature of old street photographs from the period. Many of these lines were finally dug up during WW2 when every spare scrap of metal was needed for the war effort. But those that weren't dug up at that time (and the lines that didn't close until after the war) stayed in place for many decades after that or are even still there today.

 

[neroden]

I would have thought that it would have been worth it to remove the tracks for scrap value, but apparently they just paved over them.

They did a lot of really wasteful things from the 50s - 70s, and dumping asphalt on top of infrastructure was one of the more popular ones. The subgrade of the older streets in my town is all brick and cobblestone. It makes no sense to asphalt over brick -- the brick is better and more durable, and asphalt-over-brick wears really badly -- but that's what they did.

 

[NorthShore]

This spring the potholes in St. Paul are so deep that I managed to blow out a tire hitting the old street car track visible at the bottom of a particularly deep pothole on a St. Paul street that used to have a trolley line. I would have thought that it would have been worth it to remove the tracks for scrap value, but apparently they just paved over them.

You should sue the streetcar company.