Ryan Avent, DC transit blogger extraordinaire, says of the beleaguered Metro system:
A good first step would be–surprise!–a new cross-town line, especially if that line were built to handle two lanes in either direction. That should help prevent stoppages in the core from rapidly propagating throughout the system. A good second step would be to augment Metro with better streetcar and bus systems, shifting some local traffic off Metro and ensuring the availability of other options should the need for alternatives arise.
I don't get the streetcar fetish. Philadelphia had them, and they always struck me as having all of the downsides of busses, with none of the advantages. To be sure, they were fine in the days when internal combustion engines had very low efficiency, but those days are long gone. What am I missing?
Streetcars are sexier than buses (so there's less shame in riding them) and they don't spew diesel exhaust. All told they might be no more efficient than buses, but if you're stuck in traffic behind one, the air is much better.
That's not to say they don't have considerable disadvantages themselves, though.
If the streetcar has a dedicated right of way, it can move faster than traffic, as could a bus if it had a dedicated right of way. In any case, putting in new metro lines or streetcar tracks would be expensive. Of course that doesn't bother anyone in DC because you'll get people out there in the hinterland to pick up the tab.
In medieval times before you were born my hometown of Boston had trackless trolleys (trolley refers to the mechanism that keeps the vehicle connected to the power line). These were buses that got their power not from diesel engines but from overhead wires. Unfortunately, these vehicles would often get too far from the power line whilst trying to avoid an obstacle. The trolley would be disengaged and the vehicle would come to a dead stop until the driver got out and wrestled the trolley back on to the power line - if he (no women drivers in those days) could reach it. In the long run, then, trackless trolleys, while alleviating the diesel fume problem actually exacerbated traffic problems.
Buses don't have to be powered by diesel engines. Acadia National Park, and some others I think, use propane powered buses to get tourists off the park's crowded roads in summer. The feds, at least the Park Service, should have some familiarity with this technology. Installation of low-cost curbs could provide a dedicated right of way for buses on wider streets, and, with provision for bicycles, encourage commuting by bike.
For no good reason, I cling to the notion that "busses" is the plural of buss. And I'd argue that there are very few downsides to busses.
And I don't get streetcars either - any more than I get monorails. Silliness.
"Buses" is indeed the plural of "bus".
As for trolleys, their ineffeciencies and higher costs are outweighed for railfans by the fact that they look cool and remind them of what life was like back in the day. I hate them, personally, and driving on the trolley tracks on Girard Avenue in Philly makes that tortuous street even worse. I just can't bring myself to support a system that grinds to a halt as soon as someone decides to double-park on the tracks.
Streetcars (or "light rail," to use the technical term) work well if they have dedicated rights of way and signal priority at intersections. Otherwise, they have only a minor advantage over buses, not enough in most cases to justify their much higher cost.
The great downside to buses running on urban streets is that they drastically obstruct the flow of traffic by stopping every few blocks. This was documented in DC when Metro opened; my recollection is that the average arterial speed (I have no idea where the sample was) went up from 19 mph to 25 mph. Which seems like a pretty good reason for drivers to have to pay for a system they don't themselves use.
I have seen the argument in favor of dedicated busways, and it seems to make sense -- but where do you put them in a built-up urban core? It is just as impractical as new streetcars and new subway construction. (Unless you do what I gather London has done, and impose a fee that really keeps cars out of the city. Maybe that frees up the space.)
I can sort of remember my mother using trolleys to get around one of Omaha's suburbs when I was quite young. I how much of the push for trolleys and "light rail" is based on pleasant half-way-lost memories like that. It seemed like a nice, quiet, uncrowded ride, but it wasn't running where there was enough traffic to be congested, so the main non-economic reason for mass-transit didn't apply. As for economics, maybe it was different when this system was built (probably before WWII), but with the light ridership I remember the cost per passenger mile now would certainly be higher than the total cost of cars and asphalt streets - and cars get where you are going much faster. That trolley ran at a rather low speed, and had to stop for traffic as well as for passengers getting on and off.
"Heavy" rail systems (separated from surface traffic because they are either elevated and subways) are a whole different matter. They can carry more passengers than any road system - but they are very costly, and every system I know of needs a subsidy from tax money to keep running. That is, many of the people riding them couldn't afford fares that reflected the true cost of their ride. In Manhattan Island, it probably makes sense for the rich people to be thus subsidizing subway rides and making a little more room on the streets for their taxis and limos, but only a few cities are populated densely enough for that to be true. OTOH, cities probably should make some provision for those who don't want to drive in heavy traffic to get around; light and heavy rail are the expensive ways of providing this, buses the cheaper way.
Buses can be electric, with either flywheels or batteries for energy storage, and something set up for quick recharges at the most frequented stops - but at present they cost much more than diesel-powered buses initially, and I don't know if that would eventually be recouped in lower operating costs or not. (My guess is that battery replacements would make it an expensive system to run as well as to buy, but flywheels should last forever.)
OTOH, I'd expect flywheel-electric buses to cost less than running overhead trolley power lines all over town, and a rail system is even more expensive to put in. There are also the obvious safety and reliability advantages of a self-powered vehicle as compared to exposed electric conductors.
Rails wear down slower than asphalt and can support much heavier cars, but passenger vehicles are relatively lightweight so these aren't crucial advantages. Rails can provide lower rolling friction, but need something like steel wheels on steel track to get this, so it's noisy and has low sliding friction when they slam on the brakes. Rails take over the job of steering [1] - but also take away the option of steering around stalled cars, etc. Overall, aside from heavy freight, I think it's a bad idea to put in rails where there are roads already.
[1] Many factories have long been using self-steering carts on pneumatic tires; they follow a magnetic or painted stripe. If self-steering is thought to be a good thing in buses, you could either paint a stripe for them to follow, or just use GPS to record while someone drives it through the route once and then follow it for subsequent trips, and still leave the driver the option of taking over when needed. I think that given the usual city traffic conditions, it would be better to have driver in full time control, with a GPS map device if you change drivers so often they don't know their routes. Running on rails in traffic is just nuts.
In medieval times before you were born my hometown of Boston had trackless trolleys...
My hometown of Seattle still has them, and they work just fine. Seattle also has dual-power diesel and overhead-electric buses for commuter routes that lead to the downtown bus tunnel.
Portland has a light-rail and streetcar fetish, and frankly I get more annoyed at it virtually every day. $30 million/mile for tracks, when you could just give the dedicated lanes to buses and have a dramatically more flexible system.
DC once had streetcars. I know this because when I was a young lawyer, many years ago, one of my tasks was going through old files to see if any were dead enough to be burned. I found files dealing with my firm's work, years before, on the District's removal of the streetcar tracks. I figured that was dead enough, but if memory serves, the partner in charge--a visionary, perhaps--decided to keep them.
I think the best argument for streetcars is that because our relative affluence and cheap gas makes it affordable to own and operate cars, effective mass transportation in the U.S. requires a fair amount of density in the transit corridors. But developers and buyers are unlikely to commit to such density if they don't know that transit will be available long-term. (If I'm building a high-rise apartment or condo building, I know it'll be a lot easier to fill if I can point out the metro stop nearby.) One of the chief advantages of bus routes -- the low capital costs that make it easy to change routes and service frequency -- means that builders and homebuyers can't count on the permanancy of bus routes. Hence, while it might be a good idea to purchase a condo based on the proximity of a fixed streetcar or metro line heading into downtown, it wouldn't make much sense to purchase based on the proximity of a certain bus route. Streetcars, then, might lead to dense development in a way that buses wouldn't.
But that's not the reason light-rail proponents actually cite in support of their proposals. Instead, they tend to cite some combination of (1) We used to have them (which tells us little, since in the meantime busses have become more efficient, and the proliferation of cars has meant that streetcars sharing lanes with cars now move pretty slowly; (2) Europe has them (which also tells us little -- some of the European lines are legacy lines, and Europeans are generally more accepting of transit (including busses) than Americans; and (3) (in moments of frankness) streetcars aren't as "low-class" as busses, so more people will use them and they'll get sufficient political support. I once heard a transportation planner call this the "Must Move White People Into the City" theory.
By the way, having streetcar tracks on the street may actually slow down car traffic and present safety hazards of their own. (Those rails get pretty slick; by collecting water, they may increase potholes; and I still shudder when I think about close calls making turns across the Commonwealth Ave meridian in Boston...)
dcuser is entirely right about streetcars triggering development in a way that buses cannot. Other than that, the only real advantage is the psychology of the riders. People (not just rail fanatics) think streetcars are cool and fun, whereas buses are dirty and unpleasant. This is important, though. Many more people will ride a streetcar on a given route than will ride a bus, even if the frequency of service and the speed of the vehicle are identical.
In response to markm's comment, it's true that almost all transit systems worldwide are subsidized. So are road systems. Transportation is a public good.
The only way that I would recommend a street car for D.C. is if there was an express route between Anacostia and Georgetown. The Patricians and the Ghetto collide. That in itself would be worth it just for the entertainment value.
I love the idea of a streetcar, however, I think the appeal is in its aesthetic value. I doubt very much that it is preferable to buses in terms of contributing to general welfare.
I spent a few days last summer bouncing around Toronto, and used both the subway and the streetcars there. Toronto's transit system is a cute little toy compared to those found in Boston or New York, but the streetcars were probably functioning the way DC's would.
The Toronto streetcars were awful. When traffic was heavy, they were impossibly crowded, and started and stopped frequently and with considerable force. We preferred to walk, even for ten blocks at a stretch. When traffic was light, they were ridable, but there was no point...considering how vestigial the system was, it was easier to drive.
The subway system, on the other hand, was just fine. I like subways in general, and this one worked the way it should have. So, it can't be generalized incompetence on the part of Toronto's transit authority.
It would be easier and cheaper to move a few departments (Agriculture, Energy, Education for starters) out of the DC area entirely.
If the streetcar has a dedicated right of way
...we string several of them together to increase density, and call it Light Rail.
Portland has a light-rail and streetcar fetish, and frankly I get more annoyed at it virtually every day. $30 million/mile for tracks, when you could just give the dedicated lanes to buses and have a dramatically more flexible system.
I was just there in December and observed what is taking place in order to install the new downtown N-S line. Personally, I think the outright goal of Portland is to make traffic conditions in the city so obnoxious that people will use the rail service in order to escape them.
Coming from a voting block that believes itself too stupid to pump its own gas, this isn't terribly surprising.
Firstly, streetcars tend to have much faster acceleration than their bus counterparts. Secondly, despite the improvements to buses with hybrid technology, streetcars are much quieter than their bus counterparts. Thirdly, buses which tend to have a lifespan of 12 to 15 years have half the lifespan of a streetcar which can last from 25 to 50 years in some cases with more reliable electric motors than diesel or compressed natural gas engines. Plus, on heavily used bus corridors, switching from buses to streetcars is much better for the street pavement since the streetcars place their weight on the tracks embedded in the street, and not on the pavement like the buses.
I'm starting to feel that the bulk of the comments here are from people who don't regularly ride mass transit and have yet to ride on a streetcar system. I find that streetcars are more comfortable than their bus counterparts. The bulk of the "stuck in traffic" arguments can easily apply to buses, and the vast majority of bus routes are fixed and relatively unchanged. While streetcars imprudent for small or lightly used routes with low headways, in terms of heavily used trunk routes, conversion to streetcar should be looked at, especially since streetcars can hold more passengers than their articulated bus counterparts, and units can be put into multiple unit service reducing labour needs.
When they tore out the streetcars, they just put buses on the same routes, and those routes remained in operation long after many of them had ceased to make sense. I believe some rationalization has taken place, but I doubt if it is anywhere near complete.
I suspect that the stupid traffic islands on K Street are a relic of the streetcar system, but I don't know that for sure.
As far as moving government agencies out of DC goes, Bobby Byrd carted everything that was moveable off to West-by-God Virginia decades ago.
Firstly, streetcars tend to have much faster acceleration than their bus counterparts.
If the streets were ever clear enough for this to matter, who wouldn't drive?
and the vast majority of bus routes are fixed and relatively unchanged.
True. But they don't cost $30-40 million/mile and even if unchanged, aren't unchangeable. They also don't require intermodal terminals to get more than a couple of miles out of town or a couple of blocks off the trunk line.
Streetcars (and light rail) do have some advantages, but the capital costs and inconvenience associated with installing them are just huge.
Speaking as another Portlander, who actually uses the various transit options here (bus, MAX light-rail, occasional streetcar, plus feet, bike and car) -- the streetcar is indeed nicer than a bus as the riding experience goes. It has to stop for the same streetlights, etc., so it's no faster. I don't think the outrageous expense (initial capital outlay) is justified, though, even if operating costs are lower than for buses.
MAX, which runs on rails separate from the roadway and gets stoplights adjusted on the fly as it passes through, is much more efficient and useful for getting downtown, especially during high-traffic periods.
The Oregonian (our major paper) is gaga for light-rail, and dcuser's favored rationale -- permanence -- is one of its prime arguments. The other one, implied, is that wealthier people will ride it than will ride buses.
1) If the fares that people are willing to pay are insufficient to operate a rail system (much less build or maintain it) as is the case with DC Metro - isn't the unavoidable conclusion that the rail system is simply not worth operating.
2) The complaints I usually hear about busses are that the system is dirty and confusing. Neither of those complaints seem inherent in busses, but in the way they are run. Couldn't a bus system be run that is neither dirty nor confusing? Perhaps a little competition would provide the proper incentives.
Its just aesthetics, isn't it. That has to matter to some degree.
Aesthetics is a big factor. The St. Charles Boulevard cablecar in New Orleans and the San Francisco cablecars are iconic symbols of their cities. In Dallas we have this funny West End Trolley thing that's just a bus with an old-timey streetcar body on it.
We also have a growing light-rail system that's attempting to link the suburbs with the urban core to try to cut down on freeway congestion. It currently doesn't go all the way out to the furthest bedroom communities, but there are large "transit centers" with vast parking areas that try to attract commuters and thereby reduce rush hour traffic. I know the light rail is well-used but it doesn't seem to have reduced the traffic significantly.
I love the idea of light rail, but it doesn't help those who a) don't live or work near a train station, or b) need to do things like pick up kids after work. At least in Dallas the theory is that you can use bus lines for the local service to get where you need to go; but the time it takes to connect extends your commute each way to where individually you haven't saved much time, and in fact have usually lost some. It's going to be very hard to overcome the convenience of driving to work. Access fees like London's and the rising cost of fuel might be what is needed to push people in the direction of mass transit.
Streetcars are loved for some unknowable reason. I think one of the chief attractions is that they destroy any street's utility for cars, increasing congestion beyond all reason. They are also a cheap form of rail, so it makes advocates look "better" by aiming at the cheaper option then a subway.
I'm in Toronto fairly frequently and love the subway. There aren't enough lines, but it is very useful and you can take the subway from the suburbs right into the core of the city. The subway is much faster than traffic, so it works very well, especially for commuting.
The streetcars in the city are horrible, and the government is forcing more street car rights of way. These are destroying the streets and make travel at any time on any of the streets in question essentially impossible. Streetcars, even with ROWs and signal priority, get stuck behind pedestrians and cars turning or crossing intersections (since they do cater to some of the most gridlocked streets). Many of the routes are 4 lane roads with street parking - so streetcars share one useful lane in each direction with the rest of traffic. All traffic thus moves at the speed of the street car (invariably picking up people for 5 minutes at a green until the light goes red...) and everything gets snarled up when the inevitable break down occurs (we are talking about unionized maintenance...).
Some councillors have the avowed goal of making Toronto useless for car traffic, and these are consequentially the biggest proponents of the streetcars. The biggest problem with streetcars is that they externalize so many costs - they seem cheaper than a subway to the transit authority, but subways create huge positive externalities along with their larger construction costs. Funding a subway by giving it ownership of development rights around stations would help to align the interests of the transit authority with residents and merchants.
Streetcars in Toronto are slower 95% of the time than walking, 100% of the time once you include the time waiting (outside, in the cold and wet) for one to stop. Streetcars inevitably clump up, so the notional one car every 10-15 minutes comes to mean no cars for 50 minutes and then 5 in a row, all of which are full to bursting. Commuting by streetcar is hell on earth, especially in August.
Re: I love the idea of light rail, but it doesn't help those who a) don't live or work near a train station, or b) need to do things like pick up kids after work.
What ever happened to kids getting home on their own after school? I hate to sound like the archtypal grumpy elder guy (I'm 40 so I can start I guess), but when I was growing up we walked (or biked) to and from school when school was a mile or less away, and had school buses to take us when the distance was greater. Surely this tendency of parents to have to drive their children everywhere is a factor in the rise of childhood obesity?
I always feel queasy on buses in the stop and start of downtown traffic. I find the ride on a streetcar much smoother.
Then again, I am a snob... maybe it's the sense that there might be poor people around making me feel sick.
What am I missing?
You haven't tried to hold a conversation on a cellphone along a busy street with five diesel-powered buses charging past every minute?
Despite this, I'm not too fussed about streetcars. But I can easily imagine how the noise of buses would annoy other people so greatly they would write letters about it.
The light rail in Baltimore is a useful commuter artery in from the suburbs, but it has killed commercial development along its route downtown. It takes away nearly a whole street, so there is essentially no car traffic, and there's little foot traffic because the street is such an empty canyon.
Melbourne & Adelaide in Australia have had trams practically forever - Melbourne's original trams were cable.
The big advantage for trams is the higher passenger density over buses, and they don't contribute to urban pollution.
They don't smell of fumes. They're quiet. They're pretty fast if you sync them with the traffic lights. They can use whatever energy source you have (including diesel hybrid engines if need be). And they use less of it. Maintaining them is cheaper and more easily done, (because if your HR department can't find enough people with that mysterious knack for fixing diesels, you lose).
Most importantly, track is cheaper to build and maintain than road. If you can't afford to fix potholes, your roads deteriorate very quickly, but the trolley tracks stay good for decades.
They're not all that hard to reroute, if your network is extensive enough, like in Amsterdam. And there is one political point: it's easy to punish a neighborhood by assigning its routes the lousy buses. Daley in Chicago does that. But run a trolley track through a neighborhood and you send the residents a message that they are citizens, not subjects.
America abandoned trolleys for many reasons, some good, some bad, but one of the main ones was that the US trolley fleet was neglected during World War 2 and trolleys became associated with decrepitude. it's been decades. The bathwater is gone, but the baby can be retrieved.
One tidbit, by the way: Boston's #1 bus started out as a carriage route, then a horse omnibus on track, then a trolley, and then a bus, but the route has stayed the same for a hundred years now. The flexibility offered by buses is not that big a plus.
The discussion of the utility of streetcars is a fascinating topic, always getting comments pro and con wherever it is held. It might be worthwhile to spend a moment on a little history. Streetcars emerged as horse-drawn vehicles,to begin with, and made it possible to separate homes and places of work by more than a comfortable walk. The last horse-drawn operations were withdrawn in the World War 1 era. Electrification allowed even more extensive networking and substantially lowered operating costs. At the turn of the century they created the first of the 'streetcar suburbs' and in-town electrified systems were extended outwards. But the downfall of the streetcar came with the advent of the cheap reliable automobile and bus;as early as 1925 Los Angeles was beginning to turn some of its seasonal routes to the beaches to buses. By the end of WW2 the renewal costs and the ' modernity' of gasoline and diesel buses led to mass abandonments in favor of buses.
In today's world the strongest arguments for trolleys and light rail ( the latter really being more like the old interurban systems such as ran from Milwaukee to Chicago) are on energy grounds,attractiveness, and land use shaping. From the energy perspective street cars and light rail are susceptible to central generation with non-petroleum fuels. As things are now, people who don't like us ( thing Uncle Hugo and his sidekick Joe for Oil)control the spigots on the petroleum that powers 97% of American transport.Streetcars and light rail seem to hold land use shapes better than do the car and bus alternatives, and people do like them.And if they discourage others from wasting energy by calming traffic, so be it.
The key is to get them put in when the new land uses emerge,rather than afterwards. That's what made the streetcar suburbs work then and now.
It should also be noted that Boston still has trackless trolleys operating out of Harvard Square
gentlemanjimmy, thanks for the info that the T still has trackless trolleys, in Cambridge of course. Anyway, yours is a good case for streetcars - if one is to build a major metro area from scratch.
I'm 66 and may not get to the promised land, but Megan and many of the commenters here will live to see plug-in motor vehicles become commonplace. That takes away the petroleum argument against autos. of course, our benighted politicians might screw that up by making it a federal crime to drive a car not fueled by pure Iowa corn along with some New Hampshire wood chips.
Picking up the kids after school or running other errands is still an argument against fixed right of way transit. Yes, kids could, and should, walk to school, if they went to local schools. For lots of reasons, though, most of them having to do with race in either a malign sense as in private schools, or in a benign sense as in magnet schools, a lot of kids don't go to local schools.
Surprisinly, no one has mentioned that mass transit costs a lot, in part, because transit unions have lots of bargaining leverage due to their ability to hold commuters as hostages.
Peter,
OK, fine, but doesn't the former cost a zillion dollars (if acquiring new ROW) or destroy the existing throughput (if cannabilizing existing ROW)? And doesn't the latter slow up everybody else?
MarkD,
Your idea has merit, but move them to where? For at least some departments (e.g Ed) the answer could be "nowhere".
Lorenzo,
How did Portland manage to get their light-rail operating costs lower than their buses? Sound Transit can't manage that feat; not even for the silly little Sound Transit Link in Tacoma that I ride all the time.
Going to a private school is malign? And is a racial issue? I went to a private school when I was a kid because it was the best school in the city. My parents didn't care what race the other students were.
Magnet schools are merit based, too (at least here in Houston), so they don't have anything directly to do with race.
As far as kids walking home, goes, my kids would have to cross at least one major intersection in a high crime area to get home from the nearest school/bus stop. Buses no longer stop at houses, they stop at other schools in the area. So I'm not letting my five year old son walk a couple of miles every day, crossing a major intersection, alone.
On topic... buses in Houston are all powered by natural gas. Also, when major sporting (or other) events take place, they often reroute buses to act as shuttles to take people to and from the events.
EI
I used to ride streetcars (trollies) in Pittsburgh as a youth, many decades ago, and they were neet. However, when I learned to drive, I learned what it was like to drive on them, especially in snow on hills(!), and it was not pleasant. I think the reason they fell out of favor was (as has been stated her by others), their inability to adapt to changing population and commuting distributions. In Pittsburgh, I remember that the line I mostly rode took steelworkers back and forth from my neighborhood down to the mills, and then took their spouses on to downtown to shop. Now, the mills are gone, and the few computer geeks who occupy the buildings where they stood don't live in my old neighborhood. The streetcars on my street have been replaced by a bus, which follows the same route, but can be shifted elsewhere if needed, can go around another bus if it stalls, and which do much better in the snow/rain.
Finally, the argument about density and heavy rail is challenged by the DC experience, where they built a very nice, expensive system, but people were all up in arms about it. No one wanted the roads torn up to build it, and then when it was complete, they didn't/don't want any density built near the stations, because that would change the character of the single-family neighborhoods where they are. Look at Friendship Heights, as an example. NIMBYism is quite a strong force, and when couple with Americans' desire to not live in apartments, it means that cars are going to be with us for the forseeable future.
BTW, in France, apartment blocks for workers are known as cages au lapin (rabbit cages), and EVERYONE tries to figure out a way to have a country home (reachable by car) to go to if you have to life in an apartment in the city.