Street running only makes sense when it's a small percentage of the total route, in short sections where land isn't available or is too expensive.

The Manchester Metrolink is a good example; much of the route is converted from heavy-rail, and only the short city centre section is laid in the streets. Most of these streets are closed off to other vehicles, although one section is shared with buses.

I've never understood the infatuation with light rail. Buses are not only cheaper, they are much more flexible in terms of routing and they can pull to the curb instead of having to stop in the middle of the street and block all lanes of traffic.

Unless the light rail system actually includes segregated or underground or elevated right of way, the only advantages would seem to be a smoother ride, and clean, quiet electric power. The first advantage can easily be cancelled out by effective street maintenance (we don't have cobblestoned streets as we do 100 years ago).

The second advantage is cancelled out by the inconvenience of relying on overhead power lines. And the electricity is generated for the most part by diesel generators, so the benefit to the air is not quite as great as some would have us believe. A better alternative would be to develop cleaner-burning, quieter diesel (or natural gas) engines for buses.

To me, it almost seems as though there's some stupid racial angle to it all, as if buses are perceived to be the haven of poor urban (and presumably dangerous) people of color. The hope seems to be that gullible white suburbanites will think of the trolley as an amusement park ride rather than public transportation.

Here is an interesting map, showing all of the world's major subway systems to scale:

http://www.fakeisthenewreal.org/subway/index.html

It's interesting to note how concentrated the Paris and Tokyo systems are, compared to the sprawl of the two California systems. Washington and Moscow are somewhere in between, although Moscow has more lines.

Good heavens, you might think transit planners just made these decisions randomly. "Oh what the heck, we'll just spend five years getting the permits so we can spend millions extra laying track." In fact, judging from the comments a number of people DO think that. Maybe it's something they learned from where they work.

If you don't understand why the decision was made, why not read more about it and learn? I know in the Washington DC area that planners have been learning that putting a rail line in leads to the concentrated form of development they want to see. Planetizen linked to stories about this about a year ago.

Planning is one of the most open activities in our society, and if you asked you would undoubtedly be referred to thick studies used in making the decision.

Hi catowner--

You make a good point, but I don't think D.C. planners deserve much credit here.

First, it is apparent that the decision to run the trolley in the middle of city streets was made as a hasty fallback measure. Originally the line was to run in a dedicated ROW, but after the city had problems with land acquisition, they fell back onto the street plan. This possibility of a street trolley was not the product of years of work.

Second, you are right in that rail lines can lead to concentrated forms of development. This has happened time and again in the D.C. area. However, this increased development has happened with Metrorail, a fast, efficient, and extremely expensive mode of rapid transit. The light rail proposed here would not be fast--typically these street systems average less than 10 m.p.h., which is similar to a bus. It also would not be nearly as efficient as Metrorail, as it would not have the same high capacity. It would be much cheaper than Metrorail, which seems its only appeal.

In short, people would see the street-running light rail line as the joke that it would be; I don't see why that would attract concentrated development.

Finally I would point out that thick studies don't trump common sense. I see enough ridiculous thick studies in my government work to know that thick studies are often used to justify dumb decisions.

Howard Street in Baltimore carries light rail, bus, and auto traffic. None of them travel on it efficiently.

Catowner,

I have to agree with Omari on this one; while I understand that these plans often take years to develop, they also often end up caught up in the mess that is politics. Rarely, if ever, do light rail systems that run on streets succeed. You'll notice, if you read through past postings, that we are enormous fans of transit-oriented development and of bringing in high-density development around a transit line. However, if with the exception of Northwestern cities like Seattle and Portland, light-rail running on streets rarely suceeds in this. The reason is part of the same reason they pulled light rail (aka streetcars) off the streets in the 50s and 60s. It's exceptionally difficult for automobiles and streetcars to co-exist; it ends up creating massive traffic headaches (or, in the case of Houston, 60+ accidents in less than a year). True transit-oriented development needs to be based around higher-speed systems with dedicated access. Otherwise, light rail systems just become bus-systems-on-rail, and we've all seen how much development bus systems bring.

What North American city has the highest per capita transit ridership? Think it's New York? Guess again. Nope, not San Francisco, Boston, Chicago or Philadelphia, either. It's certainly not Washington. The correct answer is Toronto. And what is it that's different about Toronto that gives it such high ridership? Streetcars. No other North American city retained as many streetcars as Toronto did.

See, the thing is, the point of streetcars, including the Anacostia line, is NOT to ferry suburban commuters over long distances. Baltimore's light rail cannot be considered the same sort of animal as a real streetcar because it IS a commuter line. Running in the street slows down riders that are trying to travel many miles at a time. That’s annoying. But that’s not going to happen on the Anacostia line because it’s not a train that is going to be serving suburban commuters trying to ride for 20 miles. The Anacostia line will bear a much closer resemblance to streetcars in Portland or Toronto than the glorified commuter rail line in Baltimore.

The point of streetcars is twofold. The first is to locally circulate people that are in the neighborhood right now. In that sense buses do the job just as well except on exceptionally high ridership routes, where they lack adequate capacity. But that’s a short-sighted view of transit. The second point of streetcars is to spur redevelopment, which in turns makes the neighborhood more healthy and boosts ridership as there come to be more people living, working and shopping along the route. No bus, not even the HOP (I went to school in Boulder too), drives new development the way rail does. Putting the train on the city street where it's surrounded by a mix of uses and property with the capacity to be improved will do a vastly better job of driving redevelopment than banishing the line to a freight ROW adjacent to a an air force base. Yes, the train will be slower, but so is the Orange Line in Arlington (where it serves TOD) slower than the Orange Line in Fairfax (where it serves commuters), yet the Arlington section moves people much, much more efficiently.

… And speaking of Boulder, guess what’s proposed for Pearl Street: http://boulderbreeze.org/

Hi BeyondDC--

Of course Boulder's buses don't spur redevelopment. Boulder is extraordinarily hostile to growth: the city's stated goal is to limit residential population growth to 1% a year. Few of the powerful people in Boulder want to see any increase in the city's density or population. (The working-class people who cook for and clean up after the powerful people in Boulder might have a different opinion, but those working-class people don't issue building permits...)

The comparison to the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor in Arlington County doesn't fit, either. Yes, the average train speed on that corridor is slow. However, that corridor is part of a vast, 100+ route-mile network that serves commuters over an entire region. The corridor sits atop a subway line with extraordinary capacity--much higher capacity than a light-rail line would have.

However, the Rosslyn-Ballston comparison evokes a more interesting comparison. Would this transit corridor be as successful if it were centered over a low-capacity bus on tracks, even if these steel-tired buses were part of a big streetcar network that stretched well into the District? My intuition would indicate that the answer is no. Practical experience says "no," as well: DC used to have a large streetcar network, and the District's population began its long slide even when the streetcars were still running.

HOWEVER, no one has ever pointed to Toronto before, and maybe that city will open my eyes to the wonder of streetcars...so I will take a look at Toronto and see if their streetcars have spurred an urban renewal wonder.

Oh, and one more thing--I never meant to suggest that running light rail in a street is always a bad idea. I think that in a limited fashion street-running rail can be a good idea. Generally transit lines are built to carry people to and from high-density (e.g. "downtown") areas. To get transit into such areas, one has three choices: run it on the street (cheap, slow) run it underground (expensive) or elevate it (expensive and ugly to boot.) Running it on the street can be a good idea in places where it would make no fiscal sense (or where the political capital does not exist) to build a tunnel.

However, the street runs make sense only over small distances. Many light rail systems (such as Denver and Portland) run over streets for short distances, but then are on dedicated high-speed rights of way over longer distances. Such systems offer a viable rapid transit option. On the other hand, DC seems to envision an extensive street-running network with little or no dedicated right of way. I don't see how this would be anything other than a massive waste of capital dollars, especially in a city with legendary traffic gridlock.

Boulder is a whole warehouse full of cans of worms. If ever there was a city that caused more damage to the environment and created more sprawl, all supposedly (but of course not really) in the name of environmentalism and smart growth, I'd like to see it... Actually I wouldn't like to see it.

But anyway, you’re still making the mistake of applying the rules of long distance, suburban commuter-based transit to a more local, urban route. You cite the commuter-focused parts of the Portland and Denver systems as proof of how street running is only a good idea as a way to save money on commuter routes in downtown, but you’re completely ignoring the original portion of Denver’s light rail, which runs in the streets through Five Points north of downtown, and the Portland streetcar, which is much more similar to what the DC streetcar will be than the more rapid, commuter-based Portland MAX light rail (they’re totally different trains running on totally different tracks catering to totally different transportation needs). For the record, both the Five Points portion of the Denver light rail and the Portland streetcar (which runs in the street for the entirety of its route) have had a tremendous affect on redevelopment.

I also find it curious that you bring up capacity, as streetcars (which can be coupled - see page 11 of this report from Skoda itself) have much higher capacity than buses. If Metro is better than streetcars because it has higher capacity, then why are not streetcars better than buses for the same reason?

The thing about streetcars is that no, they’re not as good as Metro, but they’re also not nearly as expensive as Metro. For the same cost as one new Metro subway line downtown you could absolutely blanket DC with streetcar lines, which do a great job of spurring development beyond any reasonable doubt, given the experiences of other cities.

Oh, and while we’re talking about Arlington, perhaps you’ve seen the plans for a streetcar on Columbia Pike.

t’s all about capacity. A full streetcar is a lot cheaper per passenger to operate than the equivalent number of buses. So in high volume places like Toronto, they work quite well and save money (albeit upfront costs are much higher). They are also used all over Europe quite successfully.

In many places, such as Toronto, the power company is owned by the city (or was, it may have recently been sold to the province). So why not tap into a grid you have full control over?

Electric streetcars (or buses) also transfers downtown pollution to the suburbs, where it belongs.

The biggest argument in favour of streetcars is downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. If you think a car traffic jam is bad, try a bus traffic jam. Not a pretty sight. And they have one twice a day, 5 times a week.

Here in New Jersey, we pro-rail advocates are somewhat envious of our Northeast Corridor brethren in Washington, D.C., since the nation's capital will get the first new true streetcars (as opposed to LRT) on the East Coast.

And that's coming from the No. 2 state in the union for light rail transit, by the way, second only to California. We have three systems up and running -- two true electric LRT systems and the nation's first diesel LRT operation (which purists don't consider "true" LRT -- call it what one will).

What we don't have yet are true streetcars. We think the naysayers in D.C. will be surprised -- and, of course, we hope pleased -- at how effectively such vehicles can perform in the United States -- even on the East Coast.