[woodruffw]

Make of this what you will: North Carolina’s cities used to have remarkably developed streetcar networks[1].

It is depressing and frustrating to see public authorities attempt to recreate the successes of public transport on fundamentally inefficient, commons-hostile substrates.

[1]: https://www.ourstate.com/history-of-north-carolina-streetcar...

[chrismartin]

I live in a city with a "modern" streetcar. I even rode it to work for a few months. Two reasons why it's not great.

1. It shares busy streets with cars yet has zero ability to maneuver in traffic. If just one car is parked a few inches beyond the edge of the parking lane, the entire streetcar route is blocked.

2. The tracks trap bicycle tires and cause many bicycle crashes. This happened to colleague of mine, fortunately at low speed. There have been dozens of crashes and at least one death.

Electric bus service is cheaper to install and has neither of these disadvantages.

[woodruffw]

Both of these are serious issues, and point to an underlying problem: cities have been re-planned around their streetcar networks, not with them in mind. Improperly planned, streetcars are just less mobile buses.

There are known solutions to both of these: give streetcars unilateral right of way, isolate them from car traffic at intersections and stops, and give cyclists their own separated lanes.

Depending on the city, electric bus service might be the right choice! But I'll note: we undid all of the things that make streetcars advantageous, and we could redo them with sufficient political will.

[treis]

Streetcars are always less mobile buses. You can do everything you suggest for buses and get the same benefits plus everything that being a bus offers you.

[woodruffw]

The advantages to streetcars aren't limited to what I suggest. They also include noise and air quality advantages (hooking up to municipal power sources instead of carrying their own engines), human advantages (they tend to be more comfortable than buses, both because of road quality and size), capacity, and so forth.

There are many, many situations where buses (ideally, electrified ones) are the right choice. But there are also many situations where streetcars are the right choice, which is why many cities run both (or one over the other).

[treis]

>hooking up to municipal power sources instead of carrying their own engines

You can do that with a bus

>they tend to be more comfortable than buses, both because of road quality and size

(1) You can make bigger buses if you want

(2) There's little difference in a streetcar on a track and a bus on a flat road. And it's a lot cheaper to get flat roads than to lay track

[woodruffw]

> You can do that with a bus

Right, at which point it's a cramped, bumpier trolley. It no longer has the main advantage that buses offer, which is being able to alternate their routes based on traffic or blockages.

You can make bigger buses, but they still need to conform to a different set of safety and size standards. Trolleys can make better use of standard lane space (and frequently fit better into standard lanes in older cities, since they can articulate for turns much better).

Laying track does not have to be expensive. Small-to-mid-sized cities in Europe do it cheaply and sustainably; many of the US's cities have streets that are already graded for streetcars and could be replanted without full surveys. I won't claim that it's uniformly cheaper than running a bus network, but that's not the sole factor in our civic construction process -- we also consider quality of life, performance, and appeal.

[qwezxcrty]

>make bigger buses

Nontrivial after adding the second deck (common in UK & Hong Kong), or an articulation (common in EU and mainland China) However for tram, the upper limit is your platform length. It's also common to run single trains off-peak, couple two together during busy hours to double the capacity.

[chrismartin]

Even when cyclists have their own lanes, they need to cross the streetcar tracks in order to (1) make turns and (2) avoid obstacles (e.g. cars suddenly pulling out). If they don't plan and execute the track crossing at a perpendicular enough angle, the wheel gets trapped and the rider usually wipes out. The victim is then often blamed for getting hurt by infrastructure of a design that is known to hurt people [0].

[0] https://tucson.com/news/local/court-rules-against-tucson-bic...

[woodruffw]

You're absolutely right. I think the way Amsterdam does this is instructive: nearly all cycling-trolley crossings are completely perpendicular, and all cycling-automotive crossings are isolated and separate from any nearby trolley crossing.

[kwhitefoot]

> If just one car is parked a few inches beyond the edge of the parking lane

In places where I have lived and worked that have trams the car always comes off worst because the tram is just so much heavier and more robust. And no one is going to defend the car owner because the tram has right of way. I have even seen buses just touch cars that were illegally parked in bus stops, just a gentle scratch and easily deniable, but you can bet that the car driver never does it again.

[chrismartin]

In my experience, the streetcar driver is unwilling to make contact. It waits (perhaps for the car to be towed), passengers hop off and continue their journey on foot.