Comment by bane | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bane | Hacker News Reader

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The U.S. has similar systems in a few cities still. Austin, TX (of all places) has a heavy surface metro system that operates like a tram. [1]

Portland, Oregon, largely considered to have one of the best public transit systems in the U.S. has a tram backbone. [2]

The good news is that it looks like streetcars are trying to make a comeback. D.C. is reintroducing streetcar service [3] [4] and has a plan for city-wide service (about 60km worth) [5], a return the old normal [6]

My understanding is that similar programs are getting kick-off across the U.S. as the long realization of how bad things are without them. [7] [8] [9]

1 - https://www.google.com/search?q=austin+metro&espv=2&biw=1527...

2 - https://www.google.com/search?q=austin+metro&espv=2&biw=1527...

3 - https://www.google.com/search?q=u.s.+tram&espv=2&biw=1527&bi...

4 - http://www.dcstreetcar.com/

5 - http://www.dcstreetcar.com/projects/37-mile-streetcar-system...

6 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcars_in_Washington,_D.C.

7 - http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/50106

8 - http://www.forbes.com/pictures/emeh45iedd/los-angeles-street...

9 - http://wnpr.org/post/return-american-streetcar

Houston is also in the process of building a "new-style" tram network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/METRORail

I'm personally a bit lukewarm on them. I think many of these systems, especially the longer ones intended as major backbone/commuter routes are mainly "backup" plans forced by cost issues. The city has identified a backbone route that would be well served by a rapid-transit line, but the capital costs to build one are impossible to come up with in the current transit-funding climate, so a light-rail/tram line is built as Plan B. Besides Houston, another example that imo is clearly a case of "should have been rapid transit, but we couldn't afford it" is the Expo line in L.A., to Santa Monica. Santa Monica is becoming a major tech hub and has huge commute problems, but the system being built simply doesn't have the capacity to offload more than a small portion of the current car traffic.

An in-between approach, sometimes called a "light metro", better serves in the commute-backbone role imo: light-rail-like vehicles, but at very high frequency (e.g. every 2-3 minutes) in order to enable the line to provide significant throughput. The Copenhagen Metro is an example of such a system. But running at those headways reliably almost requires a grade-separated right-of-way, which negates a lot of the capital-cost savings of putting in a street-level tram (though it's still somewhat cheaper, because the shorter trains mean smaller stations and a tighter max turning radius).

Seattle has had one streetcar line for some time and is just finishing up a second. What's unclear to me is why. They still suffer from the same problems that the article says led to the fall of streetcars last century: gridlock due to cars makes schedules and ride times unpredictable, same as buses. The Seattle streetcars do carry a few more people than a bus, but it's not a huge difference. From my own observations, the streetcar tracks also present a fairly significant danger to inexperienced cyclists.

We do have an expanding light rail system, which makes a lot more sense as it operates on its own right of way and thus isn't affected by Seattle's terrible car traffic.

The Austin one looks cool. But from what I see it's just 1 line. In crappy old Bucharest, Romania, even though trams are absolutely awful (they're very old and maintenance is... low), the tram network looks like this: http://www.ratb.ro/maps1/Tramvaie.pdf

Keep in mind that we have buses, trolleybuses and subway here, as well, and the metropolitan population of Bucharest isn't much larger than Austin's.

Still, glad to hear that things are improving :)

One thing to always keep in mind in U.S. to European city comparisons is that U.S. cities (for better or worse) are more spread out and less dense.

Bucharest is both smaller (~250km^2 vs. 700km^2) and more dense (8,260/km^2 vs 1,065/km^2) than Austin.

It's simply less cost effective to build a system in Austin than in Bucharest. I would imagine that a citizen of Bucharest, transported to Austin, would be surprised that some parts of the city are even considered "city" since it's so low density.

While city areas are somewhat arbitrary, it does impact the raising of capital to support building these systems.

Still, we're slowly relearning lessons our European friends learned a long time ago (and ones that we forgot), new urbanism, smart cities, etc. are all starting to bring people back into city centers, which makes building these kinds of systems more cost effective (and more logical).

I agree with your surface/density assessment, but we're also much poorer. So if Bucharest can afford it, Austin surely can, as well :)

No disagreements at all from me on that.

Kansas City's streetcar construction is nearing its conclusion. The new, shiny cars arrive in a couple months.

http://www.kcstreetcar.org/rolling-through-town/

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