5 ms·

Had to laugh when I saw the overhead wires in the pic of the streetcar. It you click on the "related stories" link titled "In D.C. And China, Two Approaches To

by vorg 9y ago

Had to laugh when I saw the overhead wires in the pic of the streetcar. It you click on the "related stories" link titled "In D.C. And China, Two Approaches To A Streetcar Unconstrained By Wires", you can read about Guangzhou's wireless tram: "You can see that as the train enters the station, it just lightly touches those contact strips, and in 20 seconds it's fully charged and ready to go to the next station".

djsumdog 9y ago
Seattle has a very over-complicated overhead system so the trams can share streets with electric trolly buses. It took took a lot of additional time to deploy due to that. Wellington decided to ditch electric trolly buses (and ignored recommendations by residents to re-implement an airport/golden-mile tram, sadly). The battery tech in non-overheard wire based trams is still pretty expensive and high maintenance. I really don't think it's worth the price. Rail take years to setup, and despite it being amazing and necessary, it's also political suicide in America's "We hate public transport because <insert reason here>" America is decades behinds the world in real public transport; including mid/high income countries that are way less densely populated.
- csours 9y ago
  I visited Seattle recently and wondered what was up with that. That and the monorail... As it is, I mostly walked everywhere, including from the Space Needle over to Safeco Field.
  - 35bge57dtjku 9y ago
    To be fair that monorail was built a really long time ago. And are any of those things really better than the existing buses?
    - gotthemwmds 9y ago
      For some commutes, particularly to Capitol Hill and the University District, or into South Seattle or the airport, Link Light Rail is much better than the buses, largely due to it being entirely separated from street traffic for its entire line.
    - djsumdog 9y ago
      This goes back to Americans hating public transport for really silly reasons and voting down the expansion of the Monorail's green line. It was already funded too: http://seattlemonorail.org/smp/greenmap.html http://seattlemonorail.org/smp/greenmap.html Seattle turned down the federal money that would eventually become Atlanta's MARTA system.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - signalling 9y ago
        This is a gross mischaracterization. I lived in Seattle at the time. The green line project was born, and only lived as long as it did, due to public support in four consecutive ballot initiatives. Let's review: * The first in 1997 basically blessed the project and created the corporate entity to build it, got 53% of the vote. * A second in 2000 approved public funds to plan it and passed with 56%. * A third in 2002 approved a motor vehicle excise tax to fund it, and was more controversial (since real money was at stake) and only squeaked through with 50.2% of the vote. * A fourth initiative in 2004 was intended to kill the project by directing the city to deny air rights above public streets to the project, and was thumped with 64% voting no. * It was the fifth initiative in 2005 that killed the project, demanded by the city after a disastrous financing plan was announced (The excise tax approved in the 2002 referendum did not deliver the expected revenue, and a ridiculous financing scheme was proposed to cover the shortfall that would result in $9 billion in interest being paid on $2 billion in construction.) And on top of that, the line was significantly shortened, dropping desperately needed service to Ballard. The fate of this project is more an object lesson in what it takes to actually accomplish a project with popular support in the face of sustained opposition. The whole project was hated from the get-go by some big money in town who had de-facto control over the city council and the mayoralty. That's why there were so many ballot initiatives - the city government was dragged kicking and screaming by the public, through votes to build the damn thing, in the face of well-financed campaigns against the enabling referendums. In the end, it took self-inflicted injury by the project staff (bad financing plan on top of a scaled-back green line) to get the public to pull the plug. I don't think it's fair to pin the failure of this particular project on "hating public transport for silly reasons."
iso-8859-1 9y ago
"The Woodward route will employ off-wire technology, with 60 percent of the line operating on battery power provided by 750-volt rechargeable lithium-ion batteries." http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2015/06/08/rail-buying-wire-streetcars/28683317/ http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2015/06/08/rail-bu...

by vorg 9y ago

djsumdog 9y ago

Seattle has a very over-complicated overhead system so the trams can share streets with electric trolly buses. It took took a lot of additional time to deploy due to that. Wellington decided to ditch electric trolly buses (and ignored recommendations by residents to re-implement an airport/golden-mile tram, sadly). The battery tech in non-overheard wire based trams is still pretty expensive and high maintenance. I really don't think it's worth the price. Rail take years to setup, and despite it being amazing and necessary, it's also political suicide in America's "We hate public transport because <insert reason here>" America is decades behinds the world in real public transport; including mid/high income countries that are way less densely populated.

csours 9y ago
I visited Seattle recently and wondered what was up with that. That and the monorail... As it is, I mostly walked everywhere, including from the Space Needle over to Safeco Field.
- 35bge57dtjku 9y ago
  To be fair that monorail was built a really long time ago. And are any of those things really better than the existing buses?
  - gotthemwmds 9y ago
    For some commutes, particularly to Capitol Hill and the University District, or into South Seattle or the airport, Link Light Rail is much better than the buses, largely due to it being entirely separated from street traffic for its entire line.
  - djsumdog 9y ago
    This goes back to Americans hating public transport for really silly reasons and voting down the expansion of the Monorail's green line. It was already funded too: http://seattlemonorail.org/smp/greenmap.html http://seattlemonorail.org/smp/greenmap.html Seattle turned down the federal money that would eventually become Atlanta's MARTA system.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - signalling 9y ago
      This is a gross mischaracterization. I lived in Seattle at the time. The green line project was born, and only lived as long as it did, due to public support in four consecutive ballot initiatives. Let's review: * The first in 1997 basically blessed the project and created the corporate entity to build it, got 53% of the vote. * A second in 2000 approved public funds to plan it and passed with 56%. * A third in 2002 approved a motor vehicle excise tax to fund it, and was more controversial (since real money was at stake) and only squeaked through with 50.2% of the vote. * A fourth initiative in 2004 was intended to kill the project by directing the city to deny air rights above public streets to the project, and was thumped with 64% voting no. * It was the fifth initiative in 2005 that killed the project, demanded by the city after a disastrous financing plan was announced (The excise tax approved in the 2002 referendum did not deliver the expected revenue, and a ridiculous financing scheme was proposed to cover the shortfall that would result in $9 billion in interest being paid on $2 billion in construction.) And on top of that, the line was significantly shortened, dropping desperately needed service to Ballard. The fate of this project is more an object lesson in what it takes to actually accomplish a project with popular support in the face of sustained opposition. The whole project was hated from the get-go by some big money in town who had de-facto control over the city council and the mayoralty. That's why there were so many ballot initiatives - the city government was dragged kicking and screaming by the public, through votes to build the damn thing, in the face of well-financed campaigns against the enabling referendums. In the end, it took self-inflicted injury by the project staff (bad financing plan on top of a scaled-back green line) to get the public to pull the plug. I don't think it's fair to pin the failure of this particular project on "hating public transport for silly reasons."

iso-8859-1 9y ago

"The Woodward route will employ off-wire technology, with 60 percent of the line operating on battery power provided by 750-volt rechargeable lithium-ion batteries." http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2015/06/08/rail-buying-wire-streetcars/28683317/ http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2015/06/08/rail-bu...