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Another facet is that the private companies are very good at finding ways that off the self designs are not suitable so they must make bespoke equipment when it

Another facet is that the private companies are very good at finding ways that off the self designs are not suitable so they must make bespoke equipment when its not needed. For the streetcar they recently installed in Seattle, off the shelf rolling stock was not suitable because someone really wanted it to be battery powered for part of the trip and they had to extensively modify an existing design, leading to all sorts of problems. What makes this even worse is that Seattle has extensive trolley bus (electric bus powered by overhead lines) infrastructure that works just fine, so they could have taken a trolley bus, put train wheels on it, and we would have had a faster and cheaper streetcar. Trolley busses are much safer for cyclists or anyone else sharing the road with the streetcar as the tracks pose a hazard to pretty much all other uses of the road.

notJim 6y ago
IMO streetcars in general are a pretty bad investment, as they are generally just a way of making a bus, but more expensive and stuck on rails. (Streetcars are not usually grade-separated.) I learned recently that part of why streetcars have been in vogue is that the Obama administration made a big push for them in order to have some visible progress on their transit plans.
- sofixa 6y ago
  > IMO streetcars in general are a pretty bad investment, as they are generally just a way of making a bus, but more expensive and stuck on rails With much bigger capacity and also faster. Even BRT with multiple buses one after the other has lower capacity, and unless all buses are electric, also pollutes more and makes more noise.
- throw0101a 6y ago
  > IMO streetcars in general are a pretty bad investment, as they are generally just a way of making a bus, but more expensive and stuck on rails. The value of a streetcar or a bus depends on the volume of passengers that are served. The more people, the more a streetcar (maybe) makes sense. At some point you have so many buses and so many drives (salaries, benefits, 401k/pensions) that the main cost on the line becomes people and not equipment. (More buses also need more mechanics, etc.) There is a range of average daily ridership where buses, bus rapid transit (single/double lanes), light rail, and heavy rail each make sense. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passengers_per_hour_per_direction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passengers_per_hour_per_direct... One should also keep in mind that good transit is about networks: a random route here or there is not useful. Vox made a video outlining this: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZDZtBRTyeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZDZtBRTyeI * https://www.vox.com/videos/21529609/usa-public-transit-trains-buses-cars https://www.vox.com/videos/21529609/usa-public-transit-train...
- iggldiggl 6y ago
  > Streetcars are not usually grade-separated. Although I'd argue that unless you really need (or reasonably expect to need) the capacity of a full-scale subway(-like) line, demanding 100 % grade-separation might again falls under the "overdesign" point: Properly done signal priority and dedicated lanes where necessary can get you quite far without requiring you to tunnel/elevate all the way or build a bridge/underpass at each crossing street.
  - notJim 6y ago
    Right, my point is you can do all this with a bus or BRT without needing the extra expense of using a streetcar.
iggldiggl 6y ago
> they could have taken a trolley bus, put train wheels on it, and we would have had a faster and cheaper streetcar I don't think this'd work quite as easily as you'd imagine. If you'd literally take a bus, take out its steering and replace its wheels with train wheels, the resulting contraption would have diabolical cornering abilities with regards to the tight curves typically encountered on streetcar networks. Two-axle streetcars typically don't have a wheelbase much above 10 or 11 feet at most (and that's already pushing it – there's a reason why everybody moved on to vehicles with bogies or otherwise steerable axles), whereas modern buses have a wheelbase closer to 20 ft or so.
- extrapickles 6y ago
  I was thinking one would replace the tires with train wheels, so you keep the steering system intact. The biggest downside to doing exactly this is that car traffic will not have traction as most of their tire contact patch will be on the steel rails, rather than the pavement. Or even better, just buy off-the-shelf trolley busses, as they are cheap, and you need a fraction of the infrastructure.

notJim 6y ago

IMO streetcars in general are a pretty bad investment, as they are generally just a way of making a bus, but more expensive and stuck on rails. (Streetcars are not usually grade-separated.) I learned recently that part of why streetcars have been in vogue is that the Obama administration made a big push for them in order to have some visible progress on their transit plans.

sofixa 6y ago
> IMO streetcars in general are a pretty bad investment, as they are generally just a way of making a bus, but more expensive and stuck on rails With much bigger capacity and also faster. Even BRT with multiple buses one after the other has lower capacity, and unless all buses are electric, also pollutes more and makes more noise.
throw0101a 6y ago
> IMO streetcars in general are a pretty bad investment, as they are generally just a way of making a bus, but more expensive and stuck on rails. The value of a streetcar or a bus depends on the volume of passengers that are served. The more people, the more a streetcar (maybe) makes sense. At some point you have so many buses and so many drives (salaries, benefits, 401k/pensions) that the main cost on the line becomes people and not equipment. (More buses also need more mechanics, etc.) There is a range of average daily ridership where buses, bus rapid transit (single/double lanes), light rail, and heavy rail each make sense. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passengers_per_hour_per_direction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passengers_per_hour_per_direct... One should also keep in mind that good transit is about networks: a random route here or there is not useful. Vox made a video outlining this: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZDZtBRTyeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZDZtBRTyeI * https://www.vox.com/videos/21529609/usa-public-transit-trains-buses-cars https://www.vox.com/videos/21529609/usa-public-transit-train...
iggldiggl 6y ago
> Streetcars are not usually grade-separated. Although I'd argue that unless you really need (or reasonably expect to need) the capacity of a full-scale subway(-like) line, demanding 100 % grade-separation might again falls under the "overdesign" point: Properly done signal priority and dedicated lanes where necessary can get you quite far without requiring you to tunnel/elevate all the way or build a bridge/underpass at each crossing street.
- notJim 6y ago
  Right, my point is you can do all this with a bus or BRT without needing the extra expense of using a streetcar.

iggldiggl 6y ago

> they could have taken a trolley bus, put train wheels on it, and we would have had a faster and cheaper streetcar I don't think this'd work quite as easily as you'd imagine. If you'd literally take a bus, take out its steering and replace its wheels with train wheels, the resulting contraption would have diabolical cornering abilities with regards to the tight curves typically encountered on streetcar networks. Two-axle streetcars typically don't have a wheelbase much above 10 or 11 feet at most (and that's already pushing it – there's a reason why everybody moved on to vehicles with bogies or otherwise steerable axles), whereas modern buses have a wheelbase closer to 20 ft or so.

extrapickles 6y ago
I was thinking one would replace the tires with train wheels, so you keep the steering system intact. The biggest downside to doing exactly this is that car traffic will not have traction as most of their tire contact patch will be on the steel rails, rather than the pavement. Or even better, just buy off-the-shelf trolley busses, as they are cheap, and you need a fraction of the infrastructure.