5 ms·

How many of you have lived on a street with an active street car line? Probably not many of you, not many Americans here anyway, but I have. I lived on Lanc

How many of you have lived on a street with an active street car line? Probably not many of you, not many Americans here anyway, but I have. I lived on Lancaster Avenue in Philadelphia for years, with a street car (there called a trolley) running right in front of my house. Nobody in this thread has mentioned it yet, but the noise was awful! Every time it went past the whole house would shake. Every wall in the building turned into a sub-wuffer as that thing rumbled down the street. Was it at least useful? No, not really. I rode it maybe 30 or 40 times total in those years, usually when grocery shopping and sometimes just as a novelty with guests visiting town. In principle the trolley would have been useful for my commute, which entailed going to 30th street station to get onto the SEPTA regional rail (which I loved, and still miss.) But in practice, it was always more reliable to walk the ~1.5 miles / 30 minutes to 30th street myself. Street cars are subject to street traffic, which makes them unreliable. To reliably catch a trolley would have required me to leave the house much earlier every day.

Dylovell 4y ago
I have lived on a street with a street car for the past 3 years and I disagree with your perspective. I live in a different city, so variables are probably very different in a lot of ways. I find large trucks and motorcycles as the largest disturbances in my daily life (I work from home mostly). The train absolutely makes noise and shakes the house, but it's predictable. I no longer set alarms and I can use it to run my errands. And it is way better for the air around me than cars. Most of the US lives in a mono-culture for transportation and cars are pretty expensive.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  In my case, the street car noise was roughly comparable to a garbage truck, but much more frequent. Significantly louder than a diesel bus though, and not as flexible. Better than diesel buses are trolley-buses; electric buses that use overhead power lines like the trolley, but with rubber road tires instead of train rails. Those are really quite, but aren't as flexible with rerouting as diesel buses. But between the trolley-buses and diesel buses, I think streetcars don't have much of a niche. I just don't see why a city today would opt to install streetcars if they could use trolley-buses instead. Motorcycles are definitely the worst offenders though. Not all motorcycles are loud, but the loud ones are really loud.
eneumann 4y ago
How old are the tracks and the cars? Anecdotally, the streetcars in Dublin are quiet and don't make any sort of racket. Same for the (single, sad) streetcar in Atlanta. Streetcars (and buses) work best on dedicated or semi-dedicated routes. The problem with their reliability, in the case you describe, is the cars that are creating the traffic.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  I'm sure poor track condition probably had a lot to do with it. With respect to reliability, I think buses and even trolley-buses have an advantage over streetcars in traffic because they can go around obstructions in the street, while streetcars really can't. Trolley-buses have to stay on roads with overhead lines of course, but they still have more lateral freedom than trolleys on rails.
  - SergeAx 4y ago
    Modern trolley-buses has a battery on board, which allows them to cover some sections without overhead lines. Automatic connection/disconnection of pantograph is the real problem.
4gotunameagain 4y ago
I have lived for quite some time in a Straßenbahn (tram) street in Berlin. 2nd floor, the tram only a couple of meters from my window. Is it that bad? No. They lay the tracks on top of rubber now so the vibrations are not that terrible. Does it make some noise and can you feel the house shake a bit ? Yes. Do I prefer it from the isolationist culture of cars, the emissions, the traffic and the everything else that comes with it? 100% yes.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  But why not a trolley-bus instead?
  - iggldiggl 4y ago
    Trams scale to higher capacities than buses, given the same vehicle width a dedicated transit lane takes up less space for trams (and can be built with green track) than a comparative busway, a highly used dedicated busway isn't that cheap to build either because buses with their high axle loads do pound the pavement just like trucks/HGVs, all the more so in the case of a guided-bus way in case you try to reduce the width requirements and built some sort of "rubber-tyred tram system", steel wheels on steel rails are more energy efficient, …
SergeAx 4y ago
I was sorry to read that. I lived for 3 years on an alley, directly connected to street where the street car line was in Moscow, Russia (we were calling them "trams"). I was able to see and hear trams from my windows on a third floor (which literally means third, we didn't call first floor "ground" or "0" in Moscow). Hearing a tram was a bit troubling for a first week, but then I think I just got used to it and my brain filtered that out. There was no significant vibration, even with older cars, new ones were almost silent. Commute from my home to the office was about 12 minutes, and the schedule was almost always to the minute, except several days in a year when failures or traffic jams messed things up (in Moscow trams has their own lane most of the time).

Dylovell 4y ago

I have lived on a street with a street car for the past 3 years and I disagree with your perspective. I live in a different city, so variables are probably very different in a lot of ways. I find large trucks and motorcycles as the largest disturbances in my daily life (I work from home mostly). The train absolutely makes noise and shakes the house, but it's predictable. I no longer set alarms and I can use it to run my errands. And it is way better for the air around me than cars. Most of the US lives in a mono-culture for transportation and cars are pretty expensive.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
In my case, the street car noise was roughly comparable to a garbage truck, but much more frequent. Significantly louder than a diesel bus though, and not as flexible. Better than diesel buses are trolley-buses; electric buses that use overhead power lines like the trolley, but with rubber road tires instead of train rails. Those are really quite, but aren't as flexible with rerouting as diesel buses. But between the trolley-buses and diesel buses, I think streetcars don't have much of a niche. I just don't see why a city today would opt to install streetcars if they could use trolley-buses instead. Motorcycles are definitely the worst offenders though. Not all motorcycles are loud, but the loud ones are really loud.

eneumann 4y ago

How old are the tracks and the cars? Anecdotally, the streetcars in Dublin are quiet and don't make any sort of racket. Same for the (single, sad) streetcar in Atlanta. Streetcars (and buses) work best on dedicated or semi-dedicated routes. The problem with their reliability, in the case you describe, is the cars that are creating the traffic.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
I'm sure poor track condition probably had a lot to do with it. With respect to reliability, I think buses and even trolley-buses have an advantage over streetcars in traffic because they can go around obstructions in the street, while streetcars really can't. Trolley-buses have to stay on roads with overhead lines of course, but they still have more lateral freedom than trolleys on rails.
- SergeAx 4y ago
  Modern trolley-buses has a battery on board, which allows them to cover some sections without overhead lines. Automatic connection/disconnection of pantograph is the real problem.

4gotunameagain 4y ago

I have lived for quite some time in a Straßenbahn (tram) street in Berlin. 2nd floor, the tram only a couple of meters from my window. Is it that bad? No. They lay the tracks on top of rubber now so the vibrations are not that terrible. Does it make some noise and can you feel the house shake a bit ? Yes. Do I prefer it from the isolationist culture of cars, the emissions, the traffic and the everything else that comes with it? 100% yes.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
But why not a trolley-bus instead?
- iggldiggl 4y ago
  Trams scale to higher capacities than buses, given the same vehicle width a dedicated transit lane takes up less space for trams (and can be built with green track) than a comparative busway, a highly used dedicated busway isn't that cheap to build either because buses with their high axle loads do pound the pavement just like trucks/HGVs, all the more so in the case of a guided-bus way in case you try to reduce the width requirements and built some sort of "rubber-tyred tram system", steel wheels on steel rails are more energy efficient, …

SergeAx 4y ago

I was sorry to read that. I lived for 3 years on an alley, directly connected to street where the street car line was in Moscow, Russia (we were calling them "trams"). I was able to see and hear trams from my windows on a third floor (which literally means third, we didn't call first floor "ground" or "0" in Moscow). Hearing a tram was a bit troubling for a first week, but then I think I just got used to it and my brain filtered that out. There was no significant vibration, even with older cars, new ones were almost silent. Commute from my home to the office was about 12 minutes, and the schedule was almost always to the minute, except several days in a year when failures or traffic jams messed things up (in Moscow trams has their own lane most of the time).