When trolley lines were new, they competed with horse-drawn carriage traffic for fast transit, and they just ran continuously at very slow speeds without stoppi

When trolley lines were new, they competed with horse-drawn carriage traffic for fast transit, and they just ran continuously at very slow speeds without stopping. Nowadays you can ride an e-bike faster than a horse and cover those routes in less time...except that all of the lines have stops for cars. Basically, all the old trolley lines have a lot of trouble in the present-day context because the traffic appeared around them, and once cities succumbed to the desire for lots of parking, the die was cast - you had to also give cars most of the routes. And then it's pulling teeth to get a modest 1 MPH improvement out of some trolley corridors with careful stop alignment and signalling. If we separate out the rights of way well it's a different story, but then we are talking about a more substantial build, and when that happens a busway becomes the way to do the mass transit cheaply upfront and get the most impact immediately. Everything really comes back to the geometry, not the modality. When there's dedicated space the difference between rails, overhead lines, and battery is just a spreadsheet calculation. But as soon as it's mixed traffic battery shoots to the top because of its flexibility.