Heavy Rail and Streetcars or Heavy Rail and Buses? (better, place, population)
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Streetcars are used much like buses to connect the main transit network together. They connect different transit lines of heavy rail much like buses connect different transit lines of heavy rail to other parts of the city. The main difference between streetcars and buses is that streetcars also create commercial centers and economic development much like heavy rail transit stations do. Buses are more suited for residential neighborhoods.
Which do you think is more important in a city center if you have the ability to build a whole streetcar network with multiple lines connecting to your cities main transit network?
Busses are more veristile so i think they are better, also in case of an emergency busses can get people OUT of the city in masses. Also the demographics and movement of populatation busses can better cater to cities with a quick population growth and demographic change.
Busses are more veristile so i think they are better, also in case of an emergency busses can get people OUT of the city in masses. Also the demographics and movement of populatation busses can better cater to cities with a quick population growth and demographic change.
Well, what if you can have buses connect the residential neighborhoods to the streetcar and heavy rail lines. Three layers of transit with three different functions.
i still feel like streetcars are a short term solution to a long term issue.
we need more heavy rail IMO. and bullet trains.
But bullet trains provide a different function. Heavy Rail is extremely expensive and can only be build one line at a time every 15-20 years or so. It would take 100 years to build a network from scratch in 2011. Why not spread people around the core of cities by a streetcar network. For instance, in NYC a street car network could take people east-west in Manhattan which is greatly needed IMO. Put about 10 streetcar lines from harlem to the tip of Manhattan with east-west routes down the island.
The main difference between streetcars and buses is that streetcars also create commercial centers and economic development much like heavy rail transit stations do. Buses are more suited for residential neighborhoods.
That isn't necessarily true; here in NYC, neighborhoods (by which I mean, residential neighborhoods) have grown up specifically because mass transit lines were built in the area. And they continue to have that effect even today; get a copy of the New York subway map, trace the route of the L line across Brooklyn...and you can see exactly where yuppies, hipsters, or whatever the current trendy name for them happens to be, are moving in.
All three forms serve a purpose. Light rail is more permanent than bus lines, which is why development tends to follow it more. It can also be a pre-cursor to heavy rail. Many of the heavy rail lines you'll find in older systems got their start as trolley lines. The other option with light rail is that it can have flexible design forms. In lower density neighborhoods, it can be made to function more like a bus, with street running and local stops. Several such lines can converge and become a single line with a dedicated row or even subway (e.g. Boston, San Francisco).
I think people are getting light rail and streetcars confused.
Buses basically just replaced streetcars. There are VERY few streetcar systems left in the USA. The problems with streetcars is they ran right down the middle of the lanes in the street - so if a car got in the way or broke down the streetcar was stuck until it was cleared away. At least buses can go around a stopped car if it has to.
Light rail is a hybrid between the old streetcar systems and heavy rail. They're basically a new form of transport post WWII in most cities. They tend to be slightly less capacity and aren't grade-separated like heavy rail, but at the same time they often will run in their own right-of-way for much of the trip.
Busses are more veristile so i think they are better, also in case of an emergency busses can get people OUT of the city in masses. Also the demographics and movement of populatation busses can better cater to cities with a quick population growth and demographic change.
But it's not a matter of buses or streetcars. It's just buses, or buses AND streetcars. All cities with streetcars have buses as well.
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