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I think the streetcars are a great idea I just wish they were building them in Arlington. I understand the argument that streetcars are just "articulated buses". However, it will encourage those who have an aversion to buses to use the streetcar and therefore drive or rely cabs less. I'm not a fan of buses a lot of people aren't. Streetcars and metro on the other hand I'm definitely a fan. There's just something about the rail that reassures me. Call inane aesthetics but at the end of the day people just don't wanna ride buses but they do want to ride rails.
There's very little (if any) evidence to substantiate this. Most surveys simply ask people if they would ride a streetcar over a bus. Whether they will actually ride either is something different altogether. Besides, what happens when the novelty of the streetcar wears off and/or poor people use the streetcars too?
Another argument I often hear in favor of streetcars is that they are cheaper to run than buses per mile. But just think about the evidence that provides the foundation for this assertion. In cities with streetcars (including my hometown), you have hundreds of bus lines versus a handful of streetcar lines. Do you think that the results of those studies would still be the same if the situation were reversed? If buses are running in areas of varying density, and streetcars are being run only in high-density areas, then you're always going to see that disparity.
You could also have a BRT system that has the same "permanence" as a streetcar by building the same infrastructure for buses that you would for streetcars (i.e., fancy covered plexi-glass stations with maps).
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Originally Posted by 14thandYou
There is something to be said for the perceived permanency of the streetcar lines.
Well, we saw how permanent they were when hundreds of cities paved over the tracks in the 40s and 50s.
Last edited by BajanYankee; 05-13-2012 at 09:42 AM..
Someone please explain the economic benefits of a street car system on H Street or anywhere else in The District. Someone? Anyone?
Because this sounds like a New Urbanist vanity project for the white yuppies and hipsters. Gotta make DC more like Paris as opposed to a city where there is greater class and racial cohesion. Gotta get those yuppies and hipsters to their cool restaurants, clubs and trendy clothing retail shops.
Meanwhile, those shops, clubs and restaurants will hire white managers from the Burbs and have immigrant Hispanic labor do the dirty work behind the scenes. Where is the reward for the native DC black person or native working-class person?
There's very little (if any) evidence to substantiate this. Most surveys simply ask people if they would ride a streetcar over a bus..
thats called stated preference, and usually such surveys are more complex than that.
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Whether they will actually ride either is something different altogether. .
thats called revealed preference, and there are studies of that too.
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Besides, what happens when the novelty of the streetcar wears off and/or poor people use the streetcars too? .
1. there are still superior ride charecteristics. 2. Even if there weren't, once you've got higher ridership due to ephemeral attributes (BTW I expect poor people will ride from day one) you get higher frequency, which impacts convenience
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Another argument I often hear in favor of streetcars is that they are cheaper to run than buses per mile. But just think about the evidence that provides the foundation for this assertion. In cities with streetcars (including my hometown), you have hundreds of bus lines versus a handful of streetcar lines. Do you think that the results of those studies would still be the same if the situation were reversed? If buses are running in areas of varying density, and streetcars are being run only in high-density areas, then you're always going to see that disparity..
If we were talk cost per rider, density would reduce cost. If cost per vehicle mile, no.
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You could also have a BRT system that has the same "permanence" as a streetcar by building the same infrastructure for buses that you would for streetcars (i.e., fancy covered plexi-glass stations with maps)..
There are many places where BRT makes sense, and yes, a BRT system with investments like that will do more I expect for development than a convention bus line. OTOH its also more costly. But its not as big a commitment as a street car line with tracks and power - thats precisely why the upfront cost of BRT is less, but it also means more permanence.
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Well, we saw how permanent they were when hundreds of cities paved over the tracks in the 40s and 50s.
Most of those had already been there for generations, so developers who had invested based on their presence probably did pretty well. I doubt anyone contemplating a new project on H Street is really worried that the street cars will be paved over in 2060.
thats called revealed preference, and there are studies of that too.
What studies?
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Originally Posted by brooklynborndad
1. there are still superior ride charecteristics.
That's a matter of opinion. I don't care as much about the "smoothness" of the ride as I do getting to work on time. Subways are not particularly smooth either, but people still ride them. Besides, liberal urbanists ignore that fact that bus technology improves by the year. There are some really stellar buses that provide a very nice ride, and while it may not be as "smooth" as a streetcar (won't be as slow as a streetcar either), they are a far cry from the buses of yesteryear.
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Originally Posted by brooklynborndad
2. Even if there weren't, once you've got higher ridership due to ephemeral attributes (BTW I expect poor people will ride from day one) you get higher frequency, which impacts convenience
Huh? "Ephemeral" attributes? What does that mean? You could get "ephemeral attributes" (i.e., bars, restaurants, FrozenYo) by providing subsidies (which is what cities do for streetcars, btw). So again, why can't you do for buses what you are willing to do for streetcars?
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Originally Posted by brooklynborndad
If we were talk cost per rider, density would reduce cost. If cost per vehicle mile, no.
The same could be said for a bus route. If you gave businesses tax incentives to move along a certain corridor, and then made huge capital expenses for new buses and infrastructure, the ridership would increase and the cost per rider would decrease. There's nothing magical about that.
There's such an inherent bias towards buses within liberal urbanist circles that the comparison of streetcars and buses is not apples to apples. The only way we can know for certain whether streetcars are more cost effective than buses is to run a streetcar and a bus along similar routes after making improvements for both. A streetcar will obviously seem faster and cheaper if you give it its own dedicated lane, build stops for it, and run it along the busiest commercial thoroughfares in the city. And a bus will obviously seem slower and more costly if you allow it to run in traffic, don't build infrastructure for it, and run it along low-density routes all over the city.
Another problem with the "streetcars are cheaper" argument is that most cities actually cut back funding from buses and direct them toward streetcars. So the bias towards streetcars and against bus transit is evident in the way the two systems are funded as well.
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Originally Posted by brooklynborndad
There are many places where BRT makes sense, and yes, a BRT system with investments like that will do more I expect for development than a convention bus line. OTOH its also more costly. But its not as big a commitment as a street car line with tracks and power - thats precisely why the upfront cost of BRT is less, but it also means more permanence.
I see this claim in the blogosphere all the time. And the only evidence I ever see to back it up is a study conducted in Portland where the city found that its streetcar lines cost less per rider than its bus lines. Again, that's a very misleading claim. To make the comparsion apples-to-apples, they could replace all bus service in Portland with streetcars and then see which one comes out ahead over a 15-year period. I mean, that's pretty much what we had in America 70 years ago, and we discovered that streetcar service was not cost effective at all.
This is a more balanced article on the pros and cons of streetcars. People want streetcars so bad that they'll justify its existence with the weakest evidence and refuse to turn a critical eye to the most spurious claims.
go google on revealed preference - there are lots of studies on the use of revealed preference in transportation forecasting.
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That's a matter of opinion. I don't care as much about the "smoothness" of the ride as I do getting to work on time.
All thats needed is some incremental preference for a smoother ride. It doesnt mean everyone has that preference (or even that those who do arent concerned about time) but if it adds a modest percent to ridership, that can justify higher frequency, which WILL matter to those who only value trip time.
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Subways are not particularly smooth either, but people still ride them.
And once again, no one suggested that no one would ride BRT, or even conventional bus. Its a matter of impacts at the margin.
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Besides, liberal urbanists ignore that fact that bus technology improves by the year.
Im not sure about these strawmen liberal urbanists - I believe BRT is a great idea, and is very applicable in many places.
note there also improvements in light rail tech. and heavy rail tech.
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"There are some really stellar buses that provide a very nice ride, and while it may not be as "smooth" as a streetcar (won't be as slow as a streetcar either), they are a far cry from the buses of yesteryear.
Except for the issue of getting around a broken down vehicle in a shared lane, Im not sure there are any speed benefits for buses.
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Huh? "Ephemeral" attributes? What does that mean?
It means whatever you were talking about when you said "Besides, what happens when the novelty of the streetcar wears off and/or poor people use the streetcars too? . "
You know, things that wear off, are called "ephemeral" in English.
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"There's such an inherent bias towards buses within liberal urbanist circles that the comparison of streetcars and buses is not apples to apples.".
Im not sure what you mean by liberal urbanist circles - in the transport planning profession there are LOTS of advocates for BRT, etc.
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"And a bus will obviously seem slower and more costly if you allow it to run in traffic, don't build infrastructure for it, and run it along low-density routes all over the city.".
Yes, I think everyone who's actually involved in these things knows you needd to compare apple to apples - shared lane vs shared lane, exclusives lane vs exclusive lane, off vehicle payment vs off vehicle payment, etc. Thats why in serious comparisons it typically reduces to the ridership impacts of "ride quality/street car "cache", and the maintenance costs of articulated buses (to match the per vehicle volumes) and the permanence effect, vs the upfront capital costs for the track and power lines, and the greater route flexibility of buses.
If you go look at the study done for the Columbia Pike Light rail in Arlington, you will see thats pretty much what it came down to in their bus vs street car choice.
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"Another problem with the "streetcars are cheaper" argument is that most cities actually cut back funding from buses and direct them toward streetcars. ".
The prospective cost estimates of different modes for a given line are what they are.
I see this claim in the blogosphere all the time. And the only evidence I ever see to back it up is a study conducted in Portland where the city found that its streetcar lines cost less per rider than its bus lines.
youve misread me. I meant that BRT is costlier than conventional bus. IE that while you can argue that BRT has more of the permanence that Street cars have then conventional bus does, BY THE SAME TOKEN it also has more of the upfront capital cost that Street car has THAN CONVENTIONAL BUS does. You can't compare a system with the (desirable) permanence and operational attributes of BRT, but also assume the low upfront costs of CONVENTIONAL BUS.
go google on revealed preference - there are lots of studies on the use of revealed preference in transportation forecasting.
My question was where are the studies showing how many people did not use transit before but now use it because a streetcar was installed.
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Originally Posted by brooklynborndad
All thats needed is some incremental preference for a smoother ride. It doesnt mean everyone has that preference (or even that those who do arent concerned about time) but if it adds a modest percent to ridership, that can justify higher frequency, which WILL matter to those who only value trip time.
Yeah, but a faster bus line could also (and likely will) justify higher frequency. The real question is how much people value a "smooth ride" versus a "fast ride." And I'm willing to bet that increased speed will yield more riders over increased quality.
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Originally Posted by brooklynborndad
And once again, no one suggested that no one would ride BRT, or even conventional bus. Its a matter of impacts at the margin.
My point was that the "smoothness" of the ride is a trivial consideration in the long run. Who cares if the ride is smooth when a streetcar can't go around a disabled vehicle? Or if there's a track outage and NONE of the streetcars can run. Anyone who has ever ridden the Red Line in DC knows what this experience is like.
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Originally Posted by brooklynborndad
Im not sure about these strawmen liberal urbanists - I believe BRT is a great idea, and is very applicable in many places.
I'm talking specifically about people who have already made up their mind about a streetcar. It's like going to dinner and making up your mind that you're going to use a spoon to eat no matter what...even if you're going to a steakhouse to eat ribeye.
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Originally Posted by brooklynborndad
note there also improvements in light rail tech. and heavy rail tech.
That's obvious. I pointed out improvements in bus technologies because people generally think of "super cool new trains" and "raggedy old buses." It doesn't take much to convince people that trains are super high-tech because they are already biased towards rail.
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Originally Posted by brooklynborndad
Except for the issue of getting around a broken down vehicle in a shared lane, Im not sure there are any speed benefits for buses.
That's a HUGE advantage in a situation like the one you have on H Street, no? If people complain about buses getting stuck in traffic now, just imagine how bad the complaints will be when the streetcar does an inferior job of making its way through traffic.
That's obvious. I pointed out improvements in bus technologies because people generally think of "super cool new trains" and "raggedy old buses." It doesn't take much to convince people that trains are super high-tech because they are already biased towards rail.
I know of people that are opposed to the Silver Line because "rail is a 19th century technology"
I find people who are close minded frustrating whatever side they are on.
I'm pretty sure there are other jurisdictions that have built street cars in shared right of way recently. Perhaps you could let us know how they have dealt with the obstruction issue.
As for revealed preference, Im not familiar with the literature on modal share differences for bus and street car in particular (and note, RP studies on dedicated ROW systems would not necessarily be useful for evaluating a shared ROW system), - just letting you know that the difference between stated preference and revealed preference is a standard one in the transportation planning profession.
I know of people that are opposed to the Silver Line because "rail is a 19th century technology"
Thee are a lot of idiots in the world.
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