@@kevbarnes8459in Portland that’s true and it will take billions to fix. Seattle has some areas where trains are at street level. But signals cut traffic off, also they built a lot of tunnels
That's not true, modern french style tram system mostly run along streets on separated tracks which were previously just 2 additional lanes of traffic and only interaction with cars is on intersections
Note: with the exception of New Orleans, every legacy streetcar system in continuous operation shared a distinctive feature: tunnels or viaducts that could not be converted for buses.
And look how popular the St. Charles line in NOLA still is. What a shame that some urbanists push for BRT with our limited funding rn instead of starting to rebuild our trolley networks! 🚃👏
@@BK_718 not quite 24/7. There’s 5 lines. Some end late at night others just aren’t every 15 minutes at night. Then there’s gap in service between late night and early morning for some
Something interesting (yet kinda sad) about the Dallas street car is that its route was chosen specifically to connect one of the most under-served areas in the city to downtown. It would actually be pretty great if it was extended just a little bit north, as the current terminus is literally 5 blocks away from Union Station, of which 2 light rail lines, several bus lines, and the texas eagle all join at. As it stands, the terminus is too far away for a reasonable transfer, so the street car just kind of connects an underserved part of the city to another part of the city that doesnt have much transit. Its fully separated from traffic for the most part though, and land use all throughout dallas is getting better. Maybe someone at dart will look into the untapped potential there and look at a northern extention, but for now i believe theres a bus that might fill in that gap to give the streetcar more purpose
Kinda reminds me of the Delmar Loop Trolley situation here in StL. If it was extended just 2 miles east it would be in the Central West End… one of the densest and most lively neighborhoods in the Lou. Instead urbanists here want to prioritize ordering more buses before expanding the trolley system 😢
@StLouis-yu9iz to be fair that's exactly what's happening in dallas. We're prioritizing making our frankly horrible bus system into a decent/good one. It's honestly a much higher priority here so I don't blame them for not looking at it while they've already got 2 major projects underway
The Dallas streetcar is a weird one because the light rail already covers the downtown fairly well, so they’re relying on the streetcar to go to those couple neighborhoods that weren’t served by the light rail downtown. But it is just that problem where they’re assuming people will ride it to the union station terminus walk those couple blocks, and then go wherever else downtown or beyond, and I can’t imagine that’s very fast. What Dallas should so is look at connecting the streetcar to both the Uptown streetcar (either make it one continuous line or make a 3rd streetcar look around downtown), as well as continue it south to connect to the Red line light rail, that way there’s more points to connect those neighborhoods to the rest of Dallas.
The thing with the Atlanta Streetcar is that what is there now is phase 1 of several future parts that are supposed to include Beltline Rail. So while it really doesn't go anywhere now and is basically more a tourist thing, in the near future (hopefully near) it will connect many different places along the beltline as well as interface directly with MARTA
Huge Tacoma snub here. It opened in 2003, YEARS before Seattle's first modern streetcar. It has grade separation in one section, and signal priority throughout. At first, it connected two transit hubs in downtown: Tacoma Dome, with the Sounder commuter rail, and the Pierce Transit main bus station. It also serves a college campus, UWT, all of the main museums and theaters, and the convention center. Now it's been extended into the densest residential neighborhood, Stadium District, and then to the two big hospitals in Tacoma. It carried nearly 1,000,000 per year before COVID, putting it on par with Cincy and the Q line.
From KCMO here. I love the streetcar. It’s a huge reason I regularly forget where my car is parked. I think we’ll see the max length of the streetcar expansion to the south with the Plaza district. Any farther of a line and it will need more light rail style service or just not be feasible time wise.
The Tempe streetcar is so great. it was my first exposure to taking public transit and combining it with a kick scooter I was able to do my college commute with ease
The Milwaukee streetcar was designed around the assumption that there would be a lot more trains coming into Milwaukee Intermodal. The KRM commuter line as well as the higher-speed Hiawatha extension to Madison were both supposed to happen around the same time. The streetcar would have moved many of these riders across the CBD. These projects, however, were cancelled by the governor, and remain in the preliminary planning stages under the current governor. While the Milwaukee streetcar has routing problems that make it slow and somewhat destinationless (again, ensured by the interference of the governor), a big reason for the low ridership is the underutilization of Milwaukee Intermodal. In other words, the network effect.
That’s the problem with almost all N.A. trolley systems… they need to be expanded to recreate the networks we used to have all over our regions. The only reason most urbanists don’t fully support them is because they aren’t bold enough to imagine reclaiming car lanes and giving them signal priority so that they are even faster than current automobiles. 👏
I live in the DC area, and I'm familiar with the DC Streetcar saga. There are a LOT of issues there: 1) the track placement means that its run on H Street NW is often blocked by cars (thankfully the city is very good at towing/enforcement); 2) the speed due to track placement and lack of signal priority are continuing problems; 3) The ends of the lines are limited -- the Union Station end requires a bit of a walk to get to the Red Line Metro station (but is nicely close to the bus terminal, and the Oklahoma Ave end is nowhere near a Metro station (and needs to be). Thankfully, regional planners and the city want to extend both ends, with a big caveat... The end that would be extended west through Downtown into Georgetown requires battery operation (the federal agencies that have a say over DC refuse to allow overhead catenaries; this is odd because several European cities have tram lines through historic areas and don't worry about "spoiling the views"). The end that would be extended east would finally hit at least one Metro line (either Minnesota Avenue on the Orange Line, or Benning Road on the Blue/Silver Line). Additionally, both would need bridge rebuilds for the tracks, and of those the Union Station end is the easier since that bridge is scheduled for rebuilding very soon (within five years). I'm still hopeful. That streetcar line helped to invigorate the H Street/Atlas District corridor and provide rail access to a part of the city that hadn't had any in decades.
Kansas City is currently expanding its streetcar lines both north and south. The southern, or Main Street Expansion, adds 3.5 miles and 15 stops along the Main Street corridor from Pershing Blvd. to UMKC. This leg of the expansion is slated to be completed next year, but they have already made significant progress. Many major intersections along the route have had their traffic signals completely replaced or are in the early stages of installation. As for the Riverfront Extension, groundbreaking occurred just three months (as of today, June 13, 2024) and added 0.7 miles to the current line, running mainly along Berkeley Riverfront Pkwy.
Having ridden the light rail and streetcars in Seattle and Portland, my take is that the differences between the two are that light rail is "serious" about efficiently moving people (i.e. some grade separation, but when at grade, runs in dedicated lanes and has signal priority), whereas the streetcars are half-assed attempts at being a useful mode of transport. In both Seattle and Portland (and I would guess other cities, if they copied Portland's implementation), they're barely faster than walking (because they share lanes with cars and don't have signal priority), and their frequency borders on bad enough to the point I'd just choose to walk (i.e. 12-25 minute frequency vs. 10 minutes or less frequency for light rail). They're basically fancy buses, except less reliable (because they can be blocked by a poorly parked car)
I'm glad to hear you talk about Portland, as since I grew up here, it's obviously the first example that came to mind! Though, as a local, I wanted to give a little more context to anyone who was interested. The MAX Light Rail (short for Metropolitan Area Express) was opened in 1986 with what is now the Blue Line (the system originally known as a whole as the Banfield Light Rail Project), this system actually being the third of it's generation. It runs similar to a Stadtbahn in East Multnomah County (past I-205) and in Downtown Portland, and it runs as a sort of express-style railway along the Banfield Freeway. And while it still sort of runs as a Stadtbahn here and there on most of it's lines, TriMet has been diverting away from that and trying to make the MAX more of a cheap version of a Light Metro. The Portland Streetcar on the other hand is exactly what it says it is. It's a streetcar that runs around Portland, and occasionally has some cool stuff like dedicated Right Of Way's and Transit Signal Priority. Though, obviously the MAX takes first precedent. Hope this helps!
I'm a lifelong Cincinnati area resident, and take a ride on the Connector really often. It's a good system (especially as a free shuttle to get to FC Cincinnati games quicker), with lots of potential to be better
4:13 I have to defend the Dallas streetcar. It is the only rail connection from downtown to the Bishop Arts district, one of the most popular neighborhoods in the city. When I was in Dallas in July I used it a lot, and there were always a number of other people on it too
Instead of a hwy 99 tunnel, Seattle should have built a waterfront streetcar to service Pike Place and the ferry terminal - while filling the gap between the two disconnected lines.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the red line in Houston. It connects downtown to the medical center and wow it gets crazy busy around 9am and 5pm. I'm talking packed like sardines busy.
Streetcars could be the main form of public transit for a city it's just that they fit this role best for cities from 50.000-750.000 inhabitants. Many eastern european cities did nearly everthing inside their cities with streetcars except for few routes in the bigger cities with heavy reail. Im talking about cities like Łódź, Riga, Tallinn or even smaller cities like for example Erfurt. Those Systems weren't even upgraded to light rail with expensive tunnels.
The population size is almost irrelevant; it’s all about the density of said people. Many cities that are much smaller than that had successful trolley networks before. Many cities that are larger also have crucial street running rail networks (Vienna for instance). You’re right in that we don’t need grade separation to be successful, but we do need to rebuild our trolley networks to be serious about building a car free coalition in the US.
I've visited quite a few of these cities and have ridden a few of these systems. They're a great resource for tourists staying downtown who want to travel around relatively quickly. In particular, the KC streetcar was convenient with frequent service. However, as others have mentioned, most don't have signal priority and the Q line was stalled once while I was riding it because of a car blocking the tracks. So yeah they do have some challenges but fun to ride!
Portland native here. I tend to have mixed thoughts on the streetcar, since it is one of the slower transit modes through an infamously slow downtown. However, the NS Line runs between my two favorite neighborhoods, and arguably is the reason those two neighborhoods are as good as they are. (Not even arguably for the southern terminus in South Waterfront, it's a high-density neighborhood designed around the streetcar)
I live in a mexican city close to Arizona, and as we northern mexicans tend to replicate things americans do in their cities (for better or worse), Phoenix and Tucson are the main inspirations for everything we do here. Lately, our local goverment officials have made public their intentions to turn this city into a sustainable one. If the Sunset Streetcar and the Valley Metro LRT have created improvements regarding urban mobility, I hope we can learn one thing or two about it since we share the same climatic conditions.
@@danielportillo9266 Hermosillo, Sonora. I mean, there are no plans to build a LRT yet, but I hope we can reach that topic soon in the public discussion because our buses are already overcrowded and deficient. As long as our local poiliticians don't end up choosing a BRT system just to save some money, I think we'll be ok.
@@0smar Osmar, my own advocacy for better transit service in Portland since 1992 relied on the initial streetcar line to do what light rail and buses could not. Before city council I lent support for the streetcar to achieve reliably convenient transfers, light rail to streetcar, to and between bus routes. Eventually I concluded specific bus routes should be like streetcar lines whereby transfers are achieved with the least number of most suitable transit vehicle. There's more to the Portland transit system than most people realize. Denver's 16th Street Shuttle is my model for transit system design. Start there.
I think it’s worth looking into those legacy style streetcar systems, as someone who has lived in both Little Rock and Memphis, both systems are derelict, and don’t really service the areas they were intended to(Memphis are outright shutdown, and LR has had partial running due to construction zones). A lot of the reason is the cities lack of funding to the systems, but it may be worth looking into replacing them with modern style streetcars to have the systems running normally again, as well as of course the city transits to support them.
The Cincinnati Connector has really transformed this place. But we have serious issues with our bus systems, all due to an ingrained cultural bias toward cars being better. They don't need to be, but too often they are.
That’s why we need to start rebuilding our lost trolley networks, meaning we reclaim lanes from cars by protecting them with bollards and give rail signal priority. This is the best way to start reversing the ingrained cultural bias towards cars and back to transit. 🚃
I agree with most of what you said here. Complimentary to existing transit is important for most successful lines. Not planning for expansion is a critical error in my opinion as the popularity & demand grows without being able to add more cars to a consist, recognizing that operator shortages will continue to plague the industry. I’d love to see some videos of successful areas that got redeveloped and/or improved BECAUSE of the addition of the streetcar AND because the city made it desirable to redevelop true TOD. Portland is the city that comes to mind immediately with the South Waterfront development having virtually no videos on TH-cam about its transformation.
Streetcars are so cool. Thank you for another good video. Would you consider including a caption which states the name of the city in your clips? I enjoy seeing your footage, but am often left curious as to where it is filmed.
KC's streetcar is nice, and although it can be a bit of a novelty it was genuinely cool talking to people that obviously have never relied on public transit in their life and hearing them be excited about riding it. KC is very far along in the expansion right now, its about a 4-5 mile expansion down main street, connecting one of the most popular shopping areas (Country Club Plaza), the KC Art Museum, and UMKC. The expansion has farther stop spacing (which will be necessary because Main is a little more sparse between those areas) and is already most of the way through construction. RideKC is saying itll be open for riders in 2025, and I am surprised it will take even that long considering the tracks are almost entirely laid for the full length of the extension, basically the only construction left to complete is redoing the roads around where the tracks have been put in In addition, looking at some of the stop renderings, it seems that down by UMKC (the southern tip of the extension) the tracks may actually be off street.
I would say there is a case for streecars than light rail. 1. Cars are generally smaller, so they don't compete with traffic and the landscape. 2. Because of the lighter cars the infrastructure around building it is less expensive. What we should have gotten to supplement these systems is a light metro. Light metro does not compete with traffic because it has it own right of way. It is usually elevated like a sky train and underground in key places. But what we got is a not thoughtout plan of moving people efficiently. And because time is the essence of our daily lives, than no other alternative should have ever left the planning stages.
There’s very few applications where modern streetcar lines can be implemented in rail-mature top-tier cities, since if a corridor is good enough for rail, just build another line to your existing system compatible with existing rolling stock (especially if it’s being done downtown). I hate street-running as you wind with a line (or segment thereof) that’s as slow as a bus, has similar capacity as a bus, and costs multiple times the price of a bus. In midsized cities it may be a starting point for building a rail network.
The biggest issue with streetcars is that they don’t have any priority most of the time. No signal priority and no dedicated lanes. They run as if they are cars, weaving through different lanes in order to accommodate turning lanes for cars and parking. Oh, and they’re often running on the side of the road surface, right next to parking or sidewalks, meaning they have more potential conflict points with pedestrians and parked vehicles.
I agree, that’s part of the reason we need to use the term trolley again instead of streetcar because they should not be in the same lane with them ever. Automobiles can definitely afford to give up some of their space of the roads for dedicated trolley tracks. 💯 As for the potential conflict with pedestrians, not sure why everyone is so caught up on this; it’s not like cars don’t ever conflict with pedestrians right now or anything 🤦♂️
Honestly as a European Im just confused at the American takes on both Light rail and streetcars. Both are just fundementally trams, but one goes in on so many major investments like grade separations and gigantic trains that it would massively oughtweigh the exact lower costs that make cities choose light rail in Europe, and ask why not just build a subway. The streetcars meanwhile are often the exact opposite end of the spectrum but also still on the issue of cost. You invest this much into the physical tracks yet you dont design it to be fast and efficient, often sharing tracks with cars and having no signal priority, curbside tracks so parked cars or turning cars block the tracks, not to mention using some of the tiniest trams imaginable where you could get the exact same capacity just with a 40ft bus. At least in my eyes it just makes no sense as you're wasting money on some really expensive stuff yet which is still inherrently limited by other decissions, meaning you spend a ton of money that could've been used to fund more transit and more effective transit on the corridor and elsewhere If anything I'd hope North American cities in the future would follow design principles on modern European Light rail systems instead for both streetcars and Light rail. This means generally entirely at grade to keep costs down but with almost 100% dedicated lanes and signal priority, preferably in the median, and 5-7 segment vehicles between 80ft and 150ft in length to take advantage of the increased capacity offered by a tram system. That would make the best value for money and the best user experience for passengers. The Odense tramway in Odense, Denmark (pop. 182k) would be a pretty good case study for how do the physical design and route planning for such a system as Odense is also a fairly car dependent city like many US ones, but has managed to increase ridership on this primary transit corridor over 5 times over with its Modern European Light rail system compared to the bus lines it replaced. It now carrying 2/3rds of all transit ridership in the whole city on just a single line (which connects downtown and its train station with several districts, a sports arena complex, 2 different suburban malls, the city's university, a new regional hospital being built, 2 Park n rides one of which features the Intercity coach stop, and another commuter rail stop). If the Obama streetcars were designed more like systems like Odense's or most other European systems for that matter, they would likely be of much greater use to its city, its passengers, and even to developers, which after all was a big goal with the US streetcars.
Regular European-style trams are called "streetcars" in the US due to their long and storied history on the continent. These things were ubiquitous back in the day in basically any American city/town of over 10k population. Like their European brethren, they have bus-like stop spacings and usually run in mixed traffic, like busses. This makes for bus-like average speeds and service patterns. They're more walking accelerators than rapid transit in terms of use cases. The American term "light rail" is what the Germans call "a tram-train" in Europe. The light rail systems are just one step below true rapid transit, and many are openly transitional/hybrid pre-metro systems that are expected to one day be fully converted to light metro (San Francisco's Muni, San Jose VTA, etc.). They have metro-like stop spacings and generally run in dedicated rights of way (old rail corridors, downtown tunnels, viaducts), almost completely segregated from both cars and pedestrians. They only cross car and pedestrian spaces at street intersections, and only in certain places. Many run far into the deep suburbs or even to adjacent cities. (Seattle Link, Sacramento SacRT). Most American light rail systems have higher average speeds than the older European metro systems (Paris, Prague, etc.). And the most common train types (Siemens S700/S200 series) are just Americanized tram-trains from Germany, like the Siemens Avanto. The German stadbahns were a major inspiration for how these systems are built and how they operate. Lumping the two terms together only confuses things. One is basically just an electric bus on rails that sticks to the downtown areas. The other is a pre-metro-ish kind of thing with metro-like speeds and that runs far into the suburbs. They're not comparable in speed, use case, rolling stock, or coverage.
@@TohaBgood2 Light rail is not called “tram-trains” in Europe. A tram-train is a special form of light rail that runs on active main line tracks for part of its route (like in Karlsruhe). The German catch-all term for light rail is “Stadtbahn”.
@@bahnspotterEU American light rail systems use primarily tram-train derived vehicles, with the Siemens Avanto-derived S700s and S200s being by far the most common type. They also commonly run in old freight corridors and reach far into the suburbs often traveling to adjacent cities. Look at systems like SacRT which goes all the way from Sacramento to Folsom. Same goes for something like the San Jose VTA light rail which travels from Milpitas to Mountain View, to San Jose and to Campbell. It's basically a regional network. I understand that this might seem confusing to someone who hasn't used these systems, but only some of them skew more in the stadtbahn direction (e.g. SF Muni Metro). Most of them are a lot more tram-train than stadtbahn.
@@TohaBgood2 I don't think you know what tram train means since tram train specifically means directly running on mainline railroads, on the same tracks as other heavy trains would, while also neing able to leave it and join a tram system in a city. The ONLY system in North America I'm even remotely sure interlines with heavy railroading is the ION system in Kitchener/Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. A more accurate definition for light rail in Europe would probably be a Stadtbahn since the North American light rail definition was created by making newly built systems based on German Stadtbahn systems in places like Frankfurt am Main, Hannover, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart. and Cologne among others. Their plan was a long term one to convert tram lines to subways, first by building subway like tunnelled sections in the centre and gradually build out grade separations from there to over time convert the existing tram systems to a subway. But the cost was simply too great so those projects have been stalled.
The Omaha streetcar system has the potential to be an extremely interesting network, particularly with an extension proposed into neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa that would largely run on its own right of way with a parallel bike trail
@@StLouis-yu9izMost of the environmental issues Arizona faces are because of large corporations, primarily in agriculture. They use 70% of our water supply. The average Arizonan uses a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the amount of water they do, even in a single day.
honestly i feel like streetcars are way more visible and easy to use than busses. Busses are loud, theres usually barely any signage, and its hard to navigate. When in a streetcar, the ride is usually smooth, there is a lot more sinage and its very clear and very mappable compared to busses. i honestly wish there were more streetcars than busses but also more light rail and heavy rail too
"Streetcars honestly should not be the main form of public transit in a city" Depends on the context. Streetcars are perfect for forming the backbone of systems in small-medium sized cities with a bit of density. Works quite well in Germany or France for example.
awesome video! love the appreciation for KC Streetcar 💙🩵 the ongoing extensions to the Plaza / UMKC and to the Riverfront are signs of a bright future for transit in KC. The streetcar will no longer be just a downtown circulator, becoming the spine of the city's transportation network
also up to 80% of the expansions will have transit only lanes which is HUGE for the streetcar considering it's speed is largely limited by operating in mixed traffic
Really nice video but I can't agree with statement that city can't rely only on trams. There is a lot of examples all around Europe that can and often it works just perfectly, take for example legacy networks of many eastern European cities such as Cracow, Wrocław or Poznań (were I am from) or more relevant for this particular video new tram networks which started growing up in many French cities in 90s. My 2 favorite examples are Strasbourg and Montpellier, especially second one was built in very car dependent way in XXth century but since opening of the first line in year 2000 was able to create very comprehensive network of 4 lines and is going to open 5th next year. Around half of cities population now uses trams on the daily basis and thanks to them municipality was able to fully pedestrianized most of the city center. In my opinion creating city around trams is not only possible but with mid sized cities is in fact one of the best ways to quickly and cost effectively provide transformative transit. But there is one important detail why all of this is possible in France, in most places where tram tracks are built they are taking space away from cars and mostly operate over green tracks with physical separation from car traffic so can't be disrupted as it often happens with legacy systems.
The biggest problem with these systems is they are way too tiny. Both the size of the routes and the rolling stock is limiting to the success of these streetcars. Add to that poor frequency, terrible speed and useless gadgetry, like many systems going off-wire for little sections for no real reason, and you begin to understand why these are almost all flawed to the core. They are more like theme park rides in many cases than serious transport. I also think that a lot of Americans have a weird view on the size requirements for a city to have any form of rail transit. People say “this city isn’t big enough for a streetcar” and then mean a city with a population of 1 million people in the urban area. Streetcars, especially ones as tiny as the ones shown here, can serve towns of less than 100k, if the towns support it with destinations and at least passable density. Instead of continuously putting tiny streetcars into massive cities, I have an alternate idea for a pilot scheme (warning, unrealistic but interesting): What if a city of moderate size like Worcester, MA or New Haven, CT or Richmond, VA was all at once fitted out with a much more comprehensive streetcar network, that would reach all viably dense or popular areas, get decent signal priority and separation from road traffic where possible? Think of it like a trial for the whole country, trying to see if wider streetcar systems can actually positively impact transit ridership. Of course, to ensure the projects success, maintenance should be good, as should transit safety and cleanliness at all times and in all areas served. I know it would be a huge investment, but I think it would be a much better way to test the viability of refitting cities with streetcars and it would be more respectful to the mode itself too. As it stands, all these Obama streetcars could easily be replaced by buses.
Sometimes I think it would be great for Chicago to connect up it's L stations with streetcars, but honestly that money would be better invested in improving the existing system, and if we were to do something new, a subway along Western Ave would be far more successful
But this trend was way older than this. The success of the San Diego Trolley starting in 1981 encouraged the revival of streetcar systems, and that lead the opening of the Sacramento Regional Transit light rail system from 1987 onwards, San Francisco MUNI streetcar system undergoing major upgrades at the same time and Los Angeles opening Metro Rail from 1990 on.
Having grown up riding a packed legacy street car system (Boston’s green lines) these new systems have from what I’ve seen in person exist to: 1. Make people feel like their city is cool and smart 2. Transit for tourists that are scared of buses because of their poor people association Never seems like there’s ever anyone riding these. Even in Portland.
Streetcars usually have a single or double-car setup. Light rail can be 4-8 cars long. Streetcars mostly run in mixed traffic. Light rail runs mostly on its own right of way. Light rail vehicles are usually bigger.
Streetcars can absolutely be used as the main form of transit, up to like half a million population a streetcar that becomes more like light rail near the edges of the city can absolutely be enough if you have a frequency of more than once every ten minutes.
I know this video is old, but if you see this what do you think of the routing the Omaha streetcar will use? I think it could be better but also could be worse, it goes through neighborhoods that are in the process redeveloping but also parallels the “brt” that they run.
The main problem with many US downtown streetcars was that they weren't built to solve a transportation problem. They were built solely to attract residents to go downtown and unless the downtown is already vibrant with plenty to do, few are going to use it. A streetcar alone can't revitalize a downtown and becomes a financial drain on the city. Revitalization takes good policy. A streetcar is an expensive substitute for poor city policies. A streetcar's main differentiator is that it can accommodate far more people than a bus with faster service without the grade separation of light rail. A streetcar can serve very busy corridors that buses alone can't handle without overcrowding. A dedicated at-grade ROW is essential to provide faster service to move the higher number of people. This way, a streetcar can do some heavy lifting for a city's transit system instead of being a very expensive novelty line. Without the dedicated ROW, a streetcar isn't any better than a bus. A streetcar line that barely carries no more people than a city's typical bus route is a waste of money. The Salt Lake City streetcar carries 1,100 people/day, barely 1/3 of SLC's busier bus lines (and less than half of the bus it parallels 1/2 block away). SLC's light rail lines carry between 15-25,000/day and their busiest bus lines about 3,500/day. A streetcar would fit in between those two modes. The S line was forecasted to carry 2,000/day, which still doesn't warrant a streetcar and tells me that SLC doesn't understand what streetcars do. That 2 mile corridor would merit the cost of a streetcar if it moved 6-10,000+/ day. While there has been some real estate investment along the corridor (too bad not many of them use the streetcar), there were probably other ways to stimulate that investment. Instead of a sleepy little corridor, a beautiful green corridor like a pedestrian/bike greenway flanked by restaurants and shops (the neighborhood was always concerned with protecting it's unique local shops) could have served as a focal point for the neighborhood leading up to the mall and would probably have gotten far more use.
You sound like an Atlanta nimby. Why try to create a rail corridor when we could be lazy and just do a multi use path instead 🙄 The networks just need to be expanded. Then it will be a crucial link in a web of lines crossing the region.
@@StLouis-yu9iz You sound like someone who just wants rail even if it's poorly executed and isn't the right solution. Why be smart about it when you can just expand the network with a web of lines everywhere crossing the region? That kind of lazy planning without well-researched analysis is how you end up with a system like San Jose's with 3 rail lines (after closing a short 4th rail line for terrible performance) that combined can't even match the ridership of the city's busiest bus line. The high operating costs of the poorly planned rail system have hobbled the agency's ability to improve it's bus lines. Meanwhile, the city's busiest corridors have no rail service. That's what you get with lazy planning. Salt Lake has a good light rail system with good ridership. The short S line isn't doing much to add mobility to the region. If you had researched Salt Lake's transit corridors, you'd see that extending the S line won't do much for the city's mobility. It doesn't have any potential and another solution could've served the neighborhood better. The money is better spent on other corridors.
@@bryanCJC2105 how is building a web of a rail network easier than making cycle tracks? lol If San Jose reopens the 4th line along with a 5th, 6th, & 7th ones then I’m sure it would by a useful line in a cross region transfer trip. 🤦♂️
Glad to see Tucson’s SunLink in the “Great” category. No one expected the streetcar here to succeed like it did, especially considering the relatively small population of Tucson and how sprawling it is. I’m hopeful for the transit future here with BRT on the way. Now if only SunTran could get frequencies up…
Wait, so Detroit's QLine with all of its issues isn't the bottom tier? It clearly has had more issues than were anticipated with getting stuck in traffic but more dedicated lanes and signal priority could greatly improve that. The fact other ones are deemed worse is rather telling about the state of mass transit in the US.
I'm not sure streetcars are the best choice, as their cost isnt so far off from light rail which is way faster. Also American transit has noticeably gotten slower over time from the fast 1970s metros to the okay speed 1980s metros to the slow 1990s light rail to the painfully slow 2000s streetcars, and the slightly less painfully slow 2010s BRT systems, and then we stopped building transit
The cost is extremely far off. Bollards and signal upgrades for new trolley networks will be WAY cheaper than building more new grade separated metro r.o.w. Also many US cities are still planning new trolley lines or even starts to rebuilding networks. For instance, there will soon be an entirely new LRT line running N/S almost the entire length of StL city. I am super excited for this trolley and the future expansions after 🫶🚃🙌
Streetcars are cool, but I'd never use them on a regular basis. They're just so god damn slow, and I'd rather take a bus or bike usually (or a metro if it was an option)
I think cities need to be very careful about their usage of streetcars. My impression from what I've seen online, and plans local to me, is that they are used as a "Oh, we should probably have transit because climate resilience is a good selling point.", which is fair, but I feel is not one that seems them fulfill their greatest potential. I think streetcars should be emblematic of "Hey closer in neighborhoods, we're serious about making you good places to live.", and so should be applied to streetcar-era suburbs that are still relatively dense, and should be part of redevelopment plans of places undergoing redevelopment and a reduction of car-focused infrastructure. Also, and this should go without saying, but seems to be missed by the people who planned them out, they must interchange well with higher order transit, and be a high-capacity-high-frequency augmentation of lower order transportation systems, such as frequent bus systems and bike/pedestrian heavy areas.
Street cars like that would be billed into the taxes, so everyone pays for it, even if its not used, but because taxes are used on it, but you don't have to pay per use, it makes it more likely to get used actively by people saying that since they are already paying the tax for it, might as well use it to get the tax benefits from it.
@@darioadrianz Many European countries actually use mass transit the same way they do for things like schools, or their healthcare, meaning its paid for though taxes, so everyone pays a certain percentage towards the upkeep and maintenance of the mass transit, which is why in many of those countries, even the rich will ride it. The cities that also don't charge fee/ticket prices, would use the same model for it, so the people living there or spending money there are charged a certain percentage in tax that goes to its upkeep and maintenance.
I think it's really interesting that the 2009 / Obama-era streetcars will be talked about by future transit historians as a defined era in the resurgence of local rail transit. Having followed and ridden many of these projects over the years it's fascinating how quickly they piled up, now tons of cities that at one point ripped out all of their streetcars have them again. I think the KC streetcar in particular is the start of what will one day be a robust network of streetcars, there's so much promise there
I totally agree with the first part of your comment but then you lost me at the end… I used to live in Columbia MO for awhile and so have had the opportunity to visit both KC and StL many times… You can tell which one I fell in love with. lol Kansas City is probably the most overrated metro I’ve ever visited. Outside of the current streetcar alignment walk-shed, the rest of the city is low density car centric sprawl. Even within the downtown/midtown area that the streetcar currently runs there’s really not much to do. StL meanwhile is hands down the MOST underrated city in the world. It has such a rich history and is full of attractions throughout its numerous legacy dense mixed use walkable neighborhoods. The Delmar Loop alone is way better than downtown KC, we just need to extend the Trolley that was built there recently to connect more of our great urbanist gems. ⚜️🫶
Problem with these systems is that they are all street running in mixed traffic. I like any rail transit but a lot of these systems took the worst approach to streetcar design. They all have no grade separation, run near curbs which is bad as cars crowd near corners to make turns, and are loop systems that essentially serve as people movers. Large cities such as Detroit and KC really need grade separated LRT to create truly useful transit.
They don’t have to be grade separated as long as they have protected lanes. Installing bollards is a lot cheaper than even cut and cover or elevated tracks. We just need to get serious about reclaiming space from cars and trolleys will work fine. 😊
Like I said....not mentioning the TTC streetcar is a missed opportunity to make this video worth watching..just because Toronto is "not american" doesn't mean you should omit a very influential streetcar north american city with the same standard of living and for most part same north american culture.....viewers will learn alot how Toronto matured the streetcar network ( for those who also call it "Legacy") to how it is now....do some research in fine detail and one will know Toronto is a very good case study of how streetcar could have been for some american cities and or how it evolved/enhanced over the decades....
He could have done more, especially in his first two years when democrats had big majorities in congress. Biden got more done with razor thin majorities during his first two years in office.
I find these kinds of videos so irritating. You jump from one clip to another to another with no explanation whatsoever. Here’s a streetcar, now here’s a streetcar somewhere else. No labels, no logic to it. Just as you start to figure out what you’re looking at - could that be San Diego? - bam it’s something else. How about talk about one city at a time and show images of just that city so we can follow along and see what you’re verbally describing. Please don’t yank the footage away and replace it with something else before the viewer can even figure out what they’re looking at.
No offence but streetcars are inferior to fully grade separated metro systems. Since streetcars have to deal with cars and pedestrians, it really slows them down. Whereas fully grade separated metros don't have to contend with that and can have amazing frequencies, every 2 minutes. To reduce cost of building a subway, elevated metro lines have the benefit of grade separation at a lower cost, while also allowing passengers to enjoy the view 🌲🚈
No offense, but grade separated metros are pretty unrealistic in the US for a long time. We need to build rail networks NOW so we can build enough political capital to actually carry out the elevated projects you’re referring to. In order to do that, we need to just start rebuilding our lost trolley networks. While it is true that pedestrians and cyclists will have to get used to looking before crossing tracks, at least there will be tracks instead of the cars that speed around wherever they can fit on our streets. Which brings me to my other point, they should never have to worry about cars. That’s why we need to reclaim space on the roads from personal automobiles and give it back to trolleys. 🚃💯
Trolleys are the future of transit in the US for the foreseeable future. We need to start rebuilding our lost networks with dedicated lane and signal prioritized lines. Heavier rail is great yes, but we need to build a larger coalition of car free urbanists here that truly understand and support transit. BRT won’t do that because it doesn’t actually change the built environment and just keeps the status quo of auto-centrism. Trolleys on the other hand can meaningfully improve urban fabric if they are used to remove some car accommodations. They are also like a giant advertisement for transit and in my experience are a lot more effective at attracting first time riders than buses. I just don’t see how we are going to quickly and meaningfully chip away at car culture in N.A. without restoring the once great trolley systems most of our cities once had. 🚃💯👏
The problem with street cars is they always run in traffic and needs dedicated lanes
Some light rail systems do this in the downtown as well
When they have dedicated lanes and signal priority, this becomes a non-issue.
@@kevbarnes8459in Portland that’s true and it will take billions to fix. Seattle has some areas where trains are at street level. But signals cut traffic off, also they built a lot of tunnels
Exactly, we just need to start building more dedicated lane trolleys and try to restore our lost networks. 💯
That's not true, modern french style tram system mostly run along streets on separated tracks which were previously just 2 additional lanes of traffic and only interaction with cars is on intersections
Note: with the exception of New Orleans, every legacy streetcar system in continuous operation shared a distinctive feature: tunnels or viaducts that could not be converted for buses.
And look how popular the St. Charles line in NOLA still is. What a shame that some urbanists push for BRT with our limited funding rn instead of starting to rebuild our trolley networks! 🚃👏
Or in Boston’s case, the fact that the Green Line was already fully integrated into the existing network as is for the bulk of the line.
In New Orleans do they run 24/7 ?
@@BK_718 not quite 24/7. There’s 5 lines. Some end late at night others just aren’t every 15 minutes at night. Then there’s gap in service between late night and early morning for some
@@BK_718That original St. Charles line does run 24/7, the others do not.
Something interesting (yet kinda sad) about the Dallas street car is that its route was chosen specifically to connect one of the most under-served areas in the city to downtown. It would actually be pretty great if it was extended just a little bit north, as the current terminus is literally 5 blocks away from Union Station, of which 2 light rail lines, several bus lines, and the texas eagle all join at. As it stands, the terminus is too far away for a reasonable transfer, so the street car just kind of connects an underserved part of the city to another part of the city that doesnt have much transit. Its fully separated from traffic for the most part though, and land use all throughout dallas is getting better. Maybe someone at dart will look into the untapped potential there and look at a northern extention, but for now i believe theres a bus that might fill in that gap to give the streetcar more purpose
#just lay the tracks and extend the system already! 😫
Kinda reminds me of the Delmar Loop Trolley situation here in StL.
If it was extended just 2 miles east it would be in the Central West End… one of the densest and most lively neighborhoods in the Lou. Instead urbanists here want to prioritize ordering more buses before expanding the trolley system 😢
@StLouis-yu9iz to be fair that's exactly what's happening in dallas. We're prioritizing making our frankly horrible bus system into a decent/good one. It's honestly a much higher priority here so I don't blame them for not looking at it while they've already got 2 major projects underway
The Dallas streetcar is a weird one because the light rail already covers the downtown fairly well, so they’re relying on the streetcar to go to those couple neighborhoods that weren’t served by the light rail downtown. But it is just that problem where they’re assuming people will ride it to the union station terminus walk those couple blocks, and then go wherever else downtown or beyond, and I can’t imagine that’s very fast. What Dallas should so is look at connecting the streetcar to both the Uptown streetcar (either make it one continuous line or make a 3rd streetcar look around downtown), as well as continue it south to connect to the Red line light rail, that way there’s more points to connect those neighborhoods to the rest of Dallas.
The thing with the Atlanta Streetcar is that what is there now is phase 1 of several future parts that are supposed to include Beltline Rail. So while it really doesn't go anywhere now and is basically more a tourist thing, in the near future (hopefully near) it will connect many different places along the beltline as well as interface directly with MARTA
Yea it hopefully will go through and service some additional neighborhoods but leadership at Marta has me a little concerned
@@climateandtransit More a lack of support from our (hopefully soon to be former) Mayor who ran on getting it built
If I had a penny for every time I heard a transit agency say this and it ended up never happening...
@@ElFlippage We'd both be able to fund it ourselves probably if we had a dime for every time...lol
Huge Tacoma snub here. It opened in 2003, YEARS before Seattle's first modern streetcar. It has grade separation in one section, and signal priority throughout. At first, it connected two transit hubs in downtown: Tacoma Dome, with the Sounder commuter rail, and the Pierce Transit main bus station. It also serves a college campus, UWT, all of the main museums and theaters, and the convention center. Now it's been extended into the densest residential neighborhood, Stadium District, and then to the two big hospitals in Tacoma. It carried nearly 1,000,000 per year before COVID, putting it on par with Cincy and the Q line.
From KCMO here. I love the streetcar. It’s a huge reason I regularly forget where my car is parked. I think we’ll see the max length of the streetcar expansion to the south with the Plaza district. Any farther of a line and it will need more light rail style service or just not be feasible time wise.
Pleasantly surprised to see KC's line on top! Can't wait for its extension completion
The Tempe streetcar is so great. it was my first exposure to taking public transit and combining it with a kick scooter I was able to do my college commute with ease
The Milwaukee streetcar was designed around the assumption that there would be a lot more trains coming into Milwaukee Intermodal. The KRM commuter line as well as the higher-speed Hiawatha extension to Madison were both supposed to happen around the same time. The streetcar would have moved many of these riders across the CBD. These projects, however, were cancelled by the governor, and remain in the preliminary planning stages under the current governor.
While the Milwaukee streetcar has routing problems that make it slow and somewhat destinationless (again, ensured by the interference of the governor), a big reason for the low ridership is the underutilization of Milwaukee Intermodal. In other words, the network effect.
That’s the problem with almost all N.A. trolley systems… they need to be expanded to recreate the networks we used to have all over our regions. The only reason most urbanists don’t fully support them is because they aren’t bold enough to imagine reclaiming car lanes and giving them signal priority so that they are even faster than current automobiles. 👏
I hope that Philadelphia updates their streetcar system. Especially the all surface streetcar 🚊 systems.
3:17 3:35 Thanks again for using my footage! I'm over the moon!
This was a great video!
I want a president whose legacy Is automated elevated light metro systems
Like the DLR
Monorail???
Ayyyyyy, I went to school in Tucson and used the streetcar every day. It let me live off campus (4th ave) and car lite!
I live in the DC area, and I'm familiar with the DC Streetcar saga. There are a LOT of issues there: 1) the track placement means that its run on H Street NW is often blocked by cars (thankfully the city is very good at towing/enforcement); 2) the speed due to track placement and lack of signal priority are continuing problems; 3) The ends of the lines are limited -- the Union Station end requires a bit of a walk to get to the Red Line Metro station (but is nicely close to the bus terminal, and the Oklahoma Ave end is nowhere near a Metro station (and needs to be).
Thankfully, regional planners and the city want to extend both ends, with a big caveat... The end that would be extended west through Downtown into Georgetown requires battery operation (the federal agencies that have a say over DC refuse to allow overhead catenaries; this is odd because several European cities have tram lines through historic areas and don't worry about "spoiling the views"). The end that would be extended east would finally hit at least one Metro line (either Minnesota Avenue on the Orange Line, or Benning Road on the Blue/Silver Line). Additionally, both would need bridge rebuilds for the tracks, and of those the Union Station end is the easier since that bridge is scheduled for rebuilding very soon (within five years). I'm still hopeful. That streetcar line helped to invigorate the H Street/Atlas District corridor and provide rail access to a part of the city that hadn't had any in decades.
Kansas City is currently expanding its streetcar lines both north and south. The southern, or Main Street Expansion, adds 3.5 miles and 15 stops along the Main Street corridor from Pershing Blvd. to UMKC. This leg of the expansion is slated to be completed next year, but they have already made significant progress. Many major intersections along the route have had their traffic signals completely replaced or are in the early stages of installation.
As for the Riverfront Extension, groundbreaking occurred just three months (as of today, June 13, 2024) and added 0.7 miles to the current line, running mainly along Berkeley Riverfront Pkwy.
Having ridden the light rail and streetcars in Seattle and Portland, my take is that the differences between the two are that light rail is "serious" about efficiently moving people (i.e. some grade separation, but when at grade, runs in dedicated lanes and has signal priority), whereas the streetcars are half-assed attempts at being a useful mode of transport.
In both Seattle and Portland (and I would guess other cities, if they copied Portland's implementation), they're barely faster than walking (because they share lanes with cars and don't have signal priority), and their frequency borders on bad enough to the point I'd just choose to walk (i.e. 12-25 minute frequency vs. 10 minutes or less frequency for light rail). They're basically fancy buses, except less reliable (because they can be blocked by a poorly parked car)
I'm glad to hear you talk about Portland, as since I grew up here, it's obviously the first example that came to mind! Though, as a local, I wanted to give a little more context to anyone who was interested.
The MAX Light Rail (short for Metropolitan Area Express) was opened in 1986 with what is now the Blue Line (the system originally known as a whole as the Banfield Light Rail Project), this system actually being the third of it's generation. It runs similar to a Stadtbahn in East Multnomah County (past I-205) and in Downtown Portland, and it runs as a sort of express-style railway along the Banfield Freeway. And while it still sort of runs as a Stadtbahn here and there on most of it's lines, TriMet has been diverting away from that and trying to make the MAX more of a cheap version of a Light Metro.
The Portland Streetcar on the other hand is exactly what it says it is. It's a streetcar that runs around Portland, and occasionally has some cool stuff like dedicated Right Of Way's and Transit Signal Priority. Though, obviously the MAX takes first precedent.
Hope this helps!
I'm a lifelong Cincinnati area resident, and take a ride on the Connector really often. It's a good system (especially as a free shuttle to get to FC Cincinnati games quicker), with lots of potential to be better
Funding need to be increased for all major cities. Need predictable funding for a proper ten yar plan.
Yes, so we can start planning how to rebuild our trolley networks! 🫶
If the residents are willing to pay more taxes
4:13 I have to defend the Dallas streetcar. It is the only rail connection from downtown to the Bishop Arts district, one of the most popular neighborhoods in the city. When I was in Dallas in July I used it a lot, and there were always a number of other people on it too
Thanks Obama!
Instead of a hwy 99 tunnel, Seattle should have built a waterfront streetcar to service Pike Place and the ferry terminal - while filling the gap between the two disconnected lines.
lol
lol
@@BirbarianHomeGuard nah the old route on alaskan was kinda mid. if ccc hadnt been canceled it woulda been far better
🙄
In Melbourne, Australia, we call street cars trams. And Trams are bloody awesome!!!
I'm surprised you didn't mention the red line in Houston. It connects downtown to the medical center and wow it gets crazy busy around 9am and 5pm. I'm talking packed like sardines busy.
It’s not quite a streetcar actually it’s more of an actual light rail service! But it is quite effective and needs expansion!
Streetcars could be the main form of public transit for a city it's just that they fit this role best for cities from 50.000-750.000 inhabitants. Many eastern european cities did nearly everthing inside their cities with streetcars except for few routes in the bigger cities with heavy reail. Im talking about cities like Łódź, Riga, Tallinn or even smaller cities like for example Erfurt. Those Systems weren't even upgraded to light rail with expensive tunnels.
They don’t too slow
The population size is almost irrelevant; it’s all about the density of said people. Many cities that are much smaller than that had successful trolley networks before. Many cities that are larger also have crucial street running rail networks (Vienna for instance). You’re right in that we don’t need grade separation to be successful, but we do need to rebuild our trolley networks to be serious about building a car free coalition in the US.
I've visited quite a few of these cities and have ridden a few of these systems. They're a great resource for tourists staying downtown who want to travel around relatively quickly. In particular, the KC streetcar was convenient with frequent service. However, as others have mentioned, most don't have signal priority and the Q line was stalled once while I was riding it because of a car blocking the tracks. So yeah they do have some challenges but fun to ride!
San Jose, CA has a nice streetcar with stops close together and links to transit hubs and downtown convention center and airport.
Portland native here. I tend to have mixed thoughts on the streetcar, since it is one of the slower transit modes through an infamously slow downtown. However, the NS Line runs between my two favorite neighborhoods, and arguably is the reason those two neighborhoods are as good as they are. (Not even arguably for the southern terminus in South Waterfront, it's a high-density neighborhood designed around the streetcar)
Sounds like the street cars need dedicated right of way and priority signaling!
I live in a mexican city close to Arizona, and as we northern mexicans tend to replicate things americans do in their cities (for better or worse), Phoenix and Tucson are the main inspirations for everything we do here.
Lately, our local goverment officials have made public their intentions to turn this city into a sustainable one.
If the Sunset Streetcar and the Valley Metro LRT have created improvements regarding urban mobility, I hope we can learn one thing or two about it since we share the same climatic conditions.
That's good to hear that Phoenix is inspiring more cities to bulid light rail! What city do you live in?
@@danielportillo9266 Hermosillo, Sonora.
I mean, there are no plans to build a LRT yet, but I hope we can reach that topic soon in the public discussion because our buses are already overcrowded and deficient. As long as our local poiliticians don't end up choosing a BRT system just to save some money, I think we'll be ok.
@@0smar You guys should plan a light rail and build it. It could go to the different schools and stadiums.
@@0smar Osmar, my own advocacy for better transit service in Portland since 1992 relied on the initial streetcar line to do what light rail and buses could not. Before city council I lent support for the streetcar to achieve reliably convenient transfers, light rail to streetcar, to and between bus routes. Eventually I concluded specific bus routes should be like streetcar lines whereby transfers are achieved with the least number of most suitable transit vehicle. There's more to the Portland transit system than most people realize. Denver's 16th Street Shuttle is my model for transit system design. Start there.
I think it’s worth looking into those legacy style streetcar systems, as someone who has lived in both Little Rock and Memphis, both systems are derelict, and don’t really service the areas they were intended to(Memphis are outright shutdown, and LR has had partial running due to construction zones). A lot of the reason is the cities lack of funding to the systems, but it may be worth looking into replacing them with modern style streetcars to have the systems running normally again, as well as of course the city transits to support them.
The Cincinnati Connector has really transformed this place. But we have serious issues with our bus systems, all due to an ingrained cultural bias toward cars being better. They don't need to be, but too often they are.
Maybe if your express buses were more useful this won’t be an issue.
That’s why we need to start rebuilding our lost trolley networks, meaning we reclaim lanes from cars by protecting them with bollards and give rail signal priority. This is the best way to start reversing the ingrained cultural bias towards cars and back to transit. 🚃
I agree with most of what you said here. Complimentary to existing transit is important for most successful lines. Not planning for expansion is a critical error in my opinion as the popularity & demand grows without being able to add more cars to a consist, recognizing that operator shortages will continue to plague the industry.
I’d love to see some videos of successful areas that got redeveloped and/or improved BECAUSE of the addition of the streetcar AND because the city made it desirable to redevelop true TOD. Portland is the city that comes to mind immediately with the South Waterfront development having virtually no videos on TH-cam about its transformation.
The first modern LRV streetcars new built was San Diego Trolly
tampa streetcar sure is cute though. i love the beer can building in downtown
I LOVE HAPPY CAT thank you for using it at the beginning of your video
6:45 wtf was bro doing here
Huh, today I learned that Little Rock has a streetcar line. Great content as always!
Streetcars are so cool. Thank you for another good video. Would you consider including a caption which states the name of the city in your clips? I enjoy seeing your footage, but am often left curious as to where it is filmed.
0:07 you caught my local bus line in the background there lol
New Santa Ana, CA 4 mile streetcar route should be wrapping up next year. I wonder how it will perform.
cincinnati streetcar mentioned
deploy the vikky
KC's streetcar is nice, and although it can be a bit of a novelty it was genuinely cool talking to people that obviously have never relied on public transit in their life and hearing them be excited about riding it.
KC is very far along in the expansion right now, its about a 4-5 mile expansion down main street, connecting one of the most popular shopping areas (Country Club Plaza), the KC Art Museum, and UMKC. The expansion has farther stop spacing (which will be necessary because Main is a little more sparse between those areas) and is already most of the way through construction. RideKC is saying itll be open for riders in 2025, and I am surprised it will take even that long considering the tracks are almost entirely laid for the full length of the extension, basically the only construction left to complete is redoing the roads around where the tracks have been put in
In addition, looking at some of the stop renderings, it seems that down by UMKC (the southern tip of the extension) the tracks may actually be off street.
I would say there is a case for streecars than light rail.
1. Cars are generally smaller, so they don't compete with traffic and the landscape.
2. Because of the lighter cars the infrastructure around building it is less expensive.
What we should have gotten to supplement these systems is a light metro. Light metro does not compete with traffic because it has it own right of way.
It is usually elevated like a sky train and underground in key places.
But what we got is a not thoughtout plan of moving people efficiently. And because time is the essence of our daily lives, than no other alternative should have ever left the planning stages.
There’s very few applications where modern streetcar lines can be implemented in rail-mature top-tier cities, since if a corridor is good enough for rail, just build another line to your existing system compatible with existing rolling stock (especially if it’s being done downtown). I hate street-running as you wind with a line (or segment thereof) that’s as slow as a bus, has similar capacity as a bus, and costs multiple times the price of a bus. In midsized cities it may be a starting point for building a rail network.
The biggest issue with streetcars is that they don’t have any priority most of the time. No signal priority and no dedicated lanes. They run as if they are cars, weaving through different lanes in order to accommodate turning lanes for cars and parking. Oh, and they’re often running on the side of the road surface, right next to parking or sidewalks, meaning they have more potential conflict points with pedestrians and parked vehicles.
I agree, that’s part of the reason we need to use the term trolley again instead of streetcar because they should not be in the same lane with them ever. Automobiles can definitely afford to give up some of their space of the roads for dedicated trolley tracks. 💯 As for the potential conflict with pedestrians, not sure why everyone is so caught up on this; it’s not like cars don’t ever conflict with pedestrians right now or anything 🤦♂️
Honestly as a European Im just confused at the American takes on both Light rail and streetcars. Both are just fundementally trams, but one goes in on so many major investments like grade separations and gigantic trains that it would massively oughtweigh the exact lower costs that make cities choose light rail in Europe, and ask why not just build a subway. The streetcars meanwhile are often the exact opposite end of the spectrum but also still on the issue of cost. You invest this much into the physical tracks yet you dont design it to be fast and efficient, often sharing tracks with cars and having no signal priority, curbside tracks so parked cars or turning cars block the tracks, not to mention using some of the tiniest trams imaginable where you could get the exact same capacity just with a 40ft bus. At least in my eyes it just makes no sense as you're wasting money on some really expensive stuff yet which is still inherrently limited by other decissions, meaning you spend a ton of money that could've been used to fund more transit and more effective transit on the corridor and elsewhere
If anything I'd hope North American cities in the future would follow design principles on modern European Light rail systems instead for both streetcars and Light rail. This means generally entirely at grade to keep costs down but with almost 100% dedicated lanes and signal priority, preferably in the median, and 5-7 segment vehicles between 80ft and 150ft in length to take advantage of the increased capacity offered by a tram system. That would make the best value for money and the best user experience for passengers. The Odense tramway in Odense, Denmark (pop. 182k) would be a pretty good case study for how do the physical design and route planning for such a system as Odense is also a fairly car dependent city like many US ones, but has managed to increase ridership on this primary transit corridor over 5 times over with its Modern European Light rail system compared to the bus lines it replaced. It now carrying 2/3rds of all transit ridership in the whole city on just a single line (which connects downtown and its train station with several districts, a sports arena complex, 2 different suburban malls, the city's university, a new regional hospital being built, 2 Park n rides one of which features the Intercity coach stop, and another commuter rail stop).
If the Obama streetcars were designed more like systems like Odense's or most other European systems for that matter, they would likely be of much greater use to its city, its passengers, and even to developers, which after all was a big goal with the US streetcars.
Totally agree with everything you’re saying… except we call a streetcar a trolley not a tram in America 😜
Regular European-style trams are called "streetcars" in the US due to their long and storied history on the continent. These things were ubiquitous back in the day in basically any American city/town of over 10k population. Like their European brethren, they have bus-like stop spacings and usually run in mixed traffic, like busses. This makes for bus-like average speeds and service patterns. They're more walking accelerators than rapid transit in terms of use cases.
The American term "light rail" is what the Germans call "a tram-train" in Europe. The light rail systems are just one step below true rapid transit, and many are openly transitional/hybrid pre-metro systems that are expected to one day be fully converted to light metro (San Francisco's Muni, San Jose VTA, etc.). They have metro-like stop spacings and generally run in dedicated rights of way (old rail corridors, downtown tunnels, viaducts), almost completely segregated from both cars and pedestrians. They only cross car and pedestrian spaces at street intersections, and only in certain places. Many run far into the deep suburbs or even to adjacent cities. (Seattle Link, Sacramento SacRT).
Most American light rail systems have higher average speeds than the older European metro systems (Paris, Prague, etc.). And the most common train types (Siemens S700/S200 series) are just Americanized tram-trains from Germany, like the Siemens Avanto. The German stadbahns were a major inspiration for how these systems are built and how they operate.
Lumping the two terms together only confuses things. One is basically just an electric bus on rails that sticks to the downtown areas. The other is a pre-metro-ish kind of thing with metro-like speeds and that runs far into the suburbs. They're not comparable in speed, use case, rolling stock, or coverage.
@@TohaBgood2 Light rail is not called “tram-trains” in Europe. A tram-train is a special form of light rail that runs on active main line tracks for part of its route (like in Karlsruhe). The German catch-all term for light rail is “Stadtbahn”.
@@bahnspotterEU American light rail systems use primarily tram-train derived vehicles, with the Siemens Avanto-derived S700s and S200s being by far the most common type. They also commonly run in old freight corridors and reach far into the suburbs often traveling to adjacent cities.
Look at systems like SacRT which goes all the way from Sacramento to Folsom. Same goes for something like the San Jose VTA light rail which travels from Milpitas to Mountain View, to San Jose and to Campbell. It's basically a regional network.
I understand that this might seem confusing to someone who hasn't used these systems, but only some of them skew more in the stadtbahn direction (e.g. SF Muni Metro). Most of them are a lot more tram-train than stadtbahn.
@@TohaBgood2 I don't think you know what tram train means since tram train specifically means directly running on mainline railroads, on the same tracks as other heavy trains would, while also neing able to leave it and join a tram system in a city. The ONLY system in North America I'm even remotely sure interlines with heavy railroading is the ION system in Kitchener/Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.
A more accurate definition for light rail in Europe would probably be a Stadtbahn since the North American light rail definition was created by making newly built systems based on German Stadtbahn systems in places like Frankfurt am Main, Hannover, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart. and Cologne among others. Their plan was a long term one to convert tram lines to subways, first by building subway like tunnelled sections in the centre and gradually build out grade separations from there to over time convert the existing tram systems to a subway. But the cost was simply too great so those projects have been stalled.
The Omaha streetcar system has the potential to be an extremely interesting network, particularly with an extension proposed into neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa that would largely run on its own right of way with a parallel bike trail
The Hop would be so much better if they just gave it signal priority.
Please do a video on the Jersey City light rail if you haven’t already!
Arizona rise up ✊🌵
Why, it’s way too arid for that many people. 🤦♂️
@@StLouis-yu9izMost of the environmental issues Arizona faces are because of large corporations, primarily in agriculture. They use 70% of our water supply. The average Arizonan uses a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the amount of water they do, even in a single day.
Based and cactus pilled 🌵
@@Westlander857 so you’d rather live in a desert than our country grow its own food? Got it 🤦♂️
honestly i feel like streetcars are way more visible and easy to use than busses. Busses are loud, theres usually barely any signage, and its hard to navigate. When in a streetcar, the ride is usually smooth, there is a lot more sinage and its very clear and very mappable compared to busses. i honestly wish there were more streetcars than busses but also more light rail and heavy rail too
"Streetcars honestly should not be the main form of public transit in a city"
Depends on the context. Streetcars are perfect for forming the backbone of systems in small-medium sized cities with a bit of density. Works quite well in Germany or France for example.
I like the streetcar in downtown to bring back historic to ride around the city
Arizona mentioned 🌵
awesome video! love the appreciation for KC Streetcar 💙🩵 the ongoing extensions to the Plaza / UMKC and to the Riverfront are signs of a bright future for transit in KC. The streetcar will no longer be just a downtown circulator, becoming the spine of the city's transportation network
also up to 80% of the expansions will have transit only lanes which is HUGE for the streetcar considering it's speed is largely limited by operating in mixed traffic
Really nice video but I can't agree with statement that city can't rely only on trams. There is a lot of examples all around Europe that can and often it works just perfectly, take for example legacy networks of many eastern European cities such as Cracow, Wrocław or Poznań (were I am from) or more relevant for this particular video new tram networks which started growing up in many French cities in 90s. My 2 favorite examples are Strasbourg and Montpellier, especially second one was built in very car dependent way in XXth century but since opening of the first line in year 2000 was able to create very comprehensive network of 4 lines and is going to open 5th next year. Around half of cities population now uses trams on the daily basis and thanks to them municipality was able to fully pedestrianized most of the city center. In my opinion creating city around trams is not only possible but with mid sized cities is in fact one of the best ways to quickly and cost effectively provide transformative transit. But there is one important detail why all of this is possible in France, in most places where tram tracks are built they are taking space away from cars and mostly operate over green tracks with physical separation from car traffic so can't be disrupted as it often happens with legacy systems.
6:45 The driver is happy he is filmed or mad at something on the road? .. strange :O
The biggest problem with these systems is they are way too tiny. Both the size of the routes and the rolling stock is limiting to the success of these streetcars. Add to that poor frequency, terrible speed and useless gadgetry, like many systems going off-wire for little sections for no real reason, and you begin to understand why these are almost all flawed to the core. They are more like theme park rides in many cases than serious transport.
I also think that a lot of Americans have a weird view on the size requirements for a city to have any form of rail transit. People say “this city isn’t big enough for a streetcar” and then mean a city with a population of 1 million people in the urban area. Streetcars, especially ones as tiny as the ones shown here, can serve towns of less than 100k, if the towns support it with destinations and at least passable density. Instead of continuously putting tiny streetcars into massive cities, I have an alternate idea for a pilot scheme (warning, unrealistic but interesting):
What if a city of moderate size like Worcester, MA or New Haven, CT or Richmond, VA was all at once fitted out with a much more comprehensive streetcar network, that would reach all viably dense or popular areas, get decent signal priority and separation from road traffic where possible?
Think of it like a trial for the whole country, trying to see if wider streetcar systems can actually positively impact transit ridership. Of course, to ensure the projects success, maintenance should be good, as should transit safety and cleanliness at all times and in all areas served. I know it would be a huge investment, but I think it would be a much better way to test the viability of refitting cities with streetcars and it would be more respectful to the mode itself too.
As it stands, all these Obama streetcars could easily be replaced by buses.
Sometimes I think it would be great for Chicago to connect up it's L stations with streetcars, but honestly that money would be better invested in improving the existing system, and if we were to do something new, a subway along Western Ave would be far more successful
The Oklahoma City route that goes nowhere has turned the entire city off of streetcars. So disappointing. Faster to walk than take the tram.
But this trend was way older than this. The success of the San Diego Trolley starting in 1981 encouraged the revival of streetcar systems, and that lead the opening of the Sacramento Regional Transit light rail system from 1987 onwards, San Francisco MUNI streetcar system undergoing major upgrades at the same time and Los Angeles opening Metro Rail from 1990 on.
Having grown up riding a packed legacy street car system (Boston’s green lines) these new systems have from what I’ve seen in person exist to:
1. Make people feel like their city is cool and smart
2. Transit for tourists that are scared of buses because of their poor people association
Never seems like there’s ever anyone riding these. Even in Portland.
cincy connector needs expanding, i’m a fan of taking it to newport aquarium and back, but really it should go north to steep hill neighborhoods.
What’s the difference between streetcar and light rail?
Streetcars usually have a single or double-car setup. Light rail can be 4-8 cars long. Streetcars mostly run in mixed traffic. Light rail runs mostly on its own right of way. Light rail vehicles are usually bigger.
Streetcars can absolutely be used as the main form of transit, up to like half a million population a streetcar that becomes more like light rail near the edges of the city can absolutely be enough if you have a frequency of more than once every ten minutes.
4:51, *[YOUR TITLE HERE]*
Milwaukee streetcar will be very useful when it expands into the city more it’s only downtown rn but goes to main spot’s downtown and is free 😊
I know this video is old, but if you see this what do you think of the routing the Omaha streetcar will use? I think it could be better but also could be worse, it goes through neighborhoods that are in the process redeveloping but also parallels the “brt” that they run.
The main problem with many US downtown streetcars was that they weren't built to solve a transportation problem. They were built solely to attract residents to go downtown and unless the downtown is already vibrant with plenty to do, few are going to use it. A streetcar alone can't revitalize a downtown and becomes a financial drain on the city. Revitalization takes good policy. A streetcar is an expensive substitute for poor city policies.
A streetcar's main differentiator is that it can accommodate far more people than a bus with faster service without the grade separation of light rail. A streetcar can serve very busy corridors that buses alone can't handle without overcrowding. A dedicated at-grade ROW is essential to provide faster service to move the higher number of people. This way, a streetcar can do some heavy lifting for a city's transit system instead of being a very expensive novelty line. Without the dedicated ROW, a streetcar isn't any better than a bus. A streetcar line that barely carries no more people than a city's typical bus route is a waste of money.
The Salt Lake City streetcar carries 1,100 people/day, barely 1/3 of SLC's busier bus lines (and less than half of the bus it parallels 1/2 block away). SLC's light rail lines carry between 15-25,000/day and their busiest bus lines about 3,500/day. A streetcar would fit in between those two modes. The S line was forecasted to carry 2,000/day, which still doesn't warrant a streetcar and tells me that SLC doesn't understand what streetcars do. That 2 mile corridor would merit the cost of a streetcar if it moved 6-10,000+/ day. While there has been some real estate investment along the corridor (too bad not many of them use the streetcar), there were probably other ways to stimulate that investment. Instead of a sleepy little corridor, a beautiful green corridor like a pedestrian/bike greenway flanked by restaurants and shops (the neighborhood was always concerned with protecting it's unique local shops) could have served as a focal point for the neighborhood leading up to the mall and would probably have gotten far more use.
You sound like an Atlanta nimby. Why try to create a rail corridor when we could be lazy and just do a multi use path instead 🙄
The networks just need to be expanded. Then it will be a crucial link in a web of lines crossing the region.
@@StLouis-yu9iz You sound like someone who just wants rail even if it's poorly executed and isn't the right solution. Why be smart about it when you can just expand the network with a web of lines everywhere crossing the region?
That kind of lazy planning without well-researched analysis is how you end up with a system like San Jose's with 3 rail lines (after closing a short 4th rail line for terrible performance) that combined can't even match the ridership of the city's busiest bus line. The high operating costs of the poorly planned rail system have hobbled the agency's ability to improve it's bus lines. Meanwhile, the city's busiest corridors have no rail service. That's what you get with lazy planning.
Salt Lake has a good light rail system with good ridership. The short S line isn't doing much to add mobility to the region. If you had researched Salt Lake's transit corridors, you'd see that extending the S line won't do much for the city's mobility. It doesn't have any potential and another solution could've served the neighborhood better. The money is better spent on other corridors.
@@bryanCJC2105 how is building a web of a rail network easier than making cycle tracks? lol
If San Jose reopens the 4th line along with a 5th, 6th, & 7th ones then I’m sure it would by a useful line in a cross region transfer trip. 🤦♂️
Glad to see Tucson’s SunLink in the “Great” category. No one expected the streetcar here to succeed like it did, especially considering the relatively small population of Tucson and how sprawling it is. I’m hopeful for the transit future here with BRT on the way. Now if only SunTran could get frequencies up…
Wait, so Detroit's QLine with all of its issues isn't the bottom tier? It clearly has had more issues than were anticipated with getting stuck in traffic but more dedicated lanes and signal priority could greatly improve that.
The fact other ones are deemed worse is rather telling about the state of mass transit in the US.
Atlanta's streetcar line needs to be extended through the Beltline
The Milwaukee hop would have so much more ridership if it just went to UWM or marquette
What will it do that a bus will not for 10% of the cost?
I'm not sure streetcars are the best choice, as their cost isnt so far off from light rail which is way faster. Also American transit has noticeably gotten slower over time from the fast 1970s metros to the okay speed 1980s metros to the slow 1990s light rail to the painfully slow 2000s streetcars, and the slightly less painfully slow 2010s BRT systems, and then we stopped building transit
It’s pathetic
@@qjtvaddict i know
The cost is extremely far off. Bollards and signal upgrades for new trolley networks will be WAY cheaper than building more new grade separated metro r.o.w. Also many US cities are still planning new trolley lines or even starts to rebuilding networks. For instance, there will soon be an entirely new LRT line running N/S almost the entire length of StL city. I am super excited for this trolley and the future expansions after 🫶🚃🙌
Streetcars are cool, but I'd never use them on a regular basis. They're just so god damn slow, and I'd rather take a bus or bike usually (or a metro if it was an option)
I think cities need to be very careful about their usage of streetcars. My impression from what I've seen online, and plans local to me, is that they are used as a "Oh, we should probably have transit because climate resilience is a good selling point.", which is fair, but I feel is not one that seems them fulfill their greatest potential. I think streetcars should be emblematic of "Hey closer in neighborhoods, we're serious about making you good places to live.", and so should be applied to streetcar-era suburbs that are still relatively dense, and should be part of redevelopment plans of places undergoing redevelopment and a reduction of car-focused infrastructure.
Also, and this should go without saying, but seems to be missed by the people who planned them out, they must interchange well with higher order transit, and be a high-capacity-high-frequency augmentation of lower order transportation systems, such as frequent bus systems and bike/pedestrian heavy areas.
Now if only 😪 New York city and Chicago have them too.
theyre just like buses articulated some. we have to recognize whats on the road and keep it movin.
No mention of the Gold Line in Charlotte?
It's very weird and I honestly think it deserves its own video :)
@@climateandtransit That's a - nice way to put it lol
YBORRRR CITYYYYY
I’m from OKC, our street car is laughable. And it could have been very valuable
Atlanta streetcar has the possibility to be great with its Beltline expansion, if only ANDRE DICKENS DIDNT KILL IT FOR NO GOOD REASON
What do you mean they don't charge fares? How is that successful??
Street cars like that would be billed into the taxes, so everyone pays for it, even if its not used, but because taxes are used on it, but you don't have to pay per use, it makes it more likely to get used actively by people saying that since they are already paying the tax for it, might as well use it to get the tax benefits from it.
@@josephmath1 it makes zero sense in most countries to not charge a fee/ticket...
@@darioadrianz Many European countries actually use mass transit the same way they do for things like schools, or their healthcare, meaning its paid for though taxes, so everyone pays a certain percentage towards the upkeep and maintenance of the mass transit, which is why in many of those countries, even the rich will ride it. The cities that also don't charge fee/ticket prices, would use the same model for it, so the people living there or spending money there are charged a certain percentage in tax that goes to its upkeep and maintenance.
I think it's really interesting that the 2009 / Obama-era streetcars will be talked about by future transit historians as a defined era in the resurgence of local rail transit. Having followed and ridden many of these projects over the years it's fascinating how quickly they piled up, now tons of cities that at one point ripped out all of their streetcars have them again. I think the KC streetcar in particular is the start of what will one day be a robust network of streetcars, there's so much promise there
I totally agree with the first part of your comment but then you lost me at the end… I used to live in Columbia MO for awhile and so have had the opportunity to visit both KC and StL many times… You can tell which one I fell in love with. lol
Kansas City is probably the most overrated metro I’ve ever visited. Outside of the current streetcar alignment walk-shed, the rest of the city is low density car centric sprawl. Even within the downtown/midtown area that the streetcar currently runs there’s really not much to do.
StL meanwhile is hands down the MOST underrated city in the world. It has such a rich history and is full of attractions throughout its numerous legacy dense mixed use walkable neighborhoods. The Delmar Loop alone is way better than downtown KC, we just need to extend the Trolley that was built there recently to connect more of our great urbanist gems. ⚜️🫶
I want a president who's known for heavy rail metros and regional rail
Problem with these systems is that they are all street running in mixed traffic. I like any rail transit but a lot of these systems took the worst approach to streetcar design. They all have no grade separation, run near curbs which is bad as cars crowd near corners to make turns, and are loop systems that essentially serve as people movers. Large cities such as Detroit and KC really need grade separated LRT to create truly useful transit.
They don’t have to be grade separated as long as they have protected lanes. Installing bollards is a lot cheaper than even cut and cover or elevated tracks. We just need to get serious about reclaiming space from cars and trolleys will work fine. 😊
Obama's trans legacy would be more accurate
Streetcars are fine when they are kept in the context of their best use: as a sort of accelerated version of walking.
So they are useless unless existing metros exist
That’s literally all transit though lol
@@qjtvaddict no… they are most useful when no metro currently exists
Toronto Transit Commission streetcar system is a good case study that is worthy to mention in this video....too bad.
its not an american system though, thats probably why it was excluded, and because toronto's streetcar system is technically a legacy system too
Like I said....not mentioning the TTC streetcar is a missed opportunity to make this video worth watching..just because Toronto is "not american" doesn't mean you should omit a very influential streetcar north american city with the same standard of living and for most part same north american culture.....viewers will learn alot how Toronto matured the streetcar network ( for those who also call it "Legacy") to how it is now....do some research in fine detail and one will know Toronto is a very good case study of how streetcar could have been for some american cities and or how it evolved/enhanced over the decades....
This is why cities need shovel ready projects - so when pro transit presidents comes through they can get funding.
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
They should have never been removed. I'm still waiting on that infrostructure form Obama and the "big guy." Never saw the "shovel ready" jobs.
So Obama was pathetic no I am not a republican
He could have done more, especially in his first two years when democrats had big majorities in congress. Biden got more done with razor thin majorities during his first two years in office.
I don't like them because they are bad for cyclists
The only 1s complaining about car are those that can't afford them. Everyone deep down loves cars more
So true! Everyone loves cars so much! That’s why driving is down in millenials and gen z!
I find these kinds of videos so irritating. You jump from one clip to another to another with no explanation whatsoever. Here’s a streetcar, now here’s a streetcar somewhere else. No labels, no logic to it. Just as you start to figure out what you’re looking at - could that be San Diego? - bam it’s something else. How about talk about one city at a time and show images of just that city so we can follow along and see what you’re verbally describing. Please don’t yank the footage away and replace it with something else before the viewer can even figure out what they’re looking at.
No offence but streetcars are inferior to fully grade separated metro systems. Since streetcars have to deal with cars and pedestrians, it really slows them down. Whereas fully grade separated metros don't have to contend with that and can have amazing frequencies, every 2 minutes.
To reduce cost of building a subway, elevated metro lines have the benefit of grade separation at a lower cost, while also allowing passengers to enjoy the view 🌲🚈
True, but I have also heard about the concerns of constant noise caused by elevated metro lines going through residential neighborhoods.
@@eazydee5757that’s not a valid argument as they are not loud at all especially the modern ones
No offense, but grade separated metros are pretty unrealistic in the US for a long time. We need to build rail networks NOW so we can build enough political capital to actually carry out the elevated projects you’re referring to. In order to do that, we need to just start rebuilding our lost trolley networks. While it is true that pedestrians and cyclists will have to get used to looking before crossing tracks, at least there will be tracks instead of the cars that speed around wherever they can fit on our streets. Which brings me to my other point, they should never have to worry about cars. That’s why we need to reclaim space on the roads from personal automobiles and give it back to trolleys. 🚃💯
@@qjtvaddictI can see that. Many of the older transit systems in particular such as BART or the NYC Subway have been described as somewhat loud.
Trolleys are the future of transit in the US for the foreseeable future. We need to start rebuilding our lost networks with dedicated lane and signal prioritized lines. Heavier rail is great yes, but we need to build a larger coalition of car free urbanists here that truly understand and support transit. BRT won’t do that because it doesn’t actually change the built environment and just keeps the status quo of auto-centrism.
Trolleys on the other hand can meaningfully improve urban fabric if they are used to remove some car accommodations. They are also like a giant advertisement for transit and in my experience are a lot more effective at attracting first time riders than buses. I just don’t see how we are going to quickly and meaningfully chip away at car culture in N.A. without restoring the once great trolley systems most of our cities once had. 🚃💯👏
St. Louis is the most underrated city in the world! Hopefully they get more rail transit soon such as a Delmar Loop Trolley expansion! :]
Despite their flaws I have a soft spot for streetcars. They can do a lot for an area spurring good development and also their quite pleasant. ❤️🚋❤