also pls go easy on the editing - first time using final cut pro cause adobe too expensive lol If you want to support the channel, here are some of my favourite transit books that I think are definitely worth reading: bookshop.org/lists/fav-transit-books (I'll get a bit of a commission) 😎
The issues that created the challenges with maintaining the streetcars are still present today: developers build the streets and roads with largely private funds (within their land holdings anyway) after recouping the costs when they sell the parcels, only to hand over the costs of maintaining and rebuilding them without the funding sources the developers had to build them. The difference is that we chose to spend the funds to make sure the roads were maintained and rebuilt as needed with public funds, whereas that was not the case for the streetcars. Because the cost to maintain and rebuild the streets is too high compared with the income from taxes of adjacent properties, the funds are stolen from other sources, including new developments without the need for expensive maintenance for a while (refer to Growth Ponzi Scheme by Strong Towns). As the capital costs to build infrastructure and the ongoing costs to operate and maintain (and upgrade) it comes from different pots, it’s important to make sure that the O&M pot is sufficiently funded every year-often failing due to policy priorities. We like to build things and will spend a lot more money to build and rebuild than to maintain what we already have. Even when a private company builds “public infrastructure”, what happens when the source of funds runs out. This is happening in south and central Florida with the Brightline-the parent company is a real estate development corporation with Brightline as a small subsidy to increase access to their holdings-sound familiar? What happens when their property is built out, the new rails and infrastructure of today needs to be replaced and/or upgraded and there’s no more property to sell to deal with it? Old streetcar neighborhoods like mine falter while we pay high taxes that go to the expansion of roads and highways we don’t benefit from. This is the age-old question that no TH-camr has yet to touch! Could you be the first?!
Considering the downfall of streetcars was largely due to policy decisions ... presumably in order for public transport to thrive it will need more policy decisions to take public space away from cars. The way the Netherlands has reallocated space gradually over the last many decades (and even Paris in the last few years) it shows what is possible.
Exactly the point I was trying to get across - as long as there's such asymmetrical effort being put into cars vs. transit, then it's near impossible for transit to be a viable investment for anyone to build 🤷
In other words cars. Sorry but slow streetcars are not the answer to political problems. 21st century America needs 21st century technology like actual metro lines
@@qjtvaddictyou need a mix of modes. Look at any big European city, they have a mix of basically every transit mode, from high speed intercity rail, over trams, Metros and good buses
A lot of streetcars and even elevated railways and subways were abandoned or removed in the 1920s, 30s and 40s due to the swarms of automobiles blocking and slowing the streetcars and siphoning off their customers. Elevated structures were taken down and sent to the steel mills for military weapons, tools, and equipment.
yep, don't think people at the time realised what congestion was doing to streetcar networks - it really kicked off a vicious cycle of unreliability > decreasing ridership > less money > unreliability
Steel is still the #1 recycled product on earth. 90% I believe finds a new home at some point instead of being landfilled. It's just that easy/valuable a material. Same ironically with cars.. The most recycled product in history despite its eco-footprint...@@micosstar
Like you said, it's absolutely an insane thing to realize that LA once had the world's largest trolley network in the 1920s, a completely different world compared to the traffic nightmare it is notoriously now known for! A streetcar suburb still exists just outside Philadelphia, a place called Media! The trolley goes between 69th Street Transportation Center in Philly and Media. It is a part of the remaining lines of the former Red Arrow Lines Trolley System once operated by the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company. In Media, the trolley enters the street at Providence Road and runs on a single track the rest of the way. Cars in the street must yield. The line terminates in the middle of the street just west of the Delaware County Courthouse. A pretty cool streetcar system is New Orleans's. New Orleans has its rich history to thank for its walkability! It was originally designed by military engineer Le Blond de la Tour in 1721, and the original grid can be seen in today’s French Quarter. But many French structures burned down during the Spanish period, and so when the Spanish rebuilt the city (and outlawed timber in favor of brick and plaster), they recognized the need for increasing density due to a growing population and the subtropical climate. It is home to the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the entire world which is the St. Charles Line that has been operating since 1835! Heck, the name po-boy came about because of a streetcar strike in 1929!
New Orleans is on my list of places to visit - in no small part thanks to the streetcar >>:) Definitely right about the legacy of streetcar suburbs and how walkability/transit connectivity has shaped so many areas that are desirable today :)
In the case of Hudson County, NJ, there used to be an impressive streetcar system called the North Hudson County Railway that originated in the 1860s and lasted until the 1940s. The North Hudson County Railway was a complex streetcar network that connected Journal Square in Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, and Union City (which the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail tries to accomplish today; minus Journal Square). However, a portion of Hudson County is a line of pretty steep cliffs that makes up part of the Hudson Palisades. So they devised many engineering innovations from a huge and long elevated trestle, viaducts, funicular wagon lifts, and an elevator! But starting in 2000, the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail began operating. Unlike the streetcars, the HBLR doesn't have a trestle to reach the top of the Palisades, instead it serves JC's The Heights with a long elevator off the side of the cliffs down to 9th St/Congress St station in Hoboken, and there's also an underground station at Bergenline Ave in Union City during which it uses a tunnel previously used by West Shore Railroad/New York Central trains (which served the now demolished Weehawken Terminal). Much of the HBLR uses repurposed rail right-of-way, like its Bayonne section originally being used by the Central Railroad of NJ, or the western side of Hoboken was once the NJ Junction Railroad and Conrail's River Line
It is, at best, an insincere argument to insist that NLX trains make a profit - while other types of transportation, without objections, get lavish subsidies. The Rail Passengers Association’s white paper, “Long Distance Trains: a Foundation for National Mobility,” said, “Goals like ‘operational self-sufficiency,’ ‘profit,’ or (minimal) federal operating support are neither reasonable nor sound public policy objectives. This is supported by the fact that federal and state funds subsidize air and road travel. The effect of these goals is to block improvements needed to modernize the nation’s intercity passenger train system and rejuvenate our increasingly expensive and dysfunctional transportation system. The driving purpose should be to harvest the public benefits that trains produce for the communities they serve and for the nation as a whole. Studies have found that even one train a day produces benefits that exceed costs.”
Great video! Also not covered are the rare-to-be-seen public-public partnership. Paige Saunders has a fantastic video about that on TH-cam. Basically the idea is have a public-focused entity with extremely long time horizons for investing (like a public pension fund) to be the "guardrails" to keep the project on task without the need to return money to shareholders within 3 years.
just watched it - didn't know that was the full story behind the REM and it'd definitely be cool if they could actually export that model. I might honestly make a video on the whole concept of infrastructure as an asset class - feel like it's generally overlooked by it's responsible for funding a lot of airports, transportation systems etc.@@AaronTheHarris
growing up in suburban long island new york in the 70s and 80s in the VILLAGE of Mineola, i would still see railroad tracks on the streets all over the old parts of the village, which are the only parts today which have a downtown sort of look and feel; they were for streetcars, and those tracks have mostly been covered up these days, but they're still there, under the asphalt.
Yeah it’s pretty amazing how just how much of our urban layouts are influenced by historical transit networks - even when they’re removed, the density and infrastructure they encouraged still lives on for a long time
I'm just glad those ugly overhead lines were also removed. I've seen plenty of black/white photos with streetcars and those overhead lines they ran on. Ugly pictures.
@@adammr7097 Gen-X, sweetheart. I despise public transportation as I refuse to ride with strangers, but that doesn't mean that I don't think that other people shouldn't use it. I just think that the overhead wires are ugly, which is why I prefer buses, trains, or other modes, instead of streetcars.
How to ensure your streetcar is successful: Give priority to the streetcar. If you need to make dedicated bus lanes, the streetcar is already a better alternative as it has higher capacity with the same space occupied. Perfect example is 34th Street in NYC. It is one of the busiest streets in the country. The bus getting across town is slower than walking. Yes, you can walk faster than the bus between Penn station and 1st Ave. Close the street to car traffic, expand the sidewalks and put in a street car. If a city attempts to put in dedicated bus right of way, it can already build a streetcar
Agreed on the streetcar priority - our Spadina streetcar in Toronto gets choked because left turning cars get priority at every light, and the streetcars aren't synced to the lights for some reason :/ I like the take on dedicated bus ROW -> probably can implement a streetcar. Unfortunately there it's usually budget; that's the common justification for the recent BRT boom in the US
so true, i've sat on crosstown buses in manhattan and seen the people walking past me block after block, so i walk across town now rather than the bus, but the bus can be prioritized with the traffic lights, and given an exclusive lane and it can be easily fixed.
Interesting video. We seem to have the same problems here in Australia. Sydney used to have a huge tram (streetcar) system and scrapped it all by 1961. Then in recent years, they have started bringing it back as modern light rail. This is costing them billions of dollars, as everything has to be rebuilt. Here in Melbourne, we kept our tram system mostly intact and converting to light rail is a lot cheaper. There days, If any transit systems are privately owned, they is usually also subsidized by the state governments.
Glad you enjoyed :) We're also lucky that the rails here in Toronto weren't ripped up, but the system could definitely use some modernisation - better separation from road traffic is just one of many things on the list
At least some of the privatization concerns could be helped by implementing the same rule that exist for Dutch road infrastructure. Actually very little regulations about how to implement, however you make the owner of the road, or system if you modify it a litte, directly liable for any damage or harm if they could have done anything better in terms of design and maintenance. This is a big part of the reason why Dutch infrastructure is still world leading. It incentivises being on top of the newest developments in terms of safety and design as well as maintenance.
You're absolutely right about how transit increases land value, and a great example is Charlotte NC with the development of the South End neighborhood which developed around the city's light metro system! It's crazy to see how it went from a bunch of nothing to a thriving neighborhood with skyscrapers and now it's even extending to the northern part of the line with tons of new apartment buildings going up around the stations. Not to mention how the new(ish) streetcar, even with its flaws such as low frequency, still has triggered dense urban development around it and is still used by about 1,500 people daily. And there are still a ton of new transit that has yet to be built.
Great to hear the example from Charlotte - I was there for a weekend last year and remember being surprised that there was a streetcar line 😂 That's definitely one of the benefits of streetcars/metros vs buses - having a permanent transit fixture gives developers/land owners confidence that there'll be accessibility in the future, not like a bus line that can be cancelled at any moment
@@TheFlyingMooseCA Exactly! Even in Miss Urban Sprawl herself, Charlotte is trying to densify. It's crazy to see what transit investment does to the urban environment, especially rail.
I really like the emphasis given to how transit doesn't need to be profitable. It simply existing raises property value, and all-but-guarantees commercial success in the vicinity.
I work from home full time and it's become permanent. I know quite a few people who are doing the same. You would think this would help alleviate traffic, yet there's still horrible traffic during regular rush hour. It's a vexing problem.
@@TheFlyingMooseCA Sometimes trams do sound their bells when cars go past them at stops. Yes, some European cities have them too, at least sometimes with signals to stop road vehicles behind the tram.
I would love to see them here in NYC, as we have numerous transit deserts throughout. I understand some of the boroughs actually had street cars at one time. When we lived in Flushing, Queens years ago, I recall seeing remnants of streetcar, or trolley, tracks still visible underneath the asphalt on Main Street.
Definitely a lot of evidence of old networks literally buried across a lot of US cities - for NYC specifically it’d be cool to see better inter-borough transit 🥲
Great video and very informative! Keep on doing your thing with high quality videos and thumbnails you will blow up soon enough :). Again, great video!
These are the right questions to be asking. American cities of old looked so pleasant to live in, and whatever's getting built now just isn't. We need to go back.
GO Transit owns so much valuable land that they use exclusively for free parking. There are a few cases where the best use for that land is parking (thinking of like Bronte GO station or Aldershot, or all the bus station park n rides around the 407) because it gives people in remote spaces a convenient access to transit, but the vast majority of their stations is hemorrhaging money. Oakville GO, for example, should have all its surface parking converted into AT LEAST mid-rise apartments, with GO Transit leasing out the land at market rates. That income alone could probably pay for the entire Lakeshore West line, and that doesn't even get into the other opportunities like Burlington GO, where the south parking lot could be similarly developed (to match with the one condo complex they have), or Clarkson GO with its massive surface parking. The great railroads of the 1800s didn't make their money in railroads, they made their money in real estate. That's how Japan's private railroads stay in operation: it was always about real estate.
That’s what I’m sayiNG but metrolinx won’t do it 😂 The value of land adjacent to stations keeps shooting up, but metrolinx won’t capture the gains to help pay for the system :/
Here is an idea. stroads can be converted into working "stroads". Cut off all the business connections and put feeder roads on the side of it, converting it into a road that has feeder streets. Something I call a "Budget Interstate". The space between the feeder street and the road could be used to fit street cars at each end
thanks! I always find it tough to balance audio levels so this is very helpful 😎 is there a specific section of background audio that you think could be quieter? also I grew up in HK so the accent is just a combination of whatever teachers I had 😂
Reminds me of "Kentucky Fried Movie" where there's pan of a giant city, with the world trade center and statue of liberty in clear view, and the caption says "Hong Kong".
Exactly, the point isn’t that streetcars themselves are perfect - it’s about the whole market and regulatory environment favouring one mode over the other
While most streetcar companies were originally private entities they only benefited their owners as long as new construction was taking place or those companies built destinations for passengers, such as amusement parks. Subways on the other hand were often built with public money while being operated by private companies until the necessary limits on fare made them unprofitable necessitating full gov't takeover usually with the creation of quasi-public Authorities. Boston's West End Street Railway & the creation of the Boston Elevated Railway is an interesting case.
I feel an interesting comparison today would be Japan, since Japan actually more or less continued the practises that US private companies did back in the day into the 21st century. Japanese cities are filled with private railway companies criss crossing parts of the metropolitan area. Many of these railways are even developed from old American style interurbans which have just been gradually upgraded overtime to resembling a subway system. I also think a big change that could have saved American streetcar systems was focusing on rental rather than outright property sales. With rent, the developer has a continuous stream of income and more incentive to keep the transit around in the long term to keep the rent value high and profit off it all.
It needs to be publicly funded via mechanisms that can better withstand changing political dynamics. Los Angeles has built more public rail lines in the USA in the last 20 years than any other city. And it will continue to do that in the near and far future. LA got the funding via sales tax increases so there is a constant funding scheme to build the transit infrastructure for decades. However, the federal government needs to support local funding schemes like in LA to a much higher and more consistent level regardless of who's in office. Or, maybe allow tax payers to allocate part of their yearly tax dollars to transit for their local region or state. That way you take it out of the hands of politicians and put it in the hands of the residents who realky want to support public transit.
Yep, that’s partly why there’s so much interest in turning things over to an org that’s arm’s length from the government. Of course that org needs to have incentives that align with actually delivering good infrastructure, not to just make a quick buck
1). There were much lower labor costs back then; unionization was just getting started at the time 2). No real environmental laws... no 10-year environmental impact studies just to build 1 km of track. 3). Streetcars and interurban trains were seen as desirable to all but the wealthiest since cars weren't widespread until the post-war period; there was less opposition (maybe no opposition) to putting a streetcar line in all. 4). The Anglo-Saxon countries are just really bad at Public-Private Partnerships, maybe due to cultural reasons (minarchism, decentralization, etc.) or maybe due to the way Common Law works and encourages lawsuits. 5). In the US, public transport is derided by one of our two major political parties, making its funding and continued existence somewhat contingent.
I actually trimmed points 1-3 from the video for time, but those factors are very true and impactful. Hadn’t gone as deep into the political aspect in 4-5 tho, so definitely food for thought for me
I know you say we shouldn't advocate for privatization of transit... But in anywhere that isn't already a big transit city that seems like the only way to ever make it happen. Cities and states can't afford it, and federal investment only comes every decade or so (if that) and ends up using the private sector for consultation, environmental review, design, construction, etc.
It’s definitely a fine balance - brightline is proving that privatisation might be the jolt that we need to get things going (at least for HSR). I’m all for harnessing the power of the private sector better than we do right now - just need to make sure that players aren’t in it for a quick buck and end up leaving things in a worse state e.g. some cities cancelling LRT plans based off promises made by the Boring Company. Someone else mentioned the elusive “public-public” partnership, where pension funds or other long-term investors step in to actively build infrastructure. That topic will actually be most of my next video 😈
Cities often can afford it they're just lying when they say otherwise. Privatisation is marginally better than not having public transport. Melbourne could tell you all about that. Our trains are still privately run and while they're a lot better than they used to be they never really recovered from being privatised. It's the worst of both worlds, since we paid for the trains with our taxes but now don't get to keep any of the profit from ticket sales.
Thoughts on mileage tax vs fuel tax? Especially if EVs continue to become more prevalent (and the demographics of EV owners are typically in higher brackets anyway)
@@TheFlyingMooseCA Honestly a system like IFTA makes a lot of sense but VMT is hard to do for passenger vehicles. It would just cause distortions. The incentive should be to end fossil fuels so taxing road fuels are easy.
Using this approach of funding public transport through increased land prices in an existing city means supercharging gentrification. The abysmal housing affordability of Hong Kong or Tokyo is a far too expensive price to pay for a public transport system, even one as great as those cities have.
This, especially the land around existing railway stations. Also allowing transit agencies to buy and develop more lands around railway stations would be nice too.
The solution to funding transit? A dedicated carbon tax... Or a dedicated public transit capital fund that can be drawn from funded from user fees, carbon taxes, etc. The solution is just as easy as that. But than again where people most need transit is usually in fast growing areas that seem immune to all things "socialism" which is why places like Austin end up easily funding highway expansion but have to dial back LRT dreams to a fraction of the original concept...And the areas that need to spend the most don't want to... I.e. Austin, Miami, Las Vegas (the Loop doesn't really count) and of course... And of course more streetcars... Edmonton just reopened its first modern tramline since the closure of the OG system in 1951... Yes we've have a high-floor German U-bahn-style pre-metro since 1978 but not a low-floor one designed essentially to replicate what we lost so many decades ago.. The #1 route criteria chosen in Edmonton was to link potential TOD's together even if right now they aren't that busy or popular... But 09/12 stations opened last week are in areas where skyscraper apartment clusters are planned....
And yes it was financed with a P3 under Stephen Harper. That was the conditions of funding which is some ways was good in protecting Edmonton from paying for 3 years of delays and overages while under construction since Dec 2020 was the OG opening date. It started to take revenue passengers literally last Saturday, one week ago... But also terrible since the contract again limited information sharing as to why it was so delayed in opening... I fully expect a huge public enquiry on this one as well, even with half the line still under construction today just with different contractors and rolling stock manufacturers...
Yep, P3 seems to be responsible for their fair share of both success and horror stories. Like what someone else commented on here, one interesting solution might be to seek out capital that naturally has a longer time horizon for investing e.g. pension funds. And agreed on the places that need transit the most usually are the places that fear it the most 😂
"yes daddy government, this is a tourist railway I promise, totally not an awesome transit system for our community, get your inspectors and insane regulations away from it!"
You have a problem in The US and for a lesser degree Canada. Everything is black and white to the extreme, there are no gray areas and one of the problems of this is over individualism that makes it hard to impossible to build big projects for everyone that requires scale planning on a large scale. Public transport, like other things on that scale, requires large scale planning, lots of funding and the understanding that the profit won't come from the system itself but from the economic activity it will create. This is how other places around the world do it and it's the only way it will work for you. The private sector cannot and will not solve your problem and turning to it as an easy solution will end badly. Yes, you might be able to build a few disconnected systems but, as you've showed with the street cars, once they got what they wanted and can't profit from it any more they will bail out leaving the same problematic structure to continue with the same problems that caused you to use the private sector. No government (that I know of) creates a"construction departmebt" and all use private sector companies to build things for them but the government plans it, sets the rules and many times finance it. In other places around the world government funding is far more stable and secure and in no way less efficient than the private sector (a lot of times it's even better). For public transport to work it must be reliable. It must work and get the necessary funds to do that at all times and only the government can ensure that. Just look at the overrated Brightline service in Florida. It's not bad but it demonstrated my point. They provided slower cost but not as good service as the one planned, a large part of the cost was paid by the taxpayers (government tax exempted bonds, federal grants and maintenance costs) but the line is private. It worked fine but than came the pandemic and while government operators continue to provide service under hard conditions, as it should be, Brightline just closed shop for 18 months and they will keep loosing money they will cut service, reduce maintenance and eventually shut it down in a heartbeat.
The downfall of street cars is that they suck. I live in Toronto. They block two lanes of traffic every time they stop to pick up or offload passengers. When they break down, they back up the whole line. When track maintenance has to be done, the rip out the entire road, both sides for years at a time shutting down km's of road. Buses are much better, cheaper, more flexible in their routes and cause less problems for everyone.
Major problem is that buses get stuck even more in traffic, which greatly reduces reliability. The only way to make streetcars more decent is to make their tracks exclusive to them, just like what they did in most Japanese cities that operate them, i.e. Nagasaki, Sapporo, and more recently Utsunomiya.
@@ianhomerpura8937 street cars get stuck in traffic too. You live in a city with street cars? If you visit Toronto, go to queen street east and see that shit show. St. Clair has dedicated lanes, but after 10 years of changing 6 lanes (3 east 3 west) to 2 lanes (1 east 1 west) Most streets are like queen street where that isn't feasible. Best option is to pave over the rail and drive the street cars off a ramp into Lake Ontario. Buses are the superior option.
@@michaelfilippi3276 hence why I said that you look to other countries. Streetcars in Japan have exclusive lanes and cannot be used by cars. Mixing them with traffic like the clusterfuckery being done in Toronto would always be a disaster. Also, buses only function well until gas prices spike further up as more wars are started. Good luck.
@@ianhomerpura8937 We have electric buses and hydrogen. Street cars are useless and expensive. And try living near a line. You can feel it driving from like 500 meters away. Also they don't always run when it's bad weather or really cold. Honestly, the best place of them is in the bottom of Lake Ontario after they are cleaned, to promote fish habitat.
@@michaelfilippi3276 streetcars are only useless and expensive when you do not maintain and upgrade them. Also, not running in bad weather or the cold?? Lol Sapporo has tons of snow and still manages to operate streetcars daily. Manila before 1945 manage to operate them even during floods. You Canadians and Americans always have lame excuses not to build decent public transportation.
@@ianhomerpura8937 When you sell something at a loss to "lead people in the door" so to speak. In this case, landowners used unsustainably cheap transit to encourage people to buy their property.
Why not allow this video be a case for privatization? Why do we have to act like private capital is morally wrong and we need the government collective to save us? Reality is that the governments needs to provide the opportunity to private enterprise to be successful and that the government truly cannot get anything done in an efficient fashion.
East Asia(Except North Korea) +Singapore managed to make public transport profitable, comfortable, and reliable. East Asians have a collective mindset.
The idea that government is morally superior is an illusion. All it’s money comes from taxing the private sector or borrowing with future taxpayers on the hook and politicians with no real skin in the game.
@@laurie7689 I suppose you could say the same about anything our tax dollars go towards that we don't directly use 😉 but in all seriousness, there's an argument to be made about how the congestion and livability of large cities is disproportionately impactful towards the economic position and therefore wellbeing of the entire country - whether or not you buy it is up to you, but it's an interesting take
You mean unlike roads that are hugely expensive to maintain? And 'a handful of people'? You can move people much more efficiently with public transit than with cars.
All those services: police, fire dept. schools, etc. are paid for by taxes. We can only afford to pay for so much. We can't even begin to afford to pay for each mode of transportation. Most of us in the suburbs aren't going to give up our private transportation. We'll be paying for modes of public transportation that we'll never use. That is a hard sell.
also pls go easy on the editing - first time using final cut pro cause adobe too expensive lol
If you want to support the channel, here are some of my favourite transit books that I think are definitely worth reading: bookshop.org/lists/fav-transit-books (I'll get a bit of a commission) 😎
Thank you..
Great video, Final Cut Pro is the best 😍
Thanks! Yeah I’m really starting to like the magnetic timeline 🤓
I didn't see anything bad. Excellent editing.
One would not expect such quality from a channel with such a small number of subscribers.
The issues that created the challenges with maintaining the streetcars are still present today: developers build the streets and roads with largely private funds (within their land holdings anyway) after recouping the costs when they sell the parcels, only to hand over the costs of maintaining and rebuilding them without the funding sources the developers had to build them. The difference is that we chose to spend the funds to make sure the roads were maintained and rebuilt as needed with public funds, whereas that was not the case for the streetcars. Because the cost to maintain and rebuild the streets is too high compared with the income from taxes of adjacent properties, the funds are stolen from other sources, including new developments without the need for expensive maintenance for a while (refer to Growth Ponzi Scheme by Strong Towns).
As the capital costs to build infrastructure and the ongoing costs to operate and maintain (and upgrade) it comes from different pots, it’s important to make sure that the O&M pot is sufficiently funded every year-often failing due to policy priorities. We like to build things and will spend a lot more money to build and rebuild than to maintain what we already have. Even when a private company builds “public infrastructure”, what happens when the source of funds runs out. This is happening in south and central Florida with the Brightline-the parent company is a real estate development corporation with Brightline as a small subsidy to increase access to their holdings-sound familiar?
What happens when their property is built out, the new rails and infrastructure of today needs to be replaced and/or upgraded and there’s no more property to sell to deal with it? Old streetcar neighborhoods like mine falter while we pay high taxes that go to the expansion of roads and highways we don’t benefit from. This is the age-old question that no TH-camr has yet to touch! Could you be the first?!
Considering the downfall of streetcars was largely due to policy decisions ... presumably in order for public transport to thrive it will need more policy decisions to take public space away from cars. The way the Netherlands has reallocated space gradually over the last many decades (and even Paris in the last few years) it shows what is possible.
Exactly the point I was trying to get across - as long as there's such asymmetrical effort being put into cars vs. transit, then it's near impossible for transit to be a viable investment for anyone to build 🤷
In other words cars. Sorry but slow streetcars are not the answer to political problems. 21st century America needs 21st century technology like actual metro lines
@@TheFlyingMooseCAwe can barely maintain car infrastructure
@@qjtvaddictNor should they be, full cost recovery for roads needs to be brought in to take away cars subsidized monopoly.
@@qjtvaddictyou need a mix of modes. Look at any big European city, they have a mix of basically every transit mode, from high speed intercity rail, over trams, Metros and good buses
A lot of streetcars and even elevated railways and subways were abandoned or removed in the 1920s, 30s and 40s due to the swarms of automobiles blocking and slowing the streetcars and siphoning off their customers. Elevated structures were taken down and sent to the steel mills for military weapons, tools, and equipment.
yep, don't think people at the time realised what congestion was doing to streetcar networks - it really kicked off a vicious cycle of unreliability > decreasing ridership > less money > unreliability
this one is a faroff point: i am glad that the steel was reused instead of being dumped
Steel is still the #1 recycled product on earth. 90% I believe finds a new home at some point instead of being landfilled. It's just that easy/valuable a material. Same ironically with cars.. The most recycled product in history despite its eco-footprint...@@micosstar
@@micosstar There are several notable streetcar/trolley graveyards where they were taken and abandoned in the woods and left to rust away.
Like you said, it's absolutely an insane thing to realize that LA once had the world's largest trolley network in the 1920s, a completely different world compared to the traffic nightmare it is notoriously now known for! A streetcar suburb still exists just outside Philadelphia, a place called Media! The trolley goes between 69th Street Transportation Center in Philly and Media. It is a part of the remaining lines of the former Red Arrow Lines Trolley System once operated by the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company. In Media, the trolley enters the street at Providence Road and runs on a single track the rest of the way. Cars in the street must yield. The line terminates in the middle of the street just west of the Delaware County Courthouse.
A pretty cool streetcar system is New Orleans's. New Orleans has its rich history to thank for its walkability! It was originally designed by military engineer Le Blond de la Tour in 1721, and the original grid can be seen in today’s French Quarter. But many French structures burned down during the Spanish period, and so when the Spanish rebuilt the city (and outlawed timber in favor of brick and plaster), they recognized the need for increasing density due to a growing population and the subtropical climate. It is home to the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the entire world which is the St. Charles Line that has been operating since 1835! Heck, the name po-boy came about because of a streetcar strike in 1929!
New Orleans is on my list of places to visit - in no small part thanks to the streetcar >>:) Definitely right about the legacy of streetcar suburbs and how walkability/transit connectivity has shaped so many areas that are desirable today :)
@@TheFlyingMooseCA The Bay State Street Railway had 940 mile of track at one point.
In the case of Hudson County, NJ, there used to be an impressive streetcar system called the North Hudson County Railway that originated in the 1860s and lasted until the 1940s. The North Hudson County Railway was a complex streetcar network that connected Journal Square in Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, and Union City (which the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail tries to accomplish today; minus Journal Square). However, a portion of Hudson County is a line of pretty steep cliffs that makes up part of the Hudson Palisades. So they devised many engineering innovations from a huge and long elevated trestle, viaducts, funicular wagon lifts, and an elevator!
But starting in 2000, the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail began operating. Unlike the streetcars, the HBLR doesn't have a trestle to reach the top of the Palisades, instead it serves JC's The Heights with a long elevator off the side of the cliffs down to 9th St/Congress St station in Hoboken, and there's also an underground station at Bergenline Ave in Union City during which it uses a tunnel previously used by West Shore Railroad/New York Central trains (which served the now demolished Weehawken Terminal). Much of the HBLR uses repurposed rail right-of-way, like its Bayonne section originally being used by the Central Railroad of NJ, or the western side of Hoboken was once the NJ Junction Railroad and Conrail's River Line
Didn't know that - there's so much urban transit history that's been forgotten. Thanks for sharing!
great video! like people say, america wasn’t built for the car, it was destroyed for the car
Glad you liked it! And yep, unfortunately quite a bit of truth in that statement :/
Public transit infrastructure isn't meant to be profitable. It's about providing a service like highways, police, fire dept, schools, etc.
It is, at best, an insincere argument to insist that NLX trains make a profit - while other types of transportation, without objections, get lavish subsidies. The Rail Passengers Association’s white paper, “Long Distance Trains: a Foundation for National Mobility,” said, “Goals like ‘operational self-sufficiency,’ ‘profit,’ or (minimal) federal operating support are neither reasonable nor sound public policy objectives. This is supported by the fact that federal and state funds subsidize air and road travel. The effect of these goals is to block improvements needed to modernize the nation’s intercity passenger train system and rejuvenate our increasingly expensive and dysfunctional transportation system. The driving purpose should be to harvest the public benefits that trains produce for the communities they serve and for the nation as a whole. Studies have found that even one train a day produces benefits that exceed costs.”
Great video! Also not covered are the rare-to-be-seen public-public partnership. Paige Saunders has a fantastic video about that on TH-cam. Basically the idea is have a public-focused entity with extremely long time horizons for investing (like a public pension fund) to be the "guardrails" to keep the project on task without the need to return money to shareholders within 3 years.
That is very interesting - I haven't actually come across that too much before. Will take a look at the video!
The title of the video is "The pension fund that bought trains"
@@AaronTheHarris got it - thanks :)
just watched it - didn't know that was the full story behind the REM and it'd definitely be cool if they could actually export that model. I might honestly make a video on the whole concept of infrastructure as an asset class - feel like it's generally overlooked by it's responsible for funding a lot of airports, transportation systems etc.@@AaronTheHarris
growing up in suburban long island new york in the 70s and 80s in the VILLAGE of Mineola, i would still see railroad tracks on the streets all over the old parts of the village, which are the only parts today which have a downtown sort of look and feel; they were for streetcars, and those tracks have mostly been covered up these days, but they're still there, under the asphalt.
Yeah it’s pretty amazing how just how much of our urban layouts are influenced by historical transit networks - even when they’re removed, the density and infrastructure they encouraged still lives on for a long time
I'm just glad those ugly overhead lines were also removed. I've seen plenty of black/white photos with streetcars and those overhead lines they ran on. Ugly pictures.
@@laurie7689 nonsense, highways are ugly Mr.& Mrs. Boomer.
@@adammr7097 Gen-X, sweetheart. I despise public transportation as I refuse to ride with strangers, but that doesn't mean that I don't think that other people shouldn't use it. I just think that the overhead wires are ugly, which is why I prefer buses, trains, or other modes, instead of streetcars.
How to ensure your streetcar is successful: Give priority to the streetcar. If you need to make dedicated bus lanes, the streetcar is already a better alternative as it has higher capacity with the same space occupied. Perfect example is 34th Street in NYC. It is one of the busiest streets in the country. The bus getting across town is slower than walking. Yes, you can walk faster than the bus between Penn station and 1st Ave. Close the street to car traffic, expand the sidewalks and put in a street car.
If a city attempts to put in dedicated bus right of way, it can already build a streetcar
Agreed on the streetcar priority - our Spadina streetcar in Toronto gets choked because left turning cars get priority at every light, and the streetcars aren't synced to the lights for some reason :/
I like the take on dedicated bus ROW -> probably can implement a streetcar. Unfortunately there it's usually budget; that's the common justification for the recent BRT boom in the US
so true, i've sat on crosstown buses in manhattan and seen the people walking past me block after block, so i walk across town now rather than the bus, but the bus can be prioritized with the traffic lights, and given an exclusive lane and it can be easily fixed.
Interesting video. We seem to have the same problems here in Australia. Sydney used to have a huge tram (streetcar) system and scrapped it all by 1961. Then in recent years, they have started bringing it back as modern light rail. This is costing them billions of dollars, as everything has to be rebuilt. Here in Melbourne, we kept our tram system mostly intact and converting to light rail is a lot cheaper. There days, If any transit systems are privately owned, they is usually also subsidized by the state governments.
Glad you enjoyed :) We're also lucky that the rails here in Toronto weren't ripped up, but the system could definitely use some modernisation - better separation from road traffic is just one of many things on the list
At least some of the privatization concerns could be helped by implementing the same rule that exist for Dutch road infrastructure. Actually very little regulations about how to implement, however you make the owner of the road, or system if you modify it a litte, directly liable for any damage or harm if they could have done anything better in terms of design and maintenance. This is a big part of the reason why Dutch infrastructure is still world leading. It incentivises being on top of the newest developments in terms of safety and design as well as maintenance.
You're absolutely right about how transit increases land value, and a great example is Charlotte NC with the development of the South End neighborhood which developed around the city's light metro system! It's crazy to see how it went from a bunch of nothing to a thriving neighborhood with skyscrapers and now it's even extending to the northern part of the line with tons of new apartment buildings going up around the stations. Not to mention how the new(ish) streetcar, even with its flaws such as low frequency, still has triggered dense urban development around it and is still used by about 1,500 people daily. And there are still a ton of new transit that has yet to be built.
Great to hear the example from Charlotte - I was there for a weekend last year and remember being surprised that there was a streetcar line 😂 That's definitely one of the benefits of streetcars/metros vs buses - having a permanent transit fixture gives developers/land owners confidence that there'll be accessibility in the future, not like a bus line that can be cancelled at any moment
@@TheFlyingMooseCA Exactly! Even in Miss Urban Sprawl herself, Charlotte is trying to densify. It's crazy to see what transit investment does to the urban environment, especially rail.
I really like the emphasis given to how transit doesn't need to be profitable. It simply existing raises property value, and all-but-guarantees commercial success in the vicinity.
An awesome primer on the challenges of funding and delivering transit! Great video!
Thanks Kevin 😌
I work from home full time and it's become permanent. I know quite a few people who are doing the same. You would think this would help alleviate traffic, yet there's still horrible traffic during regular rush hour. It's a vexing problem.
9:34 this is normal in Melbourne too. Also seen it in Berlin, i think aided with a traffic signal
fair enough - hopefully the drivers in Melbourne are better at stopping than the ones here in Toronto 😬
@@TheFlyingMooseCA Sometimes trams do sound their bells when cars go past them at stops. Yes, some European cities have them too, at least sometimes with signals to stop road vehicles behind the tram.
@7:21 "in order to make an eff ton of money" ... amusing that the subtitles leave out the "eff" 🤣
youtube censor machines are working hard 🤓
A rare great take on the historical dynamic between public policy and private actors. Looks Great! Subscribed.
Much appreciated! See you around :)
I would love to see them here in NYC, as we have numerous transit deserts throughout. I understand some of the boroughs actually had street cars at one time. When we lived in Flushing, Queens years ago, I recall seeing remnants of streetcar, or trolley, tracks still visible underneath the asphalt on Main Street.
Definitely a lot of evidence of old networks literally buried across a lot of US cities - for NYC specifically it’d be cool to see better inter-borough transit 🥲
hell yeah dude. hope this channel continues to grow
Makes me appreciate growing up in San Diego, I took the trolley everywhere as a kid! Insane LA has not revived theirs, even with all the issues.
P3 has been a disaster here in Edmonton. The Valley line was delayed more than 3 years!
Yep, definitely both success and horror stories with P3 🫠
Bro woke up and chose to speak facts. Great video.
Too kind too kind 😌
Great video and very informative! Keep on doing your thing with high quality videos and thumbnails you will blow up soon enough :). Again, great video!
Appreciate it - glad you enjoyed :)
Portland ME would be a great place for street cars.
These are the right questions to be asking. American cities of old looked so pleasant to live in, and whatever's getting built now just isn't. We need to go back.
GO Transit owns so much valuable land that they use exclusively for free parking. There are a few cases where the best use for that land is parking (thinking of like Bronte GO station or Aldershot, or all the bus station park n rides around the 407) because it gives people in remote spaces a convenient access to transit, but the vast majority of their stations is hemorrhaging money. Oakville GO, for example, should have all its surface parking converted into AT LEAST mid-rise apartments, with GO Transit leasing out the land at market rates. That income alone could probably pay for the entire Lakeshore West line, and that doesn't even get into the other opportunities like Burlington GO, where the south parking lot could be similarly developed (to match with the one condo complex they have), or Clarkson GO with its massive surface parking. The great railroads of the 1800s didn't make their money in railroads, they made their money in real estate. That's how Japan's private railroads stay in operation: it was always about real estate.
That’s what I’m sayiNG but metrolinx won’t do it 😂 The value of land adjacent to stations keeps shooting up, but metrolinx won’t capture the gains to help pay for the system :/
great video mate!
Thanks a lot!
Another great video! Loved it!
Excellent video!! Outstandingly done!
Thank you 😊
Excellent video! :D
Glad you enjoyed :D
Here is an idea. stroads can be converted into working "stroads". Cut off all the business connections and put feeder roads on the side of it, converting it into a road that has feeder streets. Something I call a "Budget Interstate". The space between the feeder street and the road could be used to fit street cars at each end
Impressive video man, great voice over and overview of the subject. Maybe the one thing is to reduce some of the background audio
Also interesting accent, it's mostly American with a sprinkling of what sounds like Australian here and there
thanks! I always find it tough to balance audio levels so this is very helpful 😎 is there a specific section of background audio that you think could be quieter?
also I grew up in HK so the accent is just a combination of whatever teachers I had 😂
@@TheFlyingMooseCA I don't have a specific section, but just something I noticed a little throughout
Great video! But there is one error, the footage labeled as Atlanta in the beginning is actually from Minneapolis.
good catch, I'm impressed 😎 I couldn't find any Atlanta footage haha
Reminds me of "Kentucky Fried Movie" where there's pan of a giant city, with the world trade center and statue of liberty in clear view, and the caption says "Hong Kong".
Japan removed their streetcars as well replacing them with elevated rail lines and subways the rest with buses.
Exactly, the point isn’t that streetcars themselves are perfect - it’s about the whole market and regulatory environment favouring one mode over the other
Elevevated rails have a huge impact on cities. Japan did this when no one was concerned about quality of life in a modern 21th century city.
While most streetcar companies were originally private entities they only benefited their owners as long as new construction was taking place or those companies built destinations for passengers, such as amusement parks. Subways on the other hand were often built with public money while being operated by private companies until the necessary limits on fare made them unprofitable necessitating full gov't takeover usually with the creation of quasi-public Authorities. Boston's West End Street Railway & the creation of the Boston Elevated Railway is an interesting case.
I feel an interesting comparison today would be Japan, since Japan actually more or less continued the practises that US private companies did back in the day into the 21st century. Japanese cities are filled with private railway companies criss crossing parts of the metropolitan area. Many of these railways are even developed from old American style interurbans which have just been gradually upgraded overtime to resembling a subway system. I also think a big change that could have saved American streetcar systems was focusing on rental rather than outright property sales. With rent, the developer has a continuous stream of income and more incentive to keep the transit around in the long term to keep the rent value high and profit off it all.
Perfectly succinct.
It needs to be publicly funded via mechanisms that can better withstand changing political dynamics.
Los Angeles has built more public rail lines in the USA in the last 20 years than any other city. And it will continue to do that in the near and far future. LA got the funding via sales tax increases so there is a constant funding scheme to build the transit infrastructure for decades.
However, the federal government needs to support local funding schemes like in LA to a much higher and more consistent level regardless of who's in office. Or, maybe allow tax payers to allocate part of their yearly tax dollars to transit for their local region or state. That way you take it out of the hands of politicians and put it in the hands of the residents who realky want to support public transit.
Yep, that’s partly why there’s so much interest in turning things over to an org that’s arm’s length from the government. Of course that org needs to have incentives that align with actually delivering good infrastructure, not to just make a quick buck
1). There were much lower labor costs back then; unionization was just getting started at the time 2). No real environmental laws... no 10-year environmental impact studies just to build 1 km of track. 3). Streetcars and interurban trains were seen as desirable to all but the wealthiest since cars weren't widespread until the post-war period; there was less opposition (maybe no opposition) to putting a streetcar line in all. 4). The Anglo-Saxon countries are just really bad at Public-Private Partnerships, maybe due to cultural reasons (minarchism, decentralization, etc.) or maybe due to the way Common Law works and encourages lawsuits. 5). In the US, public transport is derided by one of our two major political parties, making its funding and continued existence somewhat contingent.
I actually trimmed points 1-3 from the video for time, but those factors are very true and impactful. Hadn’t gone as deep into the political aspect in 4-5 tho, so definitely food for thought for me
Good video over all.
Glad you enjoyed!
I know you say we shouldn't advocate for privatization of transit... But in anywhere that isn't already a big transit city that seems like the only way to ever make it happen. Cities and states can't afford it, and federal investment only comes every decade or so (if that) and ends up using the private sector for consultation, environmental review, design, construction, etc.
It’s definitely a fine balance - brightline is proving that privatisation might be the jolt that we need to get things going (at least for HSR). I’m all for harnessing the power of the private sector better than we do right now - just need to make sure that players aren’t in it for a quick buck and end up leaving things in a worse state e.g. some cities cancelling LRT plans based off promises made by the Boring Company. Someone else mentioned the elusive “public-public” partnership, where pension funds or other long-term investors step in to actively build infrastructure. That topic will actually be most of my next video 😈
Cities often can afford it they're just lying when they say otherwise. Privatisation is marginally better than not having public transport. Melbourne could tell you all about that.
Our trains are still privately run and while they're a lot better than they used to be they never really recovered from being privatised.
It's the worst of both worlds, since we paid for the trains with our taxes but now don't get to keep any of the profit from ticket sales.
We need to allow more urban infill (NIMBYs are a problem) and increase fuel tax.
Thoughts on mileage tax vs fuel tax? Especially if EVs continue to become more prevalent (and the demographics of EV owners are typically in higher brackets anyway)
@@TheFlyingMooseCA Honestly a system like IFTA makes a lot of sense but VMT is hard to do for passenger vehicles. It would just cause distortions. The incentive should be to end fossil fuels so taxing road fuels are easy.
Fair enough - good point on the fossil fuel incentives
@@TheFlyingMooseCA If we have a mileage tax, then folks using public transport should also pay it.
Try researching East Asian rail on how they managed to make railways reliable, comfortable, and profitable.
The "some reason" we still have streetcars in the middle of the street is because we wouldn't dare take away a parking space
Using this approach of funding public transport through increased land prices in an existing city means supercharging gentrification. The abysmal housing affordability of Hong Kong or Tokyo is a far too expensive price to pay for a public transport system, even one as great as those cities have.
In isolation definitely - the gains from better transit need to benefit enough people for this to be sustainable
America really need to take lessons from Melbourne. They do it perfectly
Was in Sydney earlier this year but didn’t make it out to Melbourne - will check it out next time I find myself in Australia 😎
@@TheFlyingMooseCA A lot of Melbourne trams are actually in America now. They can be seen in places like Memphis, Dallas and San Francisco
We do it far from perfectly.
Changing zoning laws and discourageing suburban sprawl will save you.
i hope so 🤷
Don't think we suburbanites will allow that to happen.
Fortunately, you don't have all the votes.@@laurie7689
This, especially the land around existing railway stations. Also allowing transit agencies to buy and develop more lands around railway stations would be nice too.
@@laurie7689 why should zoning laws be freezed for decades, while cities grow all around them?
So get governments out of roads sell off exisiting roads to divide between frieght and passengers and see how things change
An a/b test I like it 😂
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The solution to funding transit? A dedicated carbon tax... Or a dedicated public transit capital fund that can be drawn from funded from user fees, carbon taxes, etc. The solution is just as easy as that. But than again where people most need transit is usually in fast growing areas that seem immune to all things "socialism" which is why places like Austin end up easily funding highway expansion but have to dial back LRT dreams to a fraction of the original concept...And the areas that need to spend the most don't want to... I.e. Austin, Miami, Las Vegas (the Loop doesn't really count) and of course... And of course more streetcars... Edmonton just reopened its first modern tramline since the closure of the OG system in 1951... Yes we've have a high-floor German U-bahn-style pre-metro since 1978 but not a low-floor one designed essentially to replicate what we lost so many decades ago.. The #1 route criteria chosen in Edmonton was to link potential TOD's together even if right now they aren't that busy or popular... But 09/12 stations opened last week are in areas where skyscraper apartment clusters are planned....
And yes it was financed with a P3 under Stephen Harper. That was the conditions of funding which is some ways was good in protecting Edmonton from paying for 3 years of delays and overages while under construction since Dec 2020 was the OG opening date. It started to take revenue passengers literally last Saturday, one week ago... But also terrible since the contract again limited information sharing as to why it was so delayed in opening... I fully expect a huge public enquiry on this one as well, even with half the line still under construction today just with different contractors and rolling stock manufacturers...
Yep, P3 seems to be responsible for their fair share of both success and horror stories. Like what someone else commented on here, one interesting solution might be to seek out capital that naturally has a longer time horizon for investing e.g. pension funds.
And agreed on the places that need transit the most usually are the places that fear it the most 😂
Here's an idea...
1. let's all start a gofundme
2. invest all the money raised
3. wait until we have enough to build a street car line
4. ...profit ?
😂😂😂 invest in streetcars in step 2 while we're at it
Elevated metro is better
@@qjtvaddict both have their uses. trams and light rail are better suited for short distances in a city centre.
"yes daddy government, this is a tourist railway I promise, totally not an awesome transit system for our community, get your inspectors and insane regulations away from it!"
I blame the ADA for killing the street car. Making old systems wheelchair compatible continues to be a problem to this day.
Yeah why do they need transport they already have wheels...
You have a problem in The US and for a lesser degree Canada.
Everything is black and white to the extreme, there are no gray areas and one of the problems of this is over individualism that makes it hard to impossible to build big projects for everyone that requires scale planning on a large scale.
Public transport, like other things on that scale, requires large scale planning, lots of funding and the understanding that the profit won't come from the system itself but from the economic activity it will create. This is how other places around the world do it and it's the only way it will work for you. The private sector cannot and will not solve your problem and turning to it as an easy solution will end badly. Yes, you might be able to build a few disconnected systems but, as you've showed with the street cars, once they got what they wanted and can't profit from it any more they will bail out leaving the same problematic structure to continue with the same problems that caused you to use the private sector.
No government (that I know of) creates a"construction departmebt" and all use private sector companies to build things for them but the government plans it, sets the rules and many times finance it. In other places around the world government funding is far more stable and secure and in no way less efficient than the private sector (a lot of times it's even better).
For public transport to work it must be reliable. It must work and get the necessary funds to do that at all times and only the government can ensure that. Just look at the overrated Brightline service in Florida. It's not bad but it demonstrated my point. They provided slower cost but not as good service as the one planned, a large part of the cost was paid by the taxpayers (government tax exempted bonds, federal grants and maintenance costs) but the line is private. It worked fine but than came the pandemic and while government operators continue to provide service under hard conditions, as it should be, Brightline just closed shop for 18 months and they will keep loosing money they will cut service, reduce maintenance and eventually shut it down in a heartbeat.
Itis all about gubment regulations and fighting them in the courts
I have an examle of a sowewhat lost modetn tram system.... In Europe. Have a look at Jaen, in Spain, it's....well..... frustrating
I hate this countries reliance on cars. European countries do public transit the right way.
The downfall of street cars is that they suck. I live in Toronto. They block two lanes of traffic every time they stop to pick up or offload passengers. When they break down, they back up the whole line. When track maintenance has to be done, the rip out the entire road, both sides for years at a time shutting down km's of road. Buses are much better, cheaper, more flexible in their routes and cause less problems for everyone.
Major problem is that buses get stuck even more in traffic, which greatly reduces reliability.
The only way to make streetcars more decent is to make their tracks exclusive to them, just like what they did in most Japanese cities that operate them, i.e. Nagasaki, Sapporo, and more recently Utsunomiya.
@@ianhomerpura8937 street cars get stuck in traffic too. You live in a city with street cars? If you visit Toronto, go to queen street east and see that shit show. St. Clair has dedicated lanes, but after 10 years of changing 6 lanes (3 east 3 west) to 2 lanes (1 east 1 west) Most streets are like queen street where that isn't feasible. Best option is to pave over the rail and drive the street cars off a ramp into Lake Ontario. Buses are the superior option.
@@michaelfilippi3276 hence why I said that you look to other countries. Streetcars in Japan have exclusive lanes and cannot be used by cars.
Mixing them with traffic like the clusterfuckery being done in Toronto would always be a disaster.
Also, buses only function well until gas prices spike further up as more wars are started. Good luck.
@@ianhomerpura8937 We have electric buses and hydrogen. Street cars are useless and expensive. And try living near a line. You can feel it driving from like 500 meters away. Also they don't always run when it's bad weather or really cold. Honestly, the best place of them is in the bottom of Lake Ontario after they are cleaned, to promote fish habitat.
@@michaelfilippi3276 streetcars are only useless and expensive when you do not maintain and upgrade them. Also, not running in bad weather or the cold?? Lol Sapporo has tons of snow and still manages to operate streetcars daily. Manila before 1945 manage to operate them even during floods.
You Canadians and Americans always have lame excuses not to build decent public transportation.
No, the point is that transit was only ever viable as a loss leader. There is no loss leader available when everything is already built up.
What is a "loss leader"?
@@ianhomerpura8937 When you sell something at a loss to "lead people in the door" so to speak. In this case, landowners used unsustainably cheap transit to encourage people to buy their property.
Why not allow this video be a case for privatization? Why do we have to act like private capital is morally wrong and we need the government collective to save us? Reality is that the governments needs to provide the opportunity to private enterprise to be successful and that the government truly cannot get anything done in an efficient fashion.
East Asia(Except North Korea) +Singapore managed to make public transport profitable, comfortable, and reliable. East Asians have a collective mindset.
@@rzpogi Actually, a good chunk of mass transit in Asia is privately owned. Case in point, Tokyo's subway system.
The idea that government is morally superior is an illusion. All it’s money comes from taxing the private sector or borrowing with future taxpayers on the hook and politicians with no real skin in the game.
Tramsit
What nonsense, public transit needs massive subsidies to move a handful of people.
In today’s context perhaps 👀 I was proposing that this is primarily caused by the hidden subsidies towards road infrastructure
@@TheFlyingMooseCA People outside of cities want their private transportation. Why would we pay taxes for public transport that we'll never use?
@@laurie7689 I suppose you could say the same about anything our tax dollars go towards that we don't directly use 😉
but in all seriousness, there's an argument to be made about how the congestion and livability of large cities is disproportionately impactful towards the economic position and therefore wellbeing of the entire country - whether or not you buy it is up to you, but it's an interesting take
Nothing wrong with that, especially when billions of dollars go into highway and fuel subsidies.
You mean unlike roads that are hugely expensive to maintain? And 'a handful of people'? You can move people much more efficiently with public transit than with cars.
Public transit infrastructure isn't meant to be profitable. It's about providing a service like highways, police, fire dept, schools, etc.
All those services: police, fire dept. schools, etc. are paid for by taxes. We can only afford to pay for so much. We can't even begin to afford to pay for each mode of transportation. Most of us in the suburbs aren't going to give up our private transportation. We'll be paying for modes of public transportation that we'll never use. That is a hard sell.
It's also a hell of a lot more economically sustainable than public roads everywhere, even deep in private suburbs.