No., you do do not make it worse, you make it better. Why? Because streetcars carry more people than bus on a per vehicle basis. A properly planned streetcar line has less interference than a bus line for the following motorists, because the streetcar always follows its designed path . Except in Seattle, where one can observe that bus drivers do regularly curb-load, most bus lines to not have drivers that pull over to the curb regularly to load and discharge passengers, and often two lanes of traffic are blocked instead of one. (I have seen three lanes!) Toronto knows this and had kept its streetcars. New York did not, but at the same time as the final streetcars were removed, a one way avenue system with staggared lights for 25mph driving was adopted and matters did improve, but not because of the streetcar abandonment. (Of course, the one-way plan would have involved a lot of new track and switches if streetcars can been kept.)
It is important to plan the streecar line for minimum interference with regular traffic,, and there are vrious ways that this can be done, depending on the number of lanes available and natureof the traffic.
And let us not confuse streetcars with light rail, the latter being mainly with a separate right of way, but usually with grade crossings. I will agree with one point. We should not expect a streetcar to improve on bus speed. Light rail will do so, but not a streetcar. I did want to point out that with very very heavy use, a streetcar is more economical than a bus, but this requires very very heavy use.
There may be very special situations where it is impossible to install a streetcar line without badly affecting traffic. Obviouslly one case would be a heavy traffic one-way street that must be made two-way for the streetcar line.
An interesting comparison in the history of St. Catherans Street, Montreal, which was the main downdown street for about half the routes on the streetcar system, about 90% of the east-west routs. Based oon the large capacity and numbers of the cars observed during rush hours, it was handling about 75,000 passengers each way in one hour. When the system was converted to bus, it was found that the street could not acommodate the nubmer of buses, and half the routes were shifted to parrallel Dorchester Avenue, which previouslly was a park-like boulevard without transit service. Now the east-west Metro has taken most of the transit passengers off the street, and I believe buses can handle the remained, the local passengers, on St. Catherans.
Again, the arguments for an reasons for adopting light rail are different than for streetcars. Today, most streetcars are planned as downtown circulators, sort of a horizontal elevator making the downtown area one big department store. Light rail in most places is planned to curb congesition, make it easier to get downtown, and to draw people back to public transportation from their cars.
A streetcar line is planned for Liberty State Park in Jersey City using ex-Newark PCC cars, the ones that were not sold to San Francisco. But I believe it will share a street with pedestrians, not with vehicles. It will connect with the light rail system, probablly have a track connection with it for overhaul, but not be part of the light rail system. So! Rail service of a different type will come back to location where I boarded the B&O Royal Blue for Washington in 1945, and millions of CNJ commuters switched between trains and ferry boats.
Regarding costs, when it comes to vehicles, streetcars cost more than buses but last twice as long. Counting utility renewal and/or relocation, electrical power, etc. you can figure on about one million dollars for every mile of streetcar, with about five times that for a modern elevated structure and about ten times that for cut-and-cover subway construction. Shop facilities are not much different in cost between buses and streetcars. I hope this answers your questions. Note, even with all the explanaitions, I am not recommending streetcars lines, simply wishing to point out that in cases of very heavy usage they can make economic sense. But usually they are being proposed for other reasons anyway. But if less than 2000 poeple a day use the whole line, I would even question those other reasons!
If you wish to question my estimates, please visit the APTA website and do your own survey of all the systems running different types of public transit.
Regarding Jerusalem, we are handling 110,000 a day recorded journeys, up to 150,00 duirng intermediate holidays with crush conditions. Current operations are about 10 trains each way each hour, with each trains handling about 800 end-to-end during the busiest periods. In addition to employment and shopping downtown, there is travel to and from educational institutiooons and employment and shopping in the outer areas.
daveklepper No., you do do not make it worse, you make it better. Why? Because streetcars carry more people than bus on a per vehicle basis. A properly planned streetcar line has less interference than a bus line for the following motorists, because the streetcar always follows its designed path . Except in Seattle, where one can observe that bus drivers do regularly curb-load, most bus lines to not have drivers that pull over to the curb regularly to load and discharge passengers, and often two lanes of traffic are blocked instead of one. (I have seen three lanes!) Toronto knows this and had kept its streetcars. New York did not, but at the same time as the final streetcars were removed, a one way avenue system with staggared lights for 25mph driving was adopted and matters did improve, but not because of the streetcar abandonment. (Of course, the one-way plan would have involved a lot of new track and switches if streetcars can been kept.) It is important to plan the streecar line for minimum interference with regular traffic,, and there are vrious ways that this can be done, depending on the number of lanes available and natureof the traffic. And let us not confuse streetcars with light rail, the latter being mainly with a separate right of way, but usually with grade crossings. I will agree with one point. We should not expect a streetcar to improve on bus speed. Light rail will do so, but not a streetcar. I did want to point out that with very very heavy use, a streetcar is more economical than a bus, but this requires very very heavy use. There may be very special situations where it is impossible to install a streetcar line without badly affecting traffic. Obviouslly one case would be a heavy traffic one-way street that must be made two-way for the streetcar line. An interesting comparison in the history of St. Catherans Street, Montreal, which was the main downdown street for about half the routes on the streetcar system, about 90% of the east-west routs. Based oon the large capacity and numbers of the cars observed during rush hours, it was handling about 75,000 passengers each way in one hour. When the system was converted to bus, it was found that the street could not acommodate the nubmer of buses, and half the routes were shifted to parrallel Dorchester Avenue, which previouslly was a park-like boulevard without transit service. Now the east-west Metro has taken most of the transit passengers off the street, and I believe buses can handle the remained, the local passengers, on St. Catherans. Again, the arguments for an reasons for adopting light rail are different than for streetcars. Today, most streetcars are planned as downtown circulators, sort of a horizontal elevator making the downtown area one big department store. Light rail in most places is planned to curb congesition, make it easier to get downtown, and to draw people back to public transportation from their cars. A streetcar line is planned for Liberty State Park in Jersey City using ex-Newark PCC cars, the ones that were not sold to San Francisco. But I believe it will share a street with pedestrians, not with vehicles. It will connect with the light rail system, probablly have a track connection with it for overhaul, but not be part of the light rail system. So! Rail service of a different type will come back to location where I boarded the B&O Royal Blue for Washington in 1945, and millions of CNJ commuters switched between trains and ferry boats. Regarding costs, when it comes to vehicles, streetcars cost more than buses but last twice as long. Counting utility renewal and/or relocation, electrical power, etc. you can figure on about one million dollars for every mile of streetcar, with about five times that for a modern elevated structure and about ten times that for cut-and-cover subway construction. Shop facilities are not much different in cost between buses and streetcars. I hope this answers your questions. Note, even with all the explanaitions, I am not recommending streetcars lines, simply wishing to point out that in cases of very heavy usage they can make economic sense. But usually they are being proposed for other reasons anyway. But if less than 2000 poeple a day use the whole line, I would even question those other reasons! If you wish to question my estimates, please visit the APTA website and do your own survey of all the systems running different types of public transit. Regarding Jerusalem, we are handling 110,000 a day recorded journeys, up to 150,00 duirng intermediate holidays with crush conditions. Current operations are about 10 trains each way each hour, with each trains handling about 800 end-to-end during the busiest periods. In addition to employment and shopping downtown, there is travel to and from educational institutiooons and employment and shopping in the outer areas.
Not all street cars carry more than buses. These are the vehicles that Charlotte is initially going to run. They used them on parts of the light rail line for a while but decided they were just in the way.
I have lived in several cities and I have NEVER seen an urban bus that did NOT pull to the curb to load and offload. I imagine that Manhattan would be an exception, but no one is suggesting trying to work streetcars into Manhattan traffic.
I am well aware of the difference between street cars and light rail. It is the fact that one usually runs in dedicated ROW and one tries to mix with automobile traffic which makes one useful and one a traffic obstruction.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Phoebe Vet have lived in several cities and I have NEVER seen an urban bus that did NOT pull to the curb to load and offload.
I have a different experience. I live in New Jersey and over the last 25 years I've ridden buses in Bergen County, Hudson County, Essex County, Passaic County and Mercer County. In urban areas buses frequently do not pull over to the curb to stop. The reason is that vehicles (including police vehicles) are parked in the bus stops and the no parking laws are not enforced in bus stops. If buses are able to pull over to the curb they will do so but when they cannot they do not.
Reminds me of a story my father used to tell about the end of streetcar service and instituting of buses. The company kept its old employees and just moved them into the buses. But the customers complained because the now bus drivers were not used to pulling over to the curb!.
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Obviously, if the bus stop is parked full, the driver has to do what he has to do. The key here is "the parking laws are not enforced".
I have not been there, but I have seen video of street cars in New Orleans that appear to be running in the center mall. That makes more sense to me than mixing them with automobile traffic. At least a bus is capable of taking evasive action when the inevitable motorist brain cramp occurs.
I know of 2-1/2 ways where streetcars can share with auto traffic. Let us take the 1-1/2 first. This has the streetcar tracks in the classic location in the middle of the street. There are loading islands to load discharge passengers, with flashing warning lights facing oncoming traffic, no parking for about the same distance as would exist for a bus stop, and the lanes cleaarly moved to the right around the location where the streetcar would stop and to the right of the loading island. This was the situation on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, and it worked well for the PCC crs that provided excellent service and for the drivers as well. The variation on this approach is to not have loading islands, but a center continuous island with left-hand loading of the streetcars insted of right-hand. Blue Hill lAvenue in Brookline, Boston, was a good example, even though the streetcars were no more modern than the classic wood-seat Type 5's.
Appoach 2 has the streetcar tracks adjacent to the parking lane, with the center lanes reserved for through auto traffic, and the lanes against the parking lanes used for parking pull-out and pull-in and f or the streetcars. Usually the sidewalk is extended out to the second lane at the car stops. This works well when speed for the streetcar is't important, and streetcars are intended as a shoppers circulator.
Again, these are solutions. I am not in the position of recommending streetcars. Noe what I posted about ridership.
Except that Broadway - 42nd Street did have about 60,000 passengers a day. And Broadway and 42nd St. were not made oneway with staggered lights. And immediately after buses were introduced, ridership dropped to 40,000/day, with about 10,000 to the B'way-7th Ave subway and the balance walking. Drivers going north or south generally do avoid Broadway today. If I could I would reintroduce streetcars to Broadway and it would do wonders for the shops, theatres, and restaurants. And they would load and unload left-hand agains the mall.
daveklepperRegarding Jerusalem, we are handling 110,000 a day recorded journeys, up to 150,00 duirng intermediate holidays with crush conditions.
"The line operates Sunday through Thursday, from 5:30 am to 11:30 pm, on Friday up to an hour before sundown and not during the Shabbat or holidays, resuming half an hour after Shabbat or the Holiday ends. Frequency will be every 4.5 minutes during rush hours, every 8 minutes in the daytime and every 12 minutes at night. It is expected to carry up to 2300 passengers an hour during peak morning rush." (from Wiki, which has linked citations).
So that adds up to maybe 36,000 passengers on weekdays. Since the trains do not run on holidays, the 150,000 claimed is even more ludicrous.
Yet you keep claiming an astronomical figure without any evidence to support your contention.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
You are talking about what was planned. I am giving you the facts as they exist. They cannot run every 4.5 minutes as planned because the synchronization with traffgic lights isn't perfect, and the end-to-end journies are taking about 45-48 minutes, so 5.5-6 minutes is their headway. And each trip handles about two full loads, one from suburb to downtwon and another from downtown to suburb em;loyment or school. Yes, they are handling 110,000 jounries each day. And the Jerusalem Post reported 15000/day for the intermediate days of Succot when the trains were jammed, and they were just as jammed during the intermeidate days of Passover. Multiple loads on one trip. People commute to and from the south end of the line to \connect with the bus to and from the Ein Karemm Hospital Complex, Israel's largest. At one end of the downtown area is the large central bus station and the concert hall - convention center -multiple hotel complex and a large yeshiva. Going along Jaffa Riad we cine first to studeos, then a major health center, then the large Menahem Yehuda Market, and the central shopping area, and then the city Hall, Facing north we come ro Dimascus Gate to the Old City, the major Arab Sector bus terminals and business area, again numverous hotels and Yeshvias, and stations for transfer to the busses for the H University Mt. Scopus complex. Then we come to an upscale Arab shopping and apartment center (and since light rail, most Arab shops have new Hebrew signs suplementing their Arabic signs), ending up north in an Israeli mxed residential area and the Air Force Academy. The result is that most seats turn over about three times during one trip, since the bus system has been reconfigured mostly to connect with light rail and reduce competing bus service.
All cars are double ended, with controls at both ends. Obviouxly, they must have planned some single-car operation. But there is none! Every train that has carried revenue passengers has had two cars (mu)!
Longer trains are not practical because of block lengths in part of the downtown area. Each car is 35 meters, about 120 feet, long, three trucks supporting the end and middle sections with the 2nd and 4th supported at the articulaion joints. So one train is 240 feet long.
Regarding the old Broadway - 42nd street line, much of the day saw a car every three minutes, every other traffic-light change. With the wood jump-seats folded down where the offside doors were, each car seated 60 and stood about 90. Normally, there were 70 cars assigned, out of 75 built for the line, and a round trip to about 150 minutes. Most trips saw an average of three uses of one seat.
The signs at the stations say every 5.5-6 minutes during rush hour, not 4.5. I will check their website, but that also may be out-of-date.
When you say may figues are astronmical you are insulting me. I happen to be an MIT grad, and there studied transportation planning. Just what are your credentials? It still seems not to occur to you that one seat can be occupied several times on one streetcar, bus, light rail, heavy rail, or intercity journey.
One other matter needs clearing up. Passover and Succot are seven-day holidays for Israells in Israel. On the first and last days of these two holidays, Orthodox Jews cannot ride or work, and public tranportation ceases as on the Sabbath. Intermediate days are different and are very popular for internal touring, that is for Israelis from other cities to visit Jerusalem. Even if they drive to and from Jerusalem, they usually use public transportation in the city itself. And the Arab owned bus lines do operate when the Light Rail and Egged buses do not. Both Egged and Light |Rail do have some Arab drivers, but about half the Egged drivers are part owners of the cooperative and this is sort of a familly heritage kind of situation, from the orgiinal founders of the coooperative. In 1966 (I witnessed the cerimony by luck since I wished to look at the sound system at the time.) the Egged Coooperative merged with the Hamkesher coooperative which was the original Jerusalem bus coooperative. Cooperatives formed when owner drivers pooled resources to run regular routes and co-own garage and fueling facilities. They date back to the British Mandate days, when the only government ground transportation was Palestine Railways. The Tel Aviv area has a separate coooperative,. the Dan system. Dan and Egged cooperate on certain through bus lines. Egged does run local busses in Haifa on Sabbaths and holidays, but not in Jerusalem, except intermediate days. Light Rail and Israel Ralliways runn on intermediate days. Hanukah and Purim are not holidays that require obstaining from riding, and public transportation runs. Yom Kippur , and Shavuote are one day holidays without public transportation (except in Haifa and the Arab lines), and Rosh HaShannah is two days without public transportation.
And I ride an Arab bus line on occasion, and Arabs ride the cooperative bus lines and the light rail.
I repeated the term "astonomical" first used by Phoebe Vet, who suggested you had made up the numbers. I don't see you claiming he insulted you. No insult was intended.
Phoebe VetI have not been there, but I have seen video of street cars in New Orleans that appear to be running in the center mall. That makes more sense to me than mixing them with automobile traffic.
What you call a center mall in New Orleans is called a neutral ground. Many streets do have neutral grounds. The St. Charles car runs on the neutral ground on St. Charles Avenue and Carrollton Avenue. Downtown Canal Street has a neutral ground and street cars run along it.
However, in New Jersey ordinary streets do not ordinarily have center malls so neither buses nor street cars could run on them. In Newark for a short distance there are special bus lanes on Raymond Boulevard.
Phoebe VetObviously, if the bus stop is parked full, the driver has to do what he has to do. The key here is "the parking laws are not enforced".
The stop does not have to be full. Even one car can make it impossible for a bus to pull over to the curb. When that happens it makes it very difficult for some people with mobility impairments because there are no curb cuts at bus stops.
Again, there are practical ways to design streetcar systems so that auto traffic is minimallly affected. Classic streetcar systems had tracks laid mostlly in horse and buggy days, and we shhould do a lot better today. Can anyone report how Portland, OR, drivers feel about their streetcar system? It seems like more of a downtown shoppers circulator than a useful line for commuters. I have nnot yet checked to see if its ridrship figures are available from APTA.
The HaRakevet - Jerusalem website does not list ridership figurs and it says every eight minutes, but that is contrary to what is currently posted at the stations and what I experience, every 5-1/2 - 6 minutes. Yesterday was a normal day, and the rush hour cars were full, but not jammed. One was not forced into bodilly contact!
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