Toronto and San Francisco have examples of evolutionary progress from conventional streetcar to light rail, and both now have examples of both. Unfortunately, San Francisco lost some of the streetcar lines that could have been part of this process (Mission and Geary in particular) because of the refusal to adapt one-man operation of streetcars while buses and trolleybuses were always one-man, until it was too late. Toronto did not have this problem, and today has a well balanced system with buses, streetcars, separate-lane-light-rail, heavy-rail-subway rapid-transit, and commuter rail all healthy and doing their part. San Francisco is making a comeback with the new Third Street line and construction of the center-city crosstown light-rail subway.
I'm not sure what the author is suggesting except that most current light-rail operations fall into this area, somewhere between streetcar and rapid transit. A good number of current light-rail operations are mostly private right-of-way and dedicated street lanes with relatively little conventional street running. The complaint seems to be directed to the over-engineering of the rolling stock (should the engineers have used PCC and Peter Witt designs?) and stations that consist of more than a strip of asphalt at trackside.
from railway age
http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/lyndon-henry/rapid-streetcar-concept-gaining-ground.html?channel=
note several sub articles
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.