Toronto Man Outruns Streetcars To Show Up Sluggish Transit Network (theguardian.com) 136
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Mac Bauer is fast, but the city's trams, weighing more than 100,000lbs and traveling at a maximum speed of nearly 45mph, should be far faster than him. And yet as of late December, in head-to-head races against streetcars, the 32-year-old remains undefeated in his quest to highlight how sluggish the trams, used by 230,000 people daily, truly are.
Some races have pushed him closer to his limits as a runner. On other occasions, the car has been so slow he's had time to nip into a McDonald's before it reaches the last station. "I don't like winning. I really don't. I really, really wish these streetcars were faster than me," he said. "But they're not. And this is the problem." Bauer's rise as a running celebrity and transit critic embodies the mounting frustration of a city beset by chronic delays, congested streets and decades of under-built transit.
"Streetcars just shouldn't be stuck in traffic," he said, adding the system also needed more "signal priority" which gives the streetcars lengthened green lights and shortened red lights. Bauer started racing transit vehicles roughly a year ago after he and his wife realized how long it took them to traverse the city. He posted videos of those races to Instagram and quickly transformed into a minor celebrity. Bauer describes his runs as a form of social activism, and his ability to lay bare the absurdities of Toronto's beleaguered public transit system -- a person can outrun a streetcar! -- has struck a nerve with the tens of thousands of commuters who share his Instagram posts.
Some races have pushed him closer to his limits as a runner. On other occasions, the car has been so slow he's had time to nip into a McDonald's before it reaches the last station. "I don't like winning. I really don't. I really, really wish these streetcars were faster than me," he said. "But they're not. And this is the problem." Bauer's rise as a running celebrity and transit critic embodies the mounting frustration of a city beset by chronic delays, congested streets and decades of under-built transit.
"Streetcars just shouldn't be stuck in traffic," he said, adding the system also needed more "signal priority" which gives the streetcars lengthened green lights and shortened red lights. Bauer started racing transit vehicles roughly a year ago after he and his wife realized how long it took them to traverse the city. He posted videos of those races to Instagram and quickly transformed into a minor celebrity. Bauer describes his runs as a form of social activism, and his ability to lay bare the absurdities of Toronto's beleaguered public transit system -- a person can outrun a streetcar! -- has struck a nerve with the tens of thousands of commuters who share his Instagram posts.
Two words (Score:3)
Grade separation.
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I'll add two more: walkable cities.
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Two more: drive car.
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Toronto's regular streetcar network runs almost entirely in mixed traffic. That explains most of the problem right there.
Line 6 (just opened) runs at-grade, in a reserved right-of-way, except for one 90-degree curve which runs in a short underground section. This line is the one that made headlines when the guy easily outran it, in winter no less.
Still to come is Line 5, the infamously delay-plagued Eglinton LRT, which will run partly underground and partly at surface level, again in its own ROW. We're all
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Which, at that point, balloons the price tag to obtain and improve the right-of-way; so you may as well ditch the streetcar rolling stock and go with a light rail system instead.
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No: transit priority.
(if we're sticking to two words).
These are trams not trains. Trams are meant to be at grade, with (compared to trains), level boarding at ground level with narrowly spaced stops compared to trains. The point being you just wander up, hop on and hop off again.
What you need is a mix of dedicated lanes and transit priority at junctions.
This is why many cities bury their trams (Score:2)
and call it a "subway" or put them up on a viaduct and call it an "elevated."
In theory it ought to be possible to have surface level rail transit, but in practice it almost always succumbs to cheaping out in the expensive bits that deconflict surface traffic from the trains.
That, and surface level boarding takes time if fair control happens at the front door.
Here in Boston the MBTA put card readers at all doors recently, but people just "forget" to pay the way they always have.
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It's possible to do at-grade in a reasonable manner, as long as the at-grade rail is in a dedicated right-of-way, and that right-of-way gets traffic signal pre-emption.
At that point there is very little in the difference other than the price tag.
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A few hefty fines and people will think twice before entering an intersection where there isn't yet enough room for them to clear it.
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Or, in real English: "Underground" and "Overground". A Subway is for pedestrians (or something you eat).
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No cities bury their trams. Trams and subways serve different roles in an efficient transit network.
In theory it ought to be possible to have surface level rail transit, but in practice it almost always succumbs to cheaping out in the expensive bits that deconflict surface traffic from the trains.
In theory Europe ought to exist, but in practice it doesn't.
That, and surface level boarding takes time if fair control happens at the front door.
Paying for transit is pretty much a solved problems in places that h
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The Toronto subway is fine, but even it isn't super-speedy, especially the parts that are not underground and need to deal with winter weather. Definitely faster than streetcars, though.
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This guy at least matched the subway train speed by running between two stops:
https://youtu.be/PH_Z8Ghuq6E [youtu.be]
Here's a parkour version as well:
https://youtu.be/tXMPRK2LQAE [youtu.be]
"A person can outrun a streetcar!" (Score:2)
Yeah... but they have to get to their destination under their own power. It's like he's forgotten the main reason people use motorized transportation to start with. Early automobiles were generally under 10 mph. A public streetcar doesn't even require you to deal with operating the machine yourself, if you don't enjoy that.
"Streetcars just shouldn't be stuck in traffic" (Score:5, Insightful)
Nor buses. Give them their own lane, because when buses don't get stuck in traffic, people ride them [youtu.be], freeing up road space and reducing traffic for everyone else.
Converting regular lanes into bus-only lanes is a cheap and easy way to solve traffic congestion, provided you have enough buses to run at 10-minute intervals or better during peak travel times to improve transfers and so people don't have to plan their travel around the bus schedule, and provided you run buses 24/7 so people don't get stranded if they miss the last one.
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Could they not just add a snowplough type attachment to the front? Okay, it would have to be quite large too accommodate SUVs and trucks, but those things tip over quite easily, right?
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Well designed bus lanes double their speed. But in Toronto and most other cities they do crappy jobs. To do a real job on busses you need:
1) No cars in them at all, not even turning. Yeah those right turns lanes are NOT allowed in the bus lane it has to be a seperate lane.
2) Properly sized curbs designed to let wheel chairs ride directly onto the bus without any kneeling.
3) Busses set to arrive every 5 minutes, not 15. 10+ minutes = a line of people waiting to get on the bus. 5 minutes = a couple of pe
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Yes, when you need higher speeds, you should take the express bus instead of the regular bus. Short headways improve transfers between the two.
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Buses fundamentally suck. And always will. There's nothing that can be done to improve them.
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The wait between buses is only 5 minutes on average if the headway of the next bus is 10 minutes.
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Yes, but that 7mph IS about double their previous speed. You used to be able to win a race with the M14 by accident when walking briskly. Now you probably have to work at it.
Re:"Streetcars just shouldn't be stuck in traffic" (Score:5, Interesting)
Buses can move the equivalent of two city blocks worth of single occupant cars down the road. That bus lane removes more traffic from the roads than the one measly lane of traffic it occupies.
That's the problem with drivers who don't think public transportation serves them. Because without public transportation, then everyone gets in a car and now you get traffic jams galore because all those people still need to get to where they're going. And you can tell how fun it is when a transit strike happens and now you have a bunch of drivers who would rather take the bus now have to drive on already overcrowded roads.
You like to drive? Then encourage more public transportation to get everyone around you who would rather not be driving (look at how many text and drive) off the road, onto a bus, and how much more space there will be on the roads.
New York just did it earlier this year - added a congestion charge that tolled people depending on how congested the roads are. People who didn't want to pay took public transportation. Suddenly traffic eased up and what used to be gridlock turned into flowing traffic for the drivers who paid. Emergency service response times improved because the roads weren't so congested. All the charge did was encourage people to try alternate forms of transportation in
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There needs to be a lot more focus on this. Forcing people to drive who have no desire or capacity to do so is bad for other drivers.
More options means less vehicular traffic, period.
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New York just did it earlier this year - added a congestion charge that tolled people depending on how congested the roads are. People who didn't want to pay took public transportation.
How would a congestion charge work in cities that run one bus an hour on each route and don't run any buses at night or on Sundays? (Source [fwcitilink.com])
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come to Melbourne., Australia....
Fucking Trams are rolling roadblocks that have 3 people on them....
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Transit does NOT decrease congestion. It INCREASES it.
Is this sarcasm? Trolling? I can't decide.
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In short term, transit just results in more people moving through the area and the same number of cars. Longer term, it results in more congestion, as developers start building dense "transit enabled" housing. And people in "transit enabled" housing typically very soon don't want anything to do with the transit and eventually get cars
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OK, so trolling is the answer. Got it.
You've obviously never lived in a city with decent transit, so you make up shit.
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Transit probably doesn't reduce congestion if you bolt it on to an already car-dependent city. Cities have to be designed around transit; it has to be done holistically and not peacemeal.
urbanism, and transit as its enabler, are a blight that will eventually result in the downfall of the Western democracies
LOL, that's hilarious. Climate change, creeping fascism, sabre-rattling from Putin and Xi... those are nothing. Those damn tram lines are going to do in Western democracies. Hahaha, amazing.
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You don't need to design cities around transit: it can be retrofitted. Many European cities with medieval roots have modern transit networks. Conversely, many current American cities where the walkable neighborhoods were all bulldozed for cars now have huge, wide roads, a fraction of which could be dedicated to non-car use very cheaply.
What you can't do is plonk down a tram line in a city which priorities cars aggressively over all else and expect it to make a difference without changing the priorities at a
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Here in London I guess he thinks the 3 billion passengers a year
Yes, and it works so well that most of these 3 billion passengers can't ever have enough money to buy a house anywhere close to their commute destination. With the average commute time now creeping up to 1.5 hours.
While smaller cities just 3-4 hours away are dying. Great success. BTW, how's that Brexit thing going?
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I’m not sure what your point is, to be honest. Something about you prefer small towns, like to drive a car, and conflate correlation with causation regarding public transport and population.
You know London has a lot of coat hangers too? Is that why so many people move to L
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And most people hate Brexit, especially in London.
Now? Sure.
I’m not sure what your point is, to be honest
Here's the map of Brexit votes: https://www.bbc.com/news/polit... [bbc.com] Do you see anything unusual? How majority of people outside of the London area voted to leave?
Something about you prefer small towns, like to drive a car, and conflate correlation with causation regarding public transport and population.
I'm not conflating anything. Transit enables higher and higher density. Higher density causes more misery for _everyone_ (and not just for minor towns outside of large urban areas). The causation chain is there.
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I’m quite familiar with the EU Referendum (Brexit) 2016 result and the change in attitudes since then. The diagram you linked, with 50% threshold applied to each county as if it were a first-past-the-post election of multiple parliamentary seats, is a poor example of information graphics though.
Regardless, I’m genuinely confused why you are bringing it up. Have you moved on from buses?
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And I have a rock that keeps away tigers......
Here are the facts: the average commute time for small American cities is almost TWO TIMES faster
Let me give you an anecdote. When I have to go into the office, I ride my bike. It's faster than driving, and faster than any public transport. So, do I win? EVERYONE should only be riding their bike. No busses, no cars. Do you see any holes in my argument?
Next, when there is a public transport strike, riding my bike into the office is so much faster than a car, it actually makes people that had to drive in cry.
Ok, try hard..... can you make any connections betw
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Can you provide me examples of well-designed large European cities that have oh-so-great transit?
London's not bad, innit.
Here are the facts: the average commute time for small American cities is almost TWO TIMES faster than the fastest commute time in large European cities.
How's the commute time in small European cities, ones that often have excellent transit networks?
My current commute is 35-40 minutes and I'm about to move office to somewhere with about a 15 minute commute time.
And now for some irony...
Bu
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You've obviously never lived in a city with decent transit, so you make up shit.
I got my driving license at the age of 29 and my first car at 30. Before that, I lived in various European countries only using transit.
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OK, so then your really are just trolling.
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PS: I actually have studied urbanism and urban planning in a real classroom setting in a real credentialed university.
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Even with an £18 congestion charge to reduce traffic, it is the most congested city in Europe, and by some measures the most congested in the world (although I doubt that, and that report excludes China and India).
Regardless, you claimed buses are NEVER (your word) competitive with cars. In London they are very competitive on many routes at many times of the day. Most importantly, they are competitive when mo
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I’m guessing you’ve never driven in London?
I used to go to London every weekend for almost half a year when I was living in Amsterdam.
Regardless, you claimed buses are NEVER (your word) competitive with cars.
Correct. With the caveat "on average". And this is true of London, btw. Try dropping 100 points in London randomly and plot routes between them, during the rush hour for buses and cars. Then compare the average times. I just did that (I'll upload scripts to Github) and cars are faster by 2.5 times during the rush hour.
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I used to go to London every weekend for almost half a year when I was living in Amsterdam.
So you never drove in London? Got it. Good luck driving from say Greenwich to Paddington or Clapham to Islington in a car in the morning. I’d rather sleep in and go on TFL thanks.
With the caveat "on average". And this is true of London, btw. Try dropping 100 points in London randomly and plot routes between them, during the rush hour for buses and cars. Then compare the average times. I just did that (I'll upload scripts to Github) and cars are faster by 2.5 times during the rush hour.
That is a stupid metric, only relevant for some hypothetical person that is not willing to use other modes of the transport system: London Underground, London Overground, Elizabeth Line, DLR, National Rail, Tram, Thames riverboat services or even the goddamn cable car.
It’s like the joke about the group of hikers runn
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The key to look here is the _areas_ of the zones. Cars can reach more points compared to transit within
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So you never drove in London?
Not personally, although I did hire cabs quite a lot.
Good luck driving from say Greenwich to Paddington or Clapham to Islington in a car in the morning.
I often was staying with my friend in Chiswick, and it often took me almost 90 minutes to get to the British Museum. By car it was barely more than 30 minutes.
That is a stupid metric, only relevant for some hypothetical person that is not willing to use other modes of the transport system: London Underground, London Overground, Elizabeth Line, DLR, National Rail, Tram, Thames riverboat services or even the goddamn cable car.
It actually doesn't matter as much as you think it does. Go on, play with the isoline API or with Google Transit. Transfers kill the average speed, even if they are streamlined.
Additionally, the statistical sampling of your points sounds dubious. Real people and transport systems aren’t optimised for people doing hobby geocaching, travelling between uniformly distributed coordinates.
Indeed. Transit can ONLY be optimized to transfer people between The Downtown and the outlying living areas. It mathematica
Re:"Streetcars just shouldn't be stuck in traffic" (Score:4, Interesting)
Not personally, although I did hire cabs quite a lot.
Keep in mind that taxis (black cab, minicab, uber etc) can use express lanes, along with buses and emergency vehicles. Whereas private vehicles cannot. For this reason, tourists get the impression that driving in London is much faster than it is for residents driving their own car.
It actually doesn't matter as much as you think it does.
My point was that a bus-only travel time is a bad metric, because in many areas buses (plus walking) would be very inconvenient whereas tube/train would be available. It sounded like you were comparing bus+walk vs car, whereas real people use public transport (all types) vs car.
Transfers kill the average speed, even if they are streamlined.
Many transfers are just a minute or two, and most services (eg Tube, Elizabeth line, DLR) are high frequency (every minute or so at peak). Driving is also not the door-to-door experience: finding car parking and walking can also take a while.
play with the isoline API
I’ve only played with it briefly but the car travel times seem very wrong for the drives I do every day (commute to work, school runs etc). It is wrong by a factor of 2 or 3. I have it on Traffic=Approximated (not Free Flow) and Route = Balanced (default). There doesn’t seem to be a way to specify time of day, and it seems totally unaware of rush hour.
Traffic = Free Flow matches my experience driving at 3am with traffic lights on fast phase. Traffic = Approximated is like driving on a quiet day (Friday) outside rush hour.
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So you never drove in London? Got it. Good luck driving from[...] ... from anywhere to anywhere. As a living resident near the south Circular ring troll I avoid driving like the plague. And when cause comes for me to drive, unless it's late at night, it always is awful. I did once manage to mistime my arrival back from a work job (I supposed I could have camped at the services for longer) and had the delight of ploughing through london from the west to Hackney at rush hour.
I had a van load of shite, but I s
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Except that buses are NEVER competitive with cars.
I challenge you to drive from London Bridge station/Guy's hospital to Old Street not roundabout/Moorfields eye hospital during the morning rush hour or any time really but the former is funnier. Then repeat the same journey by bus. Then come back and tell me with a straight face that buses are never competitive with cars.
If I was being unkind I'd also tell you to include the time to walk to where ever you parked and then finding a parking spot on the other e
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transit just results in more people moving through the area
I don’t understand. Isn’t that the actual purpose of a transport system? To move people? Here in London there are nearly 4 billion passenger journeys per year. The city is already one of the most congested in the world. Without public transport it would be fucked.
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Without public transport it would be fucked.
On the contrary. Without the transit system, London would have been much better, as fewer people would have moved there. With more jobs in smaller cities, resulting in less inequality between rural areas and London.
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On the contrary. Without the transit system, London would have been much better, as fewer people would have moved there.
Well this flies in the face of objective reality. London, pre transit was already getting so crowed and slow that people invented the entire concept of underground metro railways in an attempt to cope.
With more jobs in smaller cities, resulting in less inequality between rural areas and London.
Sound like what you're really saying is London is too good because of TFL so we ought to kill the
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It's always fun to show the "just one more lane bro" types a picture of the infamous Hwy401 in Canada. Past the busiest point it manages about 25,000 cars per hour, giving around, say 30,000 people per hour. Which is less than one tunnel of the Victoria line or Elizabeth line.
And of course, being cars, when it gets too busy it slows down and after the critical point the capacity craters making it lock up at rush hour, which isn't a problem with trains.
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Running buses every 10 minutes or less reduces the need for dwell time at bus stops, and that increases the average speed. Level boarding and proof of payment systems allow people to get on and off more quickly, further reducing the time spent at stops. And express buses have even higher average speeds because they don't stop at every bus stop. But none of
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Running buses every 10 minutes or less reduces the need for dwell time at bus stops, and that increases the average speed.
And if you run them every minute, it's going to be even less! A bus needs at least 3 drivers to work, so pretty soon you'll have more drivers than passengers.
But none of this helps traffic much without giving buses their own lanes, at least at intersections where they are called "queue jump" [wikipedia.org] lanes.
And none of this materially affects the average speed. It is still below the cars that they displace. Remove buses, add cars. Stop enshittification of cities.
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Or Amsterdam. Amsterdam has fantastic public transit, but also quite a lot of drivers. What you don't see much of in Amsterdam is traffic jams. Enough people take alternate means of transportation that driving is usually fairly pleasant for the few people who really have to drive.
This is why I started bike riding (Score:2)
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Why do these topics attract right-wing trolls? It's not like transit is a particularly contentious or partisan topic. Amazing.
I guess Seven Spirals can go drive his massive compensating-for-something SUV instead of a "manly bike", LOL.
Re: This is why I started bike riding (Score:2)
Same for me in a US city in the West Coast. Finally got tired of late buses, buses that were full and would pass the stop, and so forth. Required a lot of extra time to my commute as padding to be sure of getting to work on time.
Started riding as a newb and now its a breeze. Weather situation is handled with right clothes and by not treating the commute as a race.
ymmv but has been a great choice for me.
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If your own personal sense of manliness so fragile that it is tied to a vehicle, then you aren't manly and your lifted truck won't make you moreso.
missing the point (Score:3)
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Re: missing the point (Score:2)
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I mean, people can run in parallel.
They do need to speed up the transit, though. I am all for transit, but it needs to be frequent, reliable and convenient. If it's too slow, it'll fail on "convenient".
Re: missing the point (Score:2)
Re: missing the point (Score:2)
A bit selective though. (Score:2)
I couldn't do that. If I needed to get somewhere that I could using streetcars (trams in my country) then I can't imagine I'd be wanting to arrive sweaty in my normal clothes too. It would save on parking, clearly.
We don't have many here but we used to. I wish we had more. Where they do exist they're considered heritage tourist attractions and not an everyday commuter item.
London Underground equivalent (Score:3)
Re:Aren't streetcars on rails? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they are running on the street, hence the name. So they have slow down/stop for other vehicles like a car does. They don't operate on their own exclusive path like a elevated train or a subway.
Also they have to do that pesky thing of stopping to let people on/off. Where the fellow on foot can run as many blocks continuously since it's he's the only passenger.
Re:Aren't streetcars on rails? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Aren't streetcars on rails? (Score:2)
Re:Aren't streetcars on rails? (Score:4, Funny)
Is the fellow European or African? And how heavy is the passenger?
That was hard to swallow....
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I doubt he's the only passenger, there are likely to be hundreds of other people on that sidewalk with him.
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They should add a pusher... like the cowcatcher! but for cars. Let everybody else deal with the toppled car in the road. As far as drunks? how about people catcher? transit police can collect them at the next stop...
We seem to have at least a few idiots get smashed by some kind train every year. I don't know why the train even stops because it never looks phased by the crashes - it should just keep going and radio for a cleanup crew to mop up the mess.
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Re: Aren't streetcars on rails? (Score:2)
Transit enthusiasts starting realize why streetcars are the WORST for public transit.
City planners learned this early on in the 1950s that light rail needs it out grade separation otherwise it becomes bogged down which is why every major city remove its street rail system as cars became way more popular and busses could achieve the same and faster transit.
The best alternative are electrified busses that have the overhead caranary wires. Otherwise dig a hole and make subways because street cars suck.
Re: Aren't streetcars on rails? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not at all. Sensible cities (Amsterdam, Zurich, ...) run their streetcars on dedicated routes so they can run quickly and predictable.
Toronto puts most of its streetcar lines mixes in with regular car traffic, so you get the worst of both worlds: A giant tram carrying hundreds of people having to wait for one guy in an SUV to turn left. It's really stupid. Buses wouldn't help because they'd also get stuck in that exact same traffic.
Unfortunately, the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, gets all whipped up about the "War on Cars" and he overrides anything sensible that Toronto might want to do to fix the problem.
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Meanwhile Dublin is strongly
Re: Aren't streetcars on rails? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not honestly true. The problem is not that street cars are bad - but how we design the cities/roads. Most of the real problems you describe are caused directly by morons that priotize the cars.
Imagine a city that has everything designed for the streetcars and the automobiles are shoved in as a "yeah, you are allowed to use the streets too".
Street cars SET the lights. A street car turns the light green and the others red. If no street cars are using the road the light remains a blinking red and the auto's have to sit and wait for a street car to arrive before they turn green. They are allowed to inch through an intersection on the blinking green.
Speed limits are set for the speed of the streetcar. Who cares if your auto can go faster? This is the streetcar road.
Street parking spaces? No, of course not - that's a $300 fine. There's a lot three blocks north of there.
Etc. etc.
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I can't imagine why you wouldn't SET the traffic lights! My city also fails to align the traffic lights and it'll be at the station waiting for people during a GREEN then when ready to go, it'll wait for a RED because of poor timing. Insanity.
I can always beat it with a car. Possibly a bike on a busy day. If it was aligned, I bet people would keep up to make all the lights and because it travels about 10 mph over the speed limit they'd all be speeding!
Parking?? aside from time finding a place to park it is
Ambulance? (Score:2)
If you have a real emergency, call an Ambulance. Your living in modern times and if your brat dies because of some edge case, that is just REALITY! In all of human history your brat would likely have died already and women lived much shorter lifespans too.
Emergency services get special treatment. A similar special treatment should exist for trains.
Those rural hospitals are so far away it is a joke to even complain about the city.
Re: Aren't streetcars on rails? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah yeah,what about low income disable plumbers who urgently need to rush their elderly fridge to hospital.
that has me imagining
Stop imagining then and start looking at the facts.
In car dependent cities, ambulances and you get stuck in traffic just the same as cars. In good cities, emergency vehicles have many more routes open to them than private cars, such as bus lanes, modal filters and even segregated cycleways and tramways.
but it really sucks in edge cases and emergencies.
Not if the emergency is a traffic collision, which is a pretty high proportion of them.
Re: Aren't streetcars on rails? (Score:2)
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As in, Philly buried the sections..
Stupid autocorrect.
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Because those tracks are in a street, thus the name "streetcar" - usually without signal pre-emption. This is what makes the Portland Streetcar an expensive slow joke, at least.
Years ago someone already proved you could walk faster than that thing, because it stops at every red light, and then also stops in the middle of the block at it's assigned stops.
It's not too bad in the rain though.