Streetcars Increase Capacity Of Streets
In theory, streetcars are less expensive than ‘light rail,’ but I’m not sure about that.
In any case, if we want to pull people out of their cars, we should introduce rail solutions - be they light, heavy, streetcars, whatever.
The Overhead Wire has text and pictures explaining how streetcars can be used to carry lots of people.
Right now, buses can’t handle the load on Geary. They’re slow, unreliable, nobody wants to ride them, they’re just terrible all-around. Streetcars would probably be a good solution. We start small, and leave ourselves room to grow.
If at some point we want to start removing cars from some lanes (i.e. giving trams their own right-of-way) - even from the get-go - we can do that, no problem. If the BRT proponents want to do that from the get-go, then why not for real transit?
The point, however, is that we’ll be able to move lots more people through our busiest travel corridors, and we’ll be able to do it with fewer vehicles scaring pedestrians and cyclists off the roads. Rail is good in that way.
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December 29th, 2008 at 9:30 am
The #38 Muni line is the most used bus line in the Bay Area with more than 49,000 boardings a day.