Quote:
Originally Posted by hipster duck
US cities built them as a sop to the construction industry post-2008. Many of them were funded by TIGER grants. They also were meant to be downtown revitalization schemes, not actually to serve transportation needs.
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I don't think these streetcar projects were well-justified but there's something to be said for getting rid of diesel buses if you want to make a transit corridor more pleasant to attract more residents and shoppers. The noise pollution and emissions are terrible.
Electric buses seem like a better trade-off though. With overhead lines you are still stuck on a route but adding extra overheads is cheaper and less disruptive than laying new track. There are also battery-powered buses that today are viable on a lot of routes, and they are just going to get better over time.
Having a dedicated right of way has the other advantage of making it easier to control the system with automation, but this is going to be less important in the future, particularly along the 30-50+ year public infrastructure timescale. In 10 or 20 years it will probably be pretty easy for most cities to run automated electric buses along most routes. That will be relatively affordable and a big improvement over today's technology. This is an awkward time to spend lots of money on streetcars or LRT.