Portland Streetcar System

[philopdx]

I do wish that the streetcar was more efficient at people moving, but it is quite an investment in a neighborhood precisely because it cannot be moved. It provides tremendous incentive to construct along the streetcar line because you know it can't be moved two blocks over, so you have perpetually guaranteed foot traffic.

If you think that the streetcar route has no correlation to foot traffic, sit down with Michael Powell for 2 minutes and try to tell him the streetcar is a waste of money and resources and can't benefit private industry, as he merrily indulges your argument while peering behind massive stacks of $100 bills.

[PacificNW]

10th & Alder? Why? The Governor Hotel is across the street. That whole area is prime for redevelopment.... "Light Rail" and the "Streetcar" systems are not designed to be "rapid transit" (here in PDX or any city, that I know of).....now... or in the future. To have rapid transit a whole new system will have to be designed....like a subway through downtown with a route over/under the river....the need for such a project is along way off into the future, imo.

[Sekkle]

Of course, if I could cut any stop, I'd get rid of the 10th and Alder stop in a heartbeat!

But it's right next to all those food carts!

[pdxman]

Alexjon: The streetcar makes unrequested stops all the time. And thats not an exaggeration. If you're lucky you'll have a driver who keeps going when nobody hits the strip or door button and the stop is empty, but even if a few people are on board and nobody has requested a stop the driver will more than likely stop to empty. There are a few drivers I love because they drive like a bat out of hell and go fast but most are like tour bus drivers. And I would actually keep the alder stop and get rid of the stark stop.

philopdx: I never said streetcar was a waste of money. I'm well aware of the money its generated along the line but I still think some of the less used, repetitive stops could be eliminated. Now more than a few years down the road I don't think it crazy to do inventory on some of the stops and see which ones are more useful than others. Obviously stops at major activity hubs should stay, ie. couch stops, johnson, max stops, psu stops, etc.

PacNW: I will definitely have to disagree with you about light rail not being rapid transit. Thats why its called the Metropolitan Area EXPRESS is it not? Though I will say there's nothing "express" about 14 stops along 3 miles of track through DT. Thats why I think a subway would do wonders for the MAX system. It could provide bigger stations with faster service between each stop and then streetcars could do the job that the MAX is doing already on the existing tracks above.

Anyways, sorry for the long response. This is all just my opinion and I know most on here won't agree but I had to throw my 2 cents in. I guess it comes down to speed vs. accessibility, and you can't have both! I just see lack of speed as a major reason why a large amount people don't use transit, and I'd love to get them on board and get them out of their cars.

[PacificNW]

Give me an example of one LRT system that is "rapid" which operates on street level along side traffic and pedestrians? I have seen or experienced none. I think TriMet has stated that in order to justify a subway/tunnel there needs to be a higher population base who actually live downtown PDX (or a desire to come downtown) along with a higher downtown employment base. There might be the desire for a subway (or a tunnel under downtown) but the demand isn't quite there yet but I am sure it will be coming in time.

[pdxman]

^^^Thats the thing, IMO I don't think light rail should be street level next to autos and peds. Unless the city already has in place some sort of heavy rail then I suppose you could run LRT like a streetcar. I just think that anything rail should be fast, grade separated with limited stops (the exception being streetcar, because its basically a bus on rails) with buses feeding the rail lines. And since portland doesn't and probably never will have an extensive heavy rail network, I think the MAX can and should act as a replacement.

[deasine]

Originally Posted by pdxman

Anyways, sorry for the long response. This is all just my opinion and I know most on here won't agree but I had to throw my 2 cents in. I guess it comes down to speed vs. accessibility, and you can't have both!

That's definitely possible... it just depends on proper transit planning.

I don't think a subway line is needed in Portland... we have to begin figuring out what is a need and a want, what is fantasy and what are our priorities. Subways are expensive, Light Rail isn't. The cost of one subway line can give you miles and miles of Light Rail, connecting many communities that are needing rapid transit access in Greater Portland. Also with light rail, you have huge flexibility.

Perhaps in the future, there could be a transit tunnel where the light rail system is underground in the downtown core, but on the surface in the suburbs.

When I was in Portland, I was definitely impressed on how fast the light rail system was... signal priorities, etc.

[2oh1]

-deleted-



The point was already made above.

[JordanL]

Originally Posted by anp

OK, I can perhaps see the argument that buses allow more flexibility, but the claim that buses are faster and can run more frequently than streetcars sounds spurious to me. Please explain why you think buses are faster and can run more frequently when they are subject to many of the same limitations as a streetcar (driving in traffic on city streets, frequent stops, missing traffic lights because of stops). As someone who's ridden buses here, I can tell you they're not very fast when driving through heavily-populated areas.

The primary reason is a practicality of the vehicle: busses accelerate and decelerate faster. They also don't get stuck in traffic because they aren't stuck, they can move.

And the busses here in Portland carry more people per bus than our streetcars, cost less to purchase more, and cost less to maintain, making it easier to run them more frequently.

[Sekkle]

Originally Posted by JordanL

The primary reason is a practicality of the vehicle: busses accelerate and decelerate faster. They also don't get stuck in traffic because they aren't stuck, they can move.

And the busses here in Portland carry more people per bus than our streetcars, cost less to purchase more, and cost less to maintain, making it easier to run them more frequently.

I'm reasonably certain that streetcars can accelerate faster than buses. I agree with you about a bus's ability to maneuver in traffic, though.

I'm positive that your statement that a Portland bus can carry more people than a streetcar is false.

The maintenance cost comparison per rider is actually slightly in favor of streetcars, though per vehichle buses do cost less to maintain, and the capital cost is lower.

[digme]

Why doesn't the streetcar have a dedicated lane? I was surprised to find us stuck behind traffic while riding the streetcar when I visited Portland. Seems like that could help some of the slowness

[alexjon]

Originally Posted by digme

Why doesn't the streetcar have a dedicated lane? I was surprised to find us stuck behind traffic while riding the streetcar when I visited Portland. Seems like that could help some of the slowness

Unnecessary at this point, but it's been expressed as an option in the future when scale makes it necessary.

For practical use, it works perfectly. It's mainly geared at those who would walk in to work in the morning or who want to wander over to the Pearl from PSU.

[urbanlife]

plus during rush hour the streetcar is pretty packed. I have remembered many times when I was parking in the NW and commuting via streetcar to PSU, that I would decide to walk back to my car because the train was packed full.

I think streetcars should be placed on high frequency routes throughout the city to add another layer of permanent public transportation. Alot of this debate over which is a better system, bus or streetcar, isnt really that important because who said the city cant service an area with both. At Marshall and 23rd, you can catch either bus or streetcar to take you downtown.

Streetcars also help out with tourism, it is much easier to talk a tourist into riding our streetcar than it is talking them into riding a bus.

It also would be nice to see Portland go the way of Seattle with using electric lines to power the buses throughout the urban parts of the city. Of course the trade off would be those annoying power lines overhead that seem to get into every shot like in Seattle.

[JordanL]

Originally Posted by ForAteOh

I'm reasonably certain that streetcars can accelerate faster than buses. I agree with you about a bus's ability to maneuver in traffic, though.

I'm positive that your statement that a Portland bus can carry more people than a streetcar is false.

The maintenance cost comparison per rider is actually slightly in favor of streetcars, though per vehichle buses do cost less to maintain, and the capital cost is lower.

Portland streetcars... I'm fairly certain. They certainly aren't as long as all but the oldest busses here in Portland, and their seating configuration is extremely odd.

Perhaps it's all a perception thing though. And I guarantee that the busses accelerate faster. The busses run on hybrid, biodiesel or diesel engines. The biggest advantage in a motor vehicle, currently, of a fuel engine over an electric engine is that it accelerates much faster.

Anyone who's been on both the bus and the streetcar in Portland can tell you that. (And some of it is of course due to the driver and not the vehicle.) The drivers in busses feel more free, and always will, to driver faster and/or accelerate faster because they can move around traffic. It's a psychological factor for the opporators that I don't think training can overcome.

[anp]

I'm not sure where to go to find specific info on Portland bus models, but the Mineta Transportation Institute website indicates that standard buses range from 35-41 feet in length and that articulated buses are generally 55 feet or longer. www.lightrailnow.org indicates that the Portland streetcars are about 66 feet long, so they are likely substantially longer than Portland buses. The Portland Streetcar website says that the streetcars have a standing-room capacity of 140 people, which sounds at least competitive with bus capacity.

[JordanL]

Originally Posted by anp

I'm not sure where to go to find specific info on Portland bus models, but the Mineta Transportation Institute website indicates that standard buses range from 35-41 feet in length and that articulated buses are generally 55 feet or longer. www.lightrailnow.org indicates that the Portland streetcars are about 66 feet long, so they are likely substantially longer than Portland buses. The Portland Streetcar website says that the streetcars have a standing-room capacity of 140 people, which sounds at least competitive with bus capacity.

But they're not designed to be ridden SRO. Busses are.

The streetcar has very poor ventilation and windows. It gets stifling in a streetcar with less than 100 people on, let alone 140. I guarantee people would never pile in to capacity in a streetcar like they do a bus.

Busses are a lot less tourist friendly though. In that sense, streetcars make sense if they are part of a comprehensive tourism network, with accesibility and pricing geared towards tourists and the places they want to go. For that, a streetcar down Hawthorne might make sense, but Portland doesn't generate enough tourism for that the make sense to me yet.

Looks like I was wrong about bus size versus streetcar though. Tri-Met claims that they operate 30ft and 40ft bus models.

[anp]

Originally Posted by JordanL

But they're not designed to be ridden SRO. Busses are.

The streetcar has very poor ventilation and windows. It gets stifling in a streetcar with less than 100 people on, let alone 140. I guarantee people would never pile in to capacity in a streetcar like they do a bus.

I haven't ridden the streetcar enough to know what the ventilation is like (I mostly have ridden it as a tourist before I moved here!), but poor ventilation sounds more like a particular problem with the design of the particular streetcar, rather than an inherent limitation of streetcar in comparison to bus transit. I can't think of any other reason why a streetcar couldn't be designed for standing-room-only occupancy with good ventilation, and my recollection of the Portland streetcar is that it has handholds and places to stand that are at least as conducive to standing as on a bus. Plus there wasn't as much sway as on a bus. Even without being packed, it sounds like streetcars could hold more people than a standard bus due to being substantially longer than a bus. This has been an interesting discussion, and I'm eager to try the streetcar again to see for myself whether these criticisms ring true.

[Sekkle]

Originally Posted by JordanL

And I guarantee that the busses accelerate faster. The busses run on hybrid, biodiesel or diesel engines. The biggest advantage in a motor vehicle, currently, of a fuel engine over an electric engine is that it accelerates much faster.

a couple of these are from websites advocating streetcars, so I'm not sure they can be considered impartial...

Originally Posted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar

Multiple entrances allow trams to load faster than suburban coaches, which tend to have a single entrance. This, combined with swifter acceleration and braking, lets trams maintain higher overall speeds than buses, if congestion allows.

Originally Posted by http://www.hawthornestreetcar.org/apm/article.php?id=21

An electric streetcar can (and does) out-accelerate a diesel bus.

Originally Posted by http://www.jgpotter.com/html/position.html

A streetcar accelerates faster than a bus, thus allowing for more rapid takeoff at each stop. The trolley's combination of increased capacity and more rapid rate of acceleration means that fewer vehicles are needed to serve a given transit route.

Here's an interesting article from Light Rail Now (again, admitedly not unbiased) comparing operating and maintenance costs of buses and streetcars...
http://www.lightrailnow.org/news/n_n...m#LRT_20061112

[JordanL]

Originally Posted by anp

I haven't ridden the streetcar enough to know what the ventilation is like (I mostly have ridden it as a tourist before I moved here!), but poor ventilation sounds more like a particular problem with the design of the particular streetcar, rather than an inherent limitation of streetcar in comparison to bus transit. I can't think of any other reason why a streetcar couldn't be designed for standing-room-only occupancy with good ventilation, and my recollection of the Portland streetcar is that it has handholds and places to stand that are at least as conducive to standing as on a bus. Plus there wasn't as much sway as on a bus. Even without being packed, it sounds like streetcars could hold more people than a standard bus due to being substantially longer than a bus. This has been an interesting discussion, and I'm eager to try the streetcar again to see for myself whether these criticisms ring true.

Again, I want to be clear that these are all constructive criticisms. I have nothing against streetcar inherently, and I love the MAX line, but IMO they cut the wrong corners and effectively wasted the HUGE investment that COULD have improved other aspects of transportation.

There's no reason they can't get better car designs, for sure. And there's no reason that can't run them faster and more often. But until they do, I still view streetcar in Portland as vastly inferior to all other transportation options.

[alexjon]

Originally Posted by JordanL

But they're not designed to be ridden SRO. Busses are.

The streetcar has very poor ventilation and windows. It gets stifling in a streetcar with less than 100 people on, let alone 140. I guarantee people would never pile in to capacity in a streetcar like they do a bus.

Well, temperature would make a major difference if you were riding from NoPo to Beaverton, but that's not going to happen. Even then, most of my MAX rides in the summer have been packed and sweaty ordeals. But still better than a bus. And the streetcar keeps its cool generally.

I've seen plenty of full streetcars in my day.