Are Streetcars Making US Cities Better?

[Music] there were so many comments from United States under my French Tram video that I've decided that one of my next videos should be about U.S traps oh sorry streetcars so in this video we will look at the newest streetcar systems in USA to see how they change appearance of American cities because then you were the better right but let's dive into history first at the beginning of 20th century United States was really a trump Nation there were almost 900 Street Railway systems across the US with 11 000 miles of tracks and now that sounds insane quick growth of streetcar systems led to the widespread ability of people to live outside of cities and commute to work on a daily basis the biggest streetcar system in United States and the whole world as well was guess where it was in Los Angeles and on its peak it reached insane 1600 kilometers of tram tracks but then American streetcar systems became a victim of numerous strikes when labor unions blocked Transit infrastructure to get their demands satisfied from 1895 to 1929 dozens of strikes affected almost every major city in the United States sometimes for a few days sometimes for months but that was just the first step after a World War II USA completely switched to private cars Paradigm with building millions of cars and the highways all over the country in 1960s most of U.S streetcar systems were closed with just a few exceptions they've survived only in Seven Cities in Boston Cleveland Newark New Orleans Philadelphia Pittsburgh and San Francisco and that's all by the way we can also mention streetcars of Toronto that were the only one to survive in Canada and there is even a conspiracy theory that in 1940s General Motors together with Firestone Tire standard oil and some other big investors had bought streetcar systems in 25 big U.S cities just to close them and to replace with the diesel buses in 1980s Renaissance finally began the first city to open completely new rail system was San Diego California in 1981. since then in different U.S cities has opened about 40 new rail systems with different sizes and approaches there are two main types of City rails in U.S LRT and streetcars Light Rail Transit is more advanced thing with dedicated Lanes longer trains and higher speeds and in some cases it's already closer to trains than trams at the same time street cars are shorter and slower some U.S cities are operating both lrts and streetcars in parallel and they are considered as different systems to be honest I don't understand the separation but let's have a closer look at U.S streetcars and maybe it will become more clear okay let's go to Wikipedia and check what streetcar systems are the newest here is the list sort by year opened and voila the newest cars are in Tampa Milwaukee Oklahoma City Detroit Washington DC Kansas City Cincinnati Dallas Charlotte Jackson and Atlanta half million Atlanta is the capital of Georgia State its first streetcar era lasted from 1880s to 1949 when it was replaced by trolley buses the whole system was pretty big and during year 1926 it carried its maximum almost 97 million passengers current Atlanta streetcar Works since 2014 and it's just a short four kilometer one-way Loop in a downtown and looks like the person who designed it was a true racing fan check it out it looks like a monster for tramps oh sorry street cars there are only four Siemens dragons in operation that runs with 15 minutes Headway and annual ridership in 2022 was 158 000 passengers or about 400 per day and that's very small number especially when compared with indicators of a century ago but I would say it's logical with such a short route that hasn't been expanded since the day of opening let's have a look at the street level well as you can see they've just put the rails into the asphalt without any changes of Street planning and the biggest change is that they've cut the tree on the corner foreign rails are not separated from cars they run together and stuck together in traffic jams that's not good next spot and still no dedicated lanes and catenary pillars sticked into a green zone instead of a tree this street could be much much better and it was even Greener 10 years ago every tram stop has inclusive ramp only on one end which makes them inconvenient for disabled people and it's strange because they had enough space to make ramps from both sides Street planning hasn't changed so much that even the pillars have remained the same and finally I found a street with dedicated tram Lane so now we can move to another city which is Texans population is 550 000 and it is the second city in Arizona after Phoenix the old streetcars worked here for just 24 years from 1906 to 1930 and were then replaced by buses the modern streetcar system works since 2014. it has one line that is six kilometers long and carries one and a half million passengers per year which is 10 times more than in Atlanta the construction budget was 56 million for the installation of tracks and Street renovation and 8 million for the construction of tram Depot unfortunately there are no Google panoramas available before the tram appeared but I guess the changes here are not too significant they use the nylon stops at the center line which is quite narrow and trams shared Lane with cars which is not ideal however the positive thing is that they have two tracks in opposite directions which gives me some confidence after seeing the pictures from Atlanta [Music] this tree doesn't look safe it's too wide and straight and there is no traffic calming at all before the renovation there were all the rails but in general street was almost the same okay let's jump to another city the next city is Charlotte the biggest city in North Carolina where the current streetcar has been operating since 2015. historically Charlotte also had its streetcar system which operated from 1891 to 1938 and that system was quite extensive [Music] now everything is much more modest the current Charlotte streetcar has only one six kilometer line and Carries about 2 000 passengers per day using wagons made by Simmons that's more than in Atlanta but still not a significant number the streetcar runs through the downtown area which is good however it also shares its Lane with the private cars which is not an ideal approach to build a tram line same place just a few years ago almost the same but without the tremores here is a tram stop and I really like this solution it's designed in the form factor of an island stop with a bike lane passing behind there's even a bike sharing station close by thanks to this you can ride to the stop from the neighborhood and catch the tram however what is not good is that cars are still sharing the same Lane with the tram here [Music] foreign [Music] thing is that the curb line that forms a bike lane remained from the past when there was a bus stop street car turning right sharing Lane with cars turning left are you kidding me that's very weird look they just put the rails on existing Street planning and that's all by the way island stops looks short and narrow and the shelters standing their backs to the edge are making functional Zone even shorter and they've cut this beautiful big tree here is the bridge above the highway and queue of cars behind the Trap looks like it goes quite slow here but also why there is no dedicated Lanes the bridge looks wide enough for that and here is the end of the route another end of the line have same problems but there is a great positive feature here they've added a sidewalk [Music] this huge Texas City also had a streetcar Network in the past and at its peak there were 200 kilometers of tracks and about 300 wagons now there is only one tiny four kilometer line that has been operating since 2015. there are six stops and four wagons that run with the 20 minutes head away the wagons are Brockwell Liberty made in Brooklyn Pennsylvania their length is just 20 meters which is 9 meters shorter than Siemens s700 used in other cities like Charlotte [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] s had one unique feature they used double catenary wires like trolley buses and actually sometimes together with them the current system named connector has been operating since 2016. it consists of one six kilometer line and uses Spanish CIF orbos 3 wagons and on a street view we can see quite a strange solution when tram rails are drifting between the traffic lanes that looks very weird buses have their dedicated Lane while streetcar doesn't can somebody explain why stops here also have an inclusive ramp only on one end finally a street with a separated streetcar Lane but the question is does it have traffic light priority here because if not the tram will have to waste time waiting for a moment to make a turn the current system here is also quite small it's only three and a half kilometers long and use 6 CAF orbus trams annual ridership is about one and a half million per year there is also no dedicated Lanes but stops have ramps from both sides and looks much better than in some other cities and here is a pretty strange place near the last stop where trams have to cross all the traffic Lanes I'm wondering why not make dedicated Lanes in the middle there's enough space for that okay let's speed up a little bit for the next cities on such a streets trams will never be fast enough because Trump drivers have to constantly pay attention to the cars that could start on parking or open their doors but the huge plus is the street became much greener than it was before by the way can somebody explain what's the idea of this still no dedicated lanes and rails close to sidewalk and parked cars which is also not great tram drifting between lanes on such a wide Avenue is not a good idea before that street looked much worse but unfortunately it's still not perfect this street is insanely wide but even here trams are sharing Lane with cars and even worse this is the right turn lane where cars are slowing down and blocking the tram that goes straight if I would plan this street I'll propose something like this this system opened in 2018 and it has more than one it has two lines with total length of almost 8 kilometers with broken wagons on it streets here looks pretty similar to other cities rails close to the sidewalks no dedicated Lanes but this place is really impressing there was an elevated highway but they demolished it and built a tram line on a dedicated Lane only a billboard survived there are not so much buildings yet but I guess that this is a part of a bigger Transit oriented development plan that's one of the best examples I have seen so far I'm really surprised and this thing is close to the sports arena where for somebody finds Jang interesting thing in the Milwaukee is that they've made a tram Depot under an elevated Highway that's a really smart way of land using and in general it looks like this [Music] [Music] and the last City in our list with the newest streetcar system is it's not a very big city its population is about 180 000 people and it's somehow unique in this list because there was no electric drum before only a horse wants from 1893 to 1898 so its current streetcar system was opened in 2022 it has one line and uses six Brookwood Liberty wagons that's the last stop now and the same place before development same street a little bit further I don't like the idea of reversive track but having a physically separated Lane is a great Advantage but why does the tram lane ends before the intersection this is the place where you need dedicated Lane the most to allow trams to overtake the cars near the stab dedicated Lane appears again [Music] roundabout with a drive-through rails here is a really good thing and again no dedicated lanes for trumps [Music] this street is pretty wide but there is no dedicated Lanes so trams will have to waste their time in traffic together with the private cars wow foreign streetcar meets the Phoenix LRT now let's move on to conclusions well there are lots of new tram systems in the US but all we saw in this video is far from what we call efficient public transport the approaches here are radically different from what we talked about in the video about trumps in France it seems like U.S cities are considering street cars not like a strong tool to move people around the city but like a decorative element that makes downtown look fancy or like a tourist attraction in car Centric cities maybe that's the reason why all of these systems are so tiny and some have not been expanded since opening over 10 years ago and there are also lots of other issues on the way to efficiency drams are pretty short and don't have enough capacity for such a big cities just compare this with trumps in Budapest Paris or any other big city in Europe they are much longer and can carry much more passengers at a time you may say that Dallas has an LRT with much longer trains well that's true and that's great but Paris or Budapest also has a Subway but still developing their Trump systems and make them efficient too so having a Subway or an LRT is not a reason to make your other public transport and efficient as far as you spend money to build it another big issue is a street planning in most cases U.S cities are just installing tram rails into existing street without any major changes sometimes even the curbs and lamp pillars Remains the Same some good Solutions happens occasionally but in general street remains almost the same but with tram added but the worst thing is that in most cases trams are sharing Lanes with private cars and don't have any priority that makes them slow and unpredictable and nobody needs such a traps also very common is a street planning where tram rails are installed close to the sidewalk that may seem logical because all the passengers are there but with this planning tram can be blocked by every delivery truck or a car that stopped to drop off the passengers if we compare it with the best world examples building a trend line is always a chance to completely rethink a street space and to give it a new philosophy to make a dedicated tram line to plant trees to make wider sidewalks and to add a bicycle infrastructure all these things together will give a new quality of life which is impossible just by adding a tram into the traffic and the American cities has a great potential to rebuild streets in this way in most cases those streets are wide enough but even if they don't you easily can convert them into sustainable mass transit corridors with bicycle lanes and wider sidewalks or maybe just having one lane with calm traffic for deliveries and local residents thanks to the Grid City structure there is always a parallel Street 100 meters way more car traffic can flow the most important thing to do that is social demand and as a result political will and I hope this will happen in the future and that's all for a moment if you like this video please hit the Subscribe button and leave your comments and also visit our patreon page where you can support our Channel see you in the next videos [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: City for All

Views: 31,610

Keywords: city for all, public transport, cycling, city, urbanism, streetcar, streetcars, tram, trams, history, history of usa, usa, us, atlanta, atlanta streetcar, public transportation, public transportation in usa, tucson, tucson streetcar, charlotte, charlotte streetcar, france, dallas, dallas streetcar, cincinnati, cincinnati streetcar, kansas city, kansas city streetcar, washington dc, washington dc streetcar, detroit, detroit streetcar, oklahoma city, oklahoma city streetcar, milwaukee, tempe

Id: -NV4PTqRf1E

Length: 21min 59sec (1319 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 24 2023