Oh, the beautiful tramway

Confession, I've only ridden a couple tramways, or streetcars, or trolleys (a=b=c) in my life. The lovely historic F line in San Francisco along the Embarcadero and a couple of others which escape easy memory. I've ridden on plenty of street based light-rail service in San Francisco and Boston, which is pretty much the same as a tramway but for having vehicles designed for higher speeds along dedicated right-of-way. Inexperience aside, I never fail to advocate for them as the preferred alternative to any kind of bus service, whether local bus, bus rapid transit (BRT), or electric bus. The main reason for tramways is they convey a sense of permanence with their fixed rail, which can be placed straight down across a cobblestone public plaza, down a paved street, or on its own ballast alongside a road or completely removed from it. Even if you paint a special lane for BRT on the street with nice stations for boarding and alighting, you can't achieve the sense of security associated with parallel iron tracks. It can be hard at times to explain why the aesthetic, functional, and economic advantages of a tramway always make it a better option that BRT, because the initial cost of BRT is a bit lower. But I think even the South American cities like Curitiba, Brazil and Bogotá, Columbia, who have the most well known BRT systems, would have done better to have put in tramway service (or light rail.)

I am studying the French tramway renaissance that began in the 1980s after the passage of useful laws concerning urban transport, starting with the report Planification urbaine et tramway en France,: le leçons de l'experience du tramway français moderne (Urban planning and the tramway in France: The lessons of the experience of the modern French tramway.)  The first was the establishment of a public transit fund (le Versement transport) in the early '70s that funded metro projects in the bigger cities, followed by a law on the direction of inner-city public transit in 1982  (La Loi d’orientation des transports intérieurs (LOTI)), and in the '90s Plans of Urban Travel (Les Plans de déplacements urbains (PDU)) were made obligatory in cities with more than 100,000 people for environmental reasons. The politics behind this led to the construction of several tramways. Several other transit and environmental laws continue to push tramway development, despite the French government pushing more of the funding obligations on the cities. In my constant attempt to better articulate the advantages of a tramway over a bus, I came upon these paragraphs of the report:

Le tramway est d’abord un outil de transport. Il constitue, dans la gamme des systèmes de transport public, la réponse adaptée à une certaine demande : de capacité, de vitesse commerciale, de confort… Il correspond aux grandes orientations de la politique de mobilité durable prônée par la Loi sur l’air. Avec sa plateforme dédiée, sa priorité aux carrefours, il peut s’imposer de manière plus crédible face à la voiture individuelle et lui reprendre une partie de l’espace public qu’elle s’était accaparé dans les villes.

The tramway is first a transit tool. It constitutes, in the range of systems of public transit, the response adapted to a certain demand: for capacity, commercial speed, and comfort... It corresponds to the major directions of the politics of sustainable mobility advocated by the "Law on air [quality]". With its dedicated platform, its priority in intersections, it can impose a more credible method to the individual car and retake from it a part of the public space that the car has monopolized in the cities.

Le tramway permet donc ce que ne permettait pas le bus. Mais le tramway n’est pas un métro pour autant : il ne transporte pas des foules énormes dans des tunnels noirs. Il est ouvert sur la ville et visible depuis la ville. Des architectes, des designers, des paysagistes vont mettre à profit cette visibilité pour donner un peu de réalité au concept abstrait de développement durable, dont les retombées positives ne peuvent se voir qu’à très long terme. Le tramway donne une impression d’amélioration environnementale immédiate : silence et absence de pollution de l’air, plantations d’arbres, plateforme végétalisée… Il rend la ville durable maintenant.  

The tramway thus permits what is not permitted by the bus.  But for all that, the tramway is not a metro: it does not transport enormous crowds in dark tunnels. It is open onto the city and visible from the city. Architects, designers, and landscape architects are going to take advantage of this visibility to give a bit of reality to the abstract concept of sustainable development, whose positive benefits can only be shown in the long term. The tramway gives an impression of immediate environmental improvement: The silence and absence of pollution of the air, plantation of trees, landscaped platforms...It makes the city sustainable now.

In other words, what the tramway accomplishes is unique and unobtainable, despite the best of intentions, with BRT. Unfortunately, BRT also permits the cutting of corners--maintaining reliance on diesel fuel or natural gas instead of electricity (or possibly hydrogen), giving only partial right-of-way (see the Boston Silver Line (a.k.a. the Silver Lie)), and not using prepay stations (though this isn't always done with streetcars either.) Most anyone who has experienced the most modern of buses and rail-based vehicles also knows that a bus cannot match the smooth comfort of rails.

The last thing I'll say about BRT is a bit unfair, but needs to be said. Buses replaced streetcars. People generally liked streetcars (I've read) and generally don't like buses (I know.) If you want to put people on public transit and take away their desire to drive (I do,) then you can't simply spruce up the bus with BRT and expect a mindset change. No, you need to bring back a modern version of the technology, the level-of-service, and the travel experience that proudly explains "I am first-class transit! I am not a bus! Though I serve those that are transit dependent with low fares, I equally serve those who used to drive but now prefer me as their chosen lifestyle."

I am beginning an advocacy campaign for the restoration of many of the streetcar lines in my current home in Somerville, MA, in Cambridge, Boston, and its suburbs. The biggest challenge is to give them the right-of-way that they need. To do so I must find solutions that remove lanes of traffic and/or parking in a sane, logical way, that improves the quality of life for the majority.

In a future post, I want to break down the costs and benefits of streetcars versus BRT. I have at least one book that explores different transit modes thoroughly, so I'll convey its findings and whatever other information I come across.