This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
To take a step back from our recent discussion on streetcars, The Overhead Wire has a great post on when streetcars are and are not applicable.
I was never moved by the nostalgia, back-to-the-1920s argument for streetcars. Rather, I had been looking at them from the point of view of Intermediate Capacity Transit, specifically as a way of implementing the City’s 2001 ICT recommendations. Could an at-grade streetcar, I wondered, with dedicated right-of-way where possible, be a less-expensive and more realistic substitute for intracity transit? Faster than a bus, but cheaper and easier to build than a monorail or subway.
But TOW, in the post linked above, suggests looking at streetcars in a different way, with a focus on pedestrian-friendliness:
Streetcars are not meant to be rapid transit but rather pedestrian accelerators within districts and areas just outside of town.
…But also, the creation of a pedestrian environment and pedestrian accelerators increased the area folks are willing to walk. And the creation of more of these neighborhoods on a corridor by streetcars is important because this increased walking has been shown to reduce VMT.
…As I have said before, its not always about speed. Creating an environment for pedestrians means also a slower environment, a safer environment.
Streetcars, in other words, can be viewed as city-sized versions of the moving walkways found in airports. I hinted at this a while back when I wrote that streetcars open up the downtown frontier to development, but I was still focused on the idea of the streetcar as a longer-haul commuter option. I still think that can work (the ICT study suggets that streetcars with stops placed 1-mile apart can achieve speeds and ridership comparable with elevated), but it’s clearly not the only use for the technology.
Photo by Flickr user OZinOH used under a Creative Commons license.
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