Tag Archives: Streetcars

WMATA Infill Stations: Oklahoma Ave and River Terrace

Because of the challenges in adding underground infill stations, most candidates are going to be at grade or above ground. Almost by definition, that means fewer opportunities for infill stations around the core of the system, and therefore within Washington’s city limits.

The existing system features a huge gap as the Orange/Blue/Silver lines cross the Anacostia River. The east of the river stations (Minnesota Ave and Benning Road) are both two miles from Stadium-Armory.

Filling this gap is not a new idea – early WMATA plans called for stations at both locations. Oklahoma Ave was on the books long enough for renderings to be drawn up.

WMATA originally considered the area next to the Benning Road Power Plant for a rail yard (the “S&I” oval on the map above, for service and inspection). The adjacent Kenilworth Ave station eventually moved east and became Minnesota Ave.

These two sites are unique in that they do not parallel any existing railroad services, where future regional rail might offer faster, longer-distance service, allowing Metro to focus on shorter distance travel markets. Part of the argument for more infill stations, particularly in the suburbs, is the promise of regional rail. However, these two locations do not need that promise to fulfill their roles – they offer compelling visions on their own.

Oklahoma Ave

Metro planners envisioned Oklahoma Ave as a park and ride station, taking advantage of the extensive surface parking for nearby RFK Stadium on non-event days. The nearby Kingman Park community vociferously opposed a parking-focused station, and WMATA eventually dropped the station in 1977.

Adding an infill station at Oklahoma Ave would likely follow the same concept from the 70s: two side platforms along the existing elevated guideway.

Connections: Potential transit connections from Oklahoma Ave are relatively weak. Almost all transit is located just north along Benning Road, including the DC Streetcar as well as extensive bus service. It wouldn’t be difficult to extend those lines to connect with the station, but the expense (and ongoing time penalty for bus riders) for doing so would depend on the broader plan – if Oklahoma Ave were built together with a River Terrace station, the latter could offer superior transit connections.

Land use: This is another challenge for the area. The immediate surroundings are the northern parking lots for now-vacant RFK Stadium. A large portion of those parking lots are now athletic fields. The parking lots were originally created by filling in the Anacostia’s tidal marshes. As a result, the entire area is within the floodplain, and unlikely to ever be developed as housing or office.

Redevelopment of the remainder of the RFK site outside of the floodplain is a contentious topic with complicated jurisdictional issues yet to be resolved. If the site were to return to a stadium/venue use, the ability to disperse crowds to multiple Metro stations would be a potential advantage.

Without an intense use at RFK, the rationale for Oklahoma Ave is less clear, particularly if River Terrace were built. However, if RFK Stadium were to be redeveloped as some sort of venue with large crowds, then the case for Oklahoma Ave is much stronger.

Ease of Construction: The biggest benefit at Oklahoma Ave is that construction ought to be easy – existing elevated track in the middle of a parking lot. The potential complications would involve any operational changes to the existing line, and determining any role for this location in future Metro expansion plans.

River Terrace

An infill station at River Terrace presents a tantalizing opportunity. The existing tracks are located at a key chokepoint and river crossing, served by one of the busiest bus lines in the city. The existing neighborhood to the south of Benning Road is isolated, separated from the rest of the city by the river to the west, DC-295 and the railroad tracks to the east, and the former Pepco site to the north.

Connections: Benning Road serves as a critical choke point for transit service, making it a great candidate for improved infrastructure. Lots of bus services cross the river here; the nearest crossing to the north (US-50) is along a freeway, and to the south (East Capitol Street) lacks good service. The DC streetcar terminates just to the west, with longstanding plans to extend it along this stretch of Benning Road.

In the future, the H/Benning corridor has long been targeted for Metrorail service. One of the longstanding concepts would be the “separated Blue line,” a new trunk line through the District to separate out existing Blue Line services from Orange and Silver services. Such a vision ought to include River Terrace as a four-track station enabling cross-platform transfers.

WMATA is currently in the midst of their ‘Blue/Orange/Silver’ study. The concepts released in 2021 did not include a new connection at River Terrace. These larger network designs will impact the kind of infill station design for River Terrace.

DC’s once-ambitious streetcar plans have been substantially curtailed. However, the one extension still officially on the books (though controversially) is the Benning Road extension, passing through the River Terrace site. One rationale for the extension is to connect the eastern end of the streetcar line to something, preferably a Metro station. However, because of the D&G junction, splitting Metro service along the Orange Line and Blue/Silver lines, connecting at Benning Road means losing the value of connections for Orange Line passengers.

Benning Road Streetcar Extension Plan – adding a Metro connection at River Terrace (34th St NE) improves connectivity for all users.

Land Use: Immediately adjacent to the station site is Pepco’s now-demolished Benning Road Power Plant site. The plant was demolished in 2012, and in later years was only used during peak periods of demand for a few days per year.

The plant was once the source of a huge amount of pollution, particularly in the Anacostia riverbed. Large-scale remediation and clean-up will be needed before redevelopment is feasible. Additionally, the site retains electrical distribution infrastructure and support for Pepco operations.

Despite all the challenges, it’s a 70+ acre site in the middle of the city with (potentially) excellent transit connections.

Ease of Construction: Compared to Oklahoma Ave, just adding platforms to the existing elevated section would be extremely complicated.

First, this section of track includes the notoriously unreliable D-route pocket track. The pocket track was originally slated to turn terminating Silver Line trains, but WMATA determined it was not suitable to serve that purpose reliably, and investigated alternative designs.

Second, the location of the pocket track (the straightest section) extends over the Anacostia River. Furthermore, the track itself is immediately adjacent to the Benning Road right of way, requiring some combination of road and bridge relocation or a station cantilevered over Benning Road.

Any design with side platforms ought to consider the possibility of a new Blue Line connecting through this location. The ideal design would allow for a future cross-platform transfer between the existing tracks and future Blue line services.

Third, Benning Road itself provides an opportunity for a creative and efficient passenger transfer from Metro to buses and streetcars. Doing so will involve extensive reconstruction in the area, meaning this won’t be a simple infill station – but the opportunity is too large to pass up.

There are lots of examples of efficient transfers between streetcars and rapid transit. Toronto is full of them, such as this one at Dundas West.

St. Clair West is another, featuring a fully-integrated streetcar and bus transfer loop built around (not just next to) the entrances to and from the subway. Passengers can transfer easily while protected from the elements and with minimal walking distance.

(side notes: Dundas West includes a small McDonalds, hitting on another minor obsession of mind, in-station retail. Also, do check out the excellent Station Fixation blog for a full visual tour of the entire Toronto system)

At River Terrace, this might involve diverting the streetcar tracks off of Benning Road itself to encircle a ground-level mezzanine for the Metro station, offering quick and direct transfers for passengers moving between modes.

Urban tramways and surface transit priority – Paris

The biggest drawback to any surface transit line is the inherent conflict at the surface with other modes: cars, bikes, pedestrians, etc. This is an inherent element of competing for the same real estate as other priorities. When space on the surface is simply overtaxed or too contested, urban transport networks can add layers – but usually with great expense. With their tramways, the French manage to blur the lines between upgraded legacy street-running tram networks and the American conception of light rail as a kind of rapid transit.

In France, transport planners work to maximize the efficiency of surface transit operations to provide cost-effective transit network expansion. Standardization and relatively low costs allow a wide range of cities (including the Paris region) to afford investments in new services.

Two of the Paris tramways illustrate the flexibility of the mode and the opportunities for efficient surface transit: The T2, operating on a repurposed rail right of way; and the T3, the first modern tramway in the city since the 1930s.

T2 at the Belvedere station. Note the alingment within the old rail right of way; La Defense skyscrapers in the background. CC image from Wiki.

T2 at the Belvedere station. Note the alignment within the old rail right of way; La Defense skyscrapers in the background. CC image from Wiki.

Community gardening spaces in unused right of way adjacent to the Belvedere T2 station. Photo by the author.

The T2 Tramway makes use of old SNCF rail right of way, but uses trams to allow for surface-running extensions at both ends of the line. The old suburban rail line closed in 1993, with the replacement tram service beginning in 1997. The line has since been extended in 2009 (into Paris) and in 2012 (north of La Defense).

The line’s regular and frequent service has proven to be popular, carrying 115,000 riders daily. After blowing the initial ridership projections out of the water (as well as the ridership for the old suburban service that ended in 1993), the offering of frequent service along the same line (4 minute peak headways) shows what a difference a solid, frequent service plan can bring. In 2003, RATP had to lengthen the platforms (to 65m) to accommodate double-length trains.

Between the dedicated, mostly grade-separated right of way, platform/train length, and train frequency, the level of service comes as close to the Paris Metro (most Metro station platforms are 75m long, save for the busiest lines and key transfer points) as you can get while remaining on the surface.

Looking across the T2 platform to a Transilien train at Puteaux. The fence forces passengers to use the faregates to get on a Transilien service. Photo by the author.

The line’s heritage as a mainline railway is on display at the Puteaux station, where a cross-platform transfer is available to the L and U Transilien services. A fence along the platform forces those wishing to transfer to use faregates, meshing the tramway’s proof of payment system with the faregates found on the Metro, RER, and many of the suburban train stations.

The 2009 extension of the T2 brought the line into Paris, proper (incidentally, connecting to the T3 at Porte de Versailles, one of the areas of Paris slated to allow taller buildings), leaving the old SNCF right of way in favor of running on city streets. True to the standards established with other tramways, the trams are always given their own, dedicated right of way (often with grass tracks, both as a nice urban design touch and as a way to keep cars and trucks out).

Paris T3, showing street section with grass tracks. Photo by the author.

At Porte de Versailles, riders can transfer to the T3 line. The modern tramway takes advantage of wide Parisian streets. Station platforms provide ample space compared to the legacy platforms in Amsterdam; two lanes of traffic in each direction move freely; sidewalks are wide with ample space for walking. Unlike the T2, the construction of the T3 involved removing car capacity in favor of transit.

Stop spacing is fairly close by American standards, but not for Paris – 500m on average. Similar to the T2, trains operate every 4 minutes during peak hours. Compared to the previous bus service along the route (averaging 15 kph), RATP claims the T3 is faster, averaging 19-20 kph (about 12.5 miles per hour). By comparison, almost no WMATA bus routes in the core of DC get above 10 mph average in the AM rush hours, and the PM rush is worse.

Not only does the T3 represent an improvement in speed and reliability over previous bus services, but it also adds capacity over bus. Like the T2, the T3 is also popular, exceeding ridership estimates. Riders strain the system, and operating along the surface, adjacent to traffic presents risks to speed and schedule adherence, despite signal priority for transit. Perhaps fewer stations with wider spacing would provide for faster average speed, but aside from that kind of change, it’s hard to see how you could squeeze more out of surface transit than the T3.

At the same time, the T2 shows the flexibility of tramways, allowing for mixed operation on surface streets as well as dedicated, grade-separated right of way. Where well-placed existing right of way (like the T2) isn’t available, there is also the option of pursuing a Premetro strategy, taking advantage of incremental implementation of full grade separation. The same vehicles can be used in both schemes; allowing flexibility not usually available to a Metro system or suburban rail.

Urban tramways and surface transit priority – Amsterdam

As impressive as the European subway and mainline rail networks are, recent expansions and improvements to surface transit networks are also noteworthy. Examples include upgrading legacy tram networks and building new networks on existing streets, as well as new uses for old mainline rail rights of way. Each example shows different methods of providing priority for surface transit.

In Amsterdam, the challenge is to provide priority for high-capacity modes along constrained city streets. The methods of providing surface transit priority complement efforts to create a pleasant walking environment and to preserve the city’s urban design and historic canal network. Together, these policies present a virtuous cycle – prioritizing transit, biking, and walking makes each of those modes more efficient and thus a better alternative to driving; which in turn lowers opposition to limiting the role of the car, making it easier to implement priority for surface transit.

Not all of this prioritization is the result of active choices; Amsterdam’s city streets vary tremendously in width. The city’s canals limit available street space, providing a natural limitation on cars within the historic city. Unlike other cities, Amsterdam largely did not remove its pre-war network of trams. Thus, the city retains the benefit of the old infrastructure network, but does not have the option of easily recrafting large rights of way with entirely modern tramways, as we see with modern tramways in France. Today, the network is extensive both inside and outside the historic city core.

Center-running tramway in Amsterdam. Photo by the author. Image links to Google Streetview of approximate location.

Within the historic core, many services often converge on a core trunk line located along the broad avenues without canals. In the case above, the trams use a dedicated, center-running transitway (many of Amsterdam’s older trams do not have doors on the left side of the vehicle). Passengers load from side platforms on islands in the street.

The remainder of the street cross-section (visible on the far side of the above photograph, and in Google Streetview) includes one travel lane and a bike lane in each direction. In the tree zone, several parking and loading spaces are included along the street. I witnessed several loading vehicles double-parked in the travel lane, but the physical divider between the transitway and the general traffic lane is low enough that a car can easily navigate around a loading vehicle; car traffic in general is low enough that this does not greatly congest traffic or transit.

Gauntlet track in Amsterdam’s Tram Network. Image from Google Streetview.

Other links in the network run perpendicular to the city’s rings of canals; old narrow streets sometimes require gauntlet track. These streets represent the Dutch movement towards shared environments; the rails and pavement tell pedestrians where the trams run, but pedestrians walk all along the street and move out of the way as trams pass. Car traffic is allowed, but generally limited to service/delivery vehicles without limiting transit service – an outcome possible due to the general limits on car traffic.

Amsterdam tram in mixed traffic, with floating bike lane and on-street parking. Photo by the author.

Amsterdam tram in mixed traffic, with floating bike lane and on-street bike parking. Photo by the author.

Other streets involve streetcars in mixed traffic. The example above shows the tram platform ‘floating’ away from the curb to allow the bike lane passage along the street (at the expense of sidewalk width). On the far side of the street, there is a painted bike lane (red/maroon) and extensive in-street bike parking. An older Google Streetview of the same location shows that space used for on-street car parking; it also shows the wider sidewalk (with enough room for two-seat tables in sidewalk cafes), thanks to the trams in the other direction utilizing a station just around the corner.

Dedicated tramway near the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Note the allowed taxi usage of the transitway. Photo by the author.

Where the space is available, trams are given dedicated right of way. This example, near the city’s Museumplein, features a center-running transitway, landscaped buffer, general traffic lanes and bike lanes differentiated by color. The image also demonstrates the city’s policy of allowing taxis to make use of transitways to speed the journeys of shared-use vehicles.

On-street parking is available, but it isn’t really on the street – parking occurs by the car mounting the angled stone curb in designated areas. In the immediate foreground of the image above, you can see the outlines of an empty parking space (designated by gray pavers). Thus, when not in use, the empty parking space becomes part of the sidewalk rather than part of the street.

All of these different kinds of prioritization (along with the famous Dutch investment in cycling infrastructure) come together to influence the city’s transportation behavior. One of the key slides in this presentation from Rene Meijer, deputy director of traffic and transport in Amsterdam, shows not just the city’s mode share, but also the varying mode share based on the distance of travel:

Mode share for Amsterdam residents, both pre trip and per km.

As you might expect, most trips are shorter trips; longer trips will require modes suited for longer trips (rail; transit; car). Walking comprises 24% of all trips, while only accounting for 2% of the distance covered.

Amsterdam Mode Share by trip distance.

Breaking trips into reasonable distances, you can see how each mode has strengths in certain distances. The white bars show walking dominating short trips (up to 1km), where biking then explodes. For longer trips in the window of 5km to 20km, transit (with priority) and car travel both grow. Also, while intercity rail and transit are presented as separate modes here, actual behavior may involve similar kinds of trips, thanks to the integration between the two modes within the Dutch rail network.

The chart does not differentiate between destinations; I would hypothesize that transit performs better for trips to destinations that are well-connected to the transit network, and the same is true for auto trips. The Netherlands have good highways, but they wisely do not penetrate the historic city core, nor would one volunteer to drive along Amsterdam’s canals when so many better options exist. Even at very long distances, the difference between trains and cars likely depends on differences in origin/destination: the kind of land use, the ease/difficulty of auto/transit access, and so on.

Just as the Dutch have invested in bikes and unsurprisingly end up with strong bike usage, the same can be said of transit. While the optimal distance of effectiveness for bikes and transit likely overlaps a great deal, Amsterdam shows ways to meet both goals.

Streetcar lessons from France

Paris T3 - image from wikipedia - note the seven-segment vehicle, dedicated right of way, and grass tracks.

Last month, Yonah Freemark’s post on the rapid expansion of tramways in France caught my eye. These systems offer several key lessons for the streetcar projects popping up across the US, as well as here in DC. The thinking is to make the tram different from just a streetcar – a transit option that isn’t much different from a bus in terms of geometry.

In many ways, this is about further blurring the already fuzzy distinction between light rail and a streetcar.

Some key takeways:

Give transit the edge: For most cases, this would mean putting transit in a dedicated right of way. Taking advantage of the urban design elements with grass tracks is nice, but the key element is the dedicated right of way to speed operations and increase capacity (call it mostly Jarrett Walker’s ‘Class B’ right of way). Leaving an expensive investment to slog along in traffic like the bus would isn’t giving that investment the fullest chance to succeed.

One commenter notes the explicit trade-off:

US so-called light rail is more like a cheap suburban railway, with near absolute segregation, needing large compulsory purchases – again not endearing them to householders or shopkeepers. San Diego had one of the cheapest build costs, but even so had to pay $18 Million for the route – an old railway.

France seems to have decided, rather than buy up property, remove the cars which clutter up the street and replace by a tramway which more than doubles the street passenger throughput. A much better way of doing things.

Take advantage of capacity: One of rail’s clear geometric advantages over bus is capacity. The newer tramways in France take advantage of this with longer vehicles than the streetcars currently in service in the US. As an example, the T3 line in Paris makes use of 7-segment Alstom Citadis 402 trams, measuring in at approximately 140 feet long – more than doubling the per-vehicle capacity of the vehicles in use in Portland and Seattle.

Standardization saves money: These new tramways are, for the most part, fairly standardized in both construction and in rolling stock, allowing for substantial cost savings. Many of the vehicles feature modular construction, both adding flexibility while maintaining standardization and making procurement of replacement parts easier. Standardization doesn’t mean a similar look, however – customize-able front ends allow each city to personalize the look and feel of their trams.

Go big or go home: Well, sort of. Scale matters, both in producing a project large enough to be a successful link in the network and big enough to achieve some economies of scale. The wiki graphic shows the scale of the tramway network in and around Paris alone:

Building at scale (and with a predictable pattern of expansion and reinvestment) helps control costs.

Moving US systems to this kind of standard could be seen in one of two ways: either in terms of removing a great deal of the over-engineering of US light rail systems, or in terms of increasing the standards of US Streetcar systems. Given the length of some of DC’s proposed streetcar lines, offering this kind of advantage to transit would be a sure-fire way to give these investments every chance to succeed not just as economic development projects, but as transportation projects as well.

Vestiges of DC’s streetcar network

700 Block, 8th St SE

Winter’s freeze/thaw cycle chipped enough asphalt away from 8th St SE to expose the remaining vault of DC’s old streetcar system. The rails themselves are gone, but the underground vault that provided power for the system remains, as does one of the square access panels in the street. The rest of 8th Street contains discolorations and visible stress in the asphalt where more of the square access panels would have been, indicating more of the vault structure remains just below the surface.

New York’s streetcars used similar conduit technology. The extensive website nycsubway.org has some fascinating pictures from New York’s streetcar infrastructure remnants, as well as this handy explanation of the system:

This isn’t your basic track of two rails and wooden crossties. The track structure extends some two and a half feet into the earth. Under the paving blocks are cast iron yokes 5 feet apart, the trapezoidal shape shown here and in the previous line drawing. The yoke holds the shape of the lengthwise pieces, keeping the rails the right distance apart and keeping the conduit open.

The diagram above shows a double-track cable installation, but the basics are the same on Broadway. There is a yoke every 5 feet, and a pair of insulator covers around the conduit every 15 feet, and a cleaning manhole cover every 105 feet, of which every fourth one (420 feet apart) was also a slightly larger feeder manhole. It’s a lot of cast iron and concrete.

The exact diagram used here is actually for a cable car track, not a streetcar conduit – but the engineering is essentially the same. Some of DC’s old cable cars were converted to electric power.

Wikipedia also has a great image of track work at 14th and G Sts NW, showing the extensive cast iron underpinnings of these underground conduits:

GGW and PoP have also taken note of remnants of DC’s streetcar infrastructure in the past, some of the last remaining signs of a once extensive network.

Observations from San Francisco

As a nice respite to DC’s heat, I was able to spend the last week in California – including several days in San Francisco. Some thoughts and observations from the trip:

Hills and Grids: Gridded streets have plenty of benefits, to be sure – but the downside is that they do not react to topography. San Francisco provides the extreme example. The city has even preserved the right of way where topography makes streets impossible. My own adventure to the top of Telegraph Hill included ascending the Greenwich Street stairs.

Surely, relaxing the grid would offer opportunities for a more understanding development pattern. Nevertheless, the spaces along the staircases are certainly interesting, as are some of the extremely steep streets. Such a pattern would not work in a colder climate that has to deal with ice and snow on a regular basis, however – lest you end up like these poor folks in Portland.

Trucks and Buses not advised. Um, yeah.

Trolleybuses: As a direct response to the city’s grade issues, the electric-powered trolley buses are a great solution. The overhead wires for the buses can be a little obtrusive – but they are not nearly as much of a visual blight as the broader patchwork of utility wires strung from house to house and pole to pole.

Zero emissions, but the wires (like rails) do act as a visual cue for a newcomer to the city (like myself) to find a bus line when I need one. That’s a plus.

Signage: Actual signs telling you where you are or what transit line to take, however, are sorely lacking – particularly for Muni and BART.

We can do better than this – the BART platform at Montgomery station. The boarding signs for various train lengths is nice, but not all that intuitive – but actually determining which station you’re at when the train arrives is another challenge entirely. Similarly, on the Muni lines that turn into streetcar routes in the outer neighborhoods, signage at the larger stations is almost non-existent – certainly not useful for a first time rider.

That said – Muni’s route symbology is incredibly easy to understand. Each line is assigned a name (corresponding to the main street it travels on), a letter (as a single symbol) and a color. It’s something I think Metro could learn from as its route structure becomes more and more complex.

Wayfinding signage around town, however, was much better. Kiosks offered maps, highlighted transit routes, and in general provided very useful information – even potential ferry routes, for example:

My favorite ‘signs’, however, where the ones doing double duty – the public toilets:

Granted, the actual map here is faded and hard to read, but the presence of a self-cleaning public toilet in a popular tourist area like this is priceless. Thanks to nature’s urges, I never had a chance to actually use one – but the process seems quite self-explanatory. If not, there are simple instructions:

This particular toilet is from JCDecaux, the same outdoor advertising firm that operates Paris’ Velib bikesharing system.

Streetcars: The F Market line’s heritage streetcars are both interesting to see on the street and also an effective part of the transit network. They’re also quite popular:

One note about these old PCC cars – when you’re standing (as I was while taking this picture), it’s extremely difficult to see out the small windows of these old rail cars to determine where you are – especially with Muni’s aforementioned lack of quickly visible signage. The PCC car wiki page talks about “standee windows,” but these weren’t of much help to me.

From the outside, the diverse colors of the various liveries from around the world Muni opts to use are fantastic.

The liveries include this lovely pastel DC Transit paint job.

More (perhaps) to come later.

The Need for Speed

A streetcar speeds by in Toronto. CC image from Matthew Burpee.

Jarrett Walker has a wrap-up post on his debate with Patrick Condon on the need for speed in urban transit. Condon is a professor of sustainability, not a transportation planner or engineer, and his view is that we need to improve the experience of sustainable transit and not enable the sprawling lifestyles of yesterday, no matter what mode we use to get to and fro. Jarrett sums up Condon’s thesis in an earlier post:

Condon heads the Design Centre for Sustainability inside UBC’s Department of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and is the author of the very useful book Design Charrettes for Sustainable Communities. In his 2008 paper “The Case for the Tram: Learning from Portland,” he explicitly states a radical idea that many urban planners are thinking about, but that not many of them say in public. He suggests that the whole idea of moving large volumes of people relatively quickly across an urban region, as “rapid transit” systems do, is problematic or obsolete:

The question of operational speed conjures up a larger issue: who exactly are the intended beneficiaries of enhanced mobility? A high speed system is best if the main intention is to move riders quickly from one side of the region to the other. Lower operational speeds are better if your intention is to best serve city districts with easy access within them and to support a long term objective to create more complete communities, less dependent on twice-daily cross-region trips.

It’s an interesting question, and it’s having a significant if not always visible impact on transport planning. Darrin Nordahl’s 2009 book My Kind of Transit, reviewed here, also praises slow transit; he makes that case in the same way you’d advocate for “slow food,” by pointing to the richness of experience that comes only from slowing down.

The implication is clear, as Jarrett states in the title of his posts – “is speed obsolete?” Jarrett’s counter-point, however, is that speed matters, and it matters a great deal:

So here’s my main point:

Rapid transit is a far more viable “augmenter” of pedestrian trips because its travel speeds, and thus the trip-lengths for which it’s suited, lie entirely outside the pedestrian’s range, whereas the streetcar overlaps the pedestrian range substantially.

The rapid transit and pedestrian modes play entirely complementary roles, while streetcar and pedestrian modes have partly overlapping roles — a less efficient arrangement. You’ll walk further to a rapid transit station, but once you’re there you can move at a high speed that makes that extra walk worthwhile […]

Rapid transit’s speed also exceeds typical cycling speed, by a large enough factor that it makes sense to cycle to the station. So rapid transit works with cycling to a degree that local stop transit, such as the Portland Streetcar, just doesn’t.

Obviously, the usefulness of rapid transit requires a longer trip length, so rapid transit should be considered only for relatively long corridors. As several commenters have mentioned, the problem with Condon’s view may be in the corridors to which he’s applied it, including Vancouver’s Broadway corridor, where he’s presented it as an alternative to a SkyTrain extension.

Streetcars and rapid transit are different tools, each suited for different jobs. I’d argue that some of the value in streetcars is precisely because they can fill in the gaps of a hub-and-spoke system like Metro, while the aforementioned Broadway corridor in Vancouver probably should be one of the spokes. The question is then one of how you use that tool. One thing to remember about Portland’s streetcar is that the station spacing is very close, especially when you consider Portland’s short blocks. Small adjustments, such as wider station spacing and some signal priority treatments could greatly improve performance and reliability.

DC’s proposed streetcar system can take better advantages of the streetcar’s strengths as a mode. Yonah Freemark’s excellent graphics on DC’s network show how streetcars can fill in some of the crosstown gaps that exist in the current Metro network. However, streetcars certainly are not and cannot be a substitute for Metro’s utility to the city and the region. Yonah also chimes in on the subject over at The Next American City:

By advocating streetcars, Condon is implicitly arguing that people should stay in their neighborhoods for most of their trips; that they should find work, go shopping, and be entertained in their near surroundings. If people have to rely on slow transit, they simply won’t have the time to be making trips across the region. (Or, of course, they might switch to driving their private automobiles, which would defeat the point of the transit investment entirely.)Though this approach would likely produce better ecological outcomes (less energy consumption per person as a result of reduced transport mileage), it would exacerbate spatial inequalities. Because jobs (especially well-paid ones) tend to be concentrated in the favored quarter, poorer inhabitants living far away from that zone would be isolated from employment opportunities and thus be deprived of chances for income growth. Or they would face devastatingly long commutes.

Stepping outside of the fiscally constrained world, the obvious answer is that both rapid and circulator systems serve different and complimentary needs. The economic implications (for a city’s economy, rather than just real estate development) are the really interesting – Walker’s commenter ‘micasa’ highlights Jane Jacobs and the very nature of cities:

What does the venerable Jane Jacobs have to say about the notion of a “city of neighbourhoods”?

“Whatever city neighborhoods may be, or may not be, and whatever usefulness they may have, or may be coaxed into having, their qualities cannot work at cross-purposes to thoroughgoing city mobility and fluidity of use, without economically weakening the city of which they are a part. The lack of either economic or social self-containment is natural and necessary to city neighborhoods – simply because they are parts of cities.”

Jacobs is describing what does, and always has, made cities “tick”. To be against intra-urban mobility is to be against the very proposition of the city. I don’t think we can afford to let the threat of climate change, peak oil, or whatever, destroy that. We may need radically different, more sustainable cities in the future if we are going to survive, but rest assured, we will still need cities. Not agglomerations of inward focused neighbourhoods, but cities.

I’m not suggesting that the debate over transit technologies in this particular case ought to be closed. But I am suggesting that Condon’s particular argument for surface rail – that it encourages local living in a neighbourhood setting – is fundamentally anti-urban. A better argument, and one that actually addresses the urban mobility issue, is that perhaps surface rail is a cheaper solution that can be designed “fast enough” to allow those neighbourhoods on the West Side (including UBC) to cohere with the rest of the region without the necessity of cars (and vice-versa). But that’s not the argument as presented.

Is speed obsolete? I’d say no. To micasa’s last point, surface rail can indeed be designed to be ‘fast enough’ to address urban mobility, particularly when paired with an existing rapid transit system (such as DC’s Metro).

Weekend reading

Excuse my timing on this, as this doesn’t leave much weekend to play with – but here are some items worth noting from the previous week or so:

Streetcars bridge the gaps: Yonah Freemark has an excellent post on DC’s evolving streetcar network and its ability to fill the gaps in Metro’s network. Yonah’s excellent visuals (as usual) help frame the discussion.

New maps: New York gets a new map – Second Ave Sagas has the breakdown. The map decreases clutter, though nothing compared to the more schematic designs for other systems.

Metro too cluttered: Speaking of clutter, Massimo Vignelli thinks Metro’s gotten too cluttered since he and Harry Weese came up with the signage scheme for the system decades ago.

Congestion pricing:

Wired profiles the data-driven Charles Komanoff and his search for economically efficient pricing
Ryan Avent argues for simplicity in pricing
Avent also on benefits of congestion, and who benefits from pricing
The Overhead Wire: don’t forget the benefits of reduced congestion for buses and bikes.

Grid vs. Sac: David Alpert notes a (perhaps the only) redeeming quality of the cul de sac; Jarret Walker notes the many advantages of gridded street networks.

Streetcar smackdown watch

Over the last few days, the Washington Post featured a number of streetcar pieces. First, Lisa Rein laid out the basis for the debate on overhead wires. The Post’s editorial board then chastised all the players to find a realistic and reasonable solution.

Today’s print edition features two pieces delving deeper into how streetcars fit into the mold of historic preservation, urbanism, and urban untidiness. The first comes from Adam Irish, a member of the DC Preservation League and a volunteer at the DC Historic Preservation Office. Irish starts by marking the difference between those who seek to preserve urbanism and those that seek to preserve DC’s monumentality above all else:

This kerfuffle is about more than just ugly wires, however. It gets to the heart of an old and familiar conflict over how Washingtonians and Americans at large envision the city. In its coverage, The Post has referred to opponents of wires as “preservationists,” but I think “D.C. monumentalists” better describes their stance. For the monumentalist, Washington, D.C., the city comes second to Washington, D.C., the sanitized and photogenic capital.

The monumentalist vision of Washington has choked nearly all urban life from the Mall and its environs. It has fashioned large sections of our city into pleasing vistas for tourists but has given the rest of us lifeless wastelands (if you’ve ever stepped foot outside at L’Enfant Plaza, you know what I’m talking about).

Urban life and urban form isn’t always pretty. In fact, the sometimes-messy complexity is part of what makes cities such interesting places to live in. Spiro Kostof described it as “energized crowding,” a kind of messiness that’s inherent to creativity and day to day life. This isn’t to discredit the formalism of Washington’s City Beautiful aesthetic – merely asserting that such monumentalism shouldn’t trump all other facets of urbanism.

Philip Kennicott expands on those themes in his piece, also running in Sunday’s print edition:

If you listen to preservationists, the most ardent of whom oppose any overhead wires in the city, you might think Washington was loaded with great vistas. And it is, but not the awe-inspiring views they’re thinking about, which turn out to be fairly few and often not that impressive. Even down our wide avenues, sightlines tend to terminate in small monuments that are best seen up close.

The great views down the streets of Washington are just coming into their full glory as the leaves of spring return. These aren’t wide-open vistas with monumental buildings in the far distance; they are tunnel-like views of shaded streets, overarched by majestic elms, oaks and maples. These shady tubes of green, which are rare in newer and suburban neighborhoods, are the truly distinctive beauty of Washington. The only reasonable concern about running overhead wires should be the protection of trees that create these glorious canopies.

Nobody in this debate would argue that overhead wires look good, but too often the debate is framed in either/or terms – either the wires are ugly or they are not. Kennicott addresses this false dichotomy as well:

Arguments against overhead wires rest on two essential assumptions: that the city is filled with streets that have historically significant and aesthetically impressive views; and that wires and poles would be ugly intrusions on these grand vistas. The former is questionable, the latter a matter of opinion.

The point about wires obstructing views that don’t always exist is a good one. As noted, DC’s canopy of street trees is a legacy worth protecting, yet these same trees (on, say, East Capitol street) make for a wonderful streetscape – but at the cost of forgoing views of the Capitol Dome beyond a few blocks.

Google street view of Capitol Dome (it's in there somewhere) from East Capitol Street, near 4th Street.

This isn’t to say that wires wouldn’t obstruct this view – but the key point is that the streetcar plan does not propose to obstruct these types of views with wires at all. Kennicott hammers on this point, noting that the current plans do not include major obstructions, both by avoiding major view corridors and considering the fact that wire ‘obstruction’ is relatively minor. Like the trees that line many of these grand avenues, the positive benefits of the streetcars vastly outweigh the negative costs.

The takeaway message from all of these articles should be that a reasonable compromise – a hybrid of wires and battery power to protect key viewsheds – is both realistic and palatable to most Washingtonians.

Street spaces over 100 years

For a nice Saturday morning post, David over at Greater Greater Washington points to a great video from San Francisco, circa 1905. The video is shot from a cable car traveling down Market Street, San Francisco’s great axial street. The clock tower of the Ferry Building terminates the view, all while pedestrians, horses, cars, streetcars, and just about every other mode of transport share in the controlled chaos of a street where all modes share space.

Our streets weren’t always so compartmentalized, with segregated spaces for cars, pedestrians, bikes, and so on. David gives a hat tip to the Ludwig von Mises Institute for the video, where the free-market libertarians posting the comments attribute the resulting order to the power of markets to organize themselves.

Several, however, note the limitations of such an example as a case for removing all traffic restrictions and separations – changes in technology, mass, speed, and so on – as well as the fact that managed and planned order can indeed be more efficient than this type of organic order. Another notes that some of the chaos may not have been completely authentic:

I saw this video before, with a commentator talking alongside it. The car that crosses the tracks and is barely missed by the streetcar is actually part of the filming team, asked to do that to keep things interesting. If you pay attention, you see him cutting accross [sic] many times, actually crisscrossing in front of the streetcar.

Yet another commenter points to an almost exact re-creation of the same video from 2005, this time making use of travel along the F-Market streetcar line.

The arrangement of street space, obviously, has changed. So has San Francisco’s urban fabric, now complete with skyscrapers. The older video just predates the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire, a major factor in re-shaping San Francisco’s urban form. The comparison between the two is stark, both for the things that have changed, as well as for the things that have not.

Back at GGW, commenter Lance throws a few barbs about overhead wires obstructing vistas. It’s worth noting that DC’s current streetcar plan does not have any long stretches of track along the main vista avenues, such as Pennsylvania Ave. Under the idea of a hybrid solution and careful routing, we might not even need wires to cross those main vistas, yet alone run along them. It’s also worth noting that San Francisco’s wires in the 2005 video are not just for streetcars, but also electric trolley buses – a few of them are seen in the video itself. Since trolley buses do not run on steel rails, they require two wires to act as a ground.

City Block

a work in progress…