bike lanes

Streetcars

By Frank on August 14, 2008

This article on streetcars is somewhat inexplicably the fifth most e-mailed article on nytimes.com.

Update: It’s now the third most e-mailed. What’s up with all silly these NY Times readers? Don’t they understand that streetcars are no different from buses??

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Streetcars? Or Streetcar Systems?

By serial catowner on April 3, 2008

In the beginning were horsecars, which couldn’t climb hills, and cablecars, which could. The cablecar, using a cable and a power house, was obviously part of a ‘system’, a system that worked best as a simple loop or out-and-back. As the years passed, every innovation in transit introduced a new degree of separation and, while birneys and interurbans could use the same track and overhead wire, they essentially did very different things.

At first the systems paid money to private owners, but as matters evolved the transit system became part of an effort by multiple political constituencies to keep their city and region competitive in world economic markets by maintaining the mobility of people and goods.

So the answer is actually pretty simple- there are transit systems, and there are streetcars, which can be part of a transit system, but in this day and age there are no streetcar systems. And this finding is robust at both the macro and micro levels of examination.

Next question?

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