Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "The Secret Scam of Streetcars" video.

Michael Haimerl Streetcars are so horrible, though. They have the disadvantages of subways and buses without the benefits. My city has above ground train, underground and bus system and they attempted the modern streetcar for no reason. It's Lisbon, so obviously there's a reason to keep traditional streetcars (nobody likes to drive to the old part of town), but modern ones just take up space in traffic, get stuck and interfere with parked cars anywhere else. It's a bus that can't maneuver or overtake, and a metro system that isn't rapid and regular.
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Michael Haimerl It's not bad planning! Excuse us for not having our cities bombed to rubble back in the 40's, but most of our streets to not have space for more lanes and we can't exactly rebuild the city until an earthquake or something finally levels it. It's not even about delays, it's about getting stuck in traffic. The old, short electric streetcars often get stuck, the modern long ones are even worse. Unless your panning involves only putting rails on long avenues and not have any turns (a system already serviced by buses), you can't blame the awfulness of a streetcar on bad planning if nobody who planned the city has been alive for 300 years.
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Michael Haimerl >"most cities were rebuilt the exact way they were before" But you can plan everything into it at once rather than retrofit into it. It's more efficient. In fact, the efficiency in Germany's rebuild efforts was one of the factors that drove their industry miles ahead of the rest of Europe.
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Michael Haimerl Yeah, I'm not from the US and I'm telling you they don't work. They are a nuisance to other drivers (here they literally force a different law for overtaking to exist because of them taking the lane at the left) and add absolutely nothing to a city which already has surface train, underground train and an extremely wide net of bus networks. Philippe Larcher We also have historic streetcars in Lisbon, but they mostly exist on the historic side of town, where people won't bring their cars because of lack of parking space. With only residents to worry about most of the time, they are not a burden on the main lines transportation. Outside of that area, modern streetcars ought to be abolished.
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Michael Haimerl That's not an argument. It's like claiming socialized medicine "works" because there's hospitals and people getting treated in them. Sure, let's forget the fact that it's inefficient, it depends on the stability of the state and on steady birth rates to replenish the Ponzi scheme that taxes are, etc. I can see streetcars moving down the street, thank you very much. Doesn't mean it's not a ridiculously inefficient behemoth which is a nuisance to drivers, interferes with parking, and is absolutely redundant if you already have subway and bus networks servicing the city's transporting needs. Now, remove all types of individual motor traffic, and yes, you got yourself a highly specific environment where the streetcar shines as there are no space or traffic issues. >"Cuba looks more developed than this, no wonder you think it sucks" So now you resort to insults? >"from your city (with streetcars)" Wow, a big revelation! I spent the whole time exemplifying from personal experience how rubbish they are and now you're telling me my city has streetcars? Holy shit.
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Michael Haimerl Yeah, because the fact that politicians are in the pocket of the streetcar builders is such a blatant example of my incompetence. Without a lobby, the streetcar could not survive.
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MrToradragon It's obvious that when trams are out of service the replacement buses are overcrowded. When there's a strike on the subway, buses are overcrowded. When there's a strike on buses, the subway is over crowded. Backup systems aren't profitable if they have 100% efficiency since they're out of commission most of the time. A great deal of buses over here are equipped with natural gas or hydrogen. Besides, electric motors and batteries have come a long way, and the fact that electric motors pretty much produce max torque at virtually any RPM make them extremely good for heavy vehicles that need the low-end torque. When buses become electric, trams can go to hell.
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brushcreek42 Buses are noisy and pollutant because governments managing things always fuck up. They're still riding old models. The fact is that in some countries they managed to replace some of the fleet with compressed natural gas fueled buses. Not to mention that the same exact motors that drive streetcars could power electric buses, the problem of the batteries being mitigated by the fact that at "the end of the line" buses face wait times that could be spent charging at a station reserved for buses in every terminal station. No, people aren't more likely to ride streetcars because that's a rubbish generalization. Any city with a half decent metro/subway system puts more people through it than the annoying streetcar system. How do you know if a city is rubbish? If it has streetcars instead of a subway, which would be the preferable solution as it doesn't get in the way of traffic.
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If a car or a bus breaks down you can avoid it, a street car cannot. If a car or bus breaks down, it can be easily towed out of the way to not disturb traffic. Street cars cannot leave the rail.
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"However, a streetcar must break down first!!" - or the road simply become blocked. Buses can drive around the blockage. Streetcars will stay in place and cause a congestion. If you put the streetcar underground, it becomes a subway! Problem solved!
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I ride the subway. Take your meds.
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ADY881 Yeah, good job pulling some words out of context so that I don't even know where I said that - then start splitting hairs. And as a pedestrian, street cars piss me the fuck off because they constantly block crosswalks. Good on you to bring up the "motorist" argument, but I'm someone who takes the subway 99% of the time.
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MrToradragon That's what I was getting at, 12 buses are not enough even for a small city. We have a pretty decent subway system with 3-6 cars depending on the line and weekday, which fits a ton of people and there's always one coming each 3-4 minutes. Yet it's not enough and many people depend on the bus system despite the fact that we're a city with just 600,000 people. >"Problem of wheels on asphalt is friction and resistance which is much lower in case of iron wheels and rails." Friction is actually necessary for the movement and braking of automobiles. I was involved in a tram crash one time, it was raining and the tram was empty so it could not brake (lower normal force with the ground means less friction) and it rammed the car I was in. In racing, they use spoilers and diffusers to increase downforce - this means a higher normal force and therefore more friction. The problem with friction losses are in the drivetrain, which limit the power you can put on the wheels. But friction between wheel and the environment is not lost, it's actually a good thing. It's what propels the vehicle further.
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MrToradragon Rolling resistance is mostly an issue when no torque is applied. This means it's more appropriate for minimizing losses when coasting. Coasting for long distances inside urban areas isn't that great, and in a slope allowing a tram to coast further would result in situations like that crash I talked about. In motor vehicles rolling resistance is not a factor because bearing losses in the drive train and slippage issues are much more important aspects of friction than rolling resistance. An internal combustion engine will always be running, so might as well apply that torque to the wheel rather than coast. Coasting on automobiles is used in slopes where gravity does the work so you're not losing anything from rolling resistance. I see no reason why coasting would be important on an electric automobile either.
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brushcreek42 Actually since posting that I have started to use buses for my commute because the subway is downhill from my workplace and there's a lack of crosswalks in the area. I hate buses, I just have learned to live with their drawbacks. As much as I hate getting stuck in traffic inside a bus, I was once stuck on streetcar because of an incorrectly parked car that stood in the way. I actually had it happen twice but the second time the driver literally rammed (okay, "bumped") the parked car off the road because it only stood a couple inches in our way. Fun times.
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+jdgator95 you think law enforcement doesn't make a profit? Look at the ATF engaging in cigarette smuggling as part of sting operations and keeping the profits. You think public transportation doesn't make a profit? Whoever gets awarded the contracts is profiting.
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