[ssiguy]

I believe Vancouver has the largest trolley fleet in NA and they are real work horses. They serve the city well and are blissfully more quiet than diesel and non-polluting. They also work especially well in hilly cities like Vancouver and SF as opposed to diesel which would crawl up similar inclines. All this and the added benefits of not using copious amounts of expensive diesel fuel.

That said, I think they are on their way out. Not due to any fault with the technology but rather there are now viable options that were not available before. Obviously I am talking about battery and hydrogen buses. Both are electric and hence offer similar non-polluting and quiet performance but don't have the physical limitation of trolleys nor their added costs of wire replacement and maintenance. You also don't get the "bunching" of buses on busy routes as their operations are not constrained by where the wires are.

I like Vancouver's trolleys but I think they will eventually be replaced by more modern and flexible battery and hydrogen buses.