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Originally Posted by Zmapper
1. Capacity - Deceiving. The United Streetcar 100 model used in Portland comes with 29 seats. Only by requiring far more customers to stand compared to typical transit buses, and requiring them to stand squished together can streetcar boosters begin to claim their preferred mode can carry more customers.
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Absolutely incorrect, in multiple ways. The fact that the Portland model streetcar (which, by the way, is the smallest modern streetcar on the market right now) has only 29 seats is an operational choice. The interior of streetcars can be configured any way you want, and there are many alternate streetcar models or alternate interior arrangements with more seats. Alternatively, it's equally possible and common to reduce the number of seats on buses (for example, on the 16th Street Mall shuttles).
According to any apples-to-apples comparison you can make, streetcars have higher capacity than buses. The only way to show otherwise is to compare them on an uneven playing field by assuming a seats-heavy internal configuration for one, and a seats-light configuration for the other, and then only counting seats. And even then, you can only do it if you compare the biggest bus available to the smallest streetcar, AND you ignore the fact that you can couple streetcars into trains. Talk about deceiving.
Meanwhile, for the record, the people per area metric is absolutely an industry standard used to measure technical vehicle capacity. It's not used for transit agency route planning, because it's a crush load metric and you don't want to plan for crush load. But if you want to know how many people you can fit, it's what you use.
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Originally Posted by Zmapper
2. False - Streetcars have higher operational costs. The Portland Streetcar costs $323.04 per revenue vehicle hour, while Tri-Met bus services cost $141.93 per hour.
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Way to knock down a straw man. As I said in that post, it depends on ridership. Streetcars' operational costs are lower only once you pass a high ridership threshold. Portland's streetcar actually has pretty low ridership, so it does not meet that threshold.
In Denver, Colfax is probably the only corridor (other than the downtown spine) that could meet it.
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Originally Posted by Zmapper
3. Misleading - no research is ever cited... even if comfort is conceded, other factors, like route location and service levels, vastly outweigh.
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Nothing about that statement is misleading in the slightest. Yes, you can find a luxurious bus and compare it to a crappy train, but if you compare them on apples-to-apples terms (luxurious bus to luxurious train, or crappy bus to crappy train), the train is going to more comfortable.
It is true that other factors usually outweigh. But that's irrelevant to the fact that comfort is one variable for which rail is superior.
As the blog says at the bottom, buses are still going to be the right choice for most routes even despite these advantages that streetcars have. But unless you're going to argue that streetcars are NEVER appropriate then obviously they have some advantages, and it makes sense to document them.
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Originally Posted by Zmapper
4. Discrimination outweighs
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Again you are attacking a straw man. While it's true that decision makers often prioritize wealthier areas when making infrastructure investments, that's independent and irrelevant to the benefits of a special brand overlay. A better argument against that point would've been that you can achieve the same simplified overlay brand using buses, by simply painting them differently and illustrating them differently on your map.
And while I think the presence of rails in the ground adds another level of assuredness for riders who are concerned their bus will suddenly turn unexpectedly and take them to the wrong part of town, you can achieve that same level of physical assuredness using trolleybuses.
So that is, admittedly, a weak point. Even if your argument about it missed the mark.
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Originally Posted by Zmapper
5. Possibly - “Yes, people like rail, but do they like a small rail network more than like a large bus network?”
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This is true. However, one cannot apply it universally without thinking. Walker certainly does not.
In Denver we already have a very large bus network with very good geographic coverage. The question now is how to best improve service on key corridors. It's true that we could improve service on more corridors at once if we spent all our money on buses. But all corridors are not created equal. Colfax is vastly more important than Quebec Street, for example. So we spend more money on giving Colfax better transit than we give Quebec. Of course, we don't zero out Quebec. It still gets something. We sit down and figure out what level of service/quality is most appropriate for the corridors we have, based on how much money we have available.
For a city like Denver, that's going to mean a handful of rail lines overlaid atop mostly buses.
And unless you're going to argue that all the FasTracks rail lines were a mistake, and RTD should've stuck exclusively with buses, you must agree with that general principle regardless of your position on Colfax or other inner city streetcars.
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Originally Posted by Zmapper
6. Misleading - no "but for" statement regarding streetcars is noted. Development should only be counted if it would have not been built "but for" the existence of the streetcar. In the case of Portland, the Pearl district has a streetcar, yes, but with many development subsidies and tax breaks. Additionally, the inherent focus of transportation departments should be on transportation, not economic development.
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Transportation does not exist in a vacuum. You cannot separate these issues, as you propose. Transportation, land use, and regulation must always be tied as closely together as possible, to generate network effects and maximize the efficiency of the overall system. To suggest otherwise in order to make a point is narrowminded in the extreme.
While it's true that the streetcar investment wouldn't produce as wonderful results without other subsidies and beneficial regulation, the reverse is also true. Other subsidies & regulations don't produce as wonderful results without a corresponding transportation investment.
That said,
here is a link to a study on a corridor I'm involved with that shows when all other things are equal, a streetcar generates $3 billion more return on investment than a bus option, in the same corridor. It's geographically specific to Virginia and cannot be applied to any other location, but the point is that even applying your "but for" requirement there is a huge benefit to streetcar, over and above bus.
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Originally Posted by Zmapper
7. True - however nearly all buses operate off of diesel fuel or CNG, not gasoline. While you use the term "gas" in a casual sense to refer to vehicles operating off of motor fuels, not using the proper name for the fuel source calls into question the accuracy and credibility of your other points.
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It calls into question the *precision* of my other points. But precision is not the same as accuracy. If you don't understand the difference then that calls into question your own credibility.
See, I can be pedantic too. It's not productive when either of us does it, so let's not dwell on such pettiness.
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Originally Posted by Zmapper
8. If this were Wikipedia, the proper response would be [citation needed].
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If this were a discussion forum, the proper response would be that leading with a demand for citation usually means you can't dispute the claim.
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Originally Posted by Zmapper
9. So what - all other factors outweigh over "iconicness".
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Sometimes. It depends on the goal of the line, and the other specifics of the situation. Every route is different. For the vast majority or transit routes, the benefits of bus outweigh the benefits of rail. But on a handful of important corridors it's the other way around. It's ridiculous and dishonest to suggest otherwise, or to imply one answer is always correct.
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Originally Posted by Zmapper
Constructing streetcar systems to service wealthy, white, and young neighborhoods while cutting bus service for everyone else flies in the face of an equitable transportation system and the principles of anti-discrimination!
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This is a political consideration that's irrelevant to the technical advantages/disadvantages of each mode. You may be correct with regards to Portland and Seattle, but it's incorrect to suggest that screwing over the poor is inherent to rail. Rail is present in many poor cities around the world, as well as many poor areas within American cities. Likewise, it would still be possible (and probably even likely) to screw over the poor even if we spent all our money on only buses.
You can argue that we shouldn't invest in wealthy areas. You cannot legitimately argue that rail inherently screws over the poor, simply by being rail.
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