>>2068940
>So, what went wrong here?
Looks like another "streetcar to nowhere" that goes places no one wants to go

>>2068940
Its urbanists only real crime. Its just romanticism about old pictures that makes the fixate on streetcars. Totally irrational compared to buses.

>>2068940
> Never extended east or west to properly complement/replace the X2.
> Never built out into a proper network.

Had either of those happened, it would’ve done better.

>>2068940
Slower than the buses which went on the exact same route

>>2068944
>Its urbanists only real crime. Its just romanticism about old pictures that makes the fixate on streetcars. Totally irrational compared to buses.

There's another thread on streetcars/trams already, but it's not just romanticism. That being said, I didn't know DC had a streetcar and I don't understand the purpose.

I think streetcars can make sense in midwestern cities and other places in the US that are in the process of revitalizing their downtowns. They can be a piece of the puzzle, and the investment in permanent rail transport is a signal to business and real estate developers that the city is committed to that area for decades to come. This incentivizes those developers to build infill businesses and apartments along the streetcar line, which increases urban density and thus increases overall tax revenue for the city.

As for the DC streetcar. I don't really understand it. They already have a great subway system. They have what I assume is an effective bus system. I guess the streetcar connects parts of the subway system above ground that weren't easily connected before?

I like streetcars, but they really only make sense in certain contexts, and I'm not sure this was a good one

>>2068944
Obama-era American planners basically treated streetcars as a cargo cult and ignored all the best practices implemented by French planners.

>>2069341
?
Street cars have no advantage over regular buses and have massive negatives...

>>2069418
They have two advantages over buses:
>They are technically trains, therefore scratching that particular autistic itch
>They have that old-world soul like New Orleans
But yeah, other than that buses mog streetcars into the dirt.

>>2069418
Installation costs are higher, running costs are lower. You throw a bus on the scrap heap after ten years while the streetcar goes through a mid-life refurbish after thirty. The killer is often about who pays for the asphalt the buses tear up.

>>2069418
Streetcars inspire transit oriented development. The point is that when a city decides to spend millions of dollars installing a new rail line, people with money decide to put more businesses and housing along the line because they know the city will maintain it for decades to come, just ensuring continuous business.

If an area that a bus line run through experiences problems, the city has less incentive to fix it and maintain that area, because they can just make the bus line go through a different area, or just delete the bus route altogether

your mistake is thinking that transportation systems are always about transporting people and that there aren't other reasons why they are installed

Trams are the perfect litmus test for a country being first world. Only first world countries can build and maintain functioning and useful tram systems. While third worlders such as >>2069428 can't even understand the point of trams they just go
>durrrr bus on rails durrr

>>2069418
If I recall correctly when the streetcar first opened the bus route that goes on the same street saw zero decline in ridership which implied that close to 100% of streetcar ridership was new transit ridership in the corridor, even though it was slower and went less places. I agree though that building it is stupid with how expensive it was and how poorly it was executed.

>>2069539
Americans can actually build decent tram systems but they will just call them "light rail".

>>2069555
>the bus route that goes on the same street
Yeah see, that's how brown third worlders with too much money on their hands would build a streetcar.

Sensible people would look at the most heavily used bus line or lines and see to *rellace* it entirely or at least mostly with the tram, thus integrating it seamlessly into the surface transportation network (which itself should complement the heavy rail network).

Alternatively you could look into significant gaps in the subway network that would benefit from a complementary line but where demand may not justify the cost of a full subway and build the streetcar more as part of the subway system.

Both of these options are legit, but you need an average IQ above room temperature in the administration, not the case in the US obv