How to build transit: America’s forgotten streetcars can save us 

also pls go easy on the editing - first time using final cut pro cause adobe too expensive lol If you want to support the channel, here are some of my favourite transit books that I think are definitely worth reading: bookshop.org/lists/fav-transit-books (I'll get a bit of a commission) 😎

Considering the downfall of streetcars was largely due to policy decisions ... presumably in order for public transport to thrive it will need more policy decisions to take public space away from cars. The way the Netherlands has reallocated space gradually over the last many decades (and even Paris in the last few years) it shows what is possible.

Public transit infrastructure isn't meant to be profitable. It's about providing a service like highways, police, fire dept, schools, etc.

A lot of streetcars and even elevated railways and subways were abandoned or removed in the 1920s, 30s and 40s due to the swarms of automobiles blocking and slowing the streetcars and siphoning off their customers. Elevated structures were taken down and sent to the steel mills for military weapons, tools, and equipment.

Like you said, it's absolutely an insane thing to realize that LA once had the world's largest trolley network in the 1920s, a completely different world compared to the traffic nightmare it is notoriously now known for! A streetcar suburb still exists just outside Philadelphia, a place called Media! The trolley goes between 69th Street Transportation Center in Philly and Media. It is a part of the remaining lines of the former Red Arrow Lines Trolley System once operated by the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company. In Media, the trolley enters the street at Providence Road and runs on a single track the rest of the way. Cars in the street must yield. The line terminates in the middle of the street just west of the Delaware County Courthouse. A pretty cool streetcar system is New Orleans's. New Orleans has its rich history to thank for its walkability! It was originally designed by military engineer Le Blond de la Tour in 1721, and the original grid can be seen in today’s French Quarter. But many French structures burned down during the Spanish period, and so when the Spanish rebuilt the city (and outlawed timber in favor of brick and plaster), they recognized the need for increasing density due to a growing population and the subtropical climate. It is home to the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the entire world which is the St. Charles Line that has been operating since 1835! Heck, the name po-boy came about because of a streetcar strike in 1929!

great video! like people say, america wasn’t built for the car, it was destroyed for the car

In the case of Hudson County, NJ, there used to be an impressive streetcar system called the North Hudson County Railway that originated in the 1860s and lasted until the 1940s. The North Hudson County Railway was a complex streetcar network that connected Journal Square in Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, and Union City (which the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail tries to accomplish today; minus Journal Square). However, a portion of Hudson County is a line of pretty steep cliffs that makes up part of the Hudson Palisades. So they devised many engineering innovations from a huge and long elevated trestle, viaducts, funicular wagon lifts, and an elevator! But starting in 2000, the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail began operating. Unlike the streetcars, the HBLR doesn't have a trestle to reach the top of the Palisades, instead it serves JC's The Heights with a long elevator off the side of the cliffs down to 9th St/Congress St station in Hoboken, and there's also an underground station at Bergenline Ave in Union City during which it uses a tunnel previously used by West Shore Railroad/New York Central trains (which served the now demolished Weehawken Terminal). Much of the HBLR uses repurposed rail right-of-way, like its Bayonne section originally being used by the Central Railroad of NJ, or the western side of Hoboken was once the NJ Junction Railroad and Conrail's River Line

At least some of the privatization concerns could be helped by implementing the same rule that exist for Dutch road infrastructure. Actually very little regulations about how to implement, however you make the owner of the road, or system if you modify it a litte, directly liable for any damage or harm if they could have done anything better in terms of design and maintenance. This is a big part of the reason why Dutch infrastructure is still world leading. It incentivises being on top of the newest developments in terms of safety and design as well as maintenance.

Interesting video. We seem to have the same problems here in Australia. Sydney used to have a huge tram (streetcar) system and scrapped it all by 1961. Then in recent years, they have started bringing it back as modern light rail. This is costing them billions of dollars, as everything has to be rebuilt. Here in Melbourne, we kept our tram system mostly intact and converting to light rail is a lot cheaper. There days, If any transit systems are privately owned, they is usually also subsidized by the state governments.

growing up in suburban long island new york in the 70s and 80s in the VILLAGE of Mineola, i would still see railroad tracks on the streets all over the old parts of the village, which are the only parts today which have a downtown sort of look and feel; they were for streetcars, and those tracks have mostly been covered up these days, but they're still there, under the asphalt.

Great video! Also not covered are the rare-to-be-seen public-public partnership. Paige Saunders has a fantastic video about that on RU-vid. Basically the idea is have a public-focused entity with extremely long time horizons for investing (like a public pension fund) to be the "guardrails" to keep the project on task without the need to return money to shareholders within 3 years.

How to ensure your streetcar is successful: Give priority to the streetcar. If you need to make dedicated bus lanes, the streetcar is already a better alternative as it has higher capacity with the same space occupied. Perfect example is 34th Street in NYC. It is one of the busiest streets in the country. The bus getting across town is slower than walking. Yes, you can walk faster than the bus between Penn station and 1st Ave. Close the street to car traffic, expand the sidewalks and put in a street car. If a city attempts to put in dedicated bus right of way, it can already build a streetcar

I would love to see them here in NYC, as we have numerous transit deserts throughout. I understand some of the boroughs actually had street cars at one time. When we lived in Flushing, Queens years ago, I recall seeing remnants of streetcar, or trolley, tracks still visible underneath the asphalt on Main Street.

I work from home full time and it's become permanent. I know quite a few people who are doing the same. You would think this would help alleviate traffic, yet there's still horrible traffic during regular rush hour. It's a vexing problem.

You're absolutely right about how transit increases land value, and a great example is Charlotte NC with the development of the South End neighborhood which developed around the city's light metro system! It's crazy to see how it went from a bunch of nothing to a thriving neighborhood with skyscrapers and now it's even extending to the northern part of the line with tons of new apartment buildings going up around the stations. Not to mention how the new(ish) streetcar, even with its flaws such as low frequency, still has triggered dense urban development around it and is still used by about 1,500 people daily. And there are still a ton of new transit that has yet to be built.

An awesome primer on the challenges of funding and delivering transit! Great video!

Makes me appreciate growing up in San Diego, I took the trolley everywhere as a kid! Insane LA has not revived theirs, even with all the issues.

I really like the emphasis given to how transit doesn't need to be profitable. It simply existing raises property value, and all-but-guarantees commercial success in the vicinity.

Portland ME would be a great place for street cars.

A rare great take on the historical dynamic between public policy and private actors. Looks Great! Subscribed.

9:34 this is normal in Melbourne too. Also seen it in Berlin, i think aided with a traffic signal

Bro woke up and chose to speak facts. Great video.

Excellent video!! Outstandingly done!

Japan removed their streetcars as well replacing them with elevated rail lines and subways the rest with buses.

@7:21 "in order to make an eff ton of money" ... amusing that the subtitles leave out the "eff" 🤣

Here is an idea. stroads can be converted into working "stroads". Cut off all the business connections and put feeder roads on the side of it, converting it into a road that has feeder streets. Something I call a "Budget Interstate". The space between the feeder street and the road could be used to fit street cars at each end

Great video and very informative! Keep on doing your thing with high quality videos and thumbnails you will blow up soon enough :). Again, great video!

Excellent video! :D

great video mate!

These are the right questions to be asking. American cities of old looked so pleasant to live in, and whatever's getting built now just isn't. We need to go back.

GO Transit owns so much valuable land that they use exclusively for free parking. There are a few cases where the best use for that land is parking (thinking of like Bronte GO station or Aldershot, or all the bus station park n rides around the 407) because it gives people in remote spaces a convenient access to transit, but the vast majority of their stations is hemorrhaging money. Oakville GO, for example, should have all its surface parking converted into AT LEAST mid-rise apartments, with GO Transit leasing out the land at market rates. That income alone could probably pay for the entire Lakeshore West line, and that doesn't even get into the other opportunities like Burlington GO, where the south parking lot could be similarly developed (to match with the one condo complex they have), or Clarkson GO with its massive surface parking. The great railroads of the 1800s didn't make their money in railroads, they made their money in real estate. That's how Japan's private railroads stay in operation: it was always about real estate.

Impressive video man, great voice over and overview of the subject. Maybe the one thing is to reduce some of the background audio

P3 has been a disaster here in Edmonton. The Valley line was delayed more than 3 years!

Perfectly succinct.

I feel an interesting comparison today would be Japan, since Japan actually more or less continued the practises that US private companies did back in the day into the 21st century. Japanese cities are filled with private railway companies criss crossing parts of the metropolitan area. Many of these railways are even developed from old American style interurbans which have just been gradually upgraded overtime to resembling a subway system. I also think a big change that could have saved American streetcar systems was focusing on rental rather than outright property sales. With rent, the developer has a continuous stream of income and more incentive to keep the transit around in the long term to keep the rent value high and profit off it all.

1). There were much lower labor costs back then; unionization was just getting started at the time 2). No real environmental laws... no 10-year environmental impact studies just to build 1 km of track. 3). Streetcars and interurban trains were seen as desirable to all but the wealthiest since cars weren't widespread until the post-war period; there was less opposition (maybe no opposition) to putting a streetcar line in all. 4). The Anglo-Saxon countries are just really bad at Public-Private Partnerships, maybe due to cultural reasons (minarchism, decentralization, etc.) or maybe due to the way Common Law works and encourages lawsuits. 5). In the US, public transport is derided by one of our two major political parties, making its funding and continued existence somewhat contingent.

Good video over all.

Great video! But there is one error, the footage labeled as Atlanta in the beginning is actually from Minneapolis.

America really need to take lessons from Melbourne. They do it perfectly

Try researching East Asian rail on how they managed to make railways reliable, comfortable, and profitable.

It needs to be publicly funded via mechanisms that can better withstand changing political dynamics. Los Angeles has built more public rail lines in the USA in the last 20 years than any other city. And it will continue to do that in the near and far future. LA got the funding via sales tax increases so there is a constant funding scheme to build the transit infrastructure for decades. However, the federal government needs to support local funding schemes like in LA to a much higher and more consistent level regardless of who's in office. Or, maybe allow tax payers to allocate part of their yearly tax dollars to transit for their local region or state. That way you take it out of the hands of politicians and put it in the hands of the residents who realky want to support public transit.

We need to allow more urban infill (NIMBYs are a problem) and increase fuel tax.

Using this approach of funding public transport through increased land prices in an existing city means supercharging gentrification. The abysmal housing affordability of Hong Kong or Tokyo is a far too expensive price to pay for a public transport system, even one as great as those cities have.

I know you say we shouldn't advocate for privatization of transit... But in anywhere that isn't already a big transit city that seems like the only way to ever make it happen. Cities and states can't afford it, and federal investment only comes every decade or so (if that) and ends up using the private sector for consultation, environmental review, design, construction, etc.

So get governments out of roads sell off exisiting roads to divide between frieght and passengers and see how things change

Changing zoning laws and discourageing suburban sprawl will save you.

Here's an idea... 1. let's all start a gofundme 2. invest all the money raised 3. wait until we have enough to build a street car line 4. ...profit ?

🚄🚅🚆🚋🚌🚍🚎

The solution to funding transit? A dedicated carbon tax... Or a dedicated public transit capital fund that can be drawn from funded from user fees, carbon taxes, etc. The solution is just as easy as that. But than again where people most need transit is usually in fast growing areas that seem immune to all things "socialism" which is why places like Austin end up easily funding highway expansion but have to dial back LRT dreams to a fraction of the original concept...And the areas that need to spend the most don't want to... I.e. Austin, Miami, Las Vegas (the Loop doesn't really count) and of course... And of course more streetcars... Edmonton just reopened its first modern tramline since the closure of the OG system in 1951... Yes we've have a high-floor German U-bahn-style pre-metro since 1978 but not a low-floor one designed essentially to replicate what we lost so many decades ago.. The #1 route criteria chosen in Edmonton was to link potential TOD's together even if right now they aren't that busy or popular... But 09/12 stations opened last week are in areas where skyscraper apartment clusters are planned....

I blame the ADA for killing the street car. Making old systems wheelchair compatible continues to be a problem to this day.

Itis all about gubment regulations and fighting them in the courts

You have a problem in The US and for a lesser degree Canada. Everything is black and white to the extreme, there are no gray areas and one of the problems of this is over individualism that makes it hard to impossible to build big projects for everyone that requires scale planning on a large scale. Public transport, like other things on that scale, requires large scale planning, lots of funding and the understanding that the profit won't come from the system itself but from the economic activity it will create. This is how other places around the world do it and it's the only way it will work for you. The private sector cannot and will not solve your problem and turning to it as an easy solution will end badly. Yes, you might be able to build a few disconnected systems but, as you've showed with the street cars, once they got what they wanted and can't profit from it any more they will bail out leaving the same problematic structure to continue with the same problems that caused you to use the private sector. No government (that I know of) creates a"construction departmebt" and all use private sector companies to build things for them but the government plans it, sets the rules and many times finance it. In other places around the world government funding is far more stable and secure and in no way less efficient than the private sector (a lot of times it's even better). For public transport to work it must be reliable. It must work and get the necessary funds to do that at all times and only the government can ensure that. Just look at the overrated Brightline service in Florida. It's not bad but it demonstrated my point. They provided slower cost but not as good service as the one planned, a large part of the cost was paid by the taxpayers (government tax exempted bonds, federal grants and maintenance costs) but the line is private. It worked fine but than came the pandemic and while government operators continue to provide service under hard conditions, as it should be, Brightline just closed shop for 18 months and they will keep loosing money they will cut service, reduce maintenance and eventually shut it down in a heartbeat.

I have an examle of a sowewhat lost modetn tram system.... In Europe. Have a look at Jaen, in Spain, it's....well..... frustrating

No, the point is that transit was only ever viable as a loss leader. There is no loss leader available when everything is already built up.

Tramsit

Why not allow this video be a case for privatization? Why do we have to act like private capital is morally wrong and we need the government collective to save us? Reality is that the governments needs to provide the opportunity to private enterprise to be successful and that the government truly cannot get anything done in an efficient fashion.

The downfall of street cars is that they suck. I live in Toronto. They block two lanes of traffic every time they stop to pick up or offload passengers. When they break down, they back up the whole line. When track maintenance has to be done, the rip out the entire road, both sides for years at a time shutting down km's of road. Buses are much better, cheaper, more flexible in their routes and cause less problems for everyone.

What nonsense, public transit needs massive subsidies to move a handful of people.

Public transit infrastructure isn't meant to be profitable. It's about providing a service like highways, police, fire dept, schools, etc.