>>1314013>>1314549>>1314808>>Streetcars are viable, it's just that nobody is doing them right!But that statement is 100% true for the US. I'm quoting the conclusion of the streetcar study you linked:
>”The authors discovered that in these cities, the primary purpose of the streetcar was to serve as a development tool (all cities), a second objective was to serve as a tourism promoting amenity (Little Rock, Tampa), and transportation objectives were largely afterthoughts”This doesn't work. This has never been and will never be even slightly successful. Let's look at a place where they do trams right: Western Europe, where trams are the major or shared major transportation in almost every big city. All these streetcar systems serve a clear purpose: mass rapid transit on mid-long distances, wiring out 5-10 miles from the city center. When cities become too large for trams to get everyone around, a metro system is built on top of it. Because trams are too slow for longer distances, and metro's have too few stops for shorter distances, these modes of transportation co-exist very well: they complement each other. Pic related shows how streetcar, subway and commuter rail work together in Munich, Germany.
>it's too hard to retrofit modern city design to streetcars that it's not worth itLike other Anons pointed out, almost all US cities once had streetcars. On top of that, American city design with its long straight roads is pretty much ideal for trams, way better than in Europe. Ofc you'll have to restructure the city around the new tram lines, but this is something that needs to be done anyway if you're serious about making public transportation more than something poor people use because they can't afford to be stuck in traffic 3 hours per day. French cities that had to restructure to retrofit a tram system are all flourishing now, so I'm expecting the same in the US. But in the end we can ony guess, because there have been no serious attempts.
