You should search for photos of the Embarcadero in San Francisco -- or the new 3rd Street Light Rail line -- its very much the paris model. Actually, the Paris trams may well have been modeled by San Francisco. The rebirth of the waterfront, the new Ferry Terminal, the new Giants baseball stadium have all gone hand in hand with a surface light rail system, set off by palm trees and with beautiful stations. That street experience of historic and modern rail cars mixed with pedestrians and cyclists and fantastic views of the Bay are all there in SF.
Here are a couple, both SF Chronicle photos, that I've swiped over the past couple years.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rll...layman/9925503/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rll...layman/9925503/
John King has a couple excellent stories about the broad revitalization you describe.
I love the designs of those rail lines. I've always wondered why that wasn't possible, especially when contemplating new regional rail lines through NoVa. Unobtrusive lines like this could maybe reclaim parts of the W&OD trail.
I'd still rather see cars that didn't look so Euro and were more distinctively "American", although I'm not sure what that means (make them look more like a Chevy maybe?)
One thing that occurred to me is that back in the glory days of streetcars, cities needed dedicated power stations for the system. There's a huge old building decaying just up the river from New Orleans that used to power their streetcars and I believe that huge white building near the confluence of the C&O Canal and Rock Creek served that purpose here. We wouldn't need that nowadays, correct?
I just don't understand those who oppose the Purple Line. This is the start of something great, imagine Silver Spring, Rockville, Wheaton, Hyattsville, and the other DC suburbs with this kind of transit plan. Auto-dependence could be cut tremendously, and people could get around efficiently, and not sacrifice their health or the planet. Same goes for the Streetcar project in DC. Hopefully we'll still be alive when all of this comes together...
Part of the reason the big power stations developed "for streetcars" is that electric generation was often constructed for streetcars _first_ and then expanded to include electric generation for residences and businesses.
The Utility Holding Act (post Insull) forced divestment of streetcar lines from electric generation companies.
These days I suspect streetcar systems just buy their electricity from extant suppliers.
"And I have occasion to work next to the tracks in Brookland quite a bit late at night, when many trains run through. They aren't that loud. Although the subway line is louder than the trains."
Really?
I literally live on the Metro/train lines in between Takoma and Silver Spring station. If you'd step 10-15 feet out my bedroom window, you'd be on a track.
I've lived there for 3 years now and I can easily identify the type of train by sound. I've found that the freight trains are FAR louder than the Metro is. In fact, the Metro is the quietest one of all. (Coming in 2nd is the Amtrak and MARC trains.) The freight trains tend to be loud... with some of them being very loud due to flatness in some of the wheels. I'm still occasionally woken up at night by a very loud freight train with particularly flat wheels.
Since you work not too far from my house and it's the same set of tracks, I'm wondering how the Metro is louder than the trains for you.
maybe it's because in that part of Brookland--9th Street, the tracks are in a depression rather than more elevated as they are in Takoma? Hmm... a research project!
Also, I meant to tell you that you can take a bike to Baltimore (don't know if you bike) via subway+B30 bus+light rail. You can't take bikes on MARC.
I live on the other side of town, but I can still hear the distant call of the train whistles at night.
God I love that.
I hear the train whistles late at night too (in Friendship Heights) and love it. No doubt because it is a far-off sound!
Doesn't the article about Paris indicate that the streetcar tracks replaced a lane of traffic? If so, that's a very different proposition than running a streetcar line through backyards and bike/hiking paths.
Not all the photos I used are similar to the configuration in Paris (Seattle and Barcelona). And I am no expert on Paris, but from some of the other photos I've seen, it seems like all of this wasn't just street taking, but I can't be sure.
Still, you're right that roadway light rail is different than "over the river and through the woods."
The CSX freight trains are LOUD. They sound their whistles at all hours, day & night. I can plainly hear them from the basement of my brick home and I live a 3/4 mile from the train tracks. I wonder how the folks that live near the tracks in Hyattsville, Riverdale & College Park can sleep at night.
I cannot wait for the purple line. Although, I seriously doubt it will be built until my retirement years (I'm 29), if ever. The MoCo NIMBY crowd is powerful and well funded, if they influenced the S-Curves on the Beltway, they can block the purple line.
If I had the three billion dollars or so extra dollars that it would cost to put the Purple Line underground from Bethesda to New Carrollton, I'd rather spend it on:
a) light rail north from Shady Grove to Kentlands and to Germantown and Clarksburg
b) light rail in the median of US 29 out to Burtonsville
c) rail from Suitland through Oxon Hill and National Harbor and over the Wilson Bridge to Alexandria
d) light rail from Branch Ave. to Waldorf.
The money is enough to do the first three and maybe all four, with possibly a little left over to start paying for the new Metro capacity you'd need in downtown DC to handle all the new riders coming into downtown.
What's the cost?
Underground Metro costs a billion dollars per station. It would be shared by states, the federal government, and localities, I suppose. What's the transportation budget of Virginia right now (not including maintenance costs)? I think they spend about $2.4 billion per year. How much of that is free for use on new projects? About a negative billion.
Would rail like this improve the congestion situation? Nope.
Would general population, who all imagine all of their neighbors hopping on public transit and freeing up the roads, support the construction of more rail?
Sure.
Find the money for this and some metrics that show that it will improve congestion more than land use reform or congestion pricing on exurban highways, and I'm all for it.
Show me that this somehow benefits someone other than land speculators who own property along the proposed route, and I'll listen....
The whole 'Rails to Trails' phenomenon of the 80's-90's really irks me. These ROW's were meant for rail, so let's use them! If these fol;ks want a hike/bike trail, let them tear up a an asphalt road for it. We've got more than enough of those....
The Paris T-3 will give world wide momentum to efforts to move away from automobile-centric transportation policies. While I haven't ridden the line yet, this looks like a Class A planning, design and implementation process for several reasons. Most importantly, the starting point was not "improve transit", it was "improve the community and people's lives". This led to the comprehensive makeover of the corridor through which the line runs. More trees, more grass, better sidewalks and bicycle paths, less traffic AND a smooth riding light rail line. This is what we want for the Purple Line, and this comprehensive approach is feasible IF most of the project is at-grade rather than in expensive tunnels.
Commenting by HaloScan
