Neat map of proposed new streetcar and bus rapid transit lines in the District. This is via Richard Layman who rightly suggests that 14th street (the current 52/53/54 lines) would also be a good candidate for rapid bus service.
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A Streetcar Named Post Title
25 Mar 2008 11:43 am
Comments (12)
So are these rapid buses simply express lines, or would they have dedicated lanes? Or maybe they just don't have to follow the speed limit ;)
yo,
all the indie-yuppie-hipster-trash know that the 42 bus is that place to be.
Mt. Pleasant for life.
I guess the rapid buses are ones with shorter routes -- so they don't get bunched together from being stuck in traffic. That's a good idea.
Streetcars are a stupid idea. They're like buses, but can't move around parked cars, are harder to manoeuvre, need more maintenance, and need tracks laid for them. There was a reason they were rendered obsolete. Dumping them was called progress -- over a half-century ago!
Dumping them was called progress -- over a half-century ago!
And we all know how great metro transit has been since then!
yes, nattyb, the 42 is the shit.
and yes, MY, I'm totally down with replacing the 50 buses with a rapid bus service, because those buses are hella slow.
The localities really need to work together to make their lines compatible with each other -- for instance, a streetcar line going down Lee Highway in Arlington, then going across the Key Bridge to join up with the Georgetown streetcar would be great.
There are lots of variations on bus rapid transit: on one end of the spectrum you can have dedicated busways, and below that you can have buslanes, and below that you can just have routes with limited stops and maybe devices to favorably switch traffic signals.
The wheel turns. The numbered bus routes (30-32-34-36, 40-42, etc.) replaced streetcars in the early 1960s, running, as far as I know, the exact same routes.
I'm old enough to have been taken on the Wisconsin Avenue streetcar's last day as a treat, and to remember it. I hope this makes Mr Yglesias and his roommates feel very, very young.
BRT is coming to Cleveland, whee I work. For those not familiar, Euclid Avenue is one of the main drags of the city, as it connects Public Square downtown with University Circle to the east. University Circle, by the way, is where the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospital and a host of museums and other cultural venues reside. The two are a few miles apart, so the idea was to unite the two by more than just a road, one that was in pretty bad shape (like the rest of the roads here). So, the city is in the midst of a massive, multi-billion "Euclid Corridor Improvement Project". The road is being completely replaced and reworked, with a dedicated BRT lane, both ways, down the middle of the street. The "stations" are along the middle, too, and look more like mini subway stations than the traditional bus shelters.
The project is also an effort to bring some life back to the street, which used to be one of the city's finest. The hope is that the work will help spur business returning to Euclid Avenue, and therefore more people, but that's for another discussion entirely. It's an ambitious idea, and I hope it pans out. Right now, though, I'd guess that 9 out of 10 Clevelanders or those working downtown would complain about the strain the work is causing on their commute, and 11 out of 10 business owners on the avenue would complain about the lack of business, too.
I love the idea of streetcars. Who cares that they're expensive, inefficient, and a net negative on both rapid transit and car traffic? The important thing is that they fit into my master-narrative for How The Oil Companies Killed Transit: We used to have streetcars, but the oil companies killed them! (Just like we used to have telgraphs, and the evil phone companies killed those...)
Also, there are lots of aging streetcar systems in Europe, so riding streetcars makes me feel almost as cosmopolitan as buying a baguette!
In my spare time, I also enjoy flushing money down toilets and spinning around in circles!
I'm from New Orleans so I have a fondness for street cars. Of course ours are mostly on the neutral grounds (the median for those that are confused) excepts for a few spots between Lee Circle and Canal (on the St. Charles Line - less familiar with the new lines). Since the ones here would be more on streets and less on space reserved for them alone, they would suffer though the same traffic as cars and buses.
Can't really say how they would fare here in DC. New Orleans never lost theirs, so when the decided to expand the line and get rid of some/most buses on Canal and add a line on the Riverfront - it was more like "it's about time." Here in DC most people have little or no experience with them.
Comments closed April 08, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Shouldn't all bus services be "rapid"? I fail to see the advantage of "slow" bus services.
Posted by Tyro | March 25, 2008 11:58 AM