The Economist tackles a subject always sure to spark debate: Why trams are a waste of money.
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… there is no empirical link between streetcars and development. A 2010 survey of these systems in America by the Federal Transit Administration offered little evidence of concrete cause and effect. In the cities where streetcars have launched a wave of renewal, it is mainly because they are part of a larger, heavily subsidised development plan, with changes in zoning, improvements to streets and other benefits.
Streetcars are also incredibly expensive to build and maintain, with huge up-front capital costs in laying down rails and buying cars. … The capital cost per mile of a streetcar is between $30m and $75m, while a rapid bus service costs anywhere between $3m and $30m, according to the American Public Transportation Association.
All this investment might make some sense if streetcars offered an efficient way to move people around. But here, too, the evidence is flimsy. Riders—and especially tourists—may find streetcars less intimidating than buses, but these vehicles tend to offer slow journeys across walkable distances.
European tramlines tend to be fairly long and isolated from other traffic, which ensures a swifter journey. But in America streetcars travel shorter distances along rails that mix with other traffic, so streetcars invariably inch along. …. Indeed, their slow speeds and frequent stops mean they often add to congestion. This may not bother tourists keen on a novelty ride, but it is no solution to America’s public transport problems.
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None of this ought to be controversial. Stating what is easily observable just be looking. However, even I would allow that streetcars can be used for placemaking. Mainly I think they do this just by slowing down traffic in a way the buses do not. And maybe they do lead to some development along their routes, but the evidence for this is weak, and certainly irrelevant in places like Vancouver where we can have all the development that we are willing to zone for.