The Secret Scam of Streetcars: How to Sell a 100-Year-Old Technology as the Future of Transportation

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The Secret Scam of Streetcars: How to Sell a 100-Year-Old Technology as the Future of Transportation

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Meet the Thighmaster of urban public policy: streetcars.

Municipal politicians across the country have convinced themselves that this costly, clunky hardware can revitalize their flabby downtown economies.

That includes the fearless leaders of America's capital city. The D.C. government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decade trying to erect a streetcar line in the up-and-coming neighborhood of H Street. The project has been an epic disaster, perfectly demonstrating how ill-suited streetcars are to modern urban life.

Watch the full video above, or click below for downloadable versions. And subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube channel for daily content like this.

Run time: About 5 mins.

Produced by Rob Montz, who also hosts. Camera by Todd Krainin. Graphics by Jason Keisling and Meredith Bragg. 

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Maybe D.C. bought the street cars ironically.

[A special place in JW's Hell]

These are streetcars you've never heard of....and, it seems, never will again

[Je suis Woodchipper]

I could get behind this if they were self-driving, self-repairing hover trolleys with beer vending machines that only opened their doors for chip-implanted transhumans. Failure to meet any of these requirements would lead to a resounding meh.

[WoodchipperFocus(ed)]

Hmmm.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Oh, and congratulations to Montz for winning the Masters.

[Idle Hands]

The whole thing was an abortion to start with, it made absolutely no sense given the location at the end it seemed like Gray rammed it down the voters throats as a humongous fuck you.

[Lee G]

Now compare him to this city treasurer who's calling shenanigans on light rail.

In his newspaper ad, Atkinson - who made no mention of his elected position - said the city could provide bus service for much cheaper and suggested that for the same money, the city could give each of the 1,100 riders a $50,000 car.

"When you do the math, we could buy every driver a Bentley, but it got the point across," said Atkinson, who has been treasurer since 1978.

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[Detroit Linguist]

As I sit here there is a piledriver ourside my office working to replace half of the bridge over I-94 so that the new streetcar tracks can run over it. Woodward has been down to one lane in each direction from here to downtown for almost a year, and it will continue for at least another year. And everyone is geeked about the new M-1 Rail project. I've been wondering how many businesses have gone under because nobody can get to them.
Still, I think Poole actually suggested this might be a good project. And it is at least partly being subsidized by the megabusinesses now located downtown.

[Tman]

Doesn't Detroit already have a light rail that no one uses? Why are they building another one?

[Detroit Linguist]

It's got a PeopleMover that makes a loop around the central downtown area and is useless except if you need parking before a big event at the Arena or something. The M-1 connects midtown with downtown (including Wayne State and the hospitals area). It'll be nice for the hipsters who are crowding into downtown, just as the video suggests.

[Tman]

That's what I thought.

[Sevo]

Detroit Linguist|7.1.15 @ 11:30AM|#
"As I sit here there is a piledriver ourside my office working to replace half of the bridge over I-94 so that the new streetcar tracks can run over it."

Ha! Detroit is a PIKER when it comes to wasting money for light rail.
SF (Willie Brown) decided that the SE part of the city would change from a dangerous ghetto to something else if only they had LR.
So it began at the Embarcadero and crossed the 4th St. drawbridge, which, of course, had never been designed to carry that sort of weight. When they finished strengthening it, the counterweight was 'way too light and the motor was 'way too underpowered to raise it, so the contractor presented plans to increase the size of the counterweight.
Well, it's a 'historical something' and you can't change the appearance and the contractor ended up casting a new concrete counterweight around some good-sized hunk of lead, which had never been in the contract, so we get a lawsuit and a delay of some 3-4 years before the bridge gets opened at some cost no one will admit.
Oh, and now the LR runs into the ghetto and the drivers are in danger.

[Rich]

OT: e-mails from 2009 show that ... top officials were forced to explicitly ask Clinton aides for her e-mail address.

"Ready for Hillary ... 's Secret Police?"

Seriously, "forced to ask"? This is INCREDIBLE bullshit!

[Lord Humungus]

Queue the Monorail Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ5CbLnSjo0

[Doctor Whom]

Streetcars are like really cool and stuff. Also, the Metrobus serving that corridor is really bad. No, you may not ask how it got that way or whether improving it wouldn't achieve the same transportation improvement for a lot less money.

[Doctor Whom]

Besides, projects like this improve neighborhoods. Just look at Howard Street in downtown Baltimore.

[Rich]

That's "Harrid Street", for the locals.

[Doctor Whom]

What's that? Horrid Street?

[Pro Libertate]

I have a cunning plan: Ziplines. All over major cities. Far, far cheaper than buses, trains, trolleys, hyperloops, whatever. . .and fun!

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Two words: Pneumatic Cannons.

[Pro Libertate]

That's for longer-range travel.

[Adam330]

You laugh, but there is currently an idiotic proposal to run a gondola over the Potomac between Georgetown and Virginia. The city has allocated budget money to study it.

[NoVAHockey]

because you can't walk across the Key Bridge?

[Lee G]

"Studies" are some of the most egregious methods of extracting taxpayer dollars into crony hands.

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, but a gondola would require motors, equipment, towers, and other expenses. While ziplines would require maintenance and personnel to ensure safety, they're otherwise relatively cheap.

[Adam330]

I think in prog-topia, cheap is a drawback. The more expensive the better.

[Adam330]

I think in prog-topia, cheap is a drawback. The more expensive the better.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, I can't help that. My cunning plans are cunning, not tailored for the petty and small-minded.

[Monty Crisco]

What is the Riddler doing making vids for Reason? Should he be out there messing with Batman?

[Monty Crisco]

He's like a REALLY HIP hipster that doesn't subscribe to any inane hipster ideas... THE ULTIMATE CONTRARIAN HIPSTER!!!!

[Knarf Yenrab!]

He probably wears the wedding band solely for the sake of irony.

Cause, you know, he's single.

[sarcasmic]

They've got trolleys on the 16th Street Mall in Denver. One time I jumped in as the doors were closing, and the door closed on my backpack strap. So we rode to the next stop with me pinned to the door and my backpack outside.That was good for a laugh.

[Bean Counter]

When did they get trolleys on the 16th street mall. I didn't see any last time I was downtown. Do you mean those alternative fuel buses?

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

Ah yes, government-run collective transportation that functions according to the whims of politicians and petty bureaucrats. None of that freedom shit. What's not to love?

[Lady Dalrymple]

Rob Montz looks like a hipster cupie doll.

Good work on the video.

[Monty Crisco]

Riddler, damn you!

[Juvenile Bluster]

They keep clamoring for a streetcar here in Fort Lauderdale. I really don't get it. We're not called the "Venice of America" for nothing, dammit. Get some water taxis in the river and everyone will be happy. Well, except the cronies hoping for the streetcar cash.

[Rhywun]

19th century technology! Monorail!

Gosh these memes never get tired.

[Chip Morningwood Esq]

does anyone remember the name of that old nut in Dallas that was constantly going on about monorails? Max something?

[Chip Morningwood Esq]

Max Goldblatt. Thanks google.

[Knarf Yenrab!]

Silly denizen, you must only consider the seen and disregard the mysterious spectre of the unseen, which is really just libertarian fantasy in the end.

And Montz really needs a handlebar mustache or an ironic 1L bow tie if he wants pull off that act.

[Ron]

since the advent of the bus street cars have become useless and just tie up street realestate and their routs are limited unlike busses that can go anywhere. there trying to put one in Sacramento stupid stupid people somebody must be getting paid for it.

[thom]

Riding a train is a lot more pleasant than riding a bus. There are some situations where a rail solution is appropriate.

[Homple]

To the urban planning control freaks, fixed, unchangeable static routes are a feature, not a bug.

[Rhywun]

In many American cities, the buses are running the exact same routes the streetcars did 60 years ago. Fixed routes are not just a tool of the prog dystopia, they are an outgrowth of the way cities work.

[Paul.]

I'll bet they don't. I bet there isn't a single bus that goes to the top of a street, stops, turns around and goes back the other way to the bottom. Most buses in a downtown core make a circuitous route covering more ground, more stops and serving more streets, which is more flexible in certain unplanned conditions such as weather, a street closure, accident etc.

[Rhywun]

I'm sure we could each point out counterexamples to the other. In the cities I am most familiar with - Buffalo, Rochester, NYC, and San Francisco - the situation matches what I described. Mabye in *smaller* cities I can see what you describe happening, esp. if there was population loss.

[Brochettaward]

Who cares? They could have bought another few buses and had it run those same routes for a fraction of a tiny of the cost. They could have had it up and running in about a day if they weren't, you know, gubmint employees, and it could have operated for about probably the next century without reaching the costs it took to build these streetcars.

But white urban hipster progs, despite constantly advocating for it nominally because it's environmentally friendly (bullshit in itself), do not like disgusting, smelly, ugly public transportation where they sit next to actual poor people. No, they want shit like $70 billion trains and old timey street cars.

[Rhywun]

You're not responding to anything I actually said.

Look, I'm not gonna defend obvious boondoggles but I also like to set the facts straight against the hyperbolic statements that pop up around this topic (e.g. "how ill-suited streetcars are to modern urban life").

[CLamb]

The bus was enabled by governments paying for street paving.

[Paul.]

I like that last guy "I don't know if it's just fo' the white folks-- I'm not bein' prejudiced..."

Uhh, no offense taken. It is for the white folks. Seattle's laughably failed streetcar, the SLUT makes absolutely zero sense where it was placed-- and would have largely been a failure 100 years ago, when streetcars made sense, let alone now.

For instance, to at least mimic the usefulness of streetcars of the early 20th century, they would have had the streetcar going UP the hill from the downtown waterfront to say, the top of Capitol Hill. This would have made at least a glimmer of sense as walking up that hill (especially after you've walked down) is incredibly hard. I used to do it when I was in shape.

Instead, they placed at the north end of downtown and had it go to a neighborhood few people in downtown-- especially tourists-- want to get to.

[Paul.]

Oh, and the SLUT's ridership has completely, utterly and explosively missed every... single... ridership prediction. The end.

[Brochettaward]

The government would screw up selling pussy.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

They did! They HAVE! Not only the notorious case in Nevada, where they managed to lose money running a whore house, but there was a case in the DC 'burbs of a porn shop that got taken over (taxes, surveillance, something), and they lost money doing THAT TOO.

[Brochettaward]

You know what? They lose the right to even be called progressives anymore. You can't claim to the party of progress when time and again you reach back to 19th century technology for solutions to today's (nonexistent) problems. Not to mention the whole continuing to advocate for an economic system that led to nothing but misery throughout the 20th century.

The area is gentrifying! Quick, let's put in a street car!

[Rhywun]

Needs more "Monorail!"

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Somebody really needs to examine the fascination some politicians have with various kinds of Rail transportation of passengers, from a psychiatric point of view. I'm sure it's a describable disorder. It's a pity that Metrosexual has already been used to describe something else, because - with so many Light Rail projects call Metro-this and Metro-that - it would be the perfect label for politicians who get apparent sexual pleasure from Light Rail projects.

[William Pilgrim]

Street cars are great in the right city, like New Orleans.

[AD-RtR/OS!]

Light Rail, both intra and inter-city, is a technology that can be helpful under certain conditions, but is not the end-all and be-all unless you're compiling a compendium of political corruption and/or stupidity in modern urban planning in America.

[Galane]

A Desire Named Streetcar?

[Galane]

Far cheaper and easier to add curb rider attachments to the steering on busses, and make sure the curbs are straight and kept in good condition.

Then the busses can run hands off and go anywhere, no super expensive tracks required. With current technology it would be simple to add a guidance system for the short jaunts across intersections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_bus

[BigFire]

Streetcars are great for urban planners. YOU WILL GO where we tell you to go. It's also infrastructure intensive requires a lot of up front capital to tear down streets and hard to change the route.

Buses on the other hands can be readily adapted to changing riding patterns, demographics and traffics. Routes can be change easily.

Is it any wonder why the 'progressives' hates buses and loves streetcars?

[Tionico]

yup. Boondoggle. I spend a fair bit of time in Portland Oregon, getting about by car, bicycle, foot. Those stupid things are a nuisance. They put the tracks right in the street, and little thought was given to we who travel by bicycle. Tracks force us way out into the second lane, far from the kerb, drivers are not used to that and don't know how to handle it safely for everyone. Many places the tracks, embedded in the roadway, will curve into or across the lanes.... forcing cyclists into VERY dangerous situations, again, the cars not knowing what to do. Meanwhile, busses continue to run along the same roads as the streetcars, generally moving more people more quickly. No tracks in the road. This is driven by government money placed into the hands of opportunists and greedy politicians. Ya think that dide from US Dept of Transportation didn't make a pile on the boondoggle? Did the sun come up this morning in the east?

[crufus]

In Philly, they've be getting rid of streetcars for about the last 50 years.

Buses are cheaper to operate and much more flexible. It's called progress.

Streetcars could be fun though. I remember one Saturday night when the one I was riding stopped next to a corner bar. Three gunshots rang out and a bunch of guys ran out of the bar. One wanted to get on the streetcar, but the driver wouldn't open the door. Good times.

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