Anyone Need Some Modern Trams? Never Been Used!

Prague apparently bought four streetcars but never used them. They didn't work. Now they are building Skoda models built at home in the Czech Republic and selling off the surplus four Tatras. Anyone think they can be fixed up and used in the US? I dunno, but it might be worth looking into.

Update: On second thought, probably not a good idea. Translation here.

Dubai to Install Alstom APS

Interesting news on the International Tram front. Dubai is going to build a 10 km (6.2 miles) tramway with 13 stations. But that isn't the interesting part. Alstom, who owns the rights to the catenary free APS ground level electrification system, has started moving it outside of France. Bordeaux is the only city currently to operate the system. However other cities such as Angers have begun looking to install it. It will be interesting how the technology fares in the sun soaked middle east.

Many have hoped that the technology would come to the United States and answer the call to get rid over overhead wires, specifically in the District of Columbia where an old law prohibits wires. It was specifically called for by Clay Chastain for Kansas City's system. However experts in the US have said that Alstom has no plans to bring the system to the United States. Part of the problem is the unknown effects of stray current coming from the third rail when the roads are salted during snow or ice storms.

How it works: Basically a third rail is laid between the two tracks and turns on when radioed by the vehicle. Two shoes, one on each end of the tram take up power as the electrified sections pass under. Sections only turn on when they are underneath the vehicle leaving pedestrians safe from being electrification.



Flickr Photo Courtesy of Art in BX

Flickr Photo Courtesy of Dorsetbays

Outside of the historic downtown, the line in Bordeaux switches over to catenaries. Other cities are looking into using batteries and Stone Consulting that brought us the Kenosha Streetcar for $3 million per mile is also looking to use a ultra-capacitor for a heritage line in Savannah Georgia.

U.S. Transit Takes 10.3 Billion Trips in 2007

I'd like to say that this is impressive, but it's not. If we are going to get something done in this country we can't be happy just going to the Olympics, we should want to win the gold. I will say that light rail again led the way for ridership increases at 6% but we need more.

For comparison to the much touted 10 Billion number that we've had the last two years consider this, Budapest (my favorite transit city) residents took over 1.4 Billion trips in 2003 in a region of 2.4 million people. The population of the United States is around 300 Million. While there are obvious differences in urban form and the availability of transit there versus here, its telling of what is possible if we design transport systems correctly and design our neighborhoods accordingly.

For a better western example that wasn't over run by communism until 1989, Vienna (A metro of 2.2 million) takes 700 Million annual trips. The tram network carries 280,000 passengers a day. The U Bahn metro carried 427 million trips in 2005. They began building their metro system in the 60s and finished in 1982. While they had a legacy street railways network, that can be done in time as well.

It's possible for us to catch up, but we gotta start moving a little faster. If each of the top 50 metro regions can get 700 million trips per year, we can increase ridership to 35 Billion trips. Is that possible? I don't know, I'm just tossing out numbers, but it would be amazing and would do a lot for the environment and create jobs.

I also love a good reason to use pictures from my trip last fall. The one below is a tram loop on the Ringstrasse in Vienna.

Budapest BKV Unloading Old Trams

Budapest's transit system is putting up 61 UV Trams for sale. Martin Thorne of the LRTA hopes that someone will scoop them up instead of letting them go to scrap. Sounds like a cheap way to get streetcars for smaller cities that are looking to build heritage lines. To see which ones are available, visit the BKV site here. They are available for bid until January 21, 2008, so if you're looking to build a heritage system, better jump on them soon. I hope at least Muni does and adds another vehicle or two to the historic service here in San Francisco.

France's Conservative President on Expansion of Transit

What is wrong with conservatives in the United States? Even French President Sarkozy is getting in on the transit revolution calling for a reduction in transport emissions and . When are the ostriches in this country going to get their heads out of the sand?

Outlining the measures, Sarkozy said he was in favor of a moratorium on all new highways and airports as well as shifting trucks off highways and onto railroads. Road transport accounts for a quarter of French emissions.

Earlier, Jean-Louis Borloo also announced a freeze on the building of new roads and airports while consumers will be steered away from gas-guzzling cars through bonuses and penalties. Sarkozy also wants to extend France's tram and high-speed TGV train network.

Vienna's Ringstrasse

In addition to the ring system in Budapest, Vienna has the Ringstrasse. Interestingly enough, there isn’t a single line that completes the loop however many lines come into town and turn around next to the loop leaving the downtown walking city to be accessed only by the Metro system. There are several lines which use the Ringstrasse but all lines link to specific metro stations on the Ringstrasse with the Strassenbahn (Tram) filling in the accessibility gaps between Metro stations and regional rail. The central city is completely walkable, mostly cobbled and in some instances closed off to cars.



What is the history of this tram ring that allows the circulation of this signature street? Initially the ring was the city fortifications. However Franz Joseph, the King of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire decided that it wasn’t needed anymore and wanted to create a signature street. And create a meaningful place he did. The street is very wide and accommodates automobiles, streetcars, as well as a wide tree lined pedestrian and bike space.

The most interesting piece related to transit is not really the loop itself, although its an important part of both Vienna and Budapest transport, but rather the multimodal connections that are made at certain nodes along the Ringstrasse. At one node, there are four tram stops on the surface, a tram turnaround just beneath the surface and a connection to the M2 Metro which follows its own ring around half of the downtown. In the photos below you can kind of see how this works.











In another node, there are loops for trams, buses and the Metro connected by tunnels which allow citizens to not cross the Ringstrasse on the surface. Underneath the surface its like a mini-mall with eateries and the infamous Tabak shops where you can buy cigarettes and your metro pass.

So why do these systems work? Well first off they are the circulators for all modal connections with in the central city. Their operation is dependent on the interface of faster Metro lines and slower tram and bus connections (the photo below is a tram and bus stop). In Vienna specifically the buses sometimes are even using the tram right of way and stops of the trams. They also all connect to the intercity trains on the edges of town allowing anyone living in town to get around effortlessly without a car.




This means that its incredible affordable to live in the old parts of Vienna. I was told that inside the ring is expensive, but just outside of the ring you can get a nice flat for $600 per month. I will warn folks that there are lots of good restaurants there so food could get expensive.

And if you're worried about the environment, there are people there to remind you.

Ringing the Hub & Spoke

In all of the cities that I visited this past week, there were at least 3 metro lines each, yet only two of them had distributive ring tram systems that supplement those systems. Budapest and Vienna were very interesting in how their systems worked a bit differently from the typical hub and spoke system found in most cities. They might be interesting case studies to look at when you compare them to cities in the United States thinking about ring systems such as Boston, Chicago, and Atlanta.

Budapest and the Caterpillars

In Budapest, the ring routes do some heavy crosstown lifting, specifically, the 4 and 6 routes which run on one minute headways and carry 10,000 riders per hour per direction during rush hours (I think there might be more). It seemed at times that the Combino Supras had many more people riding them than the subways with multi-car consists.



You'll notice in the map below that the subway system operates in the traditional spoke system but if you look closer at the Pest side of the city (That's East since Buda and Pest were initially different cities) there are yellow tram rings that connect the subway stations. The 1,4,6 and 47,49 routes make crosstown connections easy. We stayed on the 4,6 lines and took them to connect with the Metro on many occasions and were always completely packed into the cars, especially in the evenings and even at 9pm at night when students and young folks were out at night.

The benefit of these rings is that with their one minute headways combined with the subway's 3 minute headways, you can get anywhere in the city faster than in a car.





The benefits of these ring routes are many. They are fast ways to get between metro stations as well as distribute people to the places in between. You'll also notice that they connect to the suburban railways as well (in green). There are also two routes that go north and south on the river connecting the top and bottom of the ring. This is where I saw the most tourists.



The trams were also designed not for commutes but urban transportation. The interiors were chair sparse and able to fit many more people for short trips.





Next i'll talk about Vienna's Ringstrasse and the above and underground tram transfers in the Strassenbahn.

Photos From Half Way

Here are some photos from my trip to Eastern Europe. I'll describe more when I have time. I've taken about 200 photos so far so i'll get them up eventually.



Entrance to the oldest subway in mainland Europe.



The interior of the Combino Supra streetcar. Always packed.



The Vienna Metro. Comes every 5 minutes no matter what time of day. Even on Saturday and Sundays!!!



A newer Vienna Tram. Very Cool.

Still going to be slow on the posting. I'll try.