Posts about Canada

Streetcars can be longer

In simplest terms, streetcars can be longer than buses. Since streetcars run on tracks, there is no danger of jackknifing. Likewise, since streetcars are powered by overhead wire, there's not a single engine distributing power. Thus there's no physical limit to their length.

For example, streetcar manufacturer CAF offers its Urbos model in options ranging from 60 feet long up to 141 feet long. Bombardier's similar Flexity model comes in any length from 69 feet up to 148 feet.

Portland's famous streetcar is a relatively diminutive 65 feet long, but longer vehicles are beginning to show up in North America. Cincinnati is using a 77 foot long Urbos for its future line, and the first 78 foot long Siemens S70s have already been delivered to Atlanta. In Toronto, 99 foot long Flexities will soon ply the continent's largest streetcar network.

And that's just single streetcar vehicles. Streetcars can also be coupled into trains of multiple cars, so transit agencies that own shorter vehicles can still get the benefits of extra length without needing new railcars.

Agencies that want to run longer trains do have to provide longer stations, but since streetcar stations are typically simple, that's relatively easy to accomplish.

Ultimately the limiting factor on streetcar length is the size of city blocks. Streetcars can't typically be longer than one city block, lest they block traffic on perpendicular streets. But city blocks are usually hundreds of feet long, so streetcars can still be much longer than buses.

Streetcars can have diverse interiors

Even compared to buses of exactly the same length, streetcars can support a higher passenger capacity. Since gliding along rails is so much more smooth than rumbling along asphalt, and since there's no need for huge wheel wells, it's more practical for streetcars to have a lot of open space that maximizes standing capacity.

The 3 streetcars that DC has in storage use this strategy. They're 65 feet long, but they have much more capacity than a 60 foot long articulated bus because of the open floor plan. The trade off, of course, is that they have fewer seats, but only streetcars practically offer the choice.

What kind of flexibility is more important?

Faced with the choice of operational flexibility or capacity flexibility, which one rules?

It depends on the needs of the corridor and the goals of the transit line. Sometimes buses are the correct answer, and other times it's streetcars.

Sometimes it might make sense to use both on the same corridor. For example, streetcars capable of providing very high capacity might serve most passengers along a line, while buses capable of skipping around traffic might serve longer express trips on the same road.

There are 157 WMATA bus routes in the District of Columbia alone, with hundreds more WMATA and non-WMATA routes around the region. The majority of them are probably better served with buses, but some of them are undoubtedly better fits for streetcars.

The key for decision makers is to embrace the differences inherent to each mode, and decide accordingly.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

An operator stands on a platform in the center and drives the boat with a few joysticks and handles, while passengers sit around the edges. It operates a lot like a bus; in fact, the drivers even cruise past some of the docks and won't stop if nobody's waiting to get on or off.

The False Creek ferries only ply a route about 2 miles from end to end as the crow flies, or 3 route miles, zigzagging back and forth across the waterway.

Besides Granville Island and the science museum, they stop at a maritime museum, science museum, and a space museum with a planetarium and observatory. A stop in Stamps Landing takes you to a neighborhood with a lot of restaurants, and another, Yaletown, is a district with many new condo towers.

Each stop is only about 2-5 minutes apart, and costs $3.25 to $6.50 CAD depending on how far you go. The most popular route, the aquatic center to Granville Island, runs every 5 minutes from 7 am to 9 pm, or 10:30 pm in the summer. The other routes run every 15 minutes from about 9 am to 5-6 pm (depending on destination) in the winter and 7-9 pm during summer.

Best of all, the ferries actually operate completely self-sufficiently. In fact, there are 2 ferry companies that compete with one another!

Is this relevant to DC? It turns out that False Creek is about the size of the Anacostia:

While not very wide, the Anacostia is a mighty gulf separating two sides of the river. For a long time, there was little on the banks of the Anacostia, on either side. But that is changing. We already have the ballpark, and Yards Park. Buzzard Point could get a soccer stadium.

On the east, Poplar Point is slated for development, possibly including a boulevard from Anacostia Metro to the water's edge. Historic Anacostia is not far from the river. Plus, if DC builds the 11th Street Recreation Bridge, we could have a significant attraction right on the river.

A ferry bouncing back and forth across the river, with stops at all of these attractions, could bring the two sides closer together than ever before and make the water a public space. These 7 stops cover a route about 2 miles long, or about the same length as the part of the the False Creek Ferries route network east of Granville Island.

The Buzzard Point stop would be near a future soccer stadium and the Poplar Point stop at the end of a retail-lined avenue leading to Anacostia Metro. A stop at the 11th Street recreation bridge would connect directly to the streetcar and to all of the activities on the bridge, as well as being a short walk to Historic Anacostia.

A set of office buildings is going in the triangle east of the 11th Street Bridge and south of the freeway, and once the freeway segment to Barney Circle gets turned into a boulevard, there could be a pedestrian connection from the water up to Capitol Hill and Potomac Avenue Metro. Sadly, the CSX railroad bridge is too low for boats to travel under, so the ferries couldn't reach Hill East.

None of this precludes other types of ferries, like the longer-distance water taxis from places like Alexandria or Georgetown, or even farther south in Virginia, if those make sense. Those would use larger boats, running much less often.

Could this ferry system work here? I'll give my take in Part 2. Meanwhile, what do you think?

Maybe money raised from the jar could help Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his allies on city council pay for the $375,000 study of a popular "Barnes Dance' pedestrian scramble already installed at a major intersection that handles more pedestrians than automobiles.

Thanks to Where the Sidewalk Starts and Walk Silver Spring for the link.

When I arrived in Montreal in 2005, the STM struck me as being, well, good enough. The buses and metro ran (usually on time), and most buses ran frequently enough, but there was still a lot of room for improvement. STM's old trip planner was a fiddly home-grown affair. There was very little real-time information available for rail passengers, and no real-time information for bus passengers.

This was before Twitter, but the STM didn't post disruption information on its Web site—even in the case of major disruptions. The fare collection system wasn't ancient, but it wasn't modern, either. There were some new buses in the fleet, but no hybrids or articulated buses, and the new buses were catching fire.

Then, in May 2009, the STM launched Mouvement Collectif. Mouvement Collectif signified big changes at the STM, not just a marketing gimmick. How has the STM changed? Its bus fleet now includes hybrids and articulated buses, improving the STM's carbon footprint and increasing capacity on high-ridership routes. They've fixed the incendiary problems with the first-generation LFS buses, too.

The OPUS fare collection system was launched, providing riders with a contactless smart card which can be used across the services of the STM, as well as other regional bus systems: STL, RTL, RTC, and others. The subway doesn't have new rolling stock yet, but the MPM-10 rolling stock is now in the design stage.

The STM has a public presence on social networks, and a new Web site which is a lot better than the old design. Passenger information is getting better, too; there are now MetroVision screens in more stations across the network.

The STM has made tangible improvements to its bus network, with the réseau 10 minutes max (a network of bus lines boasting 10-minute headways), a better night bus network, and an airport shuttle which is more convenient for riders than previous options and which has proven to be a real success in its first year of operation.

It takes longer to make real changes to a rail system than a bus network; it's going to be a few more years before the MPM-10s start running. But the STM continues to work on renovating the rail system, too; elevators have been installed at key transfer stations, among other improvements. Tous azimuts ("Full Circle" in English), the STM's trip planner, is still there (although it, too, has gotten better), but more importantly, the STM's schedules are in Google Transit now.

Mouvement Collectif is also about making public transit a more attractive option. Sustainability is a major component of Mouvement Collectif: not only mass transit as a sustainable transportation choice, but also the sustainable operation of transit services, through the use of biodiesel and other energy-saving measures. This advertisement conveys the authority's green messaging:

Thanks to Metro Forward, tomorrow's WMATA has the potential to be a far better transit agency than it is today. For the STM, Mouvement Collectif has paid off; in 2010 the STM was recognized as an Outstanding Public Transportation System in North America.

Metro Forward puts WMATA on the right track to celebrate a similar achievement six years from now. It will take time, and there will be a lot of disruption along the way, but we'll get there.

Crossposted at Raschke on Transport.

In essence, Vancouver is what the mid-century modernists like Le Corbusier would have built if they had the benefit of decades of experience. They thought widely-spaced towers beautiful and believed they would enhance the quality of life.

Separated by acres of empty land and interconnected by high-speed expressways, they did the opposite, but in Vancouver, this basic aesthetic lives and succeeds because the towers are only a small piece of the puzzle.

Vancouver does not simply permit tall buildings. They extract significant public amenities from them. Developers can only build if they offer these amenities, and a system of bonus densities along with a more discretionary approval process that gives officials leeway to shape projects has helped Vancouver wring nearly every amenity they could think of out of developing their city in recent decades.

In most cities, Beasley teaches how to manage tall buildings because those cities are inevitably going to build tall. However, unlike most cities, Washington, DC has kept a low skyline through the 100-year-old Height Act.

That height limit brings many benefits of its own. For one thing, it makes DC particularly notable and memorable, which Beasley pointed out is increasingly valuable in a world economy where most mid-sized cities are increasingly undifferentiated and unremarkable.

It draws tourism, gives greater prominence to key national symbols, and created a "coherent frame of walls around ceremonial spaces." It also reduces the economic incentive to tear down historic buildings.

Of course, as we've discussed here and one questioner pointed out, the value for tourists and the framing of monuments and civic buildings doesn't require extending the height limit to the entire District. Few tourists venture beyond the central neighborhoods and few viewsheds extend past the L'Enfant City. Rosslyn has tall buildings and that hasn't diminished the uniqueness of downtown DC; in some ways, it's accentuated it.

Beasley argued that should DC allow greater heights, it should create a "no go zone" for certain distances from the monumental core. It should not allow heights in historic areas, or on high points in the city, which should remain either natural or host "important public edifices" like the National Cathedral.

More importantly, Beasley cautioned against any allowance for greater heights in random and scattered locations. He showed some very compelling photographs of Buenos Aires, which has allowed a variety of tall buildings in an otherwise low-rise city. They have created an unpleasant effect of "increasing confusion" in the skyline, he argued.

If DC were to allow greater heights, Beasley's suggestion would be to do so in a single, small area where there is substantial community support and a desire for specific amenities. Any increases must be tied to those particular amenities. In addition, DC must engage in "thoughtful planning" and a "deliberate urban design analysis" to sculpt any cluster of towers.

For example, if it's not too close to the core, I could see this making some sense in NoMA where there are already tall buildings and few to no historic structures but a distinct lack of public parkland. Could a constellation of such towers make it economically possible to leave one or more areas completely empty and fund construction and maintenance of parks?

However, any height increase, Beasley argued, will need to be significant. DC could start pushing its envelopes slightly, such as allowing human occupancy space in the mechanical penthouses that current law allows over height limits as long as they are set back from the edges of buildings. It could give small density bonuses here and there in the more numerous areas where zoning, not the height limit, restricts buildings.

However, this would not yield meaningful community amenities. The cost of providing residential use in a commercial building is enough that a developer would probably not add it for only a floor or two of extra height, as Dan suggested.

Residents often oppose tall buildings, both because they can disrupt their "intuitive comfort" with the city and also specifically impact privacy, height, or views. However, in exchange for clear and desirable amenities, along with good design, in his experience many residents can ultimately support these projects.

Still, is it worth the risk? Beasley is not so sure. To him, as a visitor, DC has such unique qualities and such an extraordinary accomplishment in its height limits.

Beasley will be join us to continue the conversation for a live chat at 11:00 this morning. What questions do you have for him?