Streetcars Become More Popular Nationwide
Many cities around the US are following the lead of San Francisco and Portland in adding new streetcar systems downtown, according to today’s New York Times. If the experience is anything like San Francisco’s with the F-Market line, they should see big increases in ridership – so long as the streetcars go where riders want to go.
The article says SF never got rid of its streetcar system. What about the street cars that went along Geary and Balboa to the Beach? As far as that goes, what about Mission Street? According to a DOE study public transit produces more emission per passenger mile than automobiles. That may be true for buses and electric trains power by coal. But I suspect electric street cars in SF are much better than buses.
SF removed quite a few streetcar lines in the years after WWII and has regretted that decision ever since. The T-Third is actually a replacement for an old streetcar line that ran down Third years ago, and if the Geary LRT is ever built, this will surely be a huge improvement over the current bus line.
SF electric vehicles are powered by Hetch Hetchy. Can’t get more zero emission than that!
Yes, let’s hear it for the Geary LRT! The DOE study looked at New York City and the Suburbs where I suspect much of the electricity is from coal. Electricity from dams would be much better. However dams also produce greenhouse gas from rotting vegetation and water vapor. Water vapor accounts for 95 percent of the greenhouse effect. In the 1960’s there was a plan to for a dam in Alaska that would create a lake so large that it would raise the annual average temperature in Alaska by two degrees. It would seem that nuclear power would be the way to go.