Depending on your definition, this actually is not peak performance.
Subways are.
Obviously, the tunnels are absurdly expensive, but nothing moves as many people as quickly around a city as a subway.
They’re also extremely reliable, meaning people are even more likely to actually use them, and their above-ground footprint is essentially zero.
Subways are for mobility (moving large numbers of people rapidly); trams are for access (getting you close to your destination). They complement each other and a well-designed city would have both.
STOP I can only get so erect
You’re going to make me write a cute green-urbania fiction of my self-insert walking around a beautiful city with parks everywhere and using the sub-rails to go far distances and then get on cute retro san francisco style over land trams to make my way to walk-only brick roads and then walk to some book store, the corners piled high with books, with books stacked outside the store under a cloth awning, owned by a wise old man of unclear nationality who spends his days reading the books he sells, who knows me well enough to offer a glass of tea.
I have to disagree. Accessibility of underground transport is abhorrent. Changing from underground to aboveground buses and trains is also shit. The space use of public transport in comparison to car infrastructure is completely negligible. If anything put all the cars underground as they are ugly and stinky. This picture also give you happy chemical because it is green and is not another dead, sealed asphalt hellscape.
I quite like underground transport, the stations can be absolutely stunning.
That might be the higher-than-is-really-safe concentration of fumes doing the stunning…
Its literally underground. Anyone that has a wheelchair, old people, blind people etc are not gonna enjoy using it. Elevators are often out of order and even if not its a hurdle.
Skytrains my dude, similar footprint, same tech, and I assume it costs significantly less, and is able to dip underground when there absolutely ISNT the footprint for it above ground
Would sky trains be as reliable? I assume subways are more reliable partially due to not being exposed to the elements.
My guess would be that they are separated from any traffic, just like a subway and unlike trams or buses which are a part of it. No other traffic = less delays and accidents = more reliable transport
Tunnels also don’t take away space from people. This nice looking tramway could be a nice promenade for people instead.
If San Francisco informs, light rail streetcars are a gateway to underground subways. It gets the city in the habit of getting on a railcar to go places while the greater infrastructure (the tunnels) are built.
MUNI is mixed undeground and street. BART is over and under and being extended to this day.
Living in a big city there’s nothing more reliable than a subway. Driving you might always get stuck in traffic. But if you take the Metro your travel time is guaranteed to be as predicted.
Totally agreed, but the image looks so nice with the grass, subways don’t have that
Completely agree, however I think this is decent intermediary between the larger investment into subways, especially depending on geology
Agreed, trams look good, but they aren’t able to move as many people as a train because of the limitation of the positioning of the doors. This means that for the same traffic you need more carts, and bigger, more expensive stations.
In cities where the density isn’t that high, digging a subway isn’t ideal, and you’d probably be better off with a tram, but for high density cities, subways are peak.
Generally speaking, the digging has to be done once, so I think it’s a good investment for a lot of cities.
Trams are, as you’ve noticed, a different usecase - subways are for getting you from A to B quickly, and trams are for getting you to the subway stop/straight to your destination on a shorter trip. One prioritises speed and throughput, the other - access and ease of use. Both should be used together to form a good transportation network, with buses and trains going to more remote/less dense areas.
This is all a very abstract discussion. In Munich we have all - light suburban rail, a subway, a tram system and a bus system.
It’s not either or, but a very specific discussion which system is best for a specific use case given the existing city where you put things in.
We have parts where the trams sharing space with buses or even cars, that’s where the tram network is just kind of a higher capacity bus.
Other parts has dedicated spaces for the tram rails, they are connected to traffic signs so trams are nearly as fast as the subway.
Currently the city seems to build more trams as the subway network is at a capacity limit - and they can’t increase it without huge investments.
There’s a new subway line planned, as well as construction for a second light rail tunnel crossing the city underway - but those are hugely expensive, long term projects.
Sometimes they build a tram first, because it’s a lot cheaper to plan and implement and then replace it by aubway 15 years later.
And yes whe also have a tram line which uses a corridor of a former train line, so it looks like the picture. Whenever I go there I love that place, trams and buses available but no through traffic by cars (You can still go there by cars, but no through traffic as the whole area is a cul de sac)
