Since the U.S. streetcar revival relies heavily on transportation subsidies, it's only fair to expect the latest wave of streetcar lines to produce benefits related to (wait for it) transportation, Eric Jaffe writes on City Lab.
But the new systems in operation—ten by the latest tally, with a few dozen more being planned—have left much to be desired on that seemingly essential count. Notwithstanding the legacy system in New Orleans, the best evidence to date places streetcars somewhat outside the transit network, more a tool for tourism than city mobility.
The most commonly cited problem with new streetcars—Matt Yglesias calls it the "original sin"—is that they tend to run in mixed traffic alongside cars. The resulting slow speeds, combined with the relatively short length of the lines (often just a mile or two), means many potential riders could sooner reach their destination by foot. Streetcar advocates say slow speeds are not only beside the point but part of the charm, which might be true, so long as riders don't have somewhere to be.
But the problem goes beyond infrastructure design to service itself. Very few next-generation streetcar lines run with the sort of frequency that might counterbalance slow speeds or short distances. In a very smart post at his Transport Politic blog a couple weeks back, Yonah Freemark lamented that many U.S. streetcar (and, to be fair, light rail) systems built since 2000 fail to meet minimal service standards—often running just a few times an hour.
We pulled the nine streetcar lines from Freemark's service table and charted their frequencies below. (We've included Memphis, though Freemark doesn't identify it as a streetcar, and also Tacoma, which some consider part of the Sound Transit light rail system.) The peak column represents service between 8 and 9 a.m. The midday reflects frequency from noon to 1 p.m. The evening trains were measured from 9 to 10 at night.
