One Man's Crusade for Streetcars in Brooklyn
At one point in the early part of the last century, there were 1,800 trolleys traversing 300 miles of track in Brooklyn. Now a 60-year-old Midwood man’s effort to bring back the trolleys is starting to look more and more like a real possibility. “If you look at the literature, trolleys fit a lot of…
At one point in the early part of the last century, there were 1,800 trolleys traversing 300 miles of track in Brooklyn. Now a 60-year-old Midwood man’s effort to bring back the trolleys is starting to look more and more like a real possibility. “If you look at the literature, trolleys fit a lot of bills,” he says. Plus, they are pollution free and traffic calming, he notes. In addition, “they lend a nostalgic ambience to the neighborhood.” The most likely routes? Borough Hall to Dumbo, Brooklyn Bridge Park from Fulton Ferry to Atlantic Avenue, and Coney Island. Are readers in favor of this?
A Desire Named Streetcar [NY Times]
Trolleys are simply busses welded to a pre-determined route –
Busses w/ (truly) dedicated lanes are much better and cheaper than trolys coud ever dream.
malymis the reasons you cite are frankly not supported – “people prefer rail to bus” – this is based on what?? I am sure people prefer faster and generally trains are faster than buses – but what basis do you have to say this.
Trollys may have lower operating costs (I have no data and I am sure neither do you) but even assuming they do – they have MUCH higher capita costs (tracks, power etc) which make them economically much more expensive than buses (thats why trollys died in the 1st place)
Since we no longer have trollys the “permenance” argument is sort of specious. Nor do you have any data to back it up.
And to cite SF as a city that uses streetcars is sort of funny since the only true streetcars are simply a tourist attraction – the rest are electric buses with dedicated lanes wich is EXACTLY what we should do here. Sometimes the solutions arent al that complicated. Allow buses to run free of general congestion and you would see usage increase exponentialy.
please, please bring back the trolleys. Have you ever been to Melbourne? The trams are what make the city. What can we do to help? Is there a petition we can sign? A standard letter to mail to Bloomberg?
Anon 05:26
You sound like a person who live in the city with trolley but never took them, always drive.
Few reason trolleys are better:
1 People overwhelmingly prefer riding rail vehicles to buses, so streetcars attract more passengers.
2 Lower operating costs, quieter ride, and less pollution.
3 The Permanence of streetcars reassures potential riders, neighbors, and businesses that service will continue.
4 For the above reasons, rail systems typically help inspire business development.
Most modern cites in Europe has modern low platform trolley system as well as more progressive American cites (San Fran, Portland and Seattle).
I did live in Trolley cities and it was great.
I don’t get it.
Did any of you ever live in a city with Trolleys? In my experience having lived in one such city:
* They clog up traffic with people getting on and off.
* A bus can move aside to pick up passengers on the curb – a trolley can’t.
* Infinitely more expensive to maintain — i.e. taxes would go up.
* Something happened to the bus in front of you? No problem, everyone gets off and gets on another bus. Trolley in front of you can’t move, guess what? “We have a broken trolley up ahead, we will be moving momentarily”.
Sometimes when I read this blog I really believe that some of you would prefer to live in the 17th century without electicity or hot water. How quaint would that be?
They could connect to the Governor’s Island cable car system!
I found link to the map from 1924
It is incredable that this system was so extensive, and nothing has left.
Can we blame someone? Robert Moses for exemple?
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/caption.pl?/img/maps/bqt_trolley_1924.gif
I don’t know about Coney Island – there would be faster ways to get down there. But it would be great to have some kind of loop including: Dumbo, down through BBPark, Columbia St., Red Hook, and Atlantic Ave. There’s no real “cross-town” Brooklyn brownstone transportation. I’ve taken — I mean “waited for” — the buses, but it’s faster to walk from Carroll Gardens to Park Slope.
Having a Trolley system go up the Flatbush avenue extension would help improve that mess of a street, too.
I would love to see trolleys back in Brooklyn. Whenever I’ve ridden them in New Orleans or San Francisco, it’s been like an amusement park. I’ve read that part of the reason they were discontinued was that they slowed down auto traffic. Light rail systems have been adoped in many world cities, so why not NYC?
take the B41 up Flatbush Ave to Grand Army Plaza