ironwood

I doubt it, but there is always an exception. We are supposed to know that you cross tracks at a right angle. However, I learned the hard way forty years ago.

I-Like-To-Bike

Just as we are supposed to know to avoid riding or driving into trees, bridge abutments and other roadside hazards.
I also doubt it and would be interested in reading about the circumstances/scenarios for any successful lawsuit exceptions if any exist.

Scooper

Same here. In late 2005 I was crossing tracks doing ~20mph at what I thought was a large enough angle that there wasn't any risk the front wheel would catch the track groove. I was mistaken; I went sailing through the air in one direction while the bike went off in another direction. I had a broken wrist, a separated A-C joint, and four stitches just above my left eye.

The ER doc said, "We get at least two 'Muni Dive' victims a week."

badger1

Toronto, older and newish.

Ekdog

A few questions, if you don't mind: How much does it cost to ride one? Can you transfer to a bus or local train? Are bikes allowed on board?

badger1

I don't live in Toronto (I'm two hours away), but visit/stay frequently. The TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) system is huge -- third-largest or something in N.A.? Anyway, locals will correct me where I'm wrong but I believe:

1. Current fare is basic $3.25/trip, transferable between street car, bus, and subway. GO Trains (rapid transit into/out of downtown) are separate, but there is integration to some extent. Fare structure of course has many variables (age, monthly passes etc.), but that's the basic. The downtown core is served by subway, streetcar and bus; buses extend the reach.

2. I believe (again, subject to correction) that there are bike racks on buses; there are also increasing amounts of bike parking facilities at/near subway stations. Don't know about streetcars -- that is, whether one can take a bike onto a streetcar. Don't think so (would seem logistically difficult and problematic from a safety point of view), but I honestly don't know.

badger1

Thread has me thinking of growing up on the West Coast (Canada) in the fifties/early sixties. Vancouver didn't have streetcars as such -- I think the last route was taken out of service around 1955. I do remember the very odd electric trolley buses, though -- we just called them trolleys. Those mast thingies were always coming off the overhead wires -- lots of sparks etc.! Loved 'em as kids.

kickstart

We still have them in Seattle.

I-Like-To-Bike

Trackless Trolleys are still in operation in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia Trolley Tracks: Trackless Trolleys
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolle...n_Philadelphia

badger1

Yep; still in use in Vancouver as well. Love the look of the old ones, though I'm sure the new ones stay hooked up more reliably?!?

ironwood

One hundred years ago, one could almost travel from Waterville, Maine to Sheboygen, Wisconsin by getting on and off streetcars. There was a twenty mile break in upstate NY. The streetcars were called interurban railroads.

All that infrastucture is lost.

Roody

Yes, the interurbans existed all over the U.S. and Canada. A main purpose was to connect rural folks to the towns and cities. My grandmother was able to ride the interurban from her parent's farmhouse to college 75 miles away for 15 cents.

The extensive infrastructure sprang up in the first couple decades of the 20th Century. Now, in the 21st Century, we are constantly told that it would be impossibly expensive to develop this infrastructure, and it would take many decades to install. What did they know that we've forgotten?

Ekdog

Yes! It existed at one time, yet there are so many who are convinced that such infrastructure could never be built in the United States, that it would never work there because of the orography, the population distribution and other such smokescreens. How sad!

I-Like-To-Bike

Any estimates about how much time that interurban streetcar trip might have taken, including transfer/waiting time, or how much it might have cost a family to make such a round trip?

tandempower

I think hyperloop might predicate the return of streetcars by linking the outlying areas of cities so that a single rail line can run across the city connecting the two ends of a hyperloop ring tube. Buses could also be used but if the hyperloop brings passengers to a central station, rail cars might be a more efficient means of transporting larger volumes of people into city centers. Buses, ride-sharing, bike-shares, etc. would still be needed to get around the areas of the streetcar/tram stops.

https://youtu.be/14Hs0r5RUww

I-Like-To-Bike

Just think of the good ole days when there were stagecoach lines for interurban travel and even covered wagon trails for making leisurely transcontinental trips with the whole family, which could be made without a worry at all about the risk of death by motor car accidents. Too bad the railroads messed up that good thing. Just as the modern highway system messed up the viability of the interurban lines and the airline network dried up the customer base for long distance passenger train travel.

tandempower

Ah yes, those good ole days before ILTB discovered sarcasm. Wasn't the world such a simpler, happier place then?

I-Like-To-Bike

Don't forget about the happier FutureWorld Place where fantasy transportation schemes seem as realistic as a nostalgic daydream screenplay.

Roody

Of course, the interurbans actually existed as described here and in the historical accounts. They are not pie in the sky, but what is quaintly known as a "fact".

My grandmother said she wouldn't have been able to attend college, as a Michigan farm girl in 1920, if it weren't for the fast, reliable, and cheap transportation provided by these trolleys.

As society searches more seriously for clean, inexpensive transportation methods, we will certainly look to the interurbans at least as something to think about.

Ironically, one of the factors that doomed the interurbans was the fact that they were so cheap. The companies said they couldn't sustain their service without reasonably increasing fares, but regulators didn't listen. With fares restricted to less than a penny a mile, they had to give it up.

yadder

Харьковский трамвай.
streetcar Kharkov old time


Our days

COG63

Times have changed. The Orange line doesn't go to Cambridge anymore. It runs between Forest Hills and Oak Grove in Malden.

Ekdog

Lovely! Are those streetcars still running?

tandempower

Well, at least we never seem to kill each other's spirits with the jabs.

Resistance to progress is the foundation for degeneracy. Bad progress is also degeneracy, of course. The challenge is figuring out what constitutes good progress and pursuing it sustainably.

ironwood

Los Angeles had a very good streetcar system, then it was bought by GM which proceeded to tear up the tracks and replace the streetcars with GM made busses. Then they scrapped the whole system and forced everyone into cars.

I-Like-To-Bike

Don't harsh the buzz with reality, man. Nostalgic day dreaming of the good old days when the living was easy and the cotton was high, as well as razzing the GM boogeyman is a feature of alleged Living Car Free.