From: gl4317@yahoo.com   
      
   In article ,   
    "Adam H. Kerman"  wrote:   
      
   > You need to take your 20-20 hindsight to the opthalmologist stat,   
   > hancock. Chicago had a significantly larger streetcar system, which got   
   > municipalized during WWII, entirely untouched by NCL. How many routes   
   > remain?   
      
      
   This also happened in Seattle, which by that time had also been   
   converted to city ownership.  Bus and tire interests came in and   
   convinced the city that things would be vastly better if they converted   
   to diesel bus and trolley bus.  The entire network of streetcar and   
   cable car lines were gone by April of 1941.  The history gets quite   
   complicated as the city had to pay off some overly ambitious bonds from   
   1918 that were part of the private company, and some other details.   
      
   Today, however, Seattle chokes on its traffic twice per weekday and   
   sometimes several times during the weekend.  The trolley buses were a   
   good idea on some routes, but heavily used routes are best operated by   
   some form of rail transit - which Seattle didn't get again to any   
   significance until 2009.*   
      
   This month there will be the first of four stages of cutbacks to the bus   
   services in the region as there is no longer enough money to pay for the   
   current network.   
      
   King County Metro data for 2012:   
   http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/pubs/profiles/2012/agency_profiles/0   
   001.pdf   
   TriMet data for 2012:   
   http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/pubs/profiles/2012/agency_profiles/0   
   008.pdf   
      
   TriMet¹s bus service is slightly less costly per hour to operate, on   
   average, than King County Metro. Likely, this is because TriMet decided   
   long ago to not use articulated buses, plus King County Metro buses   
   spend a lot of time on hills that we don't have in Portland. If King   
   County Metro decided to stop using articulated buses, costs per   
   passenger mile and thus overall operating costs of the system would   
   vastly increase due to the total number of buses required to operate the   
   service.   
      
   Of course, since TriMet has MAX, with a cost per passenger mile of only   
   $0.45, and 42 million trips per year on MAX vs 59 million trips on the   
   bus, TriMet has a vastly higher percentage of passengers using a vastly   
   cheaper form of transit.   
      
   If Seattle had been able to adapt a significantly cheaper form of   
   transportation for its passengers earlier on, or had been able to   
   modernize the older system it had, then their transit system would   
   probably not be in the state of crisis it is right now.   
      
   Now, imagine how much money could have been saved in transit operating   
   costs across the country had the cheaper form of transit continued in   
   mainstream use in more core corridors.   
      
      
   * = OK, so there was the Waterfront Streetcar which operated   
   infrequently and as a tourist service, and later the South Lake Union   
   Trolley (SLUT) which connected the Westlake Shopping Center to the   
   Center for Wooden Boats, but neither of those were really good at   
   actually solving traffic problems.   
      
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