285. STREET CAR!
Continuing my series* on what the future looks like, I thought you might get a kick out of this real-life street car which I ride sometimes to a friend's house. It's a popular ride here in Osaka, where people call it the "Chin-Chin Densha".
Here the Chin-Chin Densha pulls into the station to get a new load of passengers. Note the pantograph on top. These cars have been around for decades, but they're actually trendy EVs (Electric Vehicles).
Mellow folks riding:
Two EVs passing each other on the street:
Outdated fossil fuel vehicles driving over the tracks:
-----*)156. BICYCLES IN JAPAN, 144. YOUR BUDDY: THE SPACE HEATER
-- by JD
posted by JD @ 4:50 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
We have some streetcars (MUNI rail) in San Francisco, too, although the system isn't very large and doesn't extend to all neighborhoods. They're building the Third St. rail line about a mile from my house.
One thing about them though, they're *slow*. I can get wherever I'm going in about half the time on my bike. Are they faster in Japan?
Also, rail on streets is kind of dangerous for cyclists if you're not careful.
We rode the street car in Hiroshima that goes from the Train Station all the way down past the A-Bomb Dome and to the little dock that goes to Miyajima. It was impressive how many people used that thing.
Only issue with it was that it stopped every 20 feet or so for awhile it seemed.
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We had those in the UK too when I was a kid. Electric trams were then being phases out to make way for increased car ownership. Plenty of European cities still have a tram system. Heres a couple in Frankfurt.
http://people.freenet.de/tram/209_211_uni.jpg
Why would trolleys be an improvement over modern buses? Buses have more flexibility, can be intermixed with other vehicles more easily, rerouted more easily, don't rquire fixed investment, etc.
Tonight I was looking through a picture book of historical photographs from my neighborhood (Potrero Hill). I found a picture of two electric street cars passing each other. They were powered by lines over the street like the ones in this post: they weren't cable cars like the famous ones we have downtown. The picture was from 1916, the year my 89 year old grandmother was born.
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