Transportation
Enough With the Streetcars Already
Pricey downtown streetcars like Detroit’s QLine underperform as transit—and can undermine overall mobility. But that isn’t stopping city after city from building new lines.
A few weeks after the city of Detroit began charging riders a few bucks per ride on its brand-new downtown streetcar, ridership dropped 40 percent, according to the Detroit Free Press. Sadly, few observers were surprised.
“The streetcar doesn’t even connect directly to the city’s primary bus station,” remarked the transit consultant Yonah Freemark on Twitter. “It runs a total of 3 miles in a huge region. Set up to fail.”