The reasons the old ones are so popular is they look a lot nicer and are a lot more fun to ride. Someone should build some modern ones that look nice too and are fun to ride while also solving the capacity and operational problems which you are concerned with, all of which are valid issues.

When the MTA starts looking at fleet replacement, they'll consider the options, and it could work out to be faster and cheeper to just shut down stations for reconstruction instead of this hybrid idea. That's if they decide to go low-floor, which they might not have the funding to do if they already have to replace 151 vehicles and everything needed to support them. We don't know what options will be available in 2025, but the MTA stay high-floor and leave it as is.

Now, back to the present, MTA is starting to look at ordering additional vehicles for the Central Subway and handle ridership growth. With rebuilding station platforms out of scope, they're likely going to order more Breda style high-floor cars unless there's a way to start running low-floor cars without rebuilding stations.

One would think that the MTA would plan this out over time, to create hybrid stations before they are needed as money comes through, rather than waiting for the last minute and trying to convert all stations to accomodate both typologies.

The other issue, of course, is how to go hybrid on the outlying stations where there are raised platforms such as 3d.

-marc

Right now it's a catch-22, while we will be able to purchase some more vehicles before 2025, there are 33 high-platform surface and subway stations they will have to serve until then. And that's if we can get additional funding when we replace the fleet (151 vehicles x $4-5 million in today's dollars) to fund the conversion of all those high-platform stations to low floor.

For the time being, those new cars will have to be able to use the high-platform stations, which means they will have to be high-platform cars. I don't want to see us to buy any more high-platform streetcars (except for the historic lines) if we can avoid it, especially not more Breda cars because of the problems they have, which gets us back to my low-floor surface J-Church line.

There's a flaw with my low-floor J-Church plan though, it doesn't account for all the new cars we're going to order. The J only uses, I think 9-10 cars, max and there is a 20% cap on how many more cars you can has as a reserve fleet, which only brings us up to 12 low-floor cars out of the 20-28 more we're considering.

Just like the J Church now. Duh.

-marc

My car #1 story begins at Dennis Peron's cannabis club on Market east of Van Ness. After medicating with a happy, friendly crowd which was one of the few truly multicultural gathering places in SF other than the Muni, as I was leaving the club on a sunny beautiful day, what came by but the #1 car.

Well toasted, I sat up front in the windowless car and enjoyed the day and the wind flowing through what is left of my hair. #1 was returning to the Geneva car barn, so the route was through Market to Noe to Church and through the park, down San Jose and onto Geneva.

This is the kind of unique San Francisco experience that tourists and locals alike can enjoy, and enjoy better, more colorfully under Prop 215. I was kinda hungry on the BART ride home, tho, for some reason.

The Bredas are just under 1/2 way through their useful life. We need to plan now for a replacement fleet, and my estimates is that the cost of that fleet will be several hundred times the cost to fix #1.

The feds are not loathe to fund capital acquisition, so I don't see the dollars going to fix #1 sucking down dollars from Muni placing orders for a replacement LRV fleet in 10 years time.

Radulovich had the elegant solution to the high/low floor transition problem, which was to lower part of the existing extra long subway platforms to low floor heights, and to have a ramp that allows enough room for 2 or even 3 cars at each end of the platform.

Back in the day, when they were fixing the upper Market tunnel, I seem to recall that the Boeing LRV disasters were able to run on the surface on Church along with the 22 using pentographs and not ground themselves out.

-marc

This is another reason why I'm pushing to consider moving the J-Church onto the surface, aside from that outbound turn at Market & Church all of the infrastructure is should be in place already, assuming we'd be able to find a vehicle that can make all the clearances.

Surface operations would be slower, even if Market Street were improved to speed service (something we need to do for bus and F-Line service anyway) but the J has the lowest ridership of the rail lines (lower than the F-Line) so fewer riders would be effected than on any other line.

Last december, when my foot was in a cast, I depended on the F-Line because it stopped right at my corner and the extra distance to Castro Station was a slow, painful trip on crutches. The F-Line fits in the gaps laps left by Muni Metro, just like BART doesn't eliminate the need for bus service on Mission Street.

While it is popular with tourists, I don't like seeing it dismissed as just for tourists when the segment west of Union Square to Castro is so heavily used by residents. I don't think historics needs be the only streetcars on Market, Zig referred to a comment I made on another post about continuing F-Line service while also converting the J-Church to modern, low-floor car that would share the track. I worry that if the F-Line is not taken seriously, then rather a surface J-line being seen as complimentary it would be seen as a solution to some non-existent problem of the F-Line.

My vision, when the Duboce and Church intersection is retracked a few years from now, that an outbound switch be added to allow streetcars outbound on Market to turn south and continue outbound on Church. Right now there's only an inbound turn used by F-Line cars as they come onto the line and if the outbound switch was put in, then it would allow Muni to purchase low-floor cars like the ones shown in Milan and start running the J on the surface, using the loop around the Hotel Vitale near the Ferry Building to turn around. The F-Line would still be continue to the Castro and passed the Ferry Building, but there would now be additional surface capacity on most of Market Street and offer an alternative choice for wheel-chair users and anyone who has trouble climbing stairs.

What this also does is open up more room in the tunnel for the other lines and allows Muni to start bringing in low-floor cars without having to start converting the subway. This also means we wouldn't need to purchase anymore Breda cars for increased demand and the Central Subway and takes away a bottleneck at Duboce and Church where the J and N-Judah are both trying to merge with 3/4 other lines already in the tunnel.

Remember, Bredas can't run on the surface unless wires are (re)moved and added... the F line runs under trolley bus wire. New Low Floor trams would also face the same problem. This should not cost a bundle.

As for ADA, all Low Floor trams have ramps that can unfold and fold back up very quickly and don't require slow lifts. Perhaps using something like this Vienna ULF (Ultra-Low-Floor) tram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_Low_Floor) should be considered (although I don't know how well it will work on SF's numerous crests). The floor is only 7 in above the road surface.

Noise is a serious issue, although I wonder how much of it could be alleviated with track improvements (the loudest noise is at places where tracks intersect).

Perhaps other lines could be created as well using modern low floor vehicles with minimal investment is new tracks.

Not being an engineer, but always having an opinion anyway, it seems to me a high capacity alternative to the failure prone and overcrowded Market Street subway is needed now.

The big challenge for implementing modern low-floor trams isn't funding, but the counterproductive regulatory framework:

1. The "Buy-USA" trade protection, which limits choices available (and greatly inflates prices). Breda was one of the few manufacturers willing to deal with this nonsense.

2. Not sure how state ADA rules would fit into the concept. If state law (or local politics) dictate level platform boarding at each and every streetcorner, it could be very problematic. On-board wheelchair lifts might have to be used instead, but they really kill dwell time (ok for bus, not ok for high-volume tram).

They will fit within the historical context of San Francisco, as they're "descendants" of the PCC cars that make up roughly half of the fleet of the F line.

They can be coupled together in up to 3 units, although currently platforms on the F line can only take 2 ... that's the capacity of 2 PCC cars for the price of 1 driver, and you still have your historic factor... (as good as modern trams look, they are not as sexy and sleek). If they ever build the loop for the E line on the Ballpark end, you could couple them in 3-unit trains and run them along the Embarcadero during peak crowds.

They are dirt cheap... Prague is replacing many of them with low floor cars and is virtually giving away many of them.

They are VERY reliable... The T3 and the T4 series are some of the largest mass-produced series of streetcars in the world...almost 14000 T3 and 3500 T4 cars, while only 5000 PCCs have been built in the U.S.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_T3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_T4

It would be great to have one or two for Muni's centennial...

My website, Switching Modes, discusses similar topics. Please take a look at: http://switchingmodes.wordpress.com/. I plan to post a plan to double the capacity of the Muni Metro system without building a new line downtown.

The Bredas have been an example of politicized purchasing by City agencies that produce a product that serves no one well. The SF Weekly did a great story 10 years ago detailing how we got these things under Mayor Willie, who borked it up pretty good.

I hear Tom's point, but really, it's all just nice sounding talk.BART might do its part by finally building the line down Geary we were always promised (and ripped out the B Geary for) but of course never got. Since then we have been subsidizing BART stations WAYYYYY out there for a handful of folks. Gotta love it.

The problem is, this city is just too big and needs more capacity than the limited number of historics can provide. I dare anyone reading this to try and fit onto an F-Line car heading back from Fishermans' wharf on a nice sunny afternoon. Muni just doesn't have enough of those cute low-capacity historics to provide the service we need.

I don't have any problem with maintaining the current service, so long as historic rail advocates stop pretending that these cute little cars can actualy provide enough capacity for a real city's modern transit needs. The solution is to maintain them for their cute value, for tourism, for branding, and slowly replace the Breda cars with low-floor, modern, hi-capacity vehicles.

And if we don't have enough money for both, sorry but we have to pick -- and the real needs of real residents should take precedence over nostalgia.