Revived Streetcars May Be On Track For Disappointment

NPR's All Things Considered discusses the problems with streetcar systems with Marc Scribner. 

"This isn't really a mobility enhancing technology," says Marc Scribner, a research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. "This is a government subsidy to property developers."

He points to other streetcar systems around the nation that never got up to speed — including the D.C. Streetcar, which is set to begin carrying passengers this weekend after years of delays. For months, empty cars have been rolling up and down H Street in an extended safety test. Scribner blames the troubled rollout on poor planning by the city.

"Part of the problem is, you're dealing with bureaucracies that really didn't understand what all went into this. And then part of the problem is it's just inherent with the technology," Scribner says.

He says streetcars are hard to maneuver in traffic. Any streetcar that has to share the road with cars and buses is inevitably going to be slow and unreliable. He points to Atlanta's streetcar as an example.

Read the full article at NPR.