OC Register: Anaheim’s propsed (sic) streetcar system would consist of 10 vehicles that would travel a 3.2-mile route in about 18 minutes. The streetcars would look similar to this European streetcar, according to city officials. Photo: City of Anaheim
From the Detroit Business News two days ago: Subcontractors begin vying for work on Detroit’s $140 million M1 Rail project. In part,
At an open house for subcontractors and others needed to help build a 3.3-mile streetcar down Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Lawrence Stevenson said he considered being involved in the project as something that would be “historic.” But he will only be a part of that history if his company, Detroit-based Stevenson Construction, can successfully land a contract for a portion of the work the M1 Rail line…needed for the $140 million task.
That’s $42.4 million/mile, 58% less the estimated cost for Kris Murray’s Anaheim trolley — and that’s only IF Anaheim succeeds in absconding with OCTA Measure M funds to build a $319 million streetcar between the Convention Center, Disneyland and the new $174 million ARTIC train station that’s never going to see a High-Speed Rail Bullet Train once a Sacramento Judge gets through with Gov. Brown and his rape of Proposition 1A. The streetcar topped a cost comparison involving 11 other streetcar systems across the country.
The Anaheim Streetcar isn’t even a bad copy and certainly won’t replace the multiple routes redundantly run to dozens of resort area hotels and tourist sites via the city’s part-ownership of Anaheim Resort Transit we analyzed earlier this year.
Part of the extraordinary cost of the Pringle (now working for Parsons Engineering)/Murray/Kring/Brandman/Eastman 18-minute (11 mph) Express is the
Via Wikipedia: Overhead lines in Denmark.
apparent need to clean the thing up and make it less visually intrusive around the Disney properties. As we’ve pointed out last March, in order to avoid sullying the Resort District with overhead cantenary power cabling along the route, the streetcar will draw power from both below the pavement in some areas and from above via the exposed power cables that are hung from poles and towers (the most common way to transfer high-voltage to the trolley motors) along the route that’s shared with street traffic. This dual mode requires a very sophisticated motor design and dual power pickups that are seldom used around the world. It will also increase ongoing maintenance costs as there are two electrical systems to design, build and service.
San Francisco’s MUNI streetcars exclusively use overhead power cantenaries.
But when it’s other people’s money, what do costs matter?
Anaheim utility customers CITY-WIDE have been paying a bill surcharge for DECADES to fund the city’s decision that overhead power lines are a blight, and will not live to see a personal benefit in THEIR neighborhoods, thanks to the City’s prioritization of Undergrounding in Tourist District and other Commercial corridors. Like all the City’s beliefs, this one is ALSO subject to spur-of-the-moment suspension to favor the City’s TRUE beneficiaries, while the bills to the residents CONTINUE!
Powerful contributors of this project are pushing for the use of IPT (or inductive power transfer). This is the same technology used at Disney’s California Adventure on the NEW Street Car (REDCAR) and at Disneyland’s Finding Nemo.
It is a technology similar (in rudimentary terms similar to a sonic care toothbrush). It uses contactless power to drive the source vehicle.
It is used widely in Europe and locally at The Grove and at LEGOLAND.
The best part is the technology is provided by an American company from NEBRASKA!
If the dumbshit naysayers would study the long term benefits of such a system they would wet their “environmental” shorts.
The fact is: Opposition is political NOT practical.
That’s why the guys in these battles live in Irvine, Brea, HB, Orange and Mission Viejo!
We’re familiar with the technology. As we’d said, it’s rarely used due to its cost.
The grander question which we didn’t ask, and you failed to bring up, is why this technology is NOT used entirely over this paltry three mile alignment? Is it that expensive? So much so that the standard overhead power system is also cost justified?
Really carpetbagger? So when we point out at the OCTA meeting that the City of Anaheim did NOT release the AA at the Sep 2012 meeting despite reports from staff that they did, how is that political? It seems highly practical to me to expect staff to be truthful in presenting information leaders count on to make decisions worth hundreds of millions of OUR dollars.Or when the staff glossed over the $30 million worth of private property takings between Clementine and Harbor. How is opposition to that political in nature? How about this corker…..the damn thing makes traffic WORSE. That is not a political statement made by a disgruntled opponent, that is the information pulled directly off the ARC website.
“As indicated in Tables 3.7 and 3.11, there would be several study intersections and roadway segments
that would operate with unacceptable conditions (LOS E or F for intersections, LOS D, E or F for roadway
segments) under the No Build scenario. These conditions would somewhat worsen with the Enhanced
Bus Alternative and Streetcar Alternative, as they would result in reductions in roadway capacity which
would lead to increased V/C ratios. Furthermore, both the Enhanced Bus Alternative and Streetcar
Alternative would also result in additional intersections worsening to unacceptable conditions (two
locations and one location, respectively)”
Try your spin somewhere else.