Public Transportation and Smart Growth

One of the reasons buses were considered "better" then streetcars was streetcars were in the center of the road and had to stop in the center to pick up passengers (the passengers stood on "Safety Islands" that cars had to drive around) but buses could pull over to the curb. The problem was getting back into to traffic, since streetcars NEVER left the main lane, they never had to get back into that lane, but buses had to. Thus Streetcars did not have the delay in getting back into the lane of traffic. The bus's advantages of pulling over to the side of traffic to pick up passengers did not off set the loss of time in buses getting back into the lane of traffic. Thus if you considered that factor, it favored retaining streetcars, but since the goal was to get rid of streetcars this problem was ignored and dismissed as "minor".

Here is an old photo of a "Safety Island", through it should be noted this island still exists and is used by the Light Rail system that replaced the old Streetcar system in Pittsburgh:



http://www.jtbell.net/transit/Pittsburgh/PCC/