By Curmudgeon
Also of some interest locally in today's NYTimes, this story, headlined "As Public Transit Grows, Cities Desire Streetcars."
From the story:
As gas prices soared and dozens of North American communities sought to reintroduce electric streetcars as an alternative to diesel buses, Europe’s tram builders were some of the biggest beneficiaries. Now, as the administration of President-elect Barack Obama contemplates an infrastructure expansion to keep Americans working through a severe slowdown, trams may be one of the building blocks of economic revival and energy efficiency.Unfortunately, the US does not produce trolleys much. Notice, not a single American company is in the game in a serious way. Not one. It's European companies, mostly, that own the market [yet another example of the way American industry looks ahead and demonstrates its excellence... just like Ford and Chrysler who fought all attempts to impose higher mileage standards on their fleets by Congress, and who now are stuck with unsaleable gas guzzlers and want a federal bailout]. And it's mostly European companies that are looking to cash in on federally subsidized transit expansions in the US.
“Trams were invented by the Americans,” said Jean-Noël Debroise, vice president for product planning at Alstom, the French streetcar builder that is selling its sleek Citadis tram to cities like Houston and Toronto. “It’s a big market,” he said. European companies like Alstom, Siemens of Germany, AnsaldoBreda of Italy, CAF of Spain and Skoda of the Czech Republic will be at the head of the line. They, along with non-European companies like Bombardier of Canada and Kinki Sharyo of Japan, are among the leading suppliers of streetcars, which are also known as light rail vehicles. “If we get a program funded at the federal level, a lot of cities will be expressing interest,” said Jeffrey F. Boothe, a Washington lawyer specializing in public transport. “At the end of the day, only lack of federal money was stopping them.”
Still, if the Feds are going to pump money into urban transit, and in particular, light rail and trolleys, it would be nice if Ogden's Mayor could get past his gondola obsession and start now... three years later than he should have... to get Ogden in line for some of that federal cash for a trolley line from downtown to WSU and McKay Dee Hospital. Please?
