Just to give a great Miami example, a trolley along Coral Way would be a complete disaster — forcing either the destruction of the trees that make it special, or eliminating the on-street parking that facilitates casual customers for many businesses along the road (ie, people running into Subway to pick up an order or going to the ATM at a bank). A trolley down the middle of the residential street a block south would probably be a brilliant idea, especially if the street were rezoned to allow 4-story townhomes (like the Lincoln Park area of Chicago). The problem is, in Dade County, the current single-family homeowners along the road would bitch, and the trolley would end up running down Coral Way anyway (or, knowing Dade County, would end up eliminating onstreet parking, but some idiot in charge would decide to cut the trees down anyway to make room for the construction crews to work), and everyone would end up miserable — hot treeless pedestrians, gridlocked drivers, and low-rent pawnshops that moved in because all the upscale businesses would have fled the newly-blighted gridlock in disgust.

Good Job!

“Though even I admit this station was cleaner than most, it was interesting to look down at the tracks and not see the usual litter, sewage, and congregation of rodents which is typical of any subway system in the United States. Like the honor system, citizens here know to deposit trash in the appropriate receptacles rather than all along the station platform or tracks.”

After experiencing New York’s subways, I have to see this!

We are so far behind in public transit here. We have to beg for a single line of streetcar and those cities have multiple lines…

The light rail in Hudson county NJ works on that principal.