Prototype streetcar being evaluated for use in Dallas

[thesupercheeseman]

>U< they look so cute!

[Lukelr]

These look much better than the ones DART uses now. Better colors too.

[Beardsley1000]

will DART be replacing the SLRV's

[DARTDallas]

@Beardsley1000 No, DART is not replacing SLRVs.

[nmgt1048]

I rode on a battery powered streetcar in Los Angeles in sept. 2009 at their Farmers market. It was a green double decker ,open at the top.A good use for battery cars like these will be cars running off trolley wire and using battery operation in sections that have no overhead wire for safety or appearance reasons

[Beardsley1000]

unkonshus i was just thinking that they were replacing it cuz it kind of looks like the SLRV's they have right now and i am not a peabrain

[unkonshus]

Consider this... waste of money. How bout just give that money to the Disd teachers. Who is budgeting this damn town? Im no rocket scientist, but anybody with a peabrain can figure out its "different" purpose than SLRV is one that will not pay off in such short order. The route is Oak cliff to Methodist hospital? Perfect, just use this million dollar money pit to transport the crime victims to the hospital. I will NEVER live in Dallas county!

[rantanamo]

@unkonshus DART's funding has nothing to do with how education is funded. This is DART and its funded by member cities, not Dallas County.

There would be two routes. One that you mention, which is a very busy bus route. The other is from the Arts District area, up McKinney Ave through Uptown to the West Village. Both will be very busy popular routes. I'm guessing you think a better use of funding is to constantly build and maintain more freeways that constantly get more crowded?

[Beardsley1000]

is Dart going to replace the SLRV's?

[texasboy5680]

When they said streetcar I was thinking it would look just like the McKinney Ave trolley or the San Francisco streetcars or the original Dallas street cars updated of course.....I dont like.....These streetcars will be going down streets rich in history and one day Main st......would it have hurt to be a lil nostalgic.

[elmstreetdallas]

The first streetcar line downtown will be from Union Station to Methodist Hospital in Oak Cliff, via the Houston Street viaduct.

This route is only a little over 2 miles long. These streetcars can make a roundtrip with ONE battery charge. And considering they will probably leave every 30 minutes, that's more than enough time for a full recharge.

So for this particular route, these are the perfect streetcars.

[Pyroechidna1]

@elmstreetdallas A 30-minute headway on a 2 mile long route? I hope not, because I might as well walk if that's the case.

[paulkimo9]

cool rail car! Looks a lot like the Seattle light rail car which Kinkisharyo also builds. Yes, the limitations of the range of the batteries is the one thing that they have to improve on. Why is it though that technology improvements are being done by foreign companies? Is the streetcar vendor in Portland working on similiar technology? It would be nice to buy America.

[paboylan]

expanding on Beardley's comment, the idea is not to have a completely wireless operation but to have less wires than you would otherwise need. For example if your line is 15 miles long, have wires over the first and last 5 miles, with a 5 mile gap in the middle, and maybe a few short stretches of wire within that middle 5 miles just in case.

[paulkimo9]

@paboylan It wouldn't really make sense to do it this way. Keep in mind that streetcar lines would be a lot shorter than light rail lines and five miles may not be such a bad thing as long as they have a means of recharging when it got to the end of the line. This would certainly make streetcars more inviting in communities that don't want the overhead wires or the expense of all of the electric infrastructure.

[sesshora44]

...five miles on full charge. really? thats so stupid b/c it would take so much time taking that....that you might as well just walk and get there the same time.

[Beardsley1000]

is this going to replace the old SLRV's?

[sexydorkmo]

@Beardsley1000 i think its saying that since they run on batteries they could use them for new street car lines where they cant run electrical wires above.

[paulkimo9]

@sexydorkmo I think you could pretty much build overhead wire anywhere. It's the visual impacts that is brings and this would provide an opportunity to have streetcars without those visual impacts.

[DARTDallas]

@Beardsley1000 No, this type of vehicle would not replace SLRVs. The ameriTRAM™ is one of the streetcars being considered by the City of Dallas. It took a test drive on DART Rail tracks.