Global Electric Car Party on Saturday nights?

Seen in ES Newz:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8099&p=1401272#p1401091

When electric streetcars started up in La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA, the local folks started having "electric car parties". Anybuddy here on ES interested in kicking off a weekly Saturday Night EVent in their town (that still runs electric streetcars) watt features folks "Ebike Friendly" just showing up to "Ride the Rails" together?

[BUMP] Well... Today being the 1st day of September, 2018... and a Saturday night...

Plan right now is to head "down" to the Queen Street (electric) streetcars `bout dinner time today, then ride the streetcars along Queen East/West all EVening. `Til after midnight. Will try and remember to take pictures. Have invited folks (including 1-2 musicians) to show up...

TBA
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Hehe you might live in the only city in North America still running streetcars.

We have trolleybuses here, but there's not even many cities still using those in a big way.

They're great buses though, compared to riding a diesel bus it's luxury.

Lovely... "trolleybuses"... LOVE the Canadian wet coast! Per BC Hydro:

BC Hydro operates 32 hydroelectric facilities and three unnatural gas-fueled thermal power plants. As of 2014, 95 per cent of the province's electricity was produced by hydroelectric generating stations, which consist mostly of large hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Peace Rivers.

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I was actually born on Vancouver Island - and got to live there... twice... briefly... (I've been traveling most all my life...) Ended up in the armpit of Canada (Ontario) where these daze, the "hydro" is half or more nuclear generated. [sigh]

Were I King of BC [hehe] I'd be re-installing electric streetcars - running on steel rails - as suspect "trolleybuses" were designed to accommodate motorized horseless carriages ("cars") "better". [grumble grumble]



(Sorry for any typographical errors!)

Yeah the streetcars in Vancouver (and most other places that had them) were shamelessly scrapped and replaced with buses in the postwar years, tracks torn up and buses purchased.

I say shameless because this was quite openly done at the urging of the interested industries. GM, Firestone, Standard Oil, and a few others formed holding companies to purchase interests in large urban transit systems with the specific goal of converting their streetcar systems to rubber tired diesel burning buses.

At a time when car ownership was booming, and road construction was also, they were very successful.

What they are not successful at is actually moving people through a high density urban environment. Average passenger speeds in major cities reached their peak sometime around WW2, not even touching upon the environmental impact of replacing a single streetcar with several dozen cars.

Hehe... I tend to not necessarily believe EVerything I see on the WWW... but:

British Columbia Electric Railway:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_Electric_Railway

Hehe... the "Rails-to-Rubber" Transition... Gonna guess it was cheaper to string electric wires than to build new electric rails? With politicians and "civil servants" (and voters) always look for the "cheapest" alternative way to extend consumption and waste. Pass on "true costs" to future generations. :wink:

In alot of the cases it was only a matter of adding the second line to the existing single overhead line. The streetcars used the rails as a return, with a single collector line overhead. So when the buses came (running largely along identical routes) they just needed a return line added.

Not sure why they did it that way vs just using both rails, maybe safety?

Also, ironically the first Skytrain (automated light rail) line was built almost entirely over top of the Burnaby Lake interurban line, about 30 years after they decided more roads was the answer. You can look down from Skytrain and see the abandoned rails still there.

The reasoning for that routing? Because all the suburban population centers were built along it. Because of the friggen railway.

^^ Since Dr. John Bannister Goodenough figured out Lithium ions for chemical storage (see "battery"), and speaking again as the King of BC [hehe]... I decree that the City of Vancouver starts handing out bettery-electric bikes and trikes. Watt feature stuff like no more "Last Mile" (aka "kilometers"... or first miles...)... Zero empty seats [hehe]... Operates 24/7... Goes directly from A to B to C... etc. Currently (ebiker expression) Toronto bike stores are selling new electric bikes where with a thing "good credit rating", will finance the purchase where loan payments are about HALF of a monthly TTC Metropass for pubic transit. So pubic transit vehicles from the 20th-century look very "stone age".

(As always, sorry re any spelling errors...)



(Now off to the party. Will check in tomorrow AM... sometime.)

^^ PS. ... and just to clarify... The City hand out rebates/huge discounts for buying an electric bike - or conversion bits/kits - from local stores. Like watts being done already in Sweden... the city of Laval in Quebec... and closer to home, the city of Kamloops and Thompson Rivers University (in Kamloops) are doing.

Toronto has them street cars.

dustNbone said:

Hehe you might live in the only city in North America still running streetcars.

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Down here in San Diego we have a pretty good trolley system. And at least downtown it still runs on city streets. (Some of the new expansions of the trolley have dedicated right of ways)

Hehe... Can't trust watt yah see on the World Wide Wait... but, per Wiki:

In addition to New Orleans' streetcars, Toronto's conventional electric streetcar system also avoided abandonment, as did portions of the streetcar systems in San Francisco, Boston, Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland, as well as Mexico City.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcars_in_North_America#Heritage_and_modern_streetcars

BTW. Yesterdaze Car Party in Toronto a total flop. [grumble grumble] Let folks know weeks in advance via "social media" FacePlant (sp?)... post reportedly see by dozens.... but ZERObuddy showed up. Actually paid for an all day pass - good until 6am the next day - so got on and off a few times, but travelled the length of the Queen Street line, from "far east" to "far west" and back... a few times.

Kinda disappointing. Like organizing the Toronto Uphill Bike Races (where we all get to cheat... hehe)... and the last time, EVen got a local newspaper w/photographer to show up... and again ZERObuddy showed. [Sigh]

Kinda miss the "old days"...

(Mois standing far left...)

LockH said:

travelled the length of the Queen Street line, from "far east" to "far west" and back... a few times.

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How many people were mugged, and killed while looking out the window on that trip?

^^ Hehe... I was looking out the windows the whole time... for hours... and didn't get mugged or killed EVen once! Maybe a problem in Alberta? :lol: I see the first Saturday in November is the third... so will try again next month.