What Makes A Tram Fun

I have been thinking a lot about trams recently: old ones like the ones that used to run here in Davenport, middle-aged ones like I took in Boston, and newer ones like they have in Paris. I find the tram an odd duck of a transportation mode; I prefer them to buses in most cases, but I can never be sure if that's just a rail bias or if it's justified; I like them less than metros and mainline rail in most cases, but I can't tell if that's just the same bias in the other direction.

So today I want to talk about what makes a tram fun, and by fun I mean a transit mode I actively want to take (because for me taking transit is fun). This is similar to my paean to trams last year, but more about general principles than individual systems.

1. Putting Descartes before De Horse(-Drawn Tram)

The first thing a tram system needs to have is existence. I feel like Descartes proclaiming that God must exist because existence is more perfect than non-existence and God is perfect, but it really is true. A tram that doesn't exist--whether it's vaporware that never gets built, or more commonly at least in the US as former lines that no longer exist, like the old Davenport horse-drawn trams--can't be ridden, and often means worse service on that route (though sometimes it's been upgraded to another rail form). 

But genuinely, the main thing I want to make a tramline fun is to be able to ride it; I'm still sad I haven't ridden the 2 Line in my old hometown, Seattle, because it hadn't opened the last time I visited. And there were new lines about to open in Paris last time I visited that I didn't get to ride for the same reason.

2. Be Better Than A Car/Bus

I'm visiting Toronto soon, and that's one tram system that isn't as great, for reasons Reece Martin has discussed at length. The biggest issue is that the streetcars there don't really have any advantage over buses or cars: they don't get their own lanes, they don't get signal priority, they don't really have stops or stations unless they go underground, and they go slow and get stuck in traffic sometimes worse than a smaller vehicle might.

I still kinda like them for being iconic and my first introduction to trams, but they don't excite me.

What does? A superior service of some kind. 

Maybe make connections the roads don't, like the MBTA Green Line sometimes does.

Maybe connect to other forms of transit in a way that opens up the city like these trams in Amsterdam.

Maybe just provide substantially more throughput than any other street-level option like this Paris tram with quality vehicles and high frequency.

Whatever you do, be better than the automotive options.

3. Don't Duplicate, and Don't Make Me Wish You Did 

This is sort of a two-fer, but: don't duplicate other, better transit routes, and don't make me wish there were a better mode on the same route. 

So don't be the Seattle 1 Line of the Link light rail, which like many other light rail/streetcar/tram forms around the US, really should be a true metro given what it's doing. 

Sorry buddy, but you're the main transit spine of a big city and mostly in a tunnel, why do you then pop up to street level with actual at-grade crossings to slow you down? Just be a subway.

And while I generally like Croydon's trams, it can be inconvenient to actually use them since they're part of such a wide range of train options in London but don't interline with the others, making them sometimes feel duplicative or redundant with the mainline rail, Tube, and Overground.

Sure, this is a nice stop, but couldn't I go across South London in other ways?

That doesn't mean I won't take a tram like that (I took these pictures after all!) but it does make a better experience if the tram is the right mode and you don't have to go out of your way to take it; if it fits into the larger transit landscape; if it's natural, and not a special trip.

And that's why trams are a fun part of a transit system: they fill a valuable spot, and hey, if nothing else they'll usually be pretty (as you can see above).