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Thursday, June 9, 2011

Streetcar isn’t the best way to allocate $450 million

Streetcars are not even environmentally friendly. To build the streetcar tracks and infrastructure requires use of a very large number of earth-moving equipment, heavy trucks and other vehicles for an extended time period. Much equipment, rails etc. needs to be transported over a long distance. Bridges and other infrastructures also need to be built. All this results in expenditure of energy for streetcar thousands of times more compared to energy required to build buses. Battery- powered buses, just as battery-powered cars, will be used for most public commuter traffic in the near future. Thus, the extensive bridges and streetcar track construction and use will have much bigger carbon footprint as compared to battery- powered buses. Furthermore, the streetcar track and bridge construction will have drastically adverse effect on large wetland areas, native species and beautiful landscape.

http://portlandtribune.com/opinion/story.php?story_id=130756346065506600 

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