OMG Transit Porn!

Say hello to Miss January 2009: Bombardier’s new PRIMOVE Catenary-Free Technology. Look! Her induction coils are showing!

This innovation uses the magnetic field of an underground power line to send power to an electric streetcar. Seriously, wireless streetcars! Maybe this is destined to fit a rare niche in places where overhead wires can't be excused, but even if so it means more places where good rail transit can be added. Which is great.

Streesblog SF wonders if we'll ever see new technology like this with a Muni worm on the side, but I'm optimistic. If for no other reason, our Breda cars won't last forever and something will have to replace them. Assuming no change in the status quo, however, whatever that is will very likely have most of the same drawbacks as the current rolling stock. The JKLMN (Jack Lemmon?) lines all run through the Market Street Tunnel, which has high boarding platforms, and then later on surface streets with curb-height stops. That means Muni needs cars that can do that screechy stair-lowering thing to run on thos lines. That's custom, and custom is expensive.

The T-Third, however, will eventually run through its own tunnel below 4th and Stockton Streets. It could have been built to run modern low-floor trains, but instead it was built with high platforms on the street. I (and people who are smarter and cooler than I) think this was a mistake, but what's done is done.

But I'm a dreamer, and I think we will lay down new rail someday. When we do, I hope all technology options are considered. There's a benefit of flexibility to having all of your LRVs be able to run on any of your track, but there can be costs for that flexibility. On the other hand, it might make sense to build new rail lines down Geary, Van Ness, 19th Ave or what have you with technology that makes sense for those lines, even if it can never run through the Market Street Tunnel. With the growing transit advocacy community here in the Bay Area, I think there's a good chance that might just happen.

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