QuoteWhat the French gamely call the "art of insertion" is really a multimodal understanding of streets.
ERIC JAFFE
Leave it to the French to refer to proper tram design as "the art of insertion."
It will be a long time until Americans are comfortable enough with sexual innuendo to appropriate that term. But there's an awful lot that U.S. cities should learn as soon as possible about the way the French design their transit networks. Whereas American light rail systems have had modest success and modern streetcar lines have questionable transit value, France operates 57 tram lines in 33 cities that together carry some 3 million passengers a day and create a fantastic balance of mobility options for urban and suburban residents alike—all built in the last 30 years.
"We have little streetcars here that carry a thousand people a day. They have lines that carry a hundred thousand people a day," says Gregory Thompson, chair of the light rail committee for the Transportation Research Board and retired urban planning scholar at Florida State. "What's the difference?"
QuoteIn a presentation at the Rail-Volution meeting this September, Thompson and colleagues Tom Larwin and Tom Parkinson outlined five principles that French trams embrace:
1. They tie cities together. French tram lines typically extend from urban fringe to urban fringe via the city center.
2. They require high-performance transit vehicles. That means large capacities, all-door entry, train-style off-board fare payment, level boarding, and signal priority.
3. They have widely spaced stops. Tram stops are spaced far enough apart to improve travel times, but they're placed at critical transfer points with feeder buses or other major lines.
4. They reach major destinations. That's a given for good transit, of course, but French tram lines emphasize access to college campuses, office complexes, health centers, and malls, in addition to major suburbs and downtowns.
5. They form the core of a larger transit network. Bus lines are reconfigured to serve major tram stops, and fare programs encourage easy transfers from mode to mode.
Full article: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/10/what-france-can-teach-us-cities-about-transit-design/381742/