Love them or hate them (I happen to love them), Toronto's streetcars are part of this city's identity. Most North American cities got rid of their streetcars around the middle of the 20th century. But Toronto didn't. And that has left us with

Last weekend a friend of mine sent me an article from The Economist talking about why trams, streetcars, and light rail are a waste of money. The argument is basically that steetcars are expensive, less efficient, and that – despite North America’s renewed interest in them – we should instead be spending our scarce public dollars on more buses.

Here’s a snippet from the article:

…but cash spent on streetcars displaces spending on other, more cost-effective forms of public transport like buses, which offer cheaper and more-efficient service but are considerably less sexy. The capital cost per mile of a streetcar is between $30m and $75m, while a rapid bus service costs anywhere between $3m and $30m, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

Now, there’s no question that buse routes are initially cheaper to implement. You don’t have track to build. But I don’t agree that the cost structure is quite that simple if you consider the number of people you need to move in your city. I struggle to see buses as a more efficient service.

The big difference between modern light rail and buses is capacity.