I know, it should have been every hour of every day, but hey it's better than nothing.
They used to have trams there, but didn't rebuild them after the war :sadness:
This picture fills me with a deep sense of sadness. I just want to ride a train and walk places.
Isn't that true for like every major city in the world? Every big city I've been to have areas downtown that cars aren't allowed, either on weekends or like ever. Never been to the US though so I have no idea how things work over there.
The US doesn't really do pedestrian only streets except in very specific cases in the oldest quarters where it's next to impossible to drive cars through anyway. New York is a pedestrian nightmare year round, but there is an ailing subway at the very least
San Francisco does one on summer Sundays, the location rotates through different neighborhoods
They used to have trams there, but didn’t rebuild them after the war
There are still a few legacy tram lines running in Tokyo. The two I can think of are the ones in Waseda and Sanganjaya. Both pretty limited systems.
I think that they didn't bother rebuilding trams because trains don't have to stop for traffic or red lights and are sufficiently dense already.
A combination train and tram system is very good too. Trains service around the city and the tram or bus can run a logical local travel route. Busses are popular because they do not require track, but a tram can hold more and the stock can usually survive a longer time. They are also heavy and very difficult to tip. A bus and a tram are usually the same to electrify with the overhead cable. A bus can easily leave the route but a tram can transform into light rail for part of the route if separated. Both are built as low floor today, and should stop at a raised platform, but if this is not the case because of poor infrastructure, a bus can usually kneel and present the ramp to the ground level, but in these case the tram should always be selected to have a close gap or a ramp which can reach all platform in the system.
I think that they didn’t bother rebuilding trams because trains don’t have to stop for traffic or red lights and are sufficiently dense already.
yeah but they're neat
didn't know about the legacy lines
i lived in this small city (a few hundred k) many years ago and like a big main-type street in a core area had been ripped up for nearly a decade to update some kind of utility line. this is the US btw. during the utility work, it was obviously impassable for vehicles, but also for pedestrians. it was a big cluster fuck and the businesses/housing around there were a mess. everybody got so used to avoiding the area completely over the years that the business and residence owners around there convinced the city to allow them to host a no-vehicle block party with food trucks and street drinking for a weekend once it was all restored, to remind people of what's there. obviously the block party was the shit, hundreds of people just standing in the streets, music, eating food, wandering around through the now porous membranes of street, sidewalk, patios/porches. it was how urban life should be and probably is in older cultures.
then it all went back to "normal" and now it's just another section of busy city street with cars vrooming by ever second. people talked about requesting it to be some special district on weekends, but that never happened. because ALL HAIL CARS.
It's nice that in some cities streetcars and trams are having somewhat of a revival, like in Florence where they existed once, got removed, and they're being remade again as it's not possible to make a subway under such an old town. It's more of an overground light rail with a dedicated line, but it's cool to have
Buenos Aires still has old tram lines rails in place, but the trams themselves haven't been running for decades now. Now everyone takes their shitty 4x4 to downtown Buenos Aires, making it fucking hell.
I've wandered around Ginza during one of the pedestrian days, it's a wonderful experience
I thought they actually stopped doing this after some guy drove into the crowd in Harajuku or Akihabara or something.
