Instead of a tramway, why not trolleybuses for Montreal?

[MTL-514]

you're talking about where Hwy 20 goes right thru Vaudreuil-Dorion, and becomes an ordinary road with stoplights for a couple of km...?

there is a bypass

you take the short Hwy 540 connector over to the TransCanada (Hwy 40), and come into town that way instead of via Hwy 20.

[malek]

I always found the drive coming from Ontario much more intresting via the 40 than the 20....

[West_aust]

the problem with going on the 40, especially when heading downtown, is that you have to take decarie after, which is often slow due to traffic. The 20 should have been an highway all the way from mtl to the 540, not that village road it is in dorion, and that 70kmh zone in ile perrot

[Nouvellecosse]

I love trolley buses in general, but I'm not crazy about the ones pictured. I don't like the way they're gussied up to look like streetcars - too fake.

[someone123]

My neighbourhood has trolley buses. They're not quite as comfortable as rail transit but they are much better than diesel buses and, as mentioned above, are more in the price range of diesel buses than of light rail (although there is also diesel LRT). Electrified bus routes are much better for surrounding areas because they are quieter and do not produce emissions.

I'm of the opinion that if you're going for a full ROW you might as well do rail, but electrified buses definitely make sense along busy bus corridors where no ROW is available. I'm surprised that they aren't more popular given the uncertainty of fuel prices.

[Myrtonos]

Ten years on...

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

awhile back, the montreal gazette's henry aubin wrote a column suggesting that montreal replace its busiest bus lines with electric trolleybuses. they generate no pollution, have an extremely long lifespan but are much cheaper and more flexible than trmaways. it's a good idea and i was reminded of it by a letter in today's la presse that suggested the same thing.

Chargeable electric buses also have no emissions at street level, I don't know how long they last in comparison to the buses you mention, but I do know that batteries are unlikely to last the lifetime of buses where they only charge when stationary.

What I don't understand is why trolleybuses cost more than diesel buses.

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

i think the wires are a small price to pay. i don't think the wires detract from the beauty of amsterdam, lyon, zurich, strasbourg or any other city with trams and trolleybuses.

Note that Amsterdam, Zürich and Strasbourg have trams, not trolleybuses. A single overhead wire above each track with rail return. Trolleybuses, with their rubber tyres, need at least two wires (and always an even number of them) for buses in each direction. So there is a very visible different between trolleybus and tram wiring.

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

yeah, it would only make sense to electrify the busiest routes. the STM runs 10-15 buses per hour on the 80, 165, etc., so the savings would be considerable.

Maybe that is unless other large vehicles, like trucks, could also be made to use the wires when driven along trolleybus routes. This doesn't mean they would be limited to the wires, see below.

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

i also feel that some of you are missing one of the more crucial advantages of trolleybuses: they last longer and need less maintenance. fuel costs aside, the actual buses themselves are way cheaper to operate than any other kind of bus.

Trolleybuses, like other electric vehicles, are not bound to any specific fuel source.
As far as I know, battery electric buses also need less maintainence apart from battery replacement.

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

the latest generation of trolleybuses can disconnect from the overhead cables and run on battery power for a limited period of time. these aren't streetcars... they're buses that run on wheels.

Wait, trams also run on wheels. And if trolleybuses can run off-wire on battery power for a limited time, trolley-trucks and other vehicles made to use these same wires would do the same, especially if they don't follow fixed routes.

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

seriously, there's a reason why vancouver has decided to replace its entire fleet of trolleybuses with new ones instead of scrapping the system altogether: it's really worth it.

Have they upgraded the wires?

Originally Posted by big W

No rarely see that happen. In fact because cars must yeild to buses, then there is no difference in terms of pulling over etc vs other buses not to mention that the are usually on busy roads where there are dedicated bus lanes so in that regards they avoid the traffic. Then the issue of the lines falling off, the buses are equiped with cords to reconnect to the overhead wires within seconds. Plus this only happens once in a blue moon.

Non-emergency vehicles that don't follow fixed routes should almost invariably give way to those that do. Giving way mean don't get in the way.

Originally Posted by someone123

I'm of the opinion that if you're going for a full ROW you might as well do rail, but electrified buses definitely make sense along busy bus corridors where no ROW is available. I'm surprised that they aren't more popular given the uncertainty of fuel prices.

I don't know about ten years ago, but certainly battery buses are more popular than trolleybuses, even though all surviving first-generation tramways, with one cable-operated exception (in San Francisco), have overhead power throughout, and network-wide overhead power is also part of most new tram and light rail installations, is common on railways, and plenty of railways have been electrified with overhead wires even recently.