The system has an average traveling speed of 5 mph. Considering the average human walking speed is 2.5 to 4 mph,
The cost of the first 2.7 miles exceeded estimates at $99 million, or $36.7 million a mile, in 2015. In 2023, estimated costs ballooned to between $88 million to $107.5 million a mile for the proposed expansion with total project costs ranging from $176 million to $230 million
Considering MARTA has had a 60% reduction in ridership in the last decade, it's fair to point out that buses are much less expensive, the streetcar was free, but ridership was significantly below capacity, and now that the line costs $1 a ride, ridership has sunk to an average of 400 riders a day in 2022, so the busses capacity of 50 to 60 passengers? Easily would handle all the riders there are in a couple of slow commutes, and bus use can be easily scaled up or down with changing passenger demand.
That's about 8 km/h... damn it's slow. Trams are not the fastest way, being trains in often narrow streets after all but only 8 on avarage speed is shamefully little. I did travel a lot in trams when I lived in Cracov and (I did check it) avarage speed was "only" 18 km/h (11+ mhp). And we speak about very old town like Cracov where trams are operating mostly in center, lot's of old streets with narrow spaces and crossings with lights, not a "city toddler" with large streets like Atlanta. Overall I do like trams, even when I joke that place for trains are outside of towns not inside of them, they are pretty comfortable, plenty of space inside and relatively quiet in new models like the Stadler Tango or Pesa Twist. They can be cheaper than buses, but provided that they serve routes with a large number of passengers, then durability, capacity, cheaper electricity and relatively low route "congestion" eliminate the costs of maintaining extensive infrastructure.
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