Tucson Modern Streetcar officials announced they will begin testing the streetcar during daytime hours today and tomorrow.
The testing will take place between 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. each day.
During the testing, drivers will begin their certification process.
Here’s a snippet from the release:
The loop for these daytime tests will be from the Sun Link Operations & Maintenance facility on Eighth Street, along Fourth Avenue, to University Boulevard, stopping at Third Avenue and back. This specific route includes performance testing of key switching points. In addition to daytime tests, there could be nighttime testing along the streetcar route.
The public should be aware that the Sun Link streetcar will be occupying the same travel line as vehicles and that:
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Police officers will be in the area
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Testing personnel will be working around the streetcar
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Pedestrians, motorists, and bicyclists will be interacting with this new transit option
Streetcar officials have repeatedly said streetcar drivers will respect bicyclists right to the road will stay behind cyclists if there is not three feet in which to pass.
Three feet to pass? So if one is riding 4th Ave in a dooring free location the math doesn’t work. Just how fast is the street car to travel?
@Bob H That’s easy. At bicycle speed, most of the time.
This brings up an interesting protest method. Ride on 4th Ave as often as possible when the streetcar is present. If the streetcars wind up at 8 mph all the time, then either bicycles or parking will wind up banned. You know, the way it should have been done all along. You can’t have all three.
I say ride there as often as possible now, too. Make it trickier for cars; they’re the ones who should be finding alternate routes (um, such as a bus or a bike…), not the cyclists.
Drivers? I thought those things were automated.
@Suzanne With 6 cars operating on an eight-mile course there’s probably some math that will figure that: x= they’re not going to be very far apart, y= they will be going slow and z= the carbon operating units will get them into a single pile, probably at that signal cluster that’s been created on campus. They will stop for intervals longer than it takes to load and unload passengers so as to get spaced out and it will make the drivers crazy. qed