jrd1964 wrote:Another thing: How will the 2-waying of Cole affect cars interacting with the trolley? Will the northbound cars travel in the middle (assuming the trolley will still roll along the east side of the street)? IIRR, this change would mark the first time in the modern era that 2-way traffic and a trolley have both been on that part of Cole.
Also, will Allen be made 2-way also when Cole & McKinney change?
Excellent question. MATA could just continue to run the trains over the existing tracks as is. I assume it wouldn't be difficult to dedicate the lanes the tracks are in for the streetcars, simply with a little bit of paint and some lollipop barriers. The streetcar over the Houston Street Viaduct runs in a dedicated lane, half the time running with traffic and half the time against the traffic in the other lanes without much difficulty. MATA would be running against the traffic all the time.
Another alternative would be to reverse the direction of the loop on Cole so the streetcars will be running with the traffic, which means they wouldn't need to have dedicated lanes. This would require some track work at the split with tracks crossing one another and the potential of the streetcars crashing head on into one another, but I'm sure a written policy could be established to designate which streetcar heading would have the right-of-way to minimize that risk - or simply use signal lights at the intersection.
Therefore, it's not going to require a major investment from MATA to survive changing the streets from one way to both ways.