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> street car power lines can be a nightmare in densely crowded cities with a lot of pedestrian traffic and tightly packed buildings. It would be a nightmare to implement in a place like New York City

They've been used in dense cities for generations. How hard can it be?

> require an enormous geographic footprint

What footprint is needed for additional overhead wires?



I wonder is it is more of less efficient for land use as they don’t need fuelling and the associated land that uses, but do need a pair of lamp posts every 10m.


One point in favor of running these lines — city already has lots of lamp posts.


In many cities they just bolt these support wires into adjacent buildings when there isnt a convienent lamp post.

Electrifying core parts of the route (eg: the most heavily travelled bottlenecks these trucks travel) could fix this issue, enabling charging and heating the battery and cab while still en route or plowing snow.




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