here in Santiago we have more than 1000 Electric Buses In operation, they work great.
Trolleys can't divert trough an alternative route if the original route got blocked somehow (for example it got barricaded.) wich is a common occurrence here in Santiago.
I'm Czech and my city has a trolleybus network. Every single trolleybus has either a) diesel engine or b) battery backup, depends on their age. Hell, there are even entire lines where 1/3rd they run on batteries. But, they can be smaller, so the vehicle is lighter.
that still doesn't adress the cost of implementing it on the more than 300 bus routes there are in Santiago or how probable is that the infrastructure would get damaged or destroyed every time there are protests.
Then privatize your local public transport. That is how it works in many of my country's cities. Networks are usually only half owned by the city government
its not that costly tonimplement. Why do you think they were implemented back then, instead of running everything on diesel engines?
The upfrontninvestment might be higher, but the running costs are lower, since the electricity is far mor energy efficient and electric engines need way less maintenance than IC-engines.
This number, 300, doesn't say anything. How many miles is that, excluding duplications? The inner city is easy and cheap to cover in power lines for trolleys to replace busses here, and everything other may be best kept on diesel.
What protests, lol? Repairing power lines is easy and fast and I doubt someone would target them.