Sometimes when watching videos on effective ways of public transport and trams come up, I get a bit annoyed at people not addressing the fact that they seem to share the road with cars. Why do people twerk for trams so much as a form of light rail if they share the road with cars and are subject to being affected by traffic? Doesn’t that just make them rail buses without their own bus lane? Doesn’t that make them more obsolete? Why do people like them so much?
Edit: Also, does anyone have any resources about the cost to benefit ratio of different intratown/city forms of transport (bike lanes, BRT, trams and other forms of light rail, subways etc)? Would be much appreciated.
I think trams are pretty great. There are pros and cons, of course. Pros being that they can be bigger than buses, lower rolling friction, etc. Cons being higher initial costs and being stuck to a fixed route.
But I also think they’re better for short to mid-distance trips. Shorter is best done by bike
Mid - bus or tram
long - metro/train.
So getting around downtown or a neighborhood, or going a few neighborhoods over? definitely.
Going across town? you’ll want rail.
So a commute may look like taking a bike/bus/tram to a station to get to down, then hopping “down” the transit hierarchy to a tram to get to where you’re going.
I don’t necessarily have resources on the cost to benefit ratio since that tends to differ based on where it’s done.
But the overall idea is:
Buses - easy to get started, flexible routes, more expensive in long run for maintenance and fuel
Trams - higher infrastructure costs up front, but lower maintenance and cheap fuel (electricity), and higher capacity than buses
Metro - super high startup costs, super high carrying capacity, you get the idea
Fantastic. So a nice small town can really rely on well planned out bike paths with a good tram network if they can afford the upfront costs. If not, then a BRT system or similar with separated bus lanes would be the next best thing, making sure that these “mid” to “short” distance forms of transports linl well with the town’s train station(s).
But they’d probably do it in the opposite order. As a town evolves its bus network into something more mature, trams may be a next step. However, I do think BRT will be chosen over trams every time, for the cheaper infrastructure
The problem with this though is if a town/ city can afford a tram network but chooses not to in order to cut corners for upfront costs, it shows a lack of commitment. The wrong government/ council comes into power and a BRT us getting rolled back straight away for car centric infrastructure again.