The Melbourne's retention of the trams has provided a wonderful A/B experiment. Although I consider Sydney a more attractive city (sorry, city of my birth!) Melbourne frankly is a much easier and more enjoyable city to get around and live in.
agree in the centre. Sydney's trains are good for the sprawl, it can be hard to get to some Melbs suburbs without a car (even though there are trains in Melbourne)
It's hard to get to some Sydney suburbs for the same reason. Though interestingly this includes rich areas like the Eastern Suburbs and Northern Beaches. I suspect fat-cat NIMBYs have been keeping the trains out for generations now.
Sydney suffers IMO from it's harbour topology (topography?). There are a lot of points where the only way to get from A to B is over a specific bridge. But I'll take the awesome views :-)
Keep in mind that Melbourne is a planned city and Sydney isn't. That makes a huge difference on the viability of modes of transport. So it's not really a good experiment at all.
Eh the trams are cute, and smooth, but painfully slow. Better passenger experience than buses, but the tracks and overhead cables are a blight on the streetscape and impact drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists alike. Overall, not worth it. Real cities have metros underground, full stop.
Would I rather have trams than not have trams, absolutely -- but they shouldn't be relied on as a true solution to urban transport.
I am not sure if this implies you think Melbourne is lacking a underground metro? Or perhaps you're just making a general statement.
FWIW Melbourne has both trams and a underground metro system that does a fairly respectable job serving the CBD, and good network coverage to inner suburbs.
Melbourne has a suburban heavy commuter rail network with an underground CBD loop. That's not the same thing as an underground metro like the NYC subway, Paris metro, Tehran metro, Japan, London Underground etc. All of these cities have urban metros in addition to suburban commuter rail (except Tehran I guess?). Melbourne's just not there yet and is still fairly suburban. Sydney's building a new metro system which will operate like the above mentioned systems.
I don't see the difference. Take Melbourne versus London. Both use electrified trains. Both have drivers. Both travel at similar speeds. Neither have to stop for automobile traffic (except for slowing down at the few level crossings in Melbourne).
Whether the line is fully underground or not doesn't seem to affect much (other than ventilation).
The technical difference is that metros have dedicated tracks and sufficiently frequent services that you can just turn up and go. In Melbourne (and Sydney), tracks are shared in complicated ways by many lines and other traffic (regional, long distance, even cargo) so any issue somewhere cascades in complicated ways, and frequencies are metro-like only in the densest corridors.
I think the metro distinction is often frequency of trains and usage of the tracks. Ie London runs trains every 2 mins basically from 6am - 8pm on virtually every line vs a heavy suburban rail which will run every 15 - 30 mins, share track with freight or intercity rail and so on.
I know it doesn't look too different to a passenger but operationally I think they are very different.
I don't know if I'd call the overhead cables "a blight on the streetscape." and the tracks inside the CBD aren't particularly deep. How do they impact pedestrians and cyclists?
I take a tram to work every day, and any underground metro system would take a lot longer (It's a relatively short trip.)
I live in a city with underground metro, buses, trams and trolley buses (Milan, Italy.) It's nearly impossible to change the route of a tram line unless there are rails and overhead cables everywhere but it's immediate for buses. Even trolley buses can move on batteries to drive around road works or car accidents. On the other side trams can be much longer than a standard bus and accommodate more people. The trend is to have tram routes that don't share the road with cars, electric buses and more underground metro.
These ones are basically a small bump, you don't even slow down when you go over them. If you're riding along them they can be slippery and you can get stuck in the grooves, but they're in the middle of the road so this isn't really an issue.
You're picturing someone crossing at a right-angle to the tram tracks, as one might cross a train track at a level crossing. In that case you would indeed only get a small bump!
But if you cycle in the direction the tram travels - as you would if it was a bus lane, or a car would in a lane shared between trams and cars - then [1] can happen. Wheel goes into the groove in the road, cycle can't no longer steer, so it can't balance.
Obviously, you might think "Well then, don't cycle along lanes with tram tracks" but that means retrofitting an existing city with new tram tracks makes it less welcoming to cyclists - unlike busses or a metro system.
> You're picturing someone crossing at a right-angle to the tram tracks
I'm picturing that because it's the most common occurrence. When your traveling in the same direction as the tracks then those tracks are always out in the center of the road and your as far left as possible. The only times I've been caught in the tracks was when I'm trying to turn right from the middle in which case a hook turn is usually better. You also need a bit of caution when your crossing curving tracks.
They aren't notoriously bad and in practice barely an issue, there are far bigger things to worry about.
European cities usually have these in progression: tram for small cities, tram+train for large ones, tram+train+metro for the metropolis. Having a metro doesn't mean you shouldn't also have a tram. I agree that building everything from scratch may seem cost-prohibitive, but you have to start somewhere. Lifetime of cities is long enough to build these gradually.
> Eh the trams are cute, and smooth, but painfully slow.
Trams are for shorter trips that metro/heavy rail. They are slower than either of those two, but don't need to be painfully slow -- this depends on the city layout, e.g. Berlin vs. Prague has a large difference in tram speeds (Berlin having the fast ones).
> Better passenger experience than buses, but the tracks and overhead cables are a blight on the streetscape and impact drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists alike. Overall, not worth it.
Also, strongly disagreeing with this too. Trams look great, including the tracks and overhead lines -- they just belong to a city.
As someone who moved to Melbourne (and doesn’t have a car), I don’t have the love for trams that Melbournians do. They’re slow and disruptive to the rest of the traffic. At the same time buses aren’t stuck on rails and usually get you places a lot quicker. They’re also easier to get a seat on as the Melbournians I know hate buses and refuse to catch them.
Same boat, but do love them. In fact aside from walking, the trams are my main mode of transport.
Can't stand buses. Buses are slower, comparatively unreliable, from the commuters view they are stuck on rails (that's what a route is), they don't support the increased density trams and rail do, have lower capacity, more disruptive to traffic, slower to get on/get off because of fewer doors. So now we have the contradictory evidence problem :p
(And just for the record, I've lived in both Sydney and Melbourne, and the only thing worse than replacement buses are Sydney buses + Sydney traffic. Of course, that's not to say I don't use buses, I do, but Melbourne's core is awesome partly due to the trams, and people in Melbourne don't know how good they've got it).
The rest of the traffic is disruptive to the trams.
I also moved to Melbourne recently, and my theory is that the love of trams is inertia from a time where congestion wasn't so bad.
I prefer to walk within the city loop, but both activities would be so much faster and more pleasant without the cars.
There are quite a few Teslas that drive around here with wanky number plates like they're doing the world a favor, which in a city with such usable public transport always makes me cringe.
I live in Melbourne and drive a Tesla, but without a wanky number plate. I would love to use public transport, but it's completely impractical for me. It takes me 25 minutes to drive to work or 45 minutes (or more) on public transport. That 40 minutes a day is very valuable to me. I also often finish work very late when the frequency of public transport drops which further increases the travel time. I also often have to take children to school or other events and public transport is very poorly set up for that type of travel, and quickly becomes much more expensive than driving (once you already have the sunk cost of the car) when you have to pay for 3 trips.
Melbourne is a primarily suburban city with very limited public transport available to substitute for the vast majority of journeys. If I was a single person with no children who worked in the city I would ride my bike or take the train every day. But I'm not, and I don't, so I drive. I drive a Tesla so I'm not contributing to the foul stench of burnt hydrocarbons that is increasingly choking this city.
> It takes me 25 minutes to drive to work or 45 minutes (or more) on public transport.
Keep in mind that you only have a 25 minute drive because so many other people are taking public transport, if it was ripped out you'd have a much longer commute so it is very practical for you, albeit indirectly.
> That 40 minutes a day is very valuable to me
Depending on how crowded the tram/train is that 40 minutes can usable time with a smartphone or laptop, it's not in a car.
>Depending on how crowded the tram/train is that 40 minutes can usable time with a smartphone or laptop, it's not in a car.
I have never been in any train or tram that has anywhere near enough room to use a laptop. In peak hours I try to even avoid using my phone - there's simply not enough room to have a raised hand near your face without the hand also being in someone else's face.
The long-distance trains (like the Quiet Carraiges to Geelong) have more room, and in Perth I could use a laptop for the first ~30min of my journey before the train filled up.
If you can get a seat you've got enough room for a laptop, back when I was doing a cross Melbourne commute a got a 10" one that was perfect for coding, watching movies or browsing the web. Getting a seat is the real challenge but if you can adjust your hours then getting on before 8AM or after 10AM you've got a good chance. Once your out of the CBD it's pretty rare to not have room to use your phone.
That's horseshit. Granted, peak hour trains from Flinders are packed and using a laptop is a bit difficult since your elbows keep bumping into the next person sitting, but not being able to use a phone? People are always on their phones, reading, or knitting.
Personal space in Perth is much better than most places. The glut of replies you're getting is more representative of what people in general will put up with on public transport. There's some nice trains in Madrid's metro and england though if you go outside London.
> I would 100% rather drive 25 minutes each way instead of sitting on a train for 40 minutes each way even if I could use my laptop/phone the whole time
To each their own. I'd always take train, even if I couldn't use the time for anything.
What's the difference to you, as a passenger, between being stuck on a tram rail, and being stuck on a bus route? You can't ask a bus driver you take a de-tour from their route, can you?
> disruptive to the rest of the traffic
No the rest of the traffic is disruptive to the trams!
And, to be honest, while buses may not be stuck on rails, the process to change a bus route is almost never less than a few months and can take much longer.
It will always take less time to change a bus line than a train line - but this isn't a difference of hours vs. years, it's months vs. even more months.
What use is a bus if missing one means you're out of luck for the next 29, 39, or 59 minutes? It's not really 'refuting' it, but there are downsides to prioritizing point-to-point travel.
I'm not sure what you mean - if a bus can turn a corner then so can a tram's track. They don't have to go in one straight line from one end of the city to another.
What I meant is that if a tram breaks down on the track, or there is an obstruction on the track, any other tram is stuck dead in the water. A bus can drive around stationary objects.
The trams in melbourne suburbs usually drive down the middle of the road, and stop in the middle of the road, meaning people exit in the middle of the road and have to walk across it to the footpath, halting the traffic. Conversely buses pull over to the side of the road, usually into a lane that is used for parking, or at the most stopping only the one lane of traffic.
> Conversely buses pull over to the side of the road, usually into a lane that is used for parking...
This can actually be pretty bad for travel time as well, because then the bus has to wait for a break in traffic to get back on the road. Now in the US many places build bus stops out to the road lanes so that they don't have to waste time pulling in and out of traffic.
My only time in Melbourne, I saw a car crash into a tram. This blocked a bit of the road, and the entire tram line for an hour plus
The bus behind could have driven around, but the next tram was stuck until the blockage was cleared
Now, if the busses had dedicated lanes that they could use, they may run as well as trams, with the flexibilty of changing route for exceptions like crashes, or road works
As someone who lives in Melbourne (and usually just uses a bicycle to commute), buses suck. They don't follow timetables, get noticeably slower during peak hours and get faster during school holidays. The reason people avoid using them is that they're unreliable. If I occasionally use the bus to get to/from work the trip can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 45.
Most Melbourne buses are horrendous. They're unpredictable timing-wise, slow, noisy, uncomfortable and many of the routes are poorly thought out so they don't get anywhere in a useful amount of time anyway.
There are some express buses which at least are quick but they're still noisy and uncomfortable. Trams are a dream after using the buses.
Off topic but I think Canterbury road in Melbourne should be open to bike traffic only during peak hour with continuation to the city from there through Swan Street.
Couldn't disagree more. Buses are much slower, often have long and winding routes (because they're not stuck on rails), get stuck in traffic and can't hold as many people, my tram lines with dedicated lanes don't have those problems. I doubt you'd see many people taking buses for trips where trams are an option.
The permanence is also a feature. One of my favorite things about Melbourne is never having to visit a shopping mall because retail spaces spring up naturally along tram lines, these are easy to get to, open and walkable. It was also a big factor in where to buy an apartment, I'm pretty confident the tram lines will be there long after I die but bus lines can be changed on a whim.
It's a crime that Sydney and Brisbane got rid of them.
> my tram lines with dedicated lanes don't have those problems
Dedicated lanes is the biggest factor. Plenty of trams don't have dedicated lanes, in which case the significant cost premium is a complete waste.
Buses can also have dedicated lanes with right-of-way. The ones I've been on in Mexico and Ecuador were quite nice. While I personally find rail more comfortable and also appreciate how route permanence effects property values, as a taxpayer even dedicated lanes and right-of-way don't justify the costs.
Historic lines are a different matter as the initial capital costs are already spent, and even if they cost more to operate it can still make sense. So it does suck that old lines were destroyed. But if you're gonna build new, I just can't abide paying the ridiculous premium for rail unless they're going underground or otherwise grade separated for a significant portion of the line. But if they're grade separated then by definition they're not really trams.
> Buses can also have dedicated lanes with right-of-way.
IME they're an improvement but no where near as good as separated rail. It's like building a 32 lane highway, it speeds up most of your trip but then 90% of it is spent at the exit ramp.
Underground would probably be an improvement for travel times but I'm not sure how much, part of the benefit of trams is their frequent stops so being completely unimpeded is less critical. I doubt you'd see the same level of retail build up along the lines too.
One option I'd like to see return through the CBD would be elevated lines, I'm not sure why they fell out of fashion.
> Buses can also have dedicated lanes with right-of-way.
Yes, the busways in parts of Brisbane are really excellent, better than any tram line I have seen. But they are also huge pieces of infrastructure that take up even more space (and I suspect money) than the a tram line would have.
Which is probably why they only extend in one direction from the city.
>One of my favorite things about Melbourne is never having to visit a shopping mall because retail spaces spring up naturally along tram lines
Been in Melbourne for 18 months now and have only just realised that this is one of my favourite things as well, I only appreciated it subconsciously until now.
I wonder if this is something to do with their implementation, because in every place I have lived and been with trams the trams were faster than buses since buses were stuck in auto traffic. I love trams and trains. Tracklife for me.
Buses are bumpier. The experience of riding a tram is simply much nicer. The fact that people avoid buses in Melbourne, as you say, is just a consequence of the difference in comfort.
This about sums it up for your average Melburnian - '“A MAN who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself a failure.” So Margaret Thatcher is reputed to have said in 1986'
The burning of Sydney's rolling stock was a crime against woodworkers. The same thing happened to old wooden railway carriages in Sydney. Slabs of well seasoned (Australian) red cedar, the length of a railway carriage, inches thick and even wider gone up in smoke. That sort of wood was rare when the carriages were burnt and practically unobtainable now.
For people unfamiliar, 'Red Cedar' in Australia refers to a tree from the mahogany family, Toona Ciliata. Quoting an easy reference:
> It is one of Australia's few native deciduous trees. The timber is red in colour, easy to work and very highly valued. It was used extensively for furniture, wood panelling and construction, including shipbuilding, and was referred to as "red gold" by Australian settlers. Heavily and unsustainably exploited in the 19th and early 20th centuries, almost all the large trees have been cut out and the species is essentially commercially extinct. Availability of this timber is now limited.
There might be some old red rattlers in sidings of rural stations, my dad made a deal to get one and the fittings from its sibling when the owner wanted to use the bogeys and trays for a tourist train. That was a fun few summers of unscrewing everything from one unairconditioned carriage and and reattching it to ther other.
Once we have electric buses (battery powered) I think this makes sense.
And it would also make environmental sense in some cases to build a new road over a new train route. Because you can then run electric buses (maybe self-driving eventually) which can then easily open up new routes where trains would be unpractical for commuters.
I used to work with a public transit evangelist tragic (in his spare time) and he hated buses and bus-ways. I could never understand it. I think there's an element of permanance to light/heavy rail where the physical infrastructure is there (ergo it can "never" be taken away, ha ha) while a bus-way can be turned into a road.
I think there's some legit reasons (capacity) that light rail is better than buses in many circumstances, but there's a fair bit of fetishism in the anti-bus mob. It also seems to line up pretty well with 'not liking transit unions'.
A lot of times buses/busways get trotted out as the anti-transit alternative. Or are super watered down. In general if you have to build new infrastructure doing it with rails vs asphalt cost is not actually that different.
In general, for developed countries with high labor costs busways are a rotten deal since buses have such low per-driver capacity. And the most successful busways can't scale and end up getting replaced by light rail anyways. (Ottawa, Seattle, LA's Orange Line)
The thing about busways is that the buses get to the end of the busway and can then go around different areas and pick people up in places it would be impossible or uneconomical to lay track.
> The thing about busways is that the buses get to the end of the busway and can then go around different areas and pick people up in places it would be impossible or uneconomical to lay track.
This is only useful if you have a city geography and demographics conducive to this. A busway would be great in Pittsburgh, which is confined to narrow corridors, but not in Miami, which has a sprawling grid layout and the buses should reflect that.
The main problems with busways are that buses have lower driver/passenger ratios (so running costs are higher) and they require a lot more platform space and roadway space for the same capacity. The Lincoln Tunnel XBL in New York is an extremely busy busway, but even the current multistory terminal complex is not enough room to serve all the buses that go there. Likewise, the bus tunnel in Seattle has been converted to LRT because the LRT is much higher capacity. And so has the busway in Ottawa, and they're looking to do that in Los Angeles with the Orange Line as well.
You can have tree-branching LRT, like Muni Metro or Philly's Subway Surface or the Boston Green Line. It is more expensive upfront, but LRT also has advantages - being confined to rail, there's less lateral movement and smaller tunnel diameter requirements, and rail systems have lower ventilation requirements.
I've lived in a couple of cities with all of these (bus, tram, train plus metro). I'd never take a bus if I can avoid it. They are the lowest form of public transportation that is only meant as a cheap fix when rails aren't practical/affordable.
Regular buses aren't that convenient, but BRT/guided buses are great. The intervals between buses can be very short, and there's flexibility in the areas outside the busway.
Sydney is still being influenced by overseas trends right now as trams become popular again across large western cities. So do they actually make rational decisions or just follow whatever anyone is doing at the time?
The latter, definitely the latter. Although as much as I dislike the state government they kinda got screwed over by the federal government of the same party. There were reserved heavy rail corridors sold off by the Howard government that would have proven pretty useful.
Looks like Auckland NZ is planning on following this trend by building two tram lines over the next 10 years (CBD down Dominion Rd to Airport, another CBD to West), 60 years after following Sydney's lead of tearing out the trams (first replacing them with electric trolley buses, then removing the overhead lines 20 years later).
I don't see either line making a financial return on the investment, but the NZ government is financing it all by plundering the NZ Super Fund, which was originally intended to provide super payments for NZ's over-65-yr-old retirees. Of course, they're framing it all as "the Fund is making a long-term investment in the country's transport infrastructure", making the eventual huge losses some other goverment's problem.
> I don't see either line making a financial return on the investment
Do they get a financial return on the roads they build?Infrastructure (and practically all government services) never make money, that doesn't mean they aren't worthwhile.
If you're putting the country's pension fund into it you need a financial return. Otherwise you're not making an investment, you're just withdrawing money from the pension fund.
> “London has resolved its traffic problem by replacing trams with buses, and Sydney should do the same,” he advised.
Interestingly enough, London has not seen it fit to reinstall trams, instead choosing to continually expand the Underground (subway) network and apply congestion charges to the inner-city traffic. And as it happens, one of the more valid criticisms levied against Sydney's new line is that its capacity will be insufficient from Day 1, and it really should have been built as heavy rail instead.
Banning poor from the roads really seems like no solution at all to me. Like one of those misguided solutions an AI comes up with like pausing Tetris forever to avoid the score going down. You alleviated congestion for a few without solving the real problem. Improve transit and traffic engineering instead.
A congestion charge isn't "banning poor from the roads" any more than other significant costs like vehicle and fuel taxes or inner-city parking. And in the absence of the congestion charge, London's roads would be utterly unusable for everyone, including "poor" people who need an emergency ambulance provided by the free Government healthcare.
If the congestion charge was eliminated, daily commuting to central London by car would still be a non-starter for even the most aspirational middle-class office worker—let alone the poor.
If you've ever been to London you'd notice that the mass transit system—particularly the tube—is dominated by smart-looking, professionally dressed people navigating the city. It's a great system, it's almost always better than driving, and its use spans a broad socio-economic group.
I hate this argument because it seems altruistic and empathetic but most of the time it's entirely self-serving. People wheel it out when something that would inconvenience them, specifically, is proposed.
Example: in Manhattan we still have free street parking. It's insane. Yet any attempts to remove it get this same argument of "what about the poor who need to drive?" To anyone who says this or thinks this I challenge you to walk several blocks of pretty much any street below 110th street and look at the cars parked there. On some I see Maseratis, Teslas, BMWs and so on. It's not poor people who own these cars. It's just another giveaway to incumbents and the wealthy for no good reason.
I lived in London when congestion pricing was first rolled out. The difference in traffic in the West End was night and day, overnight. It was unbelievable, so much so that Ken Livingstone (then Mayor of London) worried they wouldn't hit revenue targets.
The problem with London's congestion pricing is there's an exemption for those who live in Zone 1, basically (technically, it's a subset of Zone 1). Why? These are the people who have the least need for private vehicles (by virtue of good public transportation) and are probably significantly wealthier than the average Londoner.
This is also the problem I have with what NYC is doing. They're also flirting with congestion pricing. So far all they've done is make Ubers stupidly expensive (there are rides that 5 years ago would cost me <$15 that now cost $35), which is again completely wrong. Uber and Lyft make efficient use of vehicles. They're not driven once a week and otherwise block the street cleaners in their free parking. Private vehicle ownership for Manhattan residents needs to be punitively taxed and street parking should require an expensive permit. There should also be a lot less of it.
A problem with means based charges is that it gives no incentive to people covered by the system to alter their behavior. I think a better way would be to have the charges apply to everyone and add a system that directs (some of) the collected money to people less well off. That way, if they need to, they can still afford to drive in the city, but if they can avoid it, it benefits them.
> The problem with London's congestion pricing is there's an exemption for those who live in Zone 1, basically (technically, it's a subset of Zone 1). Why? These are the people who have the least need for private vehicles (by virtue of good public transportation) and are probably significantly wealthier than the average Londoner.
I lived within the Congestion Zone, even with a 90% reduction on the charge per day (so you still have the cognitive load of having to pay) and having a parking space included with my flat (a damned luxury in London), still didn't feel the need to have a car.
As a Zone 1 resident I found driving in central more agro than it was worth. Granted, there are leafier areas that are still caught within it, but around where I was, and most of the places I've been inside it, the mix of 20mph zones, speed bumps, yellow boxes, bus lane cameras, cyclists, angry Uber drivers, and trying to find somewhere to park at the end... it's not worth it.
Now living in Zone 2, I have a car that I use exclusively for getting out of the city. I still struggle to understand why anyone would willingly drive in London on a daily basis (unless they're paid to drive).
The NRMA campaigned for decades to remove the trams from Sydney streets and it was effectively done at their behest. Corporate vandalism at its finest.
I don't feel like anyone has addressed the fact that Sydney's new tram system is an absolute joke. There's no point comparing it to Melbourne's expansive tram network, ours covers less than a tenth of the distance and pretty much runs between UNSW ( incredibly wealthy private institution ) and the new casino ( incredibly wealthy private institution ). The NSW state government has been thumbing it's nose at the ICAC for years with some of shadiest dealing and poor infrastructure investment of little benefit to the public. This new tram network is just the latest in this tradition. You can't possibly say that projects like this, Westconnex, the shortening of the rail line in Newcastle, etc did not reek of corruption and keep a straight face.
Admittedly, transport to UNSW was always bad via road. The congestion in the Eastern Suburbs is terrible. I never found the buses to Randwick to be _that_ terrible, but I never rode them in peak hour on a daily basis.
> I never found the buses to Randwick to be _that_ terrible, but I never rode them in peak hour on a daily basis.
It's very difficult to get a bus towards the city in the south east if you live closer to the city than UNSW - there's no standing room so they don't even stop. Getting a bus home at night after 10pm is a similar story so I end up walking back along the route past Hyde Park since that's where it fills up.
You can also add the stadium to the infrastructure corruption stink-list.
Agreed. The fact that it cost _so_ much is part of why we should not have public transport on rails. The money would have far better spent on better and more buses. And dedicated bus lanes and roads.
I have an inside story on the tram (light rail) construction. Workers were hired and literally did nothing for months. No wonder it cost so much.
I think your new tram system will be a great improvement on what is there right now (i.e over crowded buses). Maybe I am optimistic because I have witnessed the white elephant that is Newcastle's new 2.1km tram line (that's the next city up the east coast for non-Australians). Newcastle's tram line is a stark reminder that corporate interests can and will rip up heavy rail lines given enough incentives and a sufficiently corrupt state government. By most measures, public transport in Newcastle has gotten worse over the past few years, mostly due to stupid (or maybe just self serving) decisions made by those in charge.
Ah there are so many whingers in Australia who hate change! The new tram is much needed and George St is much better off with this than the hellscape of buses and cars. The southeast desperately needs a proper link to the city. As someone who moved from overseas to Sydney, I am excited about the new line, and WestConnex was desperately needed too. I'm grateful for all the infrastructure coming online here. $3 billion for this isn't so bad. You won't find anywhere in the world where projects like this don't have some corruption. Shrug.
The big thing about WestConnex was that it fed many lanes of traffic into a tiny crowded one lane street that has a lot of pedestrian traffic as well.
Maybe that's a bit of NIMBY but generally after new highways are built they are effectively choked off by the roads that feed in and out of them, especially ones where people want to exit on.
More like there are plenty of people born in Australia or who are longer-term residents than yourself who are jaded after seeing ridiculous developments or promises by successive State and Federal governments.
All that aside, I'm not against reasonable and financially responsible development. In my hometown of Adelaide the recent revival and expansion of the tram lines has been done in a successful and financially responsible manner (IMO):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Adelaide
Building between two highly trafficked buildings that can make obscene money off the participants via uni fees or gambling makes sense. Presumably those people are getting some value for their money and making that happen more accessibly is reasonable.
I don't understand the logic that leads to corruption. There might be corruption there for sure, but I'm not sure that reasoning is evidence for it.
Putting tram out to low traffic or density areas wouldn't make sense for your primary lines.
There are other heavily trafficked areas that doesn't have any investment. Esp the poorer western suburbs, with overcrowded trains and few busses.
The tram and light rail investment benefits the property and businesses along the route, but the taxes are paid by the silent majority who derive little to no benefit.
Yeah get those western suburbs solutions too! The second tram line can go there. I'm fairly sure casinos and unis pay taxes too.
I can't get into this base politicking about public services in such a crass way. I was sure Australia was above this nonsense. Go talk to your local rep! Bringing up corruption over not placing tram lines where you want them, is for the Americans. I'm not so easily persuaded that our pollies are that dumb.
Are you joking? Did you miss the fact that NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell dug his heels in and refused to sell Ausgrid infrastructure, then gets thrown out on a dubious corruption charge over a donated bottle of wine? From memory he denied this at first, then changed his tune and bowed out voluntarily. Only to be replaced with Casino Mike Baird who has a fire sale on public infrastructure. He presides over selling the poles and wires, the Westconnex debacle with the amalgamation of uncooperative inner-west councils, the Newcastle train line scandal, all the rest. Then just up and resigns before the end of his term after doing so many highly controversial deals. If you don't smell a rat in NSW politics you're clearly not paying attention.
This is a good argument, except that the tram line itself is a giant white elephant for the taxpayer. I doubt I'll ever catch it, and I live in the inner city.
The allegations of corruption follow from the fact that James Packer decides to build the already controversial casino in Barangaroo, a pokey, poorly trafficked corner of the inner city and then all of a sudden the government pours money into investing in public transport leading straight to the doorstep of the casino. The tram line literally terminates there.
I doubt the tram line will benefit even 1% of NSW citizens, yet we footed the bill. It's even more of a lemon than Westconnex.
They are free, don't emit fumes, reduce pedestrian numbers on the sidewalk and get you where you need to go quickly. Hook turn laws work well to make sure traffic doesn't get in their way.
We still have an underground train loop and the trams help reduce congestion in there as well.
But yeah, I feel like they do their best work in the CBD.
There are some examples that come to mind of trams I don't like. The tram that goes down Toorak rd is a huge nuisance, mostly due to how the council has mismanaged that road.
There are two lanes. That tram shares the right lane with cars and cars are allowed to park on the left lane. It completely bottlenecks the road - probably its intended purpose so people pay for Citylink bypass.
> "There was a nastiness to it that is quite surprising in hindsight," Hounsell says. "There was a clear ideological attack on this particular mode of transport – an attempt to destroy it and to obliterate it, to erase it from history."
Also reduces the likelihood that public opposition would result in trams being put back into service (spoiling whatever planning and deals politicians made).
This is an increasingly popular narrative, but it isn't entirely true. The trams of the 1950s were not well loved by everyone because they were alternatively burning hot or frigid cold, they forced all manner of people to squeeze together or hang on the outside as shown in the pictures, and at that time the system had fallen into disrepair during the war and had such deferred maintenance that it was necessary to either rebuild or ditch the system altogether.
Being honest about the limitations of the system and its lack of strong popularity helps explain very much. At that time cars were still relatively new so that all the downsides of traffic and freeways were not yet understood. It is also worth noting that modern trams deliver a much more refined experience not only from their own improvements but also from the traffic signal control integration that many newer tram lines enjoy. That kind of system was not available for trams of the 1950s and so they were slower in traffic.
> "They just got convinced by what was going on overseas, what the Americans were doing ... It was the wrong decision. I think we’ve always regretted that."
That final line struck a bit of a nerve. It always feels like Australia just sits around waiting to see what America's stance is on <political thing> and then try to follow suit.
Notable examples: immigration, data privacy, climate change, extensive privatisation in recent years.
I lived in Amsterdam a number of years ago. There were people constantly hit and killed by trams. There was a constant health emergency with cyclists getting their wheels stuck in the lines and then damaging their kneecaps, shoulders you name it.
Anyone know if Melbourne solved any of these issues?
I'd like to see some numbers to support that claim. I've lived in amsterdam for close to a decade and while the trams were something to watch out for, I can't remember any number of stories to indicate that they 'constantly' hit and killed people, and I was quite fond of their presence, generally speaking.
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[ 12.5 ms ] story [ 349 ms ] threadI guess it's true that now you might need tunnels (especially for the eastern suburbs). But these lines could have been built many decades ago.
Would I rather have trams than not have trams, absolutely -- but they shouldn't be relied on as a true solution to urban transport.
I am not sure if this implies you think Melbourne is lacking a underground metro? Or perhaps you're just making a general statement.
FWIW Melbourne has both trams and a underground metro system that does a fairly respectable job serving the CBD, and good network coverage to inner suburbs.
Whether the line is fully underground or not doesn't seem to affect much (other than ventilation).
I know it doesn't look too different to a passenger but operationally I think they are very different.
NYC, Paris and London are major cities. Teheran is between Sydney and Melbourne in area but has 3X the population.
I take a tram to work every day, and any underground metro system would take a lot longer (It's a relatively short trip.)
I live in a city with underground metro, buses, trams and trolley buses (Milan, Italy.) It's nearly impossible to change the route of a tram line unless there are rails and overhead cables everywhere but it's immediate for buses. Even trolley buses can move on batteries to drive around road works or car accidents. On the other side trams can be much longer than a standard bus and accommodate more people. The trend is to have tram routes that don't share the road with cars, electric buses and more underground metro.
These ones are basically a small bump, you don't even slow down when you go over them. If you're riding along them they can be slippery and you can get stuck in the grooves, but they're in the middle of the road so this isn't really an issue.
And: https://www.smh.com.au/national/tram-tracks-a-trap-for-cycli...
http://www.executivestyle.com.au/rail-lines-tram-tracks-and-...
It's a common issue for cyclists in Melbourne.
Now, a proper analysis would compare this detriment to the risks presented by busses, more cars, etc.
But if you cycle in the direction the tram travels - as you would if it was a bus lane, or a car would in a lane shared between trams and cars - then [1] can happen. Wheel goes into the groove in the road, cycle can't no longer steer, so it can't balance.
Obviously, you might think "Well then, don't cycle along lanes with tram tracks" but that means retrofitting an existing city with new tram tracks makes it less welcoming to cyclists - unlike busses or a metro system.
[1] https://youtu.be/aE3W4kEBhuE
I'm picturing that because it's the most common occurrence. When your traveling in the same direction as the tracks then those tracks are always out in the center of the road and your as far left as possible. The only times I've been caught in the tracks was when I'm trying to turn right from the middle in which case a hook turn is usually better. You also need a bit of caution when your crossing curving tracks.
They aren't notoriously bad and in practice barely an issue, there are far bigger things to worry about.
European cities usually have these in progression: tram for small cities, tram+train for large ones, tram+train+metro for the metropolis. Having a metro doesn't mean you shouldn't also have a tram. I agree that building everything from scratch may seem cost-prohibitive, but you have to start somewhere. Lifetime of cities is long enough to build these gradually.
> Eh the trams are cute, and smooth, but painfully slow.
Trams are for shorter trips that metro/heavy rail. They are slower than either of those two, but don't need to be painfully slow -- this depends on the city layout, e.g. Berlin vs. Prague has a large difference in tram speeds (Berlin having the fast ones).
> Better passenger experience than buses, but the tracks and overhead cables are a blight on the streetscape and impact drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists alike. Overall, not worth it.
Also, strongly disagreeing with this too. Trams look great, including the tracks and overhead lines -- they just belong to a city.
Can't stand buses. Buses are slower, comparatively unreliable, from the commuters view they are stuck on rails (that's what a route is), they don't support the increased density trams and rail do, have lower capacity, more disruptive to traffic, slower to get on/get off because of fewer doors. So now we have the contradictory evidence problem :p
(And just for the record, I've lived in both Sydney and Melbourne, and the only thing worse than replacement buses are Sydney buses + Sydney traffic. Of course, that's not to say I don't use buses, I do, but Melbourne's core is awesome partly due to the trams, and people in Melbourne don't know how good they've got it).
I also moved to Melbourne recently, and my theory is that the love of trams is inertia from a time where congestion wasn't so bad.
I prefer to walk within the city loop, but both activities would be so much faster and more pleasant without the cars.
There are quite a few Teslas that drive around here with wanky number plates like they're doing the world a favor, which in a city with such usable public transport always makes me cringe.
You're not doing anything wrong by driving a Tesla, and it's preferable to an ICE.
But you aren't doing more for the environment than someone who only takes public transport, which is practical and quite common here.
Keep in mind that you only have a 25 minute drive because so many other people are taking public transport, if it was ripped out you'd have a much longer commute so it is very practical for you, albeit indirectly.
> That 40 minutes a day is very valuable to me
Depending on how crowded the tram/train is that 40 minutes can usable time with a smartphone or laptop, it's not in a car.
I have never been in any train or tram that has anywhere near enough room to use a laptop. In peak hours I try to even avoid using my phone - there's simply not enough room to have a raised hand near your face without the hand also being in someone else's face.
The long-distance trains (like the Quiet Carraiges to Geelong) have more room, and in Perth I could use a laptop for the first ~30min of my journey before the train filled up.
Outside of peak hours is an entirely different story.
To each their own. I'd always take train, even if I couldn't use the time for anything.
What's the difference to you, as a passenger, between being stuck on a tram rail, and being stuck on a bus route? You can't ask a bus driver you take a de-tour from their route, can you?
> disruptive to the rest of the traffic
No the rest of the traffic is disruptive to the trams!
It will always take less time to change a bus line than a train line - but this isn't a difference of hours vs. years, it's months vs. even more months.
Trams will have relief route loops, but they’re never in the most ideal location.
Offering a general principle doesn't somehow refute reality.
If you look at a map of Melbourne's frequent services (tram and bus) they pretty much all form a grid. https://melbourneontransit.blogspot.com/2019/04/are-you-near...
Auckland redesigned its transit network to have more frequent routes requiring transferring, and public transport ridership is poised to double in ten years. https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/111564109/aucklands-unbelie...
The trams in melbourne suburbs usually drive down the middle of the road, and stop in the middle of the road, meaning people exit in the middle of the road and have to walk across it to the footpath, halting the traffic. Conversely buses pull over to the side of the road, usually into a lane that is used for parking, or at the most stopping only the one lane of traffic.
This can actually be pretty bad for travel time as well, because then the bus has to wait for a break in traffic to get back on the road. Now in the US many places build bus stops out to the road lanes so that they don't have to waste time pulling in and out of traffic.
This seems less a problem of trams running in the middle of the road and more of a problem of localities that don't build suitable waiting areas next to the tram tracks. Example: https://nacto.org/wp-content/themes/sink_nacto/views/design-...
The bus behind could have driven around, but the next tram was stuck until the blockage was cleared
Now, if the busses had dedicated lanes that they could use, they may run as well as trams, with the flexibilty of changing route for exceptions like crashes, or road works
There are some express buses which at least are quick but they're still noisy and uncomfortable. Trams are a dream after using the buses.
The permanence is also a feature. One of my favorite things about Melbourne is never having to visit a shopping mall because retail spaces spring up naturally along tram lines, these are easy to get to, open and walkable. It was also a big factor in where to buy an apartment, I'm pretty confident the tram lines will be there long after I die but bus lines can be changed on a whim.
It's a crime that Sydney and Brisbane got rid of them.
Dedicated lanes is the biggest factor. Plenty of trams don't have dedicated lanes, in which case the significant cost premium is a complete waste.
Buses can also have dedicated lanes with right-of-way. The ones I've been on in Mexico and Ecuador were quite nice. While I personally find rail more comfortable and also appreciate how route permanence effects property values, as a taxpayer even dedicated lanes and right-of-way don't justify the costs.
Historic lines are a different matter as the initial capital costs are already spent, and even if they cost more to operate it can still make sense. So it does suck that old lines were destroyed. But if you're gonna build new, I just can't abide paying the ridiculous premium for rail unless they're going underground or otherwise grade separated for a significant portion of the line. But if they're grade separated then by definition they're not really trams.
IME they're an improvement but no where near as good as separated rail. It's like building a 32 lane highway, it speeds up most of your trip but then 90% of it is spent at the exit ramp.
Underground would probably be an improvement for travel times but I'm not sure how much, part of the benefit of trams is their frequent stops so being completely unimpeded is less critical. I doubt you'd see the same level of retail build up along the lines too.
One option I'd like to see return through the CBD would be elevated lines, I'm not sure why they fell out of fashion.
Yes, the busways in parts of Brisbane are really excellent, better than any tram line I have seen. But they are also huge pieces of infrastructure that take up even more space (and I suspect money) than the a tram line would have.
Which is probably why they only extend in one direction from the city.
Been in Melbourne for 18 months now and have only just realised that this is one of my favourite things as well, I only appreciated it subconsciously until now.
Buses are for pensioners and school kids.
https://www.economist.com/britain/2006/09/28/the-wheels-on-t...
> It is one of Australia's few native deciduous trees. The timber is red in colour, easy to work and very highly valued. It was used extensively for furniture, wood panelling and construction, including shipbuilding, and was referred to as "red gold" by Australian settlers. Heavily and unsustainably exploited in the 19th and early 20th centuries, almost all the large trees have been cut out and the species is essentially commercially extinct. Availability of this timber is now limited.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toona_ciliata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoioideae
And it would also make environmental sense in some cases to build a new road over a new train route. Because you can then run electric buses (maybe self-driving eventually) which can then easily open up new routes where trains would be unpractical for commuters.
I think there's some legit reasons (capacity) that light rail is better than buses in many circumstances, but there's a fair bit of fetishism in the anti-bus mob. It also seems to line up pretty well with 'not liking transit unions'.
In general, for developed countries with high labor costs busways are a rotten deal since buses have such low per-driver capacity. And the most successful busways can't scale and end up getting replaced by light rail anyways. (Ottawa, Seattle, LA's Orange Line)
The thing about busways is that the buses get to the end of the busway and can then go around different areas and pick people up in places it would be impossible or uneconomical to lay track.
This is only useful if you have a city geography and demographics conducive to this. A busway would be great in Pittsburgh, which is confined to narrow corridors, but not in Miami, which has a sprawling grid layout and the buses should reflect that.
The main problems with busways are that buses have lower driver/passenger ratios (so running costs are higher) and they require a lot more platform space and roadway space for the same capacity. The Lincoln Tunnel XBL in New York is an extremely busy busway, but even the current multistory terminal complex is not enough room to serve all the buses that go there. Likewise, the bus tunnel in Seattle has been converted to LRT because the LRT is much higher capacity. And so has the busway in Ottawa, and they're looking to do that in Los Angeles with the Orange Line as well.
You can have tree-branching LRT, like Muni Metro or Philly's Subway Surface or the Boston Green Line. It is more expensive upfront, but LRT also has advantages - being confined to rail, there's less lateral movement and smaller tunnel diameter requirements, and rail systems have lower ventilation requirements.
I don't see either line making a financial return on the investment, but the NZ government is financing it all by plundering the NZ Super Fund, which was originally intended to provide super payments for NZ's over-65-yr-old retirees. Of course, they're framing it all as "the Fund is making a long-term investment in the country's transport infrastructure", making the eventual huge losses some other goverment's problem.
Do they get a financial return on the roads they build?Infrastructure (and practically all government services) never make money, that doesn't mean they aren't worthwhile.
Interestingly enough, London has not seen it fit to reinstall trams, instead choosing to continually expand the Underground (subway) network and apply congestion charges to the inner-city traffic. And as it happens, one of the more valid criticisms levied against Sydney's new line is that its capacity will be insufficient from Day 1, and it really should have been built as heavy rail instead.
If the congestion charge was eliminated, daily commuting to central London by car would still be a non-starter for even the most aspirational middle-class office worker—let alone the poor.
If you've ever been to London you'd notice that the mass transit system—particularly the tube—is dominated by smart-looking, professionally dressed people navigating the city. It's a great system, it's almost always better than driving, and its use spans a broad socio-economic group.
Example: in Manhattan we still have free street parking. It's insane. Yet any attempts to remove it get this same argument of "what about the poor who need to drive?" To anyone who says this or thinks this I challenge you to walk several blocks of pretty much any street below 110th street and look at the cars parked there. On some I see Maseratis, Teslas, BMWs and so on. It's not poor people who own these cars. It's just another giveaway to incumbents and the wealthy for no good reason.
I lived in London when congestion pricing was first rolled out. The difference in traffic in the West End was night and day, overnight. It was unbelievable, so much so that Ken Livingstone (then Mayor of London) worried they wouldn't hit revenue targets.
The problem with London's congestion pricing is there's an exemption for those who live in Zone 1, basically (technically, it's a subset of Zone 1). Why? These are the people who have the least need for private vehicles (by virtue of good public transportation) and are probably significantly wealthier than the average Londoner.
This is also the problem I have with what NYC is doing. They're also flirting with congestion pricing. So far all they've done is make Ubers stupidly expensive (there are rides that 5 years ago would cost me <$15 that now cost $35), which is again completely wrong. Uber and Lyft make efficient use of vehicles. They're not driven once a week and otherwise block the street cleaners in their free parking. Private vehicle ownership for Manhattan residents needs to be punitively taxed and street parking should require an expensive permit. There should also be a lot less of it.
I lived within the Congestion Zone, even with a 90% reduction on the charge per day (so you still have the cognitive load of having to pay) and having a parking space included with my flat (a damned luxury in London), still didn't feel the need to have a car.
As a Zone 1 resident I found driving in central more agro than it was worth. Granted, there are leafier areas that are still caught within it, but around where I was, and most of the places I've been inside it, the mix of 20mph zones, speed bumps, yellow boxes, bus lane cameras, cyclists, angry Uber drivers, and trying to find somewhere to park at the end... it's not worth it.
Now living in Zone 2, I have a car that I use exclusively for getting out of the city. I still struggle to understand why anyone would willingly drive in London on a daily basis (unless they're paid to drive).
That's not strictly true[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramlink
It's very difficult to get a bus towards the city in the south east if you live closer to the city than UNSW - there's no standing room so they don't even stop. Getting a bus home at night after 10pm is a similar story so I end up walking back along the route past Hyde Park since that's where it fills up.
You can also add the stadium to the infrastructure corruption stink-list.
I have an inside story on the tram (light rail) construction. Workers were hired and literally did nothing for months. No wonder it cost so much.
And being a fixed high visibility project makes it so much easier to exploit.
I hope theres more planned, thats barely worth going out of your way to catch.
Maybe that's a bit of NIMBY but generally after new highways are built they are effectively choked off by the roads that feed in and out of them, especially ones where people want to exit on.
All that aside, I'm not against reasonable and financially responsible development. In my hometown of Adelaide the recent revival and expansion of the tram lines has been done in a successful and financially responsible manner (IMO): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Adelaide
I don't understand the logic that leads to corruption. There might be corruption there for sure, but I'm not sure that reasoning is evidence for it.
Putting tram out to low traffic or density areas wouldn't make sense for your primary lines.
The tram and light rail investment benefits the property and businesses along the route, but the taxes are paid by the silent majority who derive little to no benefit.
I can't get into this base politicking about public services in such a crass way. I was sure Australia was above this nonsense. Go talk to your local rep! Bringing up corruption over not placing tram lines where you want them, is for the Americans. I'm not so easily persuaded that our pollies are that dumb.
I'll give you that. There's more rats in Aussie politics overall. Glad to see the back of Abbott and Barnaby is a parade of comical errors.
Both the Packer boy and the Murdoch sons seem to be lemons. Hopefully they improve with age...
They are free, don't emit fumes, reduce pedestrian numbers on the sidewalk and get you where you need to go quickly. Hook turn laws work well to make sure traffic doesn't get in their way.
We still have an underground train loop and the trams help reduce congestion in there as well.
> They are free
In the free tram zone, sure, which is an area of less than 2 by 3 km. The longest tram route is 23 km long.
But yeah, I feel like they do their best work in the CBD.
There are some examples that come to mind of trams I don't like. The tram that goes down Toorak rd is a huge nuisance, mostly due to how the council has mismanaged that road.
There are two lanes. That tram shares the right lane with cars and cars are allowed to park on the left lane. It completely bottlenecks the road - probably its intended purpose so people pay for Citylink bypass.
Also reduces the likelihood that public opposition would result in trams being put back into service (spoiling whatever planning and deals politicians made).
Being honest about the limitations of the system and its lack of strong popularity helps explain very much. At that time cars were still relatively new so that all the downsides of traffic and freeways were not yet understood. It is also worth noting that modern trams deliver a much more refined experience not only from their own improvements but also from the traffic signal control integration that many newer tram lines enjoy. That kind of system was not available for trams of the 1950s and so they were slower in traffic.
That final line struck a bit of a nerve. It always feels like Australia just sits around waiting to see what America's stance is on <political thing> and then try to follow suit.
Notable examples: immigration, data privacy, climate change, extensive privatisation in recent years.
(Notable counter-examples: gun control, healthcare)
I'm interested to know if this is just my own biased perception based on media and news exposure though.
Gun control, yes.
Healthcare, it seems like the Libs (at least) are bent on destroying Medicare in favour of what? Likely private healthcare