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.
An issue I have with trams is that they are very slow if not properly integrated in both the city layout and the general population of the city. For example, in Marseille, trams have to frequently compete with pedestrians and bicycles that keep walking/riding on the tram line. This doesn’t happen with buses (or not as frequently).
The one thing that makes them better than buses in Marseille is that trams are more reliable time-wise since they don’t have to share the road with cars.
Ugh, that is definitely annoying and dangerous. I used to live in Erfurt, Germany for a while. Quaint medieval old-town, huge cathedral, very popular with tourists, some major attraction happening roughly every weekend.
So they have that really narrow alley running from the cathedral to the central square where all the tourists and citizens are squeezing through, and yeah, lo and behold, they run a tram through it as well… 🤪
I gotta assume the majority of Germany’s ~30 tram deaths per year are drunken tourists in Erfurt.
Boston has a similar problem where the trains come above ground. They run in the center of a split street so they have to stop at traffic signals and are frequently struck by cars attempting to cross the intersection when they’re not supposed to. What should be a fast and easy mode of transit is instead frequently derailed by traffic accidents.