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.
Definitions are loose but generally a tram is defined as sharing the road with cars, aka streetcar in North America. If it has its own dedicated right of way, then it’s a light rail. Light rail can be separated all the way to a metro system if you want. (I think we shouldn’t use the term tram at all, use streetcar which is self explanatory or light rail to mean dedicated right of way.)