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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 aro

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.

bobthepanda 7y ago
> 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. 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-guides/retrofit/urban-street-design-guide/images/dedicated-median-bus-lanes/carousel//800px-EmX_High_Street_Station.jpg https://nacto.org/wp-content/themes/sink_nacto/views/design-...
- shard972 7y ago
  It's the law to give way to busses merging in australia so you clearly don't know what your talking about.
craz8 7y ago
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
- shrewduser 7y ago
  this is so rare, i take trams every day and have never seen it.

bobthepanda 7y ago

> 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. 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-guides/retrofit/urban-street-design-guide/images/dedicated-median-bus-lanes/carousel//800px-EmX_High_Street_Station.jpg https://nacto.org/wp-content/themes/sink_nacto/views/design-...

shard972 7y ago
It's the law to give way to busses merging in australia so you clearly don't know what your talking about.

craz8 7y ago

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

shrewduser 7y ago
this is so rare, i take trams every day and have never seen it.