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London still has one of the most extensive underground railway systems in the world, as well as the most iconic buses. Notwithstanding the nostalgia that we of
by kijin 7y ago
London still has one of the most extensive underground railway systems in the world, as well as the most iconic buses.
Notwithstanding the nostalgia that we often associate with them, trams are not a magical method of transportation. Nothing of value is lost if you can get the same job done with trains underground and buses above. Underground railways have the additional benefit of not taking up precious urban space that could be used by e.g. bicycles. It just happens that digging tunnels is much more expensive than embedding a pair of rails in the pavement, so cities have to think harder about short-term costs vs. long-term benefits.
- dijit 7y agoI would very much love to agree with you. But London’s public transportation system, while very good considering its age and the extensiveness of deployment is not perfect; it is not a stretch to call it overburdened. I lived there for 5 years and absolutely dreaded commuting. A quick win would be to prevent the morning and evening rush. But that’s another discussion entirely.
- lifeisstillgood 7y agoIf you have ideas on how to prevent that daily nightmare there are 10 million pairs of ears ready to listen :-)
- ddalex 7y agoI've done the London commute for 6 years now. My solution : work out flexible hours with my employer. If I have the stand-up at 11 I can jump in the underground at 9:30, after the worst of the rush is done. Likewise in the evening, work until the worst of the rush is done. My SO solution: live in the city, work on the outskirts. The commute is effectively against the traffic. Can get a seat and plenty of space at 8:30, top of the rush hour. There are some solutions but I'm not sure that they scale, though.
- close04 7y agoTrams are actually a strange beast that's not as cheap and flexible as a bus, and not as efficient as the underground but still quite expensive to build and maintain, which is the main reason many cities abandoned them. A big advantage is that they are electric but once electric buses really take off they'll be a much better compromise for public transport overall. Much of the surface traffic would have to be reduced anyway.
- bobthepanda 7y agoThe main advantage of trams over a bus is that in general, the layout is more conducive for rapid boarding and alighting, and the trams can physically be longer and have more room for people. The main advantage of trams over an underground is that they can be much cheaper to build. Crossrail 2 in London is expected to cost 32 billion GBP; you could build quite a lot of tram for that kind of money.
- bluGill 7y agoOnly the fact that trams can be larger is inherent in trams. The rest could easily be applied to a bus if someone had the vision to do so.
- elsurudo 7y agoIt's not always _just_ about objective features. I really like trams and trains in general, because they feel "solid" – like an immovable part of the city infrastructure. There are mental benefits to this, I feel. Buses jostle around, abrupty change speeds, etc. Trams... just glide. You are on a movable walkway, seeing the cityscape unfold on both sides as you commute to work.
- asdff 7y agoTrams do not glide. The trams in portland sound like nails on the chalkboard when they round a turn. They also vibrate and thud and have to deal with traffic all the same if they aren't grade separated.
- kijin 7y agoOf course it's far from perfect. It's an ancient, organically grown city that contains roughly the same number of people as the entire country of Switzerland. Instead of romancitizing about European cities that are 1/20 of their size, I wish Londoners and New Yorkers would look to China and Japan for better examples. Those guys know how to build and maintain 21st century infrastructure for millions.
- Symbiote 7y agoTransport For London itself doesn't look to small cities. They even offer consulting to large cities (Hong Kong, Sydney, Boston) to share their experience. https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/business-and-commercial/commercial-consulting https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/business-and-commercial/commerci...
- simongray 7y ago> Those guys know how to build and maintain 21st century infrastructure for millions. Maybe Japan? Haven't visited. But China has lots of terrible city planning and they are way too into cars. I lived in Beijing for 2 years and Beijing traffic is just the worse. Beijing is also not a very good city to be a pedestrian in, as every major street typically has 12-16 lanes and waiting at intersections takes forever. It feels like walking along a motorway. Finding shortcuts throughs the alleyways of a city block is also really hard as many of them are gated. Same goes for any major Chinese city really, except for the ones with surviving colonial city centres like Shanghai. The metro is pretty good, but definitely not pleasant to use during rush hour, and changing lines usually entails a lot of walking around underground tunnels.
- iguy 7y agoBesides cost there is also time. Many of London's lines are very deep, and so it takes significant time just to get down there & back up again.
- razzimatazz 7y agoBeing on the surface adds a lot of value for short trips in a tram (or similar). To reach the subway takes 2-4 minutes of travel down to platform level and back up. To cross the car lane to the tram station in Zurich takes 10-30s if you see the tram coming or read the digital signage, and a few minutes later you can be at your intended destination. Zurich has of course large parking garages, and if you bring your car in to the city you would leave it there and be able to hop around on the trams & buses, taking only a few minutes between your different shopping and eating destinations. I also think as a wealthy car driver you can differentiate yourself from the poor public-transport-dependents by choosing to stand on the tram, showing off your high-end branded shopping bags.
- skummetmaelk 7y agoTrams have the advantage of not being blocked by traffic. You can achieve the same with dedicated bus lanes, but motorists don't always respect those and they take more space.
- dsego 7y agoNot all trams have dedicated tracks. Usually some main lines, otherwise they share the road with cars.
- close04 7y agoThe worst part is that they share intersections with regular roads, exactly where most accidents tend to happen. And the accidents can be a bit more disruptive because a tram can easily block even bigger intersections.
- bogomipz 7y ago">Nothing of value is lost if you can get the same job done with trains underground and buses above." I would argue that seeing day light is a thing of value. Also the ability to look out a window and see life is also much more interesting than staring out into dark lifeless subway tunnels. Berlin and Amssterdam both have trams and neither seems to have impinged on space for bicycles.
- ACow_Adonis 7y agoWhy not trains underground and trams on the surface in the pedestrian environment like Melbourne CBD :p (See my other post in this thread for real benefits and design choices trams make over buses and rail)
- blue_devil 7y agoI think a cyclist would feel more safe and less gassed alongside a tram, than a bus (the majority of buses not being electric).