How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car
theguardian.com
How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car
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Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car
#2The 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.
Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car
#3As 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.
Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car
#4some readers may be interested in this video which discusses the impact of accommodating cars in cities >> https://youtu.be/0lvUByM-fZk
Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car
#5As 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).
Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car
#6The 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.
Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car
#7As 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.
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.
Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car
#8As 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.
> buses aren’t stuck on rails
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!
Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car
#9As 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.
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, whi…
I feel like the best solution for this problem is a reduction of traffic in core city areas by restricting car access.
Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car
#10As 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.
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.