Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 125 posts

Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car

#61

Post by vorg »

ekianjo wrote: post #22

Sydney is still being influenced by overseas trends right now as trams become popular again across large western cities. So do they actually make rational decisions or just follow whatever anyone is doing at the time?

Looks like Auckland NZ is planning on following this trend by building two tram lines over the next 10 years (CBD down Dominion Rd to Airport, another CBD to West), 60 years after following Sydney's lead of tearing out the trams (first replacing them with electric trolley buses, then removing the overhead lines 20 years later).

I don't see either line making a financial return on the investment, but the NZ government is financing it all by plundering the NZ Super Fund, which was originally intended to provide super payments for NZ's over-65-yr-old retirees. Of course, they're framing it all as "the Fund is making a long-term investment in the country's transport infrastructure", making the eventual huge losses some other goverment's problem.

Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car

#62

Post by stonith »

ajxs wrote: post #50

I don't feel like anyone has addressed the fact that Sydney's new tram system is an absolute joke. There's no point comparing it to Melbourne's expansive tram network, ours covers less than a tenth of the distance and pretty much runs between UNSW ( incredibly wealthy private institution ) and the new casino ( incredibly wealthy private institution ). The NSW state government has been thumbing it's nose at the ICAC f…

> I never found the buses to Randwick to be _that_ terrible, but I never rode them in peak hour on a daily basis.

It's very difficult to get a bus towards the city in the south east if you live closer to the city than UNSW - there's no standing room so they don't even stop. Getting a bus home at night after 10pm is a similar story so I end up walking back along the route past Hyde Park since that's where it fills up.

You can also add the stadium to the infrastructure corruption stink-list.

Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car

#63

Post by flukus »

vorg wrote: post #61
ekianjo wrote: post #22

Sydney is still being influenced by overseas trends right now as trams become popular again across large western cities. So do they actually make rational decisions or just follow whatever anyone is doing at the time?

Looks like Auckland NZ is planning on following this trend by building two tram lines over the next 10 years (CBD down Dominion Rd to Airport, another CBD to West), 60 years after following Sydney's lead of tearing out the trams (first replacing them with electric trolley buses, then removing the overhead lines 20 years later). I don't see either line making a financial return on the investment, but the NZ government…

> I don't see either line making a financial return on the investment

Do they get a financial return on the roads they build?Infrastructure (and practically all government services) never make money, that doesn't mean they aren't worthwhile.

Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car

#64

Post by waddlesworth »

cylinder wrote: post #47
gumby wrote: post #2

The 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.

Eh the trams are cute, and smooth, but painfully slow. Better passenger experience than buses, but the tracks and overhead cables are a blight on the streetscape and impact drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists alike. Overall, not worth it. Real cities have metros underground, full stop. Would I rather have trams than not have trams, absolutely -- but they shouldn't be relied on as a true solution to urban transport.

I don't know if I'd call the overhead cables "a blight on the streetscape." and the tracks inside the CBD aren't particularly deep. How do they impact pedestrians and cyclists?

I take a tram to work every day, and any underground metro system would take a lot longer (It's a relatively short trip.)

Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car

#65

Post by shrewduser »

craz8 wrote: post #45
mrmincent wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 buse…

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

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

Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car

#66

Post by pmontra »

waddlesworth wrote: post #64
cylinder wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh the trams are cute, and smooth, but painfully slow. Better passenger experience than buses, but the tracks and overhead cables are a blight on the streetscape and impact drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists alike. Overall, not worth it. Real cities have metros underground, full stop. Would I rather have trams than not have trams, absolutely -- but they shouldn't be relied on as a true solution to urban transport.

I don't know if I'd call the overhead cables "a blight on the streetscape." and the tracks inside the CBD aren't particularly deep. How do they impact pedestrians and cyclists? I take a tram to work every day, and any underground metro system would take a lot longer (It's a relatively short trip.)

Rails are notoriously bad for cyclists.

I live in a city with underground metro, buses, trams and trolley buses (Milan, Italy.) It's nearly impossible to change the route of a tram line unless there are rails and overhead cables everywhere but it's immediate for buses. Even trolley buses can move on batteries to drive around road works or car accidents. On the other side trams can be much longer than a standard bus and accommodate more people. The trend is to have tram routes that don't share the road with cars, electric buses and more underground metro.

Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car

#67

Post by yoube »

jaimex2 wrote: post #53

I love our trams in Melbourne. They are free, don't emit fumes, reduce pedestrian numbers on the sidewalk and get you where you need to go quickly. Hook turn laws work well to make sure traffic doesn't get in their way. We still have an underground train loop and the trams help reduce congestion in there as well.

Melbourne isn't just the CBD, though.

> They are free

In the free tram zone, sure, which is an area of less than 2 by 3 km. The longest tram route is 23 km long.

Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car

#68

Post by neilv »

> "There was a nastiness to it that is quite surprising in hindsight," Hounsell says. "There was a clear ideological attack on this particular mode of transport – an attempt to destroy it and to obliterate it, to erase it from history."

Also reduces the likelihood that public opposition would result in trams being put back into service (spoiling whatever planning and deals politicians made).

Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car

#69

Post by devnulloverflow »

guitarbill wrote: post #13
gumby wrote: post #2

The 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.

agree in the centre. Sydney's trains are good for the sprawl, it can be hard to get to some Melbs suburbs without a car (even though there are trains in Melbourne)

It's hard to get to some Sydney suburbs for the same reason. Though interestingly this includes rich areas like the Eastern Suburbs and Northern Beaches. I suspect fat-cat NIMBYs have been keeping the trains out for generations now.

Re: How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car

#70

Post by emmelaich »

ajxs wrote: post #50

I don't feel like anyone has addressed the fact that Sydney's new tram system is an absolute joke. There's no point comparing it to Melbourne's expansive tram network, ours covers less than a tenth of the distance and pretty much runs between UNSW ( incredibly wealthy private institution ) and the new casino ( incredibly wealthy private institution ). The NSW state government has been thumbing it's nose at the ICAC f…

Agreed. The fact that it cost _so_ much is part of why we should not have public transport on rails. The money would have far better spent on better and more buses. And dedicated bus lanes and roads.

I have an inside story on the tram (light rail) construction. Workers were hired and literally did nothing for months. No wonder it cost so much.

Post reply on HN