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How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car

theguardian.com

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

#111

Post by ajxs »

friendlybus wrote: post #99
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…

Building between two highly trafficked buildings that can make obscene money off the participants via uni fees or gambling makes sense. Presumably those people are getting some value for their money and making that happen more accessibly is reasonable. I don't understand the logic that leads to corruption. There might be corruption there for sure, but I'm not sure that reasoning is evidence for it. Putting tram out t…

This is a good argument, except that the tram line itself is a giant white elephant for the taxpayer. I doubt I'll ever catch it, and I live in the inner city. The allegations of corruption follow from the fact that James Packer decides to build the already controversial casino in Barangaroo, a pokey, poorly trafficked corner of the inner city and then all of a sudden the government pours money into investing in public transport leading straight to the doorstep of the casino. The tram line literally terminates there. I doubt the tram line will benefit even 1% of NSW citizens, yet we footed the bill. It's even more of a lemon than Westconnex.

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

#112

Post by MagnumOpus »

wastedhours wrote: post #104
friendlybus wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving at night in London is more pleasant.

The ULEZ is 24/7 though, so you also need to pay at night now, which is a shame.

The ULEZ only applies to 20-year-old bangers which probably shouldn't be on the road in the first place, and to old diesels.

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

#113

Post by wastedhours »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #112
wastedhours wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ULEZ is 24/7 though, so you also need to pay at night now, which is a shame.

The ULEZ only applies to 20-year-old bangers which probably shouldn't be on the road in the first place, and to old diesels.

Er... my car is eligible for it, and it's certainly not a "banger". Though it is 20 years old.

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

#114

Post by Grue3 »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #21

I believe buses are almost universally better than any kind of city light rail. Please no more light rail in cities, more buses.

Regular buses aren't that convenient, but BRT/guided buses are great. The intervals between buses can be very short, and there's flexibility in the areas outside the busway.

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

#115

Post by gumby »

cylinder wrote: post #75
zizee wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Real cities have metros underground, full stop. I am not sure if this implies you think Melbourne is lacking a underground metro? Or perhaps you're just making a general statement. FWIW Melbourne has both trams and a underground metro system that does a fairly respectable job serving the CBD, and good network coverage to inner suburbs.

Melbourne has a suburban heavy commuter rail network with an underground CBD loop. That's not the same thing as an underground metro like the NYC subway, Paris metro, Tehran metro, Japan, London Underground etc. All of these cities have urban metros in addition to suburban commuter rail (except Tehran I guess?). Melbourne's just not there yet and is still fairly suburban. Sydney's building a new metro system which wi…

I didn’t mean to imply a general principle, but Melbourne and Sydney are roughly comparable in size and population, making a comparison interesting.

NYC, Paris and London are major cities. Teheran is between Sydney and Melbourne in area but has 3X the population.

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

#116

Post by blaser-waffle »

emmelaich wrote: post #70
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.

So the problem is corrupt and lazy managers, not that trams are bad.

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

#117

Post by bobthepanda »

glangdale wrote: post #103
bobthepanda wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of times buses/busways get trotted out as the anti-transit alternative. Or are super watered down. In general if you have to build new infrastructure doing it with rails vs asphalt cost is not actually that different. In general, for developed countries with high labor costs busways are a rotten deal since buses have such low per-driver capacity. And the most successful busways can't scale and end up getting re…

Buses are transit yo. The thing about busways is that the buses get to the end of the busway and can then go around different areas and pick people up in places it would be impossible or uneconomical to lay track.

> The thing about busways is that the buses get to the end of the busway and can then go around different areas and pick people up in places it would be impossible or uneconomical to lay track.

This is only useful if you have a city geography and demographics conducive to this. A busway would be great in Pittsburgh, which is confined to narrow corridors, but not in Miami, which has a sprawling grid layout and the buses should reflect that.

The main problems with busways are that buses have lower driver/passenger ratios (so running costs are higher) and they require a lot more platform space and roadway space for the same capacity. The Lincoln Tunnel XBL in New York is an extremely busy busway, but even the current multistory terminal complex is not enough room to serve all the buses that go there. Likewise, the bus tunnel in Seattle has been converted to LRT because the LRT is much higher capacity. And so has the busway in Ottawa, and they're looking to do that in Los Angeles with the Orange Line as well.

You can have tree-branching LRT, like Muni Metro or Philly's Subway Surface or the Boston Green Line. It is more expensive upfront, but LRT also has advantages - being confined to rail, there's less lateral movement and smaller tunnel diameter requirements, and rail systems have lower ventilation requirements.

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

#118

Post by friendlybus »

ajxs wrote: post #110
friendlybus wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah get those western suburbs solutions too! The second tram line can go there. I'm fairly sure casinos and unis pay taxes too. I can't get into this base politicking about public services in such a crass way. I was sure Australia was above this nonsense. Go talk to your local rep! Bringing up corruption over not placing tram lines where you want them, is for the Americans. I'm not so easily persuaded that our polli…

Are you joking? Did you miss the fact that NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell dug his heels in and refused to sell Ausgrid infrastructure, then gets thrown out on a dubious corruption charge over a donated bottle of wine? From memory he denied this at first, then changed his tune and bowed out voluntarily. Only to be replaced with Casino Mike Baird who has a fire sale on public infrastructure. He presides over selling the p…

>NSW politics

I'll give you that. There's more rats in Aussie politics overall. Glad to see the back of Abbott and Barnaby is a parade of comical errors.

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

#119

Post by friendlybus »

ajxs wrote: post #111
friendlybus wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building between two highly trafficked buildings that can make obscene money off the participants via uni fees or gambling makes sense. Presumably those people are getting some value for their money and making that happen more accessibly is reasonable. I don't understand the logic that leads to corruption. There might be corruption there for sure, but I'm not sure that reasoning is evidence for it. Putting tram out t…

This is a good argument, except that the tram line itself is a giant white elephant for the taxpayer. I doubt I'll ever catch it, and I live in the inner city. The allegations of corruption follow from the fact that James Packer decides to build the already controversial casino in Barangaroo, a pokey, poorly trafficked corner of the inner city and then all of a sudden the government pours money into investing in publ…

>James Packer

Both the Packer boy and the Murdoch sons seem to be lemons. Hopefully they improve with age...

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

#120

Post by samplatt »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #85
yoube wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's horseshit. Granted, peak hour trains from Flinders are packed and using a laptop is a bit difficult since your elbows keep bumping into the next person sitting, but not being able to use a phone? People are always on their phones, reading, or knitting.

Yeah, I read the above comment with a four block to myself coming out of Flinders on the Blackburn line. Never? Come on.

Not in my experience of peak hours, no, never. Certainly not within the CBD, where I'm based.

Outside of peak hours is an entirely different story.

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