Sometimes when watching videos on effective ways of public transport and trams come up, I get a bit annoyed at people not addressing the fact that they seem to share the road with cars. Why do people twerk for trams so much as a form of light rail if they share the road with cars and are subject to being affected by traffic? Doesn’t that just make them rail buses without their own bus lane? Doesn’t that make them more obsolete? Why do people like them so much?
Edit: Also, does anyone have any resources about the cost to benefit ratio of different intratown/city forms of transport (bike lanes, BRT, trams and other forms of light rail, subways etc)? Would be much appreciated.
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Fantastic. So a nice small town can really rely on well planned out bike paths with a good tram network if they can afford the upfront costs. If not, then a BRT system or similar with separated bus lanes would be the next best thing, making sure that these “mid” to “short” distance forms of transports linl well with the town’s train station(s).
But they’d probably do it in the opposite order. As a town evolves its bus network into something more mature, trams may be a next step. However, I do think BRT will be chosen over trams every time, for the cheaper infrastructure
The problem with this though is if a town/ city can afford a tram network but chooses not to in order to cut corners for upfront costs, it shows a lack of commitment. The wrong government/ council comes into power and a BRT us getting rolled back straight away for car centric infrastructure again.