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.
There’s a lot of confusion with terms, the definitions are loose to begin with, and a lot of misuse as well, so terms are all a mess.
From what I see a tram (a streetcar in North America) is defined as sharing the road. But there are lots of people (and a certain prolific youtuber) that just wants to call everything a tram or a tram-[insert modifier].
A light rail has a dedicated right of way and as many grade separations as you want to pay for, all the way up to what’s commonly called a metro. Too many people are incorrectly calling these trams.