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.
Trams are great for short distances. I often use them to get from one end of the business district to the other, as it’s slightly faster than walking and they’re free.
However I once used the tram to get from work to my kid’s baseball training and it took over an hour. I later realised that I’d taken the longest tram route on the planet (Melbourne CBD to Vermont). It’s much slower than a car because it spends most of its time letting passengers on and off.