Are trams that good (genuine question)?

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.

frankPodmore, (edited )
@frankPodmore@slrpnk.net avatar

It all depends, really. As other people have pointed out, you can allay the problems of car traffic by giving trams right-of-way, dedicated lanes or both.

I’ve tried to summarise what I understand are the key pros and cons of trams vs. buses below. As you can see, I’ve come up with more positives than negatives, but it really does depend on the particular situation in each town or city. Mixed modes are always best, IMO!

Upsides

  • Trams are generally easier to electrify than buses, so they can be more eco-friendly in that sense, though this is changing with better charging infrastructure, hydrogen fuel cells, etc., for buses.
  • Trams can also be built with very low clearance, making it near impossible for them to run someone over, which is a good safety feature.
  • They’re generally quieter than buses, too.

Mixed

  • Trams cost more to build compared with buses (because you need to lay tracks) but then cost less in the longer term (because rails and metal wheels are more efficient than tarmac roads and rubber wheels, and wear out more slowly). So, which is best from a cost POV depends on your exact situation.
  • Tram rails can be laid with grass underneath, which is more eco-friendly for numerous reasons. Of course, this also entails a downside if you want to use that space for other vehicle types. Again, another one where a planner would need to weigh costs and benefits.

Downsides

  • The key downside is that they need tracks: this makes them much harder to divert around some kinds of temporary obstructions which buses can easily manoeuvre around.
t_jpeg,

Thanks

ginerel,
ginerel avatar

The key downside is that they need tracks: this makes them much harder to divert around some kinds of temporary obstructions which buses can easily manoeuvre around.

If you have a more dense network, you can always divert lines on other streets if there are any issues. My city is also using temporary switches and trams with driver cabins at both ends whenever there are works going on.

Zeppo,
@Zeppo@sh.itjust.works avatar

Denver and Portland have pretty good light rail. They handle traffic areas well, and can move quickly between areas where they have long stretches of unobstructed rail. My only complaint is limited stations where you can board - like, if I have to walk a mile to the nearest station and a mile back with my groceries or whatever after leaving the train, that’s not ideal.

JamesFire,

I get a bit annoyed at people not addressing the fact that they seem to share the road with cars.

So you’re saying the cars are the problem…

lapingvino,

A bit of a history of trams: they existed before the modern electric bus, as horse trams, because they could carry more people. Most tram networks have been removed since the introduction of the bus. Modern trams however can increase capacity a lot, and even small trams can fix hard problems like in the Lisbon inner city. Many modern trams are somewhere on the light rail spectrum and are both faster and often have more dedicated right of way, so they don’t get stuck in traffic. Understanding this, you can see how you can often also fix the same issues with dedicated bus lanes, but a tram track also fixes refueling properly. A third option is of course a trolley bus or a trolley/battery hybrid. Every location needs something that fits the local circumstances.

WeLoveCastingSpellz,

yea they’re pretty cool.

someguy3, (edited )

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.

ginerel,
ginerel avatar

My city has started separating tram lines from the roads with fences, and it's all just great. We had next to no bus lanes until this year, and I still have none where I live. The bus sits in traffic and can stop for around 5-10 times at a traffic light, while the tram only stops once. Sometimes even the bus driver opens the doors before getting to any station. This never happened with trams. On the other hand, if one tram breaks, the others have to wait for it to be moved - although this doesn't happen that often on the line I'm using the most.

Another thing to note is that even when there is no separation from the traffic and the lines are asphalted, it's still illegal to go on the tram tracks (albeit this is one of the rules that is not that well enforced, because our police sucks, it's good that it's there).

Our municipality also purchased longer trams and plans to purchase some more, some even longer than what we have now, but it's great. It's a good way of making public transit more attractive for the people, hopefully getting them out of the cars and solving congestion.

We also have a metro system, which is also great and highly appreciated, but it doesn't go anywhere in the city, and its extension has been rather slow in the last 30 years. The company managing it is also owned by the government directly, so that's another hurdle in its development. The tram network, on the other hand, is owned by the local transit company, and is denser. I'm sure there will be more extensions to it if the municipality will throw the right money at the right projects.

t_jpeg,

god i wish this was me

7of9,

Trams are awesome, I’ve used them quite a bit in Sheffield and Valencia and in both cases they were the best solution where an underground metro wasn’t feasible.

t_jpeg,

This is interesting. I was talking to someone who studies in Sheffield and they said it’s a terrible city for public transport

7of9,

Maybe it’s worse now, I moved away about 15 years ago. Admittedly the trams were mostly useful for getting to specific areas and didn’t cover everything, but a lot of that is constrained by the geography there!

t_jpeg,

Fair. I have to visit there one time to get a good idea of it.

7of9,

Go for the Tramlines festival, then.

TrainsAreCool,

It’s all about the right tool for the job. Trams work well for shorter trips, and can be a serious upgrade over buses.

However, there’s a bit of a trend in North America to use low-floor trams in somewhat inappropriate places; building expensive tunnels, guideways, and stations in less than appropriate places. Which basically results in a metro, but worse (slower, more uncomfortable for riders, and still often interacts with traffic) for something that still ends up being expensive.

RagingHungryPanda,

I think trams are pretty great. There are pros and cons, of course. Pros being that they can be bigger than buses, lower rolling friction, etc. Cons being higher initial costs and being stuck to a fixed route.

But I also think they’re better for short to mid-distance trips. Shorter is best done by bike
Mid - bus or tram
long - metro/train.

So getting around downtown or a neighborhood, or going a few neighborhoods over? definitely.

Going across town? you’ll want rail.

So a commute may look like taking a bike/bus/tram to a station to get to down, then hopping “down” the transit hierarchy to a tram to get to where you’re going.

I don’t necessarily have resources on the cost to benefit ratio since that tends to differ based on where it’s done.

But the overall idea is:
Buses - easy to get started, flexible routes, more expensive in long run for maintenance and fuel

Trams - higher infrastructure costs up front, but lower maintenance and cheap fuel (electricity), and higher capacity than buses

Metro - super high startup costs, super high carrying capacity, you get the idea

Jomn, (edited )
@Jomn@jlai.lu avatar

An issue I have with trams is that they are very slow if not properly integrated in both the city layout and the general population of the city. For example, in Marseille, trams have to frequently compete with pedestrians and bicycles that keep walking/riding on the tram line. This doesn’t happen with buses (or not as frequently).

The one thing that makes them better than buses in Marseille is that trams are more reliable time-wise since they don’t have to share the road with cars.

yA3xAKQMbq, (edited )

in Marseille, trams have to frequently compete with pedestrians and bicycles that keep walking/riding on the tram line

Ugh, that is definitely annoying and dangerous. I used to live in Erfurt, Germany for a while. Quaint medieval old-town, huge cathedral, very popular with tourists, some major attraction happening roughly every weekend.

So they have that really narrow alley running from the cathedral to the central square where all the tourists and citizens are squeezing through, and yeah, lo and behold, they run a tram through it as well… 🤪

I gotta assume the majority of Germany’s ~30 tram deaths per year are drunken tourists in Erfurt.

TheOneCurly,

Boston has a similar problem where the trains come above ground. They run in the center of a split street so they have to stop at traffic signals and are frequently struck by cars attempting to cross the intersection when they’re not supposed to. What should be a fast and easy mode of transit is instead frequently derailed by traffic accidents.

pHr34kY,

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.

ohwhatfollyisman,

don’t give in to tramsphobia.

JoBo,

They’re way better than buses. There’s a direct comparison here: Birmingham is a small city, including a plot of bus times vs tram times at different times of day.

While the tram is substantially quicker at all times than the bus, the reliability of its timing, even during the most congested periods, provides an additional large benefit to users.

We think that people generate the most agglomeration benefits for a city when they travel at peak times, to get to and from work, meetings, and social events. Our tool shows us that at the times when people need to travel in order to generate these benefits, buses are extremely slow. And since buses are by far the largest mode of public transport in Birmingham this is likely to have significantly higher impact on Birmingham than in Lyon where the largest mode of public transport is the metro, which delivers reliable journey times no matter the time of day.

Our hypothesis is that Birmingham’s reliance on buses makes its effective population much smaller than its real population. This reduces its productivity by sacrificing agglomeration benefits. For the past six months, using our Real Journey Time tool, we’ve worked with The Productivity Insights Network to quantify that.

…

Womble,

Calling Brum a small city is a stretch! Its the second largest in the UK

JoBo,

Maybe the link has some words behind it, that you could read?

Womble,

i did its just 2 graphs talking about times to Strichly and wedensbury, which dont sound like Alabama to me.

JoBo,

You didn’t even read to the end of the bit I quoted in my post, let alone the whole article.

Pipoca,

There’s two links there. One is to those graphs, the other is to the article.

Basically, they’re measuring the population that’s within a 30 minute public transit trip of the center of the city. Because the city relies mostly on slow busses that get stuck in traffic, the number of people who can reasonably commute to jobs in the center of the city is about half of the nominal population of the city.

Larger cities are more productive per capita than small cities due to economies of agglomeration. Birmingham’s productivity is well below what it should be given its nominal population numbers, but if you use the number of people within a 30 min bus ride of downtown at peak commute times then it’s on the lower end of normal.

Our hypothesis is that by relying on buses that get caught in congestion at peak times for public transport, Birmingham sacrifices significant size and thus agglomeration benefits to cities like Lyon, which rely on trams and metros. This is based on our calculations that a whole-city tramway system for Birmingham would deliver an effective size roughly equal to the OECD-defined population.

Womble,

I didn’t see the first link, they were lined up under each other on my phone so I saw them as a single link, my bad. It is an interesting article, though I’d prefer to see the analysis done or more than one city before taking it as more than a curiosity. That title is atrocious though, it gives away nothing about the content of the article and makes a seeming factually incorrect statement.

t_jpeg, (edited )

I wouldn’t call Birmingham a small city haha, but thanks for this!

Edit: I am an idiot, I get what the link means by “Birmingham is a small city” after taking 5 mins to read.

Edit 2: Just taken some more time to read this and it’s gold, thanks for sharing. Really informative.

yA3xAKQMbq,

There’s a direct comparison here: Birmingham is a small city

If you want to have a large city comparison, look at Berlin.

Berlin was divided after WW2 until 1989. West-Berlin, like most of West-Germany, removed all of their trams and replaced them for individual car use and buses. East-Berlin largely kept their trams.

The difference between trams and buses are huge. The „schedule“ of the major West-Berlin bus routes have become a running joke among Berliners: „You’ll wait and wait and suddenly there’s a herd of them!“. It’s bad. Really bad.

Trams are the reason I live in East-Berlin and would never, ever move to West-Berlin.

JoBo,

If you want to have a large city comparison

Once again, Birmingham is not a small city. It’s a very big city but its reliance on buses makes it effectively much smaller than it could be because the commutable zone shrinks with the slowness of the buses at rush hour. Hence the snappy title of the piece I linked.

Berlin is an excellent additional example of the effect on a big city. Thank you.

yA3xAKQMbq,

Yeah, I know Birmingham, I just went with the joke, sorry. Maybe should have added some air quotes.

Berlin is only „big“ because it gobbled up a lot of area in the past. Outside the central districts it‘s often just suburbs or even literal villages. and the public transport becomes… limited… 😬

I guess a more honest comparison would be the West Midlands, roughly the same size, population close to 4 million (Berlin) vs 3 million (West Midlands).

Still though, Berlin is a very interesting example not just with regards to public transport, but also with regards to housing, street lighting, etc. Really impressive what a mere ~40y of differences in government policies can accomplish.

Womble,

Its a terrible title, as you can see from the multiple people who misunderstood it. Interesting article though.

JoBo,

It’s a very good title.

Treczoks,

As someone who had regularly traveled by bike on a road with tram tracks: This is definitely not fun, and I simply don’t understand why the anti-car community hypes them. It’s like shooting themselves in the foot.

Deceptichum,
Deceptichum avatar

Uh just don’t ride on the two tiny metal rails on each side of the lane?

Treczoks,

Would have done so if possible.

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