Re: MELB AUST trams [ was Putting light rail in subway

[David McLoughlin <davemcl@AXE*THISiprolink.co.nz>]

Aidan Stanger wrote:

> Last time I caught a Melbourne tram it took nearly an hour to get to
> Spencer Street station! Much of that time was spent running on street
> through the inner suburbs on track shared with other routes. Tunnels
> bypassing the slowest part of the route would save a lot of time
> (probably attracting a lot more passengers) on several routes, but
> wouldn't prevent some trams from going the way they currently do.

Hmmm, you seem to be talking about the section of the 48 (North Balwayn)
and the 75 (East Burwood) along the narrow section of Bridge Road
Richmond between Punt Road and Church Street. This has been a bottleneck
for decades and was supposed to have been widened decades ago to put the
trams on a reserved track as was done in 1971 on the similar bottleneck
in St Kilda between St Kilda Junction and Balaclava Rd used by the
Carnegie 67 and East Malvern 3.  But that section of Bridge Road for
some reason has never been widened and it can take 20 minutes to crawl
those few blocks whether you are in a tram or a car.

A tunnel for the trams would cost a lot more than widening the street
and would not ease the congestion problem there for private cars, trucks
etc which also needs easing.

I'll cross-post this into aus.rail to see if someone in Melbourne can
give the current state of play with this grim section of tram line.

David McLoughlin
Auckland New Zealand