Re: Melbourne's Icons (was Melbourne's Anti-tram Lord Mayor)

["Jeff B. Kurland" <kurlandj@erols.com>]

<mcfergus@my-dejanews.com> wrote in message
7fuila$mqt$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com">news:7fuila$mqt$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com...
> In article <37229391.4AF3@REMOVEiprolink.co.nz>,
>   David McLoughlin <davemcl@REMOVEiprolink.co.nz> wrote:
> >
> > When I lived in Wellington, an Australian woman who'd just moved
there
> > told me one day that her spring-operated bus had run out of power on
her
> > way to work that morning, and the driver had got out, gone round to
the
> > back of the bus and wound it back up again.
> >
> > On further inquiry I elicited the fact she had been on a trolleybus
(a
> > vehicle she had never seen before; well, she *was* from Sydney) and
that
> > the poles had come off the wires... the "winding" noise she heard
from
> > the back of the bus was the driver resetting the retrievers. But it
was
> > hard to explain it to her.
> >
> > I kid you not.
>
> Maybe she was related to the Sydneysider who once wrote to the Daily
> Telegraph moaning about the reintroduction of trams to Sydney. He
complained
> that his friends from China laughed at them (maybe he should have
visited
> Haymarket to see how many tourists assemble themselves next to one for
a
> photo), he complained that they required ugly scaffolding to be placed
over
> the building at Central (actually related to a stalled station upgrade
> project), and he complained about the need to have overhead wires on
the
> streets.
>
> His solution? The silly fart proposed that the trams be removed, and
replaced
> with electrically guided rubber tired vehicles, collecting their power
from
> solar panels mounted on the roof!!!

I've heard an idea that's even sillier than that!  Some people think
they can replace trams (streetcars/light rail) with unguided rubber
tired vehicles powered by dirty internal combustion engines.  And then
they wonder why people don't ride public transit.