Re: Brisbane Light Rail

[David McLoughlin <davemcl@REMOVEiprolink.co.nz>]

Nick Bowden wrote:
> 
> The federal gov. has apparently agree to put $65m into this project.
> Would that money (and all the rest this is going to cost) not be better
> spent on law and order and education. This light rail (tram) system is
> going to be an absolute fiasco. If trams were so good, why are there so
> few left in operation?

More than 300 cities around the world operate trams, with new tramway
systems being built and opened regularly.

For example, London is busy building a tramway system based on Croydon,
a new system is about to open in Birmingham in the Midlands, trams
returned to Sheffield in 1994 and to Manchester a few years before that.

Since the mid-1980s, new tramway systems have opened in many French
cities including Nantes, Grenoble, Paris, Strasbourg and Rouen, with
others under construction now. Many tramway-light rail systems have also
been built in the United States since the 1980s, and in numerous other
places including Hong Kong, Turkey, Tunisia, Mexico and too many other
places to list.

The new systems I cite don't even include the 300 existing tramways
throughout Europe, Russia and elsewhere which predate and outlive the
Brisbane tramway discgracefully closed in a massive act of civic
vandalism by Clem Jones in 1969.

Sydney opened the first segment of a new tramway system 18 months ago.

Melbourne never closed its tramways and has opened many new lines and
put 432 new trams into service since 1975, and now has 30 tram lines
running up to 21 km from the CBD. Trams are the main form of street
public transport in Melbourne's inner and medium-distance suburbs, with
very few bus routes entering the city area.

Sorry, you said trams were a fiasco and very few were left in operation?

David McLoughlin
Auckland New Zealand

Q: What’s the difference between President Clinton and the Titanic?
A: We know precisely how many women went down on the Titanic.