Re: Melbourne Trams

["Michael Walker" <walker@hotkey.net.au>]

Amen brother, Sydney and Brisbane got rid of their trams and look what
happened there. The justification was that  modern buses would keep the
traffic moving unlike the trams which took up the centre of the road and
were old.

Nowadays the buses just take up the left lane instead of the centre and move
people less efficiently than the trams they replaced.

If Melbourne did the same, it wouldn't take long for the quality of life to
decrease.

The trams should be looked after and extended and recognised for their role
in the transport task. Indeed, despite being slower than trains, they carry
about as many people as Melbourne's suburban rail network and despite having
much less route kms than the private bus network, carry far far more
passengers. If the tramways were improved with more use of methods to keep
the trams moving (fairways, clearways, segregated rights of way, etc) and
faster vehicles and better maintenance and logical extensions to services
and large traffic generators, they would be even better.