The Issues - Page 5
Finding the right way to go

Are largely street based tramways sensible to build?

Well from evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Sheffield's Supertram it is noted:

• Original projected ridership was 20+ million annually - Actual ridership has never exceeded around the 12 million mark. As a result the tramway got into severe financial difficulties
• Given a free choice, many Sheffield travellers chose to travel by bus rather than tram.

With all the appearance of tramways sharing road space the reality is that traffic is syphoned off to the side at every opportunity; getting through Sheffield following the tram lines is not an option! Many stretches of 'tram lanes' also exist, segregating trams to one side of the road or the other, thus reducing road capacity for other users.

Far from regeneration of shopping areas by the existence of a tram service, the retail areas are transformed into a permanent Sunday appearance. It is hardly surprising, therefore, to see many outlets that have ceased trading along the tram route over the last few years.

To make something of the Manchester experience:

• The original scheme linked two suburban electric railways by a small amount of street track in the city centre. It was cheap to build as it re-cycled railway assets. The scheme doubled the previous railway ridership, attracting many motorists
• The subsequent small extension to Eccles was all new build involving a lot of street track. The extension cost about as much in real terms as the whole original scheme and added only a few percent to total system ridership. It suffers from bus competition as they offer a quicker way into central Manchester than the tramway extension
• Given a free choice, many travellers chose to travel by bus rather than using the tramway extension. The original scheme is rightly judged as very successful since it used re-cycled railway alignments and little new build or street track whereas the new extension, which was all new build as street track, gave extremely poor value for money and must be judged as unsuccessful.

From the comments made above about the Manchester and Sheffield systems, one can hardly argue about the 'superior' attractiveness of the tram compared with the bus!

Over in Croydon the system has next to nothing of street running sharing the same road space with other vehicles, and yet, simple driver error can bring grid lock to traffic for an hour or more. Take this example here of a 'snookered' situation of a bus unable to reverse [due to traffic behind it], and the tram unable to proceed without perhaps damage to both vehicles, caught on camera one October afternoon in 2004. Similar situations are bound to happen more frequently on an entirely street based tramway.

If you look carefully at the roadway you will see a row of yellow spots, these define the area the Inspectorate requires the tram driver to see as clear or not proceed. As these are very much wider than the tram itself it effectively makes them much wider than 2.55m - trams in Croydon are 30m long whereas those for the Uxbridge Road service are planned to be 40m long.

Footnotes
The proposals for the Uxbridge Road tramway scheme will mean:

• that for its entire length only street running, often intermixed with other road traffic, will take place;
• substantial demolition at 'pinch points' [to widen the road to slot in the trams];
• the high cost and the probable starvation of the rest of the area's public transport network of resources for much-needed improvement.

It is these elements of the scheme which makes the construction of this tramway so objectionable.

Any comments made on this page, or elsewhere on this site, should not be automatically transposed to other UK tramway schemes built previously or planned for the future.

All pictures on this page are reproduced by permission of the copyright owners. Please ask first to reuse elsewhere.