News & Discussion: Trams

[claybro]

Conversion of the Outer Harbour line to light rail would be viable if
1. Grange Line also converted.
2. West Lakes extension completed.
3. Semaphore and Port Adelaide extension completed.
This would bring the business centres of Port Adelaide, Semaphore and West Lakes into the system, and better utilise the Woodvill/City corridor.
It would greatly increase frequency along the Woodville/City section (the current train frequency is poorly patronsied and the frequency is pathetic)
The only downside...Those commuters on the LeFevre pensinsula would have a much longer journey than is currently the case.
The other question is if the operators have the balls to speed the system up to get best efficiency as they are far from having it right even on the Glenelg Line.
The existing heavy rail is not really viable in its current setup.

[[Shuz]]

As a daily user of the Outer Harbour line, it really should be light rail. There simply isnt the patronage to support heavy rail. Ever. Better to have tram lines branched off to Grange, Semaphore, and West Lakes.

[Waewick]

As a daily user of the Outer Harbour line, it really should be light rail. There simply isnt the patronage to support heavy rail. Ever. Better to have tram lines branched off to Grange, Semaphore, and West Lakes.

I'm curious, do you think there is potential to get patronage up? are you aware of anything holding it back other than population?

[PeFe]

By converting the Outer Harbor/Grange line to light rail you effectively make the journey times to Rundle Mall 10 minutes longer by the fact that the tram would come off its own right-of-way in Bowden and then crawl through the Port Road and North Terrace traffic into the city. All light rail/tram systems suffer from the negative effects of street running.
Does anyone know whether it is practical to run tram-trains into the Adelaide railway station? Or could there be a separate tram line into the railway station ? Could this be a solution? Keeping a rapid transit entry into the CBD whilst adding extra destinations (West Lakes and Semaphore) at the other end.
The Outer Harbor line has suffered from major neglect ie the stations are crap, the service is crap....however who knows what will happen in the future. Apartment living seems to be really taking off in the city, maybe one day we will see proper transit-orientated developments along the line. There is a lot of potential there...Bowden (happening now), Kilkenny, Woodville, Port Adelaide, West Lakes and maybe even up the Le Fevre Peninsula.
A high speed rail entry into the CBD should never be given away lightly....

[Phantom]

As a daily user of the Outer Harbour line, it really should be light rail. There simply isnt the patronage to support heavy rail. Ever. Better to have tram lines branched off to Grange, Semaphore, and West Lakes.

I'm curious, do you think there is potential to get patronage up? are you aware of anything holding it back other than population?

I would've thought that the St Clair development of Cheltenham Racecourse would have brought a few thousand extra people into the area?

[Hooligan]

Wasn't tram-trains what the government was going to go with for the outer harbor line back in their 2008 10 year plan for public transport?

Imagine if that plan came to fruition. It's almost like this generations MATS now.

I always liked the coast to coast name they gave there tram plan back then. Trams going from the coast! then back to the same coast!

[jk1237]

By converting the Outer Harbor/Grange line to light rail you effectively make the journey times to Rundle Mall 10 minutes longer by the fact that the tram would come off its own right-of-way in Bowden and then crawl through the Port Road and North Terrace traffic into the city. All light rail/tram systems suffer from the negative effects of street running.
Does anyone know whether it is practical to run tram-trains into the Adelaide railway station? Or could there be a separate tram line into the railway station ? Could this be a solution? Keeping a rapid transit entry into the CBD whilst adding extra destinations (West Lakes and Semaphore) at the other end.
The Outer Harbor line has suffered from major neglect ie the stations are crap, the service is crap....however who knows what will happen in the future. Apartment living seems to be really taking off in the city, maybe one day we will see proper transit-orientated developments along the line. There is a lot of potential there...Bowden (happening now), Kilkenny, Woodville, Port Adelaide, West Lakes and maybe even up the Le Fevre Peninsula.
A high speed rail entry into the CBD should never be given away lightly....

agree 100%, really hope they don't turn it into only light rail and use the current tram line from Hindmarsh. Its so ridiculously slow

[skyliner]

By converting the Outer Harbor/Grange line to light rail you effectively make the journey times to Rundle Mall 10 minutes longer by the fact that the tram would come off its own right-of-way in Bowden and then crawl through the Port Road and North Terrace traffic into the city. All light rail/tram systems suffer from the negative effects of street running.
Does anyone know whether it is practical to run tram-trains into the Adelaide railway station? Or could there be a separate tram line into the railway station ? Could this be a solution? Keeping a rapid transit entry into the CBD whilst adding extra destinations (West Lakes and Semaphore) at the other end.
The Outer Harbor line has suffered from major neglect ie the stations are crap, the service is crap....however who knows what will happen in the future. Apartment living seems to be really taking off in the city, maybe one day we will see proper transit-orientated developments along the line. There is a lot of potential there...Bowden (happening now), Kilkenny, Woodville, Port Adelaide, West Lakes and maybe even up the Le Fevre Peninsula.
A high speed rail entry into the CBD should never be given away lightly....

agree 100%, really hope they don't turn it into only light rail and use the current tram line from Hindmarsh. Its so ridiculously slow

Agree 100% also. So many train lines have been ripped up in the past and later regretted as unforeseen but obvious changes occurred.
Port line should be kept as the city will develop in that direction in the future.

ADELAIDE - TOWARDS A GREATER CITY SKYLINE

[Westside]

They just need to get on with it and build the underpass (after all, it's money for jam).

At the end of the day, we should not be removing a direct rail link into the city. Even if the whole line is converted to light rail, you could still send the OH trams via the existing heavy rail line. Once you get into the city, there are a myriad of options for the line.

1. It can rejoin the current tram under the Morphett St bridge. This will most likely require grade separation from the Belair and Seaford lines, but can be done.
2. It can simply terminate in its own platforms in Adelaide station. However, this negates the benefit of it being a light rail of being able to penetrate into the city and would effectively create a disconnect between the remaining southern and northern heavy rail lines.
3. It can rise in its own viaduct to meet the Morphett St bridge and continue into the city via Currie or Grote sts.
4. It can follow the interstate line and join the tram at Port rd.

These are just off the top of my head, so I'm sure the powers that be can look at what the best option is. However, giving this money away because of the potential to not use the line in the future is just ridiculous.

[PeFe]

Nathan wrote

On top of that, I just happened to be catching a tram home (from Rundle Mall to Entertainment Centre) at the time the crowd hit, and there were trams running in both directions at less than 5min intervals. So obviously more frequent running isn't limited by the number of trams or concerns about blocking up intersections of level crossings.

The last time I was in Adelaide, during the Fringe period, I was out and about on the Sunday night after the Clipsal race, and the trams were running every 10 minutes to clear the race crowd and also service the Fringe goers and I thought to myself :
"'This is great, it really feels like a bigger city, more happening, more people out and about. You know if people were driving their cars it would be far less interesting, people on public transport can contribute to an "urban vibe" that car drivers never can (they are too worried about getting back to suburbia and they don't contribute that much to "the nightlife" because they cant drink and drive)
Anyway the trams every 10 minutes seem to last till midnight, and that helped make probably the "most interesting Sunday night in Adelaide"

[claybro]

By converting the Outer Harbor/Grange line to light rail you effectively make the journey times to Rundle Mall 10 minutes longer by the fact that the tram would come off its own right-of-way in Bowden and then crawl through the Port Road and North Terrace traffic into the city. All light rail/tram systems suffer from the negative effects of street running.

A high speed rail entry into the CBD should never be given away lightly....

The journey time of an individual light rail car as opposed to a train may well be 10 minutes longer from Outer Harbour. But the increased frequency of the smaller light rail units would more than make up for the longer journey. Also I seriously doubt the difference between Woodville junction and the city would be any more than a few minutes. The amount of trams travelling through St Clair/Woodville area would be triple the amount of trains if the Port/Semaphore and West lakes/Grange area are converted to light rail. There is no reason there would not be a tram every 5 minutes during peak times after the Woodville junction and into the city.
The current short stopping setup of the OH line means trains on this route never have been and never will be "high speed", and trams can run equal to the speed of current deisel trains (just our operators seem to want them to trundle along at 50-60km/hour even on dedicated reserves.)

[PeFe]

Claybro wrote

The journey time of an individual light rail car as opposed to a train may well be 10 minutes longer from Outer Harbour

No, this is not what I meant, nor was it what I actually wrote in my post. My argument centres around access to the CBD rather than journey times from the end of the line (or lines).
I just looked up travel times from Bowden to Adelaide railway station via tram and train on the Adelaide Metro website.
Tram : 10-05, departs Entertainment Centre arrives ARS 10:19
Train : 10-05, departs Bowden arrives ARS 10:10
That is a 9 minute timetabled difference and from my experience the tram takes longer in heavy traffic where as the train has its own right-of-way and therefore more consistent travel times.

[Nathan]

And that's even with the train not threatening any kind of speed record between Bowden and ARS.

[claybro]

Yes, I get that the Bowden to city section is slower by tram than the equivalent train journey. However, most commuters go much deeper into the city than Adelaide train station. So if you include getting off the train, and either walking to or waiting fo a connecting bus or tram to Grenfell street of wherever you office is...then it eats up that time saving in the train. Also..likely your waiting longer on the platform for a train (less frequency).
Added to this, there is no known reason why trams along the dedicated Port road corridor should be doing 50km/h which is currently the case.
Added to this, anyone using the train would know there is often a wait outside the Adelaide yard, and that time saving in the first part of the journey is soon eaten up.

[mm42]

Some aspects of the light rail plan don't seem to be have been well thought through:
- if high density living in the Port area really takes off within the 30+ year investment period, trams won't have the required capacity and the society of the time will regret that the line was converted to light rail.
- tram tracks don't make development happen, it is frequent trams. At present a half hour frequency seems to be the thinking, whereas in Melbourne most lines operate on a peak hour service interval of 5 minutes.
- for a peak hour service interval of 15 minutes on each of the 4 proposed branches, this would mean a service every 4 minutes in each direction through the level crossings as far as Woodville. Would the current residents be happy for a closure every 2 minutes ? If each of the branches required a 5 minute service interval, this would be a crossing closure nearly every 1 minute in each direction. How would Woodville Junction cope ?
- if the city underground is built, there would be sufficient capacity for Port line heavy rail trains to use it, while light rail use King William St

Light rail to West Lakes and Semaphore is a nice idea, but is it the best use of very limited PT funds ? The additional catchment area is small and low density, while it risks introducing a much more expensive operating pattern of 2 additional branches.

It is far more important to develop the core of the Outer Harbour route to a more attractive all-day service interval of 15 minutes for most of its length, perhaps with a Grange-Woodville shuttle outside of peak hours.