News & Discussion: Trams

[rubberman]

I think it's important to remember that the Suburban Rail Loop in Melbourne had significant electoral impacts, including making safe Liberal seats marginal.

In Adelaide, we need to stop settling for mediocrity (that's the outdated Bug Country Town Mentality at play) and start demanding the best.

Better transportation for the whole city is absolutely a vote winner.

Just need a genuine leader with balls to make it happen.

The government went on to win in a landslide, with an above-average swing to Labor in electorates set to benefit from the loop. Three of the eight seats Labor picked up at the election – Box Hill, Burwood and Mount Waverley – had new stations promised.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... e-victoria

It might be a vote winner. However, why does Malinauskas need a vote winner at the moment? The Libs have imploded in SA.

With South Road, the Hospital, and Whyalla, he needs every dollar he can get his hands on. Not vote winners, per se.

He doesn't need vote winners. He does need cash for those projects, and his detailed attention.

Where do trams even remotely fit into this?

I would like trams as much as anyone, but the government needs to focus on the stuff it's in the middle of right now.

[Cryptic]

I really doubt we are going to see any significant investment in rail (trams or heavy rail), until the 2030s. I think we'll start to see talk of tram extensions or an aldinga rail extension etc, in the 2030 state election. Until then, almost all of our infrastructure funding is tied up with T2D or nWCH.

[Norman]

The best we can hope for at the moment is more grade separation projects. I feel like one or two along the Gawler Line will be promised at the upcoming federal election, and there's a high chance one of them will be Kings Road at Parafield.

[rev]

I think it's important to remember that the Suburban Rail Loop in Melbourne had significant electoral impacts, including making safe Liberal seats marginal.

In Adelaide, we need to stop settling for mediocrity (that's the outdated Bug Country Town Mentality at play) and start demanding the best.

Better transportation for the whole city is absolutely a vote winner.

Just need a genuine leader with balls to make it happen.

The government went on to win in a landslide, with an above-average swing to Labor in electorates set to benefit from the loop. Three of the eight seats Labor picked up at the election – Box Hill, Burwood and Mount Waverley – had new stations promised.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... e-victoria

Guess it comes down to if the state government is going to get on the front foot for the benefit of communities or let it slide and use PT for state election purposes, and if the federal government is concerned enough with SA and holding onto their seats in Adelaide with polls showing the Coalition and Dutton ahead at the moment.

https://www.pollbludger.net/fed2025/bludgertrack/?
Polls are showing a swing to the Coalition...

[SouthAussie94]

I feel that the next 7 days will determine how much (if any) funding SA will get for Public Transport projects. How many projects were delayed/cancelled/scaled back after the Brisbane floods in 2010/11.

If Cyclone Alfred hits either Brisbane or the Gold Coast and if it's a Cat 3 when it hits land, the damage (and resulting clean up bill) could easily see funding for projects in other states cut or reduced.

[[Shuz]]

That polling source doesn't consider independent or other votes, so I would regard that as unreliable.

Alfred is a Cat 2 for now. Will weaken upon landfall.

It really depends on whether Brisbane opens up the dams to mitigate the flood risk. They still haven't yet and I fear a repeat of 2007 when they left it too late. You'd think they'd learn.

[rubberman]

I feel that the next 7 days will determine how much (if any) funding SA will get for Public Transport projects. How many projects were delayed/cancelled/scaled back after the Brisbane floods in 2010/11.

If Cyclone Alfred hits either Brisbane or the Gold Coast and if it's a Cat 3 when it hits land, the damage (and resulting clean up bill) could easily see funding for projects in other states cut or reduced.

I'd add in that farmers have also been hit hard by the drought.

Add in uncertainty in the US, where tariffs on our steel and aluminium are quite possible, and the effects of tariffs on world trade are never ever good.

With Whyalla workers and farmers having a very tough time of it, Queensland maybe needing funds, exporters facing uncertainty, how can governments justify trams at the moment?

Let's think of fellow Australians looking at very worrying times first.

[Patrick_27]

I think it's important to remember that the Suburban Rail Loop in Melbourne had significant electoral impacts, including making safe Liberal seats marginal.

In Adelaide, we need to stop settling for mediocrity (that's the outdated Bug Country Town Mentality at play) and start demanding the best.

Better transportation for the whole city is absolutely a vote winner.

Just need a genuine leader with balls to make it happen.

The government went on to win in a landslide, with an above-average swing to Labor in electorates set to benefit from the loop. Three of the eight seats Labor picked up at the election – Box Hill, Burwood and Mount Waverley – had new stations promised.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... e-victoria

Whilst I agree that we need a visionary in this state and I do believe that we've had a couple in Weatherill and Marshall both with unrealised ideas on how to get our state moving. We're not Melbourne, Melbournians embrace visionaries and the change they bring, Adelaideans by nature are reluctant and conservative and seem to enjoy the status quo and resist any attempt to change how they live. Even when, in this case, the vision is to bring back something that this state lost. It's so hard to fathom that in the 50s people were in uproar at the loss of trams, and yet now any attempt to install a tramline at the expense of a traffic lane and motorists lose their minds.

[rev]

That polling source doesn't consider independent or other votes, so I would regard that as unreliable.

Alfred is a Cat 2 for now. Will weaken upon landfall.

It really depends on whether Brisbane opens up the dams to mitigate the flood risk. They still haven't yet and I fear a repeat of 2007 when they left it too late. You'd think they'd learn.

It's a site that uses the data from several sources;
Freshwater Strategy, Resolve Strategic, Newspoll/Pyxis, YouGov MRP, Roy Morgan, RedBridge Group, DemosAU, Essential Research, POLIS@ANU, Wolf & Smith.
Latest one being from 24th February.

They opened up the dams in Townsville in the lead up to their recent cyclone, would think they'd do the same now with SEQ.

[rubberman]

I live in the CBD, and the ACC sent me this link about the O'Connell Street redevelopment.

https://ouradelaide.sa.gov.au/oconnell- ... ept-design

Note that there's zero reference to trams.

I would think that if the State Government had the slightest interest in putting trams there, the ACC would have been told to allow for them.

I think this is pretty much the last nail in the coffin that was made by voters in 2018 when the Weatherill Government was defeated.

This sort of development has usually got a thirty year life. So, maybe after then.

[Nathan]

There are some small mentions of future tram line in the concept plan PDF, in particular under the 'design overview':

Future-proofing design for tram extension
Reserving a ‘no significant work’ zone along the
central median zone of street for the future tram
network extension, whilst providing standard
renewal improvements at road surface level only.

https://hdp-au-prod-app-adl-ouradelaide ... 8okino.pdf

[rubberman]

There are some small mentions of future tram line in the concept plan PDF, in particular under the 'design overview':

Future-proofing design for tram extension
Reserving a ‘no significant work’ zone along the
central median zone of street for the future tram
network extension, whilst providing standard
renewal improvements at road surface level only.

https://hdp-au-prod-app-adl-ouradelaide ... 8okino.pdf

True, but. A single track simply cannot work if you run the numbers on how many trams could use it, and if you have two tracks on that layout, I can't see how it would work for through traffic.

[ChillyPhilly]

There are some small mentions of future tram line in the concept plan PDF, in particular under the 'design overview':

Future-proofing design for tram extension
Reserving a ‘no significant work’ zone along the
central median zone of street for the future tram
network extension, whilst providing standard
renewal improvements at road surface level only.

https://hdp-au-prod-app-adl-ouradelaide ... 8okino.pdf

True, but. A single track simply cannot work if you run the numbers on how many trams could use it, and if you have two tracks on that layout, I can't see how it would work for through traffic.

This is a good concept and plan overall.

I see two traffic lanes have been retained but the theme of stopping the street from being used as a thoroughfare is emphasised.

Reading between the lines, maybe this plan secretly pre-empts removal of a traffic lane in future.

[Nort]

I'm not quite sure how viable it is to stop O'Connell being used as a thoroughfare, there's a lot of traffic from Main North Road and Prospect Road funnelled in there.

[rev]

The government and council aren't going to co-ordinate on trams vs councils plan to turn the middle of oconnel into a parkling lot. We're talking a state that routinely repaves roads and footpaths, only for another agency to come along and dig holes in the newly paved road/footpath..that's the level of co-ordination in South Australia.


They want to turn the middle of O'Connell into parking to suck more money out of people.
Otherwise there's plenty of room for a tram down O'Connell.