News & Discussion: Trams

[ChillyPhilly]

We should discourage Main North Rd traffic from heading down O'Connell St or Lefevre Tce.

Centre island tram stops are awful and dysfunctional, unless they are sufficiently wide like Entertainment Centre. Side platforms are significantly better and safer.

All the CBD centre island platforms should be rebuilt.

[bits]

Isn't part of the reason for the businesses on O'Connell Street because it is full of passing cars?
The parallel roads haven't got nearly as much business because they lack the cars.
Remove the cars from O'Connell and do you not just end up with what is currently on the parallel roads aka not much?


Eg the road with the most frequent and most diverse public transport is surely Grenfell Street. Is that now the cultural centre of Adelaide because of its excellent access to public transport? Is it lined with high end restaurants and stores?

[SouthAussie94]

Isn't part of the reason for the businesses on O'Connell Street because it is full of passing cars?

Explain Rundle Mall..

[bits]

Explain Rundle Mall..

I don't see many parallels between Rundle Mall and O'Connell Street.
The now mall section of Rundle Street appears to have always been the destination, it wasn't a major route through to other destinations.

Rundle Mall to me seems more about homewares and clothes whereas O'Connell Street is more about food. How they are accessed and used are different.

Rundle Mall also doesn't have a tram running down the middle of it. It was created and thrived with trams nowhere near it but other PT a road over from it.

So I certainly wouldn't expect to turn O'Connell Street into a Rundle Mall #2 by sticking a tram down it. None of the building blocks are the same.

Most of our restaurants are on our busiest major through roads. I don't think that is an accident needing to be fixed. They are built on and thrive because of the traffic. The more exposure the better.

Today's Rundle Street is perhaps a restaurant district that could benefit from pushing the cars around it. Maybe Gouger Street if it develops a little more critical mass. Both are already mostly the destination not traffic passing by trying to get somewhere else.

But our restaurants succeed most on O'Connell Street, Melbourne Street, Unley Road, Henley Beach Road, Prospect Road, The Parade, Glen Osmond Road, etc because of the traffic.

The non through traffic areas are less common such as Peel Street, King William Road, Jetty Road/Marina, Henley Square.

To conclude:
Why stick the tram down O'Connell and not Jeffcott or Lefevre? Lefevre side picks up Melbourne Street also.
It seems this thread has several pushing the tram as an excuse to choke O'Connell. As if that is a win win.

[Nort]

It isn't the cars specifically, it's the passing traffic. A tram also carries people into, through, and out of the space, that's their whole point.

[rev]

Explain Rundle Mall..

I don't see many parallels between Rundle Mall and O'Connell Street.
The now mall section of Rundle Street appears to have always been the destination, it wasn't a major route through to other destinations.

Rundle Mall to me seems more about homewares and clothes whereas O'Connell Street is more about food. How they are accessed and used are different.

Rundle Mall also doesn't have a tram running down the middle of it. It was created and thrived with trams nowhere near it but other PT a road over from it.

So I certainly wouldn't expect to turn O'Connell Street into a Rundle Mall #2 by sticking a tram down it. None of the building blocks are the same.

Most of our restaurants are on our busiest major through roads. I don't think that is an accident needing to be fixed. They are built on and thrive because of the traffic. The more exposure the better.

Today's Rundle Street is perhaps a restaurant district that could benefit from pushing the cars around it. Maybe Gouger Street if it develops a little more critical mass. Both are already mostly the destination not traffic passing by trying to get somewhere else.

But our restaurants succeed most on O'Connell Street, Melbourne Street, Unley Road, Henley Beach Road, Prospect Road, The Parade, Glen Osmond Road, etc because of the traffic.

The non through traffic areas are less common such as Peel Street, King William Road, Jetty Road/Marina, Henley Square.

To conclude:
Why stick the tram down O'Connell and not Jeffcott or Lefevre? Lefevre side picks up Melbourne Street also.
It seems this thread has several pushing the tram as an excuse to choke O'Connell. As if that is a win win.

It is a win win.

I drive to most places, especially to the city and North Adelaide, because there is no convenient public transport options for me, and I don't exactly live in the outer suburbs.
The point of a tram down through OCS connected from the city, is to make OCS more accessible to more people. Think of it, when there is 40-50k people at Adelaide Oval every weekend between April and September, during cricket season, with thousands of people from interstate or o/seas who have flown in. Would it not be a convenient option for them to visit OCS with a tram, and get back to the Oval for a match via a tram?
Would that not help eateries in OCS thrive? Of course it would.

OCS wont be 'choked'.
On street parking should be removed, wider footpaths for more outdoor dining should be the norm down OCS, with tram down the middle of it.
There's other options for vehicles to get to the city through North Adelaide.

We need more investment in PT in this city, not less.
The more PT options we have, the less congestion on our roads. This needs to be done before congestion is as bad as the eastern cities, not after.
It should be looked at from multiple aspects as well. If we had a more extensive pt network that reached more people/areas, it would help slightly ease the cost of living pressures for many people.

[bits]

The more people in an area the better for business typically.
But I don't see a link in Adelaide between directly infront PT access and successful restaurants.
Jetty Road has it but it is the only example I can think of. Most Adelaide restaurants instead chose to open and have run successfully in areas with as many passing cars as possible.

Trams, trains and buses have been running for a long time. To and from Adelaide Oval area also.
If PT out the front was great for business you should see the businesses clumping in areas that have that already.
Where are those areas?
If they clump when PT is a street away, why not keep creating that?

We are not inventing the tram or trains. They already exist and if they do something they should already be doing that.

[rubberman]

The more people in an area the better for business typically.
But I don't see a link in Adelaide between directly infront PT access and successful restaurants.
Jetty Road has it but it is the only example I can think of. Most Adelaide restaurants instead chose to open and have run successfully in areas with as many passing cars as possible.

Trams, trains and buses have been running for a long time. To and from Adelaide Oval area also.
If PT out the front was great for business you should see the businesses clumping in areas that have that already.
Where are those areas?
If they clump when PT is a street away, why not keep creating that?

We are not inventing the tram or trains. They already exist and if they do something they should already be doing that.

I think the answer is in deciding what O'Connell Street is.

Is it a street for shoppers, residents, and restaurant goers? Or is it a transport corridor for cars and commercial vehicles? Or is it a street for shoppers, residents and PT users?

Now, depending on what everyone decides it is, we can devise a strategy.

The problem is, at the moment, there's no decision. That means people who see it as a transport corridor are in conflict with those who see it as shopping, eating, and residential. The former will likely love the elimination of parking and hate trams. The latter will hate the elimination of parking and love trams. This cannot be resolved while government and council pretend to be able to do both.

[dbl96]

Isn't part of the reason for the businesses on O'Connell Street because it is full of passing cars?
The parallel roads haven't got nearly as much business because they lack the cars.
Remove the cars from O'Connell and do you not just end up with what is currently on the parallel roads aka not much?

Eg the road with the most frequent and most diverse public transport is surely Grenfell Street. Is that now the cultural centre of Adelaide because of its excellent access to public transport? Is it lined with high end restaurants and stores?

The concentration of commercial activity on O’Connell St (and its absence on parallel streets) pre-dates the widespread adoption of motor vehicles. The reason for the concentration of commerce is largely historical. O’Connell St developed as the main commercial centre of North Adelaide, because that was the route that the original tram line took. Left to its own devices, commerce will congregate in the areas with the biggest customer flows. Back in the 19th century, most of those customers arrived by tram.

At this point the pattern of where commerce is located is largely rusted on - premises already exist for businesses to rent on O’Connell St, wheras they do not on other streets like Lefevre and Jeffcott. Also businesses like to be close to (in sight of) other businesses, where they can benefit from more incidental visitations from customers who came to visit their neighbours. Also, especially since the mid 20th century, there are various zoning restrictions which have prevented commerce from locating to where it otherwise might have chosen. For example, I suspect that most of Jeffcott and Lefevre are zoned for residential only, making it basically impossible for someone to construct new commercial premises there. If this hadn’t been the case, I suspect that with the rise of the motor-car we would have seen commerce spread to line many main roads which are purely residential. The effect of zoning has been to ossify many commercial districts in the geographic extent they reached in the early 20th century. Much of the post-war growth in commerce has instead been deliberately channeled by zoning into ‘shopping centres’, rather than the organically developing high streets of the earlier period.

Grenfell St has a lot of public transport and a lot of cars too. Historically it was one of the main centres of commerce in Adelaide, and to some extent it still is. It has always been the main east-west corridor across the CBD, and it’s role as the ‘bus street’ evolved from the fact that it originally hosted the main east-west tram route across the city. The problem with Grenfell/Currie now is that people don’t want to spend time there because it’s become such a horrid place.Two to three lanes of fast moving traffic, busses belching out diesel fumes, narrow, grotty footpaths woefully inadequate to accomodate the large numbers of passers-by and people waiting for buses, no trees or greenery in sight, everything covered in a thick layer of black soot from all the buses. Huge number of people pass through Grendel/Currie, but they don’t linger, for obvious reasons. The ACC needs to sit down with DIT and work out how they are going to fix it, as a matter of priority. Projects like what is proposed for O’Connell, Hutt and Gouger Streets are well and good, but unlike Grenfell/Currie, those other streets are already fairly presentable in their current state.

The best solution would be something like Queen St Mall in Brisbane. Buses would be put into a buried trench (tunnel) beneath the road, with passengers alighting below street level. The roadway itself would be narrowed to one lane each way, and footpaths widened and paved with high quality pavers. Provision could be reserved for a tram line - in case the east west link as envisaged in Adelink is to be realised. Large shady trees would be planted along the length of the street, and the buildings given a high pressure clean to rid them of the grot that they are caked in.

[Nort]

-Some streets become natural or planned centres of commerce and hospitality.
-Wider roads for carts in these streets means tram lines are built on them
-Commerce and hospitality grows in these areas
-Tram lines eventually removed and replaced by private transport in the form of cars.
-Time passes, commerce and hospitality remains
-People with no historical context: Wow look at those areas have lots of businesses, a handful of cars being able to compete for parks out the front just have caused this!

[SouthAussie94]

A video which discusses use of Substitute Buses during a rail closure, something that tram passengers will experience later this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdwYdMF4nMs[/youtube]

[EBG]

I noticed that no trams were running over the wekend. This seemed to due to some track work between south tce & Grenhill Rd?

[SouthAussie94]

I noticed that no trams were running over the wekend. This seemed to due to some ttrack work between south tce & Grenhill Rd?

Temporary depot being built there so that trams can still run in the CBD while the 3x overpasses are built.

[PD2/20]

I noticed that no trams were running over the wekend. This seemed to due to some ttrack work between south tce & Grenhill Rd?

Temporary depot being built there so that trams can still run in the CBD while the 3x overpasses are built.

This weekends closure is one of a series from May. Two further closures scheduled: 21 Late evening/22 June and all day 2-3 August (prior to the South Tce Glenelg closure).

Scope of visible works: creation of bitumen hard standing between and beside tracks south of South Tce stop, cable ducting and signalling works, installation of gates just north of Greenhill Road to form depot compound.