News & Discussion: Trams

[rubberman]

Actually the reason the trams run so slow is because they operate under heavy rail signalling guidelines. It's just copied and pasted over from the train network. Effectively the back end of government considers them to be trains on streets. They just sell it to the public as light rail and trams.

Why? Because Adelaide literally has no light rail expertise in house that knows how trams are actually work. And the maybe two people that do are constrained by a long standing entrenched culture and piss poor management lacking innovation, that it is just the way it is and it will never change.

100%

[PD2/20]

Actually the reason the trams run so slow is because they operate under heavy rail signalling guidelines. It's just copied and pasted over from the train network. Effectively the back end of government considers them to be trains on streets. They just sell it to the public as light rail and trams.

...

Is this actually the case? I may be missing something but in a comparison of the Adelaide systems, heavy rail has block signalling, trains fitted with AWS or ATP, and a central signalling control centre. Light rail has line of sight working and points operated locally by driver request with indicator signals to confirm the setting of the points. There are about 30 locations in the CBD where there are road or pedestrian traffic lights. The only street running is now on Jetty Road. There are some rail style automatic level crossings between Goodwood and Morphetville but these give absolute priority to trams and dont restrict their running speed. Can you give an instance of how heavy rail guidelines have influenced the light rail system?

[[Shuz]]

Source: Mate who works on trams, spoken extensively about it.

[dbl96]

For anyone who still doubts that Adelaide has a traffic congestion problem:

https://www.indaily.com.au/news/2023/11 ... icial-data

[rev]

For anyone who still doubts that Adelaide has a traffic congestion problem:

https://www.indaily.com.au/news/2023/11 ... icial-data

Problem is most people identify congestion with what they see in Melbourne and Sydney, km after km of banked up traffic moving nowhere.

[abc]

For anyone who still doubts that Adelaide has a traffic congestion problem:

https://www.indaily.com.au/news/2023/11 ... icial-data

the article was interesting until it started quoting "Jennifer Bonham, a UniSA researcher who focuses on sustainable transport"

said building more road capacity was not a long-term solution and was likely to be counter-productive.

erm no, more road capacity is what larger cities than Adelaide with less congestion have

“We have some population increase but that doesn’t automatically translate to motor vehicle use.

oh yes it does

[rhino]

“We have some population increase but that doesn’t automatically translate to motor vehicle use.

oh yes it does

Many European cities have proven that this does not have to be the case.

[abc]

“We have some population increase but that doesn’t automatically translate to motor vehicle use.

oh yes it does

Many European cities have proven that this does not have to be the case.

she's trying to say the increase in population has nothing to do with the worsening traffic in Adelaide.. what would you put it down to?

[rhino]

she's trying to say the increase in population has nothing to do with the worsening traffic in Adelaide.. what would you put it down to?

And my comment was that this does not have to be the case.
There are European cities that are growing in population (slowly, like Adelaide) where it is not the case. Their standard of living is pretty damn high, too.

[Spotto]

For anyone who still doubts that Adelaide has a traffic congestion problem:

https://www.indaily.com.au/news/2023/11 ... icial-data

the article was interesting until it started quoting "Jennifer Bonham, a UniSA researcher who focuses on sustainable transport"

So she studies sustainable transport for a living and her points align with traffic studies by other companies and groups. Maybe, just maybe, she might actually know what she’s talking about?

[rev]

“We have some population increase but that doesn’t automatically translate to motor vehicle use.

oh yes it does

Many European cities have proven that this does not have to be the case.

We aren't a European city though. We have poor public transport running through our city, so an increase in population would mean additional cars on our roads.
We also might have a population of people mostly descended from European migrants, but the mentality here is quite different to that of people born and raised in Europe.
People here have grown up under different circumstances and situations to people in Europe, which shapes ones mentality.

Had we had a more widespread tram network (and trains for that matter), like we once had, today with the cost of living crisis in particular those mentalities would start to shift.
The cost of running a car, or multiple cars in many households isn't cheap. But in Adelaide most people don't have any alternative.

If AdeLink had been built or been in the process of being built, you can bet patronage would have increased in the past 12-24 months. I'd guess the appetite for more trams would also increase with that, as a viable alternative for daily work commutes in particular.

But here we are, again missing the boat in a way that's Adelaidesque lol.

[rubberman]

oh yes it does

Many European cities have proven that this does not have to be the case.

she's trying to say the increase in population has nothing to do with the worsening traffic in Adelaide.. what would you put it down to?

That's not what she said, at least in the article. Do you have other statements from her that say population increase has nothing to do with worsening traffic? I'd be surprised if anyone said that population increase had nothing to do with increased traffic as a general rule, because there are plenty of examples where it is obviously true. For example, urban densification means an increase in population in that area, so traffic could well increase. O'Connell Street 88 will be interesting to observe, for example.

In this article, she is just pointing out that there are cities where it doesn't happen, so it's just not inevitable.

[abc]

Many European cities have proven that this does not have to be the case.

she's trying to say the increase in population has nothing to do with the worsening traffic in Adelaide.. what would you put it down to?

That's not what she said, at least in the article. Do you have other statements from her that say population increase has nothing to do with worsening traffic? I'd be surprised if anyone said that population increase had nothing to do with increased traffic as a general rule, because there are plenty of examples where it is obviously true. For example, urban densification means an increase in population in that area, so traffic could well increase. O'Connell Street 88 will be interesting to observe, for example.

In this article, she is just pointing out that there are cities where it doesn't happen, so it's just not inevitable.

the only way an increase in population doesn't increase traffic is if you ban all migrants from driving cars

[rubberman]

she's trying to say the increase in population has nothing to do with the worsening traffic in Adelaide.. what would you put it down to?

That's not what she said, at least in the article. Do you have other statements from her that say population increase has nothing to do with worsening traffic? I'd be surprised if anyone said that population increase had nothing to do with increased traffic as a general rule, because there are plenty of examples where it is obviously true. For example, urban densification means an increase in population in that area, so traffic could well increase. O'Connell Street 88 will be interesting to observe, for example.

In this article, she is just pointing out that there are cities where it doesn't happen, so it's just not inevitable.

the only way an increase in population doesn't increase traffic is if you ban all migrants from driving cars

Given that other cities, even in Australia, have a higher percentage of people using public transport, even if Adelaide only had the bog standard Australian average public transport use, you'd decrease vehicular traffic overall. Australia doesn't even try that hard.

Now, of course, if people don't want to do that, that's fine. But that's a choice with consequences of ever slower traffic. I'm ok with that as long as people then don't whine about the consequences.

For someone to point out that there are other choices is hardly controversial or agenda driven.

For example, along the Parade and O'Connell Street, densification and new buildings mean the road can't be widened. So, the government and councils have choices in the mix of transport modes. They can favour bikes, or cars, or buses, or trams, or ban vehicles altogether, I suppose. However, each of those choices has consequences. The problem is that governments, and the public are sticking their heads in the sand, and letting traffic slow down rather than offend any particular interest group.

I just wish the government would admit there's a problem, propose a solution, and get on with it.

[dbl96]

Many European cities have proven that this does not have to be the case.

she's trying to say the increase in population has nothing to do with the worsening traffic in Adelaide.. what would you put it down to?

That's not what she said, at least in the article. Do you have other statements from her that say population increase has nothing to do with worsening traffic? I'd be surprised if anyone said that population increase had nothing to do with increased traffic as a general rule, because there are plenty of examples where it is obviously true. For example, urban densification means an increase in population in that area, so traffic could well increase. O'Connell Street 88 will be interesting to observe, for example.

In this article, she is just pointing out that there are cities where it doesn't happen, so it's just not inevitable.

She’s not trying to deny that population growth is the main factor which has caused increased congestion. All she is saying is that population growth doesn’t necessarily have to translate into increased congestion if there is sufficient investment in public and active transport to encourage less car trips per capita. We can make excuses for ourselves (we are not like Europe etc), but the fact is we aren’t really even trying to change the status quo at this stage. There’s been very little investment in public and active transport happening in SA these past few years. Who’s to say what the result would be if we had made different investment decisions. I’m not suggesting everyone would suddenly give up their cars, but even relatively cheap and simple solutions like bus lanes which allow buses to clear traffic, and separated bike lanes that allow people to feel safe enough to hop on a bike to go down to the shops could make a big difference to the extent of car-reliance.

For example, along the Parade and O'Connell Street, densification and new buildings mean the road can't be widened. So, the government and councils have choices in the mix of transport modes. They can favour bikes, or cars, or buses, or trams, or ban vehicles altogether, I suppose. However, each of those choices has consequences. The problem is that governments, and the public are sticking their heads in the sand, and letting traffic slow down rather than offend any particular interest group.

I just wish the government would admit there's a problem, propose a solution, and get on with it.

The problem is, most people in Adelaide drive, and they only drive. These drivers generally oppose anything which they perceive will negatively affect their ability to drive wherever they want to. This creates a political problem for anyone genuinely wanting to change the status quo to reduce congestion, because, short of mass demolition and road widening, it is not possible to fix congestion without reallocating road space in a way that favours more space efficient transport modes.

As ABC previously pointed out, Adelaide is hardly densely populated by world standards, even in the densest areas of the city. But cars take up a lot of space on the road, and it doesn’t take many of them before the road is choked. That’s where we are at now - not too many people, but most of them drive, so we have unusually high levels of congestion for the size of the population.

As an illustration of what I am talking about, a standard bus carries 30 odd people. But you can only fit 2 or 3 single occupant passenger cars in the same road space. Even less if, as is increasingly the case, its Raptors or oversized Yank Tanks.