• Freeman ( Freeman@feddit.de ) English
      13·
      3 years ago

      Greetings from Winterthur, a pretty nice, human-friendly, town in Switzerland which bunch of old buildings. Also called the bike-city of switzerland. It turns out that the trade off is worth it. I rather have power lines than cars or fuel powered busses.

    • azimir ( azimir@lemmy.ml ) English
      2·
      3 years ago

      I love trams, light rail, and subway systems. I’ve had to think long and hard about why. Busses have notable advantages for flexibility and redundancy in the system, so why do I prefer to use a railed transit solution?

      For light rail, grade separated trams, and subways it’s easy: they’re faster in the city. Like… WAY faster. They don’t fight traffic so I wait a few minutes (at most) in any city with real transit solutions, ride for a short bit, hop off, and I’m there. Not having to deal with my car is freedom.

      So… trams… why trams over busses?

      First of all they’re bigger. There’s more elbow room and it’s easier to get on and off. It’s easier for a group of people (see: me and the kids) to all climb on and make room. The doors are larger and it’s easier to use multiple doors to load a large group so the people getting on and off a tram can go much faster. There is less shuffling along trying to wedge yourselves into the tram like you’re forced to do on a bus.

      Second, they’re predictable and have a visible route. When I’m walking around, I can tell where the tram will be because I can follow the rails. I don’t have to guess what the route will be or where I should go to meet it. Yes, busses have signs every so often, but it’s not nearly the same as seeing the rails and knowing I’m on the route. This is especially true if they do move the bus route (which is what everyone who advocates for busses says is a good thing), and I don’t know it. The bus is just gone.

      Thirdly, the tram drives in a predictable path. I can be near it and know where it’s going to go. In fact, whole big crowds of people do it all the time in plazas in Europe. You can walk near the rails and know that you’re still safe. Check out the plaza in front of the main train station in Amsterdam. They chose to run the trams right through it, but not allow busses since they weren’t safe and predictable enough.

      Fourth, they’re quiet. Trolley Busses get this too, but trams have had it a long time. They can co-exist with a people-oriented space without being too disruptive. When you sit in a cafe talking with your friends and the tram goes by it’s no big deal. When a diesel bus goes by it’s incredibly noisy.

      Lastly, they’re a community commitment. When a city installs a tram, the whole city knows that the route it travels will be supported for a long time. If you choose to live near a stop, you’ll have transit. If you’re choosing to start a business, you’ll want to be close to the tram line so customers can easily get there. The same isn’t nearly as true for a bus line. I haven’t really pinned down why yet, but there’s a very different feel to rolling along on a tram while looking at businesses to visit, and rolling along on a bus. You just don’t have the same kind of connection to the street around you on a bus that you do on a tram.

      • cryball ( cryball@sopuli.xyz ) English
        1·
        3 years ago

        I totally agree with passenger space, predictability, speed and overall commitment towards development of the parts of the city that the tram goes through.

        However I personally cannot agree on trams being quiet at least in my country. They have an incredibly loud squeal when cornering at higher speeds. Sometimes one can hear a tram squealing by half a kilometer away.

    • Kempeth ( Kempeth@feddit.de ) English
      1·
      3 years ago

      The tram supremacy doesn’t lie in the inherent nature of the technology but in the way we treat it! Trams get:

      • their own lane
      • dedicated signals at intersections (often even priority)
      • infrastructure money and thus planning effort

      In short, they are (usually) treated like public transport. Busses on the other hand are too often treated like just another car that’s thrown in with the rest but also has the obligations of public transport. If you treated trams like that (sharing the road, waiting behind cars) they would be even worse than busses.

    • jonne ( jonne@infosec.pub ) English
      4·
      3 years ago

      Doesn’t work in hilly cities. That’s why San Francisco has trolleybuses too (and the historical cable cars, but those are more for tourists). They do have light rail where it does make sense though.

  • Erismi14 ( Erismi14@midwest.social ) English
    8·
    3 years ago

    Honestly, for growing places, or places with bad public transit, diesel busses are the way to go. They are the cheapest and require almost no new infrastructure so it can offset car emissions quicker than the other options. Established bus routes that are popular should be converted to tram lines or BRT.

    • Scrubbles ( scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ) English
      0·
      3 years ago

      Diesel busses should be considered the last alternative though, out of all the mass transit options they are still the worst for the environment. Not unless a city has exhuasted all other options should they look into them, or truly have no money for alternatives.

      Downtown areas can easily be canternaried for electrified busses, and battery busses are great for trips within cities.
      If a city is growing then it’s the perfect time to lay down rail and plan it out properly before road infrastructure gets in the way, and rail always pays off in the long run.

      For longer trips then fine, diesel, but only if 1) It’s out of range for electrified busses and 2) there is not ridership enough for rail. (but even then, look at the UK’s request stop numbers and I’d say that argument is pretty flimsy)

      • Erismi14 ( Erismi14@midwest.social ) English
        1·
        3 years ago

        I honestly disagree. If you can get 5 car users on a diesel bus, you are making a positive impact on the environment. And you can deploy way more diesel busses than electric ones. Once you build demand, you can skip busses altogether and replace with trams. The batteries in busses are a cool technology, but still exploit child labor and extended neocolonialism in the same way oil does. Also battery fires are much worse than normal fires.

        I think we should electrify fleets as soon as possible but I think adding a few battery busses here and there won’t do anything but pander to environmentalist

  • TRSea ( TRSea@lemmy.ml ) English
    8·
    3 years ago

    I think someone else mentioned that San Francisco has these. I also wanted to throw in that Seattle has got them too. Maybe it’s a West Coast thing in the USA? I’d be curious to know if other parts of the country have them too.

    • azimir ( azimir@lemmy.ml ) English
      4·
      3 years ago

      And the same people who gripe about overhead cables apparently have no trouble staring at a street full of idling, polluting, and noisy cars. It’s really impressive.

  • ProfezzorDarke ( ProfezzorDarke@feddit.de ) English
    5·
    3 years ago

    I heard we tried that in some German Cities way back in the 80ies or even late 70ies, but the technology wasn’t that far yet and the overhead cables would get damaged when the buses engaged them, sometimes leading to complete outages of the tram network, and as such it was scrapped again. Glad to see that other places took it on later, we could really need that right now.