Reader views (7)

 Add your view

"I don't understand how trams are uniquely attractive to car owners"

Trams are smoother and faster than buses and statistically are more successful in tempting motorists to leave their cars at home than buses are. Most of Europe is tram-based and most American cities have light rail. Smaller cities further north have them - Manchester, Nottingham & Sheffield, so why can't the metropolis?

Does Boris really want to improve London, or just penny-pinch so the city stagnates like it did in the years before Labour created the Mayor and GLA?

- Sean O'Conor, London, England

Tom, the tram can only replace the bendy bus if it monopolises the roadspace which bendy buses currently share with other traffic,ie a net loss in transport infrastructure. So is the tram to take away general roadspace, or run on unused rail tracks (not many of them to choose from), or along new routes at huge cost? The claimed faster journeys are presumably due to fewer stops, ie a reduction of provision. I don't understand how trams are uniquely attractive to car owners: do you think that nobody currently using the buses owns a car? There's no clean-fuel case between either bus or tram: electricity is only as clean as its fuel, and cleaner buses are already on their way. I think we do agree that the natural routes for trams are those already served by bendy buses, ie long straight lines.
I think the bigger issue is to wrestle with why we all seem to need to charge around greater and greater distances; a properly green transport policy is based on localisation, rather than, say, Ken's monster towers at central points.

- Mdj, Leyton, e10 london

I think the attitude of the Assembly Member for the northern part of the route is appalling. He doesn't care - there are plenty of tube stations offering a fast service north of the river. This could be south London's version of the tube - it's about time! Plough on with the cross river tram plan now and Boris Johnson could leave a legacy for London that will be appreciated long after he is gone.

- Martina, Peckham England

"I've never seen it explained what a tram can do that a bus can't, at a fraction of the cost. "

Faster journeys due to better acceleration, much higher capacity, much more attractive to car users and cleaner. In fact the tram is the perfect bendy bus replacement, if only Boris realised. The scrapping of the West London Tram scheme (engineered by the local Conservatives) means 25 more bendies on the streets every day on the 207 route.

Basically, on routes with sufficient demand, the double decker loses out to the bendy which loses out to the tram. Above that you're talking metros (tubes, DLR) which is a whole load more cost. I think TfL's own figures (which Boris isn't inclined to challenge so far) suggest that both WLT and CRT had substantial positive cost/benefit analyses.

- Tom, London

I've never seen it explained what a tram can do that a bus can't, at a fraction of the cost. If it's a question of a dedicated and prioritised route, buses can have those too, and also use the existing infrastructure. You can't divert trams to meet changed demand, or if the road's being dug up!(Have you ever seen a bus replacement service for a bus route?)
Perhaps buses are too sensible and mundane to be glamorous, but I can't think of any urban transport problem that buses of the correct size cannot solve.

Th real question for Mr Lee is why people in Peckham should have to leave their area to go to work: why presume that 'access to the job market' lies elsewhere? My Council is rushing to build housing on former workplaces, forcing local people to commute from a Borough that has indifferent transport links. By definition, we can't ALL commute somewhere else!
For what it's worth, here are two ideas of mine:
1) A network of mini-buses serving smaller roads, to bring people from near their homes to the main routes, with a timed through-ticket to the final destination so there's no penalty for changing buses.
2) Make an employee's travel costs part of their salary, by law: this would cost the public purse nothing, would be a zero-sum in economic terms, but would force employers to think long and hard about where they needed to be located, and where they should be recruiting.
It seems mad in an age of ever-faster communication that centralisation should be increasing!

- Mdj, Leyton, e10 london

I don't much care as long as they are red like London buses. Trams in other British cities are like a sick headache to look at.

- Peter Seekings-Foster, Muildenhall, Suffolk

For a Mayor who portrays himself as a keen listener to the electorate - Boris seems to be making a big error in failing to support the Cross River Tram scheme, which has massive local support.

Currently it can be quicker to get from Reading to Central London than from parts of Peckham that would be served by this scheme - building this tram would massively improve access to the job market for local residents and alleviate congestion on the Northern and Victoria lines. Trams are cheap to build, and the Croydon trams have been massively successful. The scheme's a no-brainer, and I'm amazed that moving it forward is proving to be such an uphill struggle.

- Mark Lee, Vauxhall

Add your comment