Sometimes when watching videos on effective ways of public transport and trams come up, I get a bit annoyed at people not addressing the fact that they seem to share the road with cars. Why do people twerk for trams so much as a form of light rail if they share the road with cars and are subject to being affected by traffic? Doesn’t that just make them rail buses without their own bus lane? Doesn’t that make them more obsolete? Why do people like them so much?
Edit: Also, does anyone have any resources about the cost to benefit ratio of different intratown/city forms of transport (bike lanes, BRT, trams and other forms of light rail, subways etc)? Would be much appreciated.
Depends on the location. If done right, trams can be the single most efficient form of intra-city transit. Treating trams like cars is not doing it right.
My city has trams that are grade-separated from car traffic for most of their routes, but often run alongside cars within their own “lanes”. Cars can still use that lane for maneuvers and overtaking, but whenever a tram approaches, it has the absolute right of way.
Tram tracks are much narrower compared to bus-sized streets. They can run through places where roads can’t be built, and bypass busy intersections. They’re also quieter, less disruptive (see: grassy tram tracks), less polluting (no asphalt dust or tyre particles), more durable, and more efficient (steel rolling on steel).
Trams usually don’t have to care about ground clearance. This allows them to be built with a much lower floor. Running on fixed tracks also allows them to perfectly align with the platform at stops, which makes wheelchair accessibility trivial.
Unlike trolleys, trams can use pantographs to connect to the overhead wires, which is much simpler and less likely to fail compared to trolley poles, which require switching whenever the routes diverge, and can get caught on the wires. They also don’t have to carry backup batteries or combustion engines.
Not to dispute anything you’ve said, but you should see some Amsterdam trams, particularly in the inner city area. They go through some historical small bridges that I don’t even know how they get through, the arches in the tracks are extreme.
I guess it’s more accurate to say that trams are easier to adapt to the environment they’ll operate in because of their limited coverage area. My city is about as flat as a totally-500-year-old anime girl, so not a lot of vertical challenges to overcome.