
How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car - oska
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/28/erased-from-history-how-sydney-destroyed-its-trams-for-love-of-the-car
======
femto
The burning of Sydney's rolling stock was a crime against woodworkers. The
same thing happened to old wooden railway carriages in Sydney. Slabs of well
seasoned (Australian) red cedar, the length of a railway carriage, inches
thick and even wider gone up in smoke. That sort of wood was rare when the
carriages were burnt and practically unobtainable now.

~~~
oska
For people unfamiliar, 'Red Cedar' in Australia refers to a tree from the
mahogany family, _Toona Ciliata_. Quoting an easy reference:

> It is one of Australia's few native deciduous trees. The timber is red in
> colour, easy to work and very highly valued. It was used extensively for
> furniture, wood panelling and construction, including shipbuilding, and was
> referred to as "red gold" by Australian settlers. Heavily and unsustainably
> exploited in the 19th and early 20th centuries, almost all the large trees
> have been cut out and the species is essentially commercially extinct.
> Availability of this timber is now limited.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toona_ciliata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toona_ciliata)

~~~
jonny_eh
Sounds like an identical story to California redwood trees.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoioideae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoioideae)

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ajxs
I don't feel like anyone has addressed the fact that Sydney's new tram system
is an absolute joke. There's no point comparing it to Melbourne's expansive
tram network, ours covers less than a tenth of the distance and pretty much
runs between UNSW ( incredibly wealthy private institution ) and the new
casino ( incredibly wealthy private institution ). The NSW state government
has been thumbing it's nose at the ICAC for years with some of shadiest
dealing and poor infrastructure investment of little benefit to the public.
This new tram network is just the latest in this tradition. You can't possibly
say that projects like this, Westconnex, the shortening of the rail line in
Newcastle, etc did not _reek_ of corruption and keep a straight face.
Admittedly, transport to UNSW was always bad via road. The congestion in the
Eastern Suburbs is terrible. I never found the buses to Randwick to be _that_
terrible, but I never rode them in peak hour on a daily basis.

~~~
cylinder
Ah there are so many whingers in Australia who hate change! The new tram is
much needed and George St is much better off with this than the hellscape of
buses and cars. The southeast desperately needs a proper link to the city. As
someone who moved from overseas to Sydney, I am excited about the new line,
and WestConnex was desperately needed too. I'm grateful for all the
infrastructure coming online here. $3 billion for this isn't so bad. You won't
find anywhere in the world where projects like this don't have some
corruption. Shrug.

~~~
daemin
The big thing about WestConnex was that it fed many lanes of traffic into a
tiny crowded one lane street that has a lot of pedestrian traffic as well.

Maybe that's a bit of NIMBY but generally after new highways are built they
are effectively choked off by the roads that feed in and out of them,
especially ones where people want to exit on.

~~~
cylinder
I mean, the Harbour Tunnel does that onto S Dowling St, yes, it's congested
but still works better than going through the city...

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
> _“London has resolved its traffic problem by replacing trams with buses, and
> Sydney should do the same,” he advised._

Interestingly enough, London has not seen it fit to reinstall trams, instead
choosing to continually expand the Underground (subway) network and apply
congestion charges to the inner-city traffic. And as it happens, one of the
more valid criticisms levied against Sydney's new line is that its capacity
will be insufficient from Day 1, and it really should have been built as heavy
rail instead.

~~~
jimmaswell
Banning poor from the roads really seems like no solution at all to me. Like
one of those misguided solutions an AI comes up with like pausing Tetris
forever to avoid the score going down. You alleviated congestion for a few
without solving the real problem. Improve transit and traffic engineering
instead.

~~~
cletus
I hate this argument because it seems altruistic and empathetic but most of
the time it's entirely self-serving. People wheel it out when something that
would inconvenience them, specifically, is proposed.

Example: in Manhattan we still have free street parking. It's insane. Yet any
attempts to remove it get this same argument of "what about the poor who need
to drive?" To anyone who says this or thinks this I challenge you to walk
several blocks of pretty much any street below 110th street and look at the
cars parked there. On some I see Maseratis, Teslas, BMWs and so on. It's not
poor people who own these cars. It's just another giveaway to incumbents and
the wealthy for no good reason.

I lived in London when congestion pricing was first rolled out. The difference
in traffic in the West End was night and day, overnight. It was unbelievable,
so much so that Ken Livingstone (then Mayor of London) worried they wouldn't
hit revenue targets.

The problem with London's congestion pricing is there's an exemption for those
who live in Zone 1, basically (technically, it's a subset of Zone 1). Why?
These are the people who have the least need for private vehicles (by virtue
of good public transportation) and are probably significantly wealthier than
the average Londoner.

This is also the problem I have with what NYC is doing. They're also flirting
with congestion pricing. So far all they've done is make Ubers stupidly
expensive (there are rides that 5 years ago would cost me <$15 that now cost
$35), which is again completely wrong. Uber and Lyft make efficient use of
vehicles. They're not driven once a week and otherwise block the street
cleaners in their free parking. Private vehicle ownership for Manhattan
residents needs to be punitively taxed and street parking should require an
expensive permit. There should also be a lot less of it.

~~~
wastedhours
> The problem with London's congestion pricing is there's an exemption for
> those who live in Zone 1, basically (technically, it's a subset of Zone 1).
> Why? These are the people who have the least need for private vehicles (by
> virtue of good public transportation) and are probably significantly
> wealthier than the average Londoner.

I lived within the Congestion Zone, even with a 90% reduction on the charge
per day (so you still have the cognitive load of having to pay) and having a
parking space included with my flat (a damned luxury in London), still didn't
feel the need to have a car.

As a Zone 1 resident I found driving in central more agro than it was worth.
Granted, there are leafier areas that are still caught within it, but around
where I was, and most of the places I've been inside it, the mix of 20mph
zones, speed bumps, yellow boxes, bus lane cameras, cyclists, angry Uber
drivers, and trying to find somewhere to park at the end... it's not worth it.

Now living in Zone 2, I have a car that I use exclusively for getting out of
the city. I still struggle to understand why anyone would willingly drive in
London on a daily basis (unless they're paid to drive).

~~~
friendlybus
Driving at night in London is more pleasant.

~~~
wastedhours
The ULEZ is 24/7 though, so you also need to pay at night now, which is a
shame.

~~~
MagnumOpus
The ULEZ only applies to 20-year-old bangers which probably shouldn't be on
the road in the first place, and to old diesels.

~~~
wastedhours
Er... my car is eligible for it, and it's certainly not a "banger". Though it
is 20 years old.

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gumby
The Melbourne's retention of the trams has provided a wonderful A/B
experiment. Although I consider Sydney a more attractive city (sorry, city of
my birth!) Melbourne frankly is a much easier and more enjoyable city to get
around and live in.

~~~
cylinder
Eh the trams are cute, and smooth, but painfully slow. Better passenger
experience than buses, but the tracks and overhead cables are a blight on the
streetscape and impact drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists alike. Overall, not
worth it. Real cities have metros underground, full stop.

Would I rather have trams than not have trams, absolutely -- but they
shouldn't be relied on as a true solution to urban transport.

~~~
zizee
> Real cities have metros underground, full stop.

I am not sure if this implies you think Melbourne is lacking a underground
metro? Or perhaps you're just making a general statement.

FWIW Melbourne has both trams and a underground metro system that does a
fairly respectable job serving the CBD, and good network coverage to inner
suburbs.

~~~
cylinder
Melbourne has a suburban heavy commuter rail network with an underground CBD
loop. That's not the same thing as an underground metro like the NYC subway,
Paris metro, Tehran metro, Japan, London Underground etc. All of these cities
have urban metros in addition to suburban commuter rail (except Tehran I
guess?). Melbourne's just not there yet and is still fairly suburban. Sydney's
building a new metro system which will operate like the above mentioned
systems.

~~~
mikelward
I don't see the difference. Take Melbourne versus London. Both use electrified
trains. Both have drivers. Both travel at similar speeds. Neither have to stop
for automobile traffic (except for slowing down at the few level crossings in
Melbourne).

Whether the line is fully underground or not doesn't seem to affect much
(other than ventilation).

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
The technical difference is that metros have dedicated tracks and sufficiently
frequent services that you can just turn up and go. In Melbourne (and Sydney),
tracks are shared in complicated ways by many lines and other traffic
(regional, long distance, even cargo) so any issue somewhere cascades in
complicated ways, and frequencies are metro-like only in the densest
corridors.

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mrmincent
As someone who moved to Melbourne (and doesn’t have a car), I don’t have the
love for trams that Melbournians do. They’re slow and disruptive to the rest
of the traffic. At the same time buses aren’t stuck on rails and usually get
you places a lot quicker. They’re also easier to get a seat on as the
Melbournians I know hate buses and refuse to catch them.

~~~
chrisseaton
> buses aren’t stuck on rails

What's the difference to you, as a passenger, between being stuck on a tram
rail, and being stuck on a bus route? You can't ask a bus driver you take a
de-tour from their route, can you?

> disruptive to the rest of the traffic

No the rest of the traffic is disruptive to the trams!

~~~
mrmincent
What I meant is that if a tram breaks down on the track, or there is an
obstruction on the track, any other tram is stuck dead in the water. A bus can
drive around stationary objects.

The trams in melbourne suburbs usually drive down the middle of the road, and
stop in the middle of the road, meaning people exit in the middle of the road
and have to walk across it to the footpath, halting the traffic. Conversely
buses pull over to the side of the road, usually into a lane that is used for
parking, or at the most stopping only the one lane of traffic.

~~~
bobthepanda
> Conversely buses pull over to the side of the road, usually into a lane that
> is used for parking...

This can actually be pretty bad for travel time as well, because then the bus
has to wait for a break in traffic to get back on the road. Now in the US many
places build bus stops out to the road lanes so that they don't have to waste
time pulling in and out of traffic.

This seems less a problem of trams running in the middle of the road and more
of a problem of localities that don't build suitable waiting areas next to the
tram tracks. Example: [https://nacto.org/wp-
content/themes/sink_nacto/views/design-...](https://nacto.org/wp-
content/themes/sink_nacto/views/design-guides/retrofit/urban-street-design-
guide/images/dedicated-median-bus-lanes/carousel//800px-
EmX_High_Street_Station.jpg)

------
jaimex2
I love our trams in Melbourne.

They are free, don't emit fumes, reduce pedestrian numbers on the sidewalk and
get you where you need to go quickly. Hook turn laws work well to make sure
traffic doesn't get in their way.

We still have an underground train loop and the trams help reduce congestion
in there as well.

~~~
yoube
Melbourne isn't just the CBD, though.

> They are free

In the free tram zone, sure, which is an area of less than 2 by 3 km. The
longest tram route is 23 km long.

~~~
jaimex2
Is that Burwood highway one?

But yeah, I feel like they do their best work in the CBD.

There are some examples that come to mind of trams I don't like. The tram that
goes down Toorak rd is a huge nuisance, mostly due to how the council has
mismanaged that road.

There are two lanes. That tram shares the right lane with cars and cars are
allowed to park on the left lane. It completely bottlenecks the road -
probably its intended purpose so people pay for Citylink bypass.

------
neilv
> _" There was a nastiness to it that is quite surprising in hindsight,"
> Hounsell says. "There was a clear ideological attack on this particular mode
> of transport – an attempt to destroy it and to obliterate it, to erase it
> from history."_

Also reduces the likelihood that public opposition would result in trams being
put back into service (spoiling whatever planning and deals politicians made).

------
i386
The NRMA campaigned for decades to remove the trams from Sydney streets and it
was effectively done at their behest. Corporate vandalism at its finest.

------
ekianjo
Sydney is still being influenced by overseas trends right now as trams become
popular again across large western cities. So do they actually make rational
decisions or just follow whatever anyone is doing at the time?

~~~
vorg
Looks like Auckland NZ is planning on following this trend by building two
tram lines over the next 10 years (CBD down Dominion Rd to Airport, another
CBD to West), 60 years after following Sydney's lead of tearing out the trams
(first replacing them with electric trolley buses, then removing the overhead
lines 20 years later).

I don't see either line making a financial return on the investment, but the
NZ government is financing it all by plundering the NZ Super Fund, which was
originally intended to provide super payments for NZ's over-65-yr-old
retirees. Of course, they're framing it all as " _the Fund is making a long-
term investment in the country 's transport infrastructure_", making the
eventual huge losses some other goverment's problem.

~~~
flukus
> I don't see either line making a financial return on the investment

Do they get a financial return on the roads they build?Infrastructure (and
practically all government services) never make money, that doesn't mean they
aren't worthwhile.

~~~
michaelt
If you're _putting the country 's pension fund into it_ you need a financial
return. Otherwise you're not making an investment, you're just withdrawing
money from the pension fund.

------
m0llusk
This is an increasingly popular narrative, but it isn't entirely true. The
trams of the 1950s were not well loved by everyone because they were
alternatively burning hot or frigid cold, they forced all manner of people to
squeeze together or hang on the outside as shown in the pictures, and at that
time the system had fallen into disrepair during the war and had such deferred
maintenance that it was necessary to either rebuild or ditch the system
altogether.

Being honest about the limitations of the system and its lack of strong
popularity helps explain very much. At that time cars were still relatively
new so that all the downsides of traffic and freeways were not yet understood.
It is also worth noting that modern trams deliver a much more refined
experience not only from their own improvements but also from the traffic
signal control integration that many newer tram lines enjoy. That kind of
system was not available for trams of the 1950s and so they were slower in
traffic.

------
itronitron
some readers may be interested in this video which discusses the impact of
accommodating cars in cities >> [https://youtu.be/0lvUByM-
fZk](https://youtu.be/0lvUByM-fZk)

------
DavidPiper
> "They just got convinced by what was going on overseas, what the Americans
> were doing ... It was the wrong decision. I think we’ve always regretted
> that."

That final line struck a bit of a nerve. It always feels like Australia just
sits around waiting to see what America's stance is on <political thing> and
then try to follow suit.

Notable examples: immigration, data privacy, climate change, extensive
privatisation in recent years.

(Notable counter-examples: gun control, healthcare)

I'm interested to know if this is just my own biased perception based on media
and news exposure though.

~~~
rexelhoff
> Notable counter-examples: gun control, healthcare

Gun control, yes.

Healthcare, it seems like the Libs (at least) are bent on destroying Medicare
in favour of what? Likely private healthcare

------
kmlx
I lived in Amsterdam a number of years ago. There were people constantly hit
and killed by trams. There was a constant health emergency with cyclists
getting their wheels stuck in the lines and then damaging their kneecaps,
shoulders you name it. Anyone know if Melbourne solved any of these issues?

~~~
mercer
I'd like to see some numbers to support that claim. I've lived in amsterdam
for close to a decade and while the trams were something to watch out for, I
can't remember any number of stories to indicate that they 'constantly' hit
and killed people, and I was quite fond of their presence, generally speaking.

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ksbakan
Wooden train cars are deathtraps though

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fasteddie31003
I believe buses are almost universally better than any kind of city light
rail. Please no more light rail in cities, more buses.

~~~
glangdale
I used to work with a public transit evangelist tragic (in his spare time) and
he _hated_ buses and bus-ways. I could never understand it. I think there's an
element of permanance to light/heavy rail where the physical infrastructure is
there (ergo it can "never" be taken away, ha ha) while a bus-way can be turned
into a road.

I think there's some legit reasons (capacity) that light rail is better than
buses in many circumstances, but there's a fair bit of fetishism in the anti-
bus mob. It also seems to line up pretty well with 'not liking transit
unions'.

~~~
bobthepanda
A lot of times buses/busways get trotted out as the anti-transit alternative.
Or are super watered down. In general if you have to build new infrastructure
doing it with rails vs asphalt cost is not actually that different.

In general, for developed countries with high labor costs busways are a rotten
deal since buses have such low per-driver capacity. And the most successful
busways can't scale and end up getting replaced by light rail anyways.
(Ottawa, Seattle, LA's Orange Line)

~~~
glangdale
Buses _are_ transit yo.

The thing about busways is that the buses get to the end of the busway and can
then go around different areas and pick people up in places it would be
impossible or uneconomical to lay track.

~~~
bobthepanda
> The thing about busways is that the buses get to the end of the busway and
> can then go around different areas and pick people up in places it would be
> impossible or uneconomical to lay track.

This is only useful if you have a city geography and demographics conducive to
this. A busway would be great in Pittsburgh, which is confined to narrow
corridors, but not in Miami, which has a sprawling grid layout and the buses
should reflect that.

The main problems with busways are that buses have lower driver/passenger
ratios (so running costs are higher) and they require a lot more platform
space and roadway space for the same capacity. The Lincoln Tunnel XBL in New
York is an extremely busy busway, but even the current multistory terminal
complex is not enough room to serve all the buses that go there. Likewise, the
bus tunnel in Seattle has been converted to LRT because the LRT is much higher
capacity. And so has the busway in Ottawa, and they're looking to do that in
Los Angeles with the Orange Line as well.

You can have tree-branching LRT, like Muni Metro or Philly's Subway Surface or
the Boston Green Line. It is more expensive upfront, but LRT also has
advantages - being confined to rail, there's less lateral movement and smaller
tunnel diameter requirements, and rail systems have lower ventilation
requirements.

