Comment by jillesvangurp
1 day ago
The solution to that is dedicated bus lanes, which are quite common in some cities. Usually they allow taxis and emergency vehicles as well.
Trams here in Berlin share the street with the cars on some streets. So, it's exactly like a bus that can get stuck in traffic (and they do). Dedicated tracks are also common but they take up a lot of space and it's expensive infrastructure to install. Mostly trams are limited to the former East Berlin, though they've started to spread to some parts on the west side.
With electrical buses and bus lanes, you get most of the advantages of trams. There are probably still some advantages to dedicated tram lines. But they are expensive to install. I'm not sure it's worth the investment.
It's not uncommon at all in London to have a traffic jam in a bus lane just from the volume of buses and taxis
Step 1: Remove taxis from your bus lanes.
You missed this part:
> Also, because of the expensive infrastructure that can only be used by trams, there’s a permanence there that prevents future politicians from ripping it out to put more cars on for a quick political win with drivers.
A few things to further this:
- I’ve seen bus lanes get ripped out and moved around, you can see where the paint was cut off.
- Taxis use bus lanes, usually.
- People use bus lanes illegally if they’re not enforced with cameras (political cost of installing the cameras).
> Also, because of the expensive infrastructure that can only be used by trams, there’s a permanence there that prevents future politicians from ripping it out to put more cars on for a quick political win with drivers.
This is definitively not true. It's something people said about the Washington, DC streetcar and it turns out they are about to remove the streetcar in order to replace it with buses:
https://www.railwaygazette.com/light-rail-and-tram/dc-street...
I would have hoped it was clear that I never stated infrastructure was never ripped out, since there have been numerous examples of this happening, including my own home city. I’m merely making the point that tearing up tram lines is more costly than simply paying someone to cut paint lines off the road. That plus the initial investment creates an inertia against undoing it, though nothing prevents politicians pissing public money up the wall if they’re determined enough.