Whilst some means of preventing pedestrians from walking into the sidings
would be necessary, there's no reason why it has to use ugly steel fencing.
Fences with gardens or hedges next to them would help the infrastructure
blend in better. In this vision of mine, Elizabeth St would be closed to
traffic south of Collins St, and the area not occupied by tram
infrastructure would be a pedestrian mall. That whole end of the street has
a dirty feel to it anyway, so it's in need of some urban renewal.

As for large areas of tram infrastructure not having a place in modern
cities, what would you have made of the huge amounts of trackwork that used
to exist around Sydney Central and Circular Quay, had the trams not been
destroyed by highly paid vandals? Upgrade that for modern operations with
platforms and stabling areas, and you end up with marshalling yards of a
sort. Many European cities have loops at termini, or multi-tracked
platforms that occupy the entire road space; I've attached some examples
from http://gleisplanweb.eu/. A lot of European cities use through-running,
so they do avoid termini in the city centres, but I don't think Melbourne's
routes could be easily rearranged to link up as there are more routes on
the eastern side than the north and west.

I firmly believe that urban planning doesn't just have to build new public
transport infrastructure, but it needs to actively make motor vehicles
second-class citizens like the road lobby did to transit in the 50s–70s. We
need to not just have good public transport, but also actively encourage
people to ditch their vehicles and cycle or walk where possible. Ideally
Melbourne would go so far as to upgrade our trams to a German-style
*stadtbahn*, albeit with less or no tunnelling, because that's not really
appropriate for the Melbourne urban environment. That means fully
segregated rights of way, full traffic light priority, platforms at every
stop (merging stops that are too close together), multiple-track junctions,
etc. Aesthetically I prefer the heavy catenary of German systems, but
that's not really necessary if a single trolley wire will do. Likewise I'm
not particularly sold on low-floor trams due to the inherent maintenance
difficulties, but a fully high-platform system like Stuttgart or Hannover
wouldn't be worth the expense now that we have low-floor technology. Even
Cologne didn't opt for high platforms everywhere, and Düsseldorf is heading
the same way. If, for reasons of economy or otherwise we should choose to
stick to more traditional trams, then Prague is a great example to follow.
Note that even in Prague, new lines are being built as light rail with
tunnels and viaducts in the suburbs. There's a channel about light rail
networks in Central and Eastern Europe
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr_Mtdyze1VPCTMuhueG7ng on Youtube which
is quite interesting, and the photo from Prague is a screenshot from one of
his videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pdAOD0JfZI.

Robbie

On 26 August 2017 at 11:39,prescottt@... [TramsDownUnder] < TramsDownUnder@...> wrote:

>

>

> ---InTramsDownUnder@..., <danielbowen@...> wrote :

>

> >> They do, but it's not great urban design or use of space for somewhere

> like Elizabeth Street.

>

> Amen! A possible solution (used in Budapest I think?) is to have a

> set-down platform on the south side of Collins, as close as feasible to the

> terminus, so that anybody can escape a tram that's held up waiting. Or

> close Elizabeth and put in three platforms like we're doing at Circular

> "Grand Central Station" Quay in Sydney!

>

> PS I've heard that Westmead terminus on the Parramatta heavy, er "light"

> rail is also to get one of these three-tracker termini.

>

> Tony P

>

>

>

>