Re: Slow Melbourne trams

And it's not just the trams that are slow and klunky in Melbourne. The Lilydale to City train has a lower operating speed than the light rail from LA to Long Beach even though much of the latter is in or alongside city streets.

Sadly true. And after all the government's work in the 80s trying to promote PT as an integrated system, the mindset now is more towards thinking of it as PT vs. car as opposed to tram vs. train.

Although there are obvious benefits, one of the downsides is that if one part of the system is poorly regarded, the rest often tends to be too. Unfortunately, in Melbourne's history there has been a tendency towards 'showcase projects' such as the Glen Waverley train line upgrade (painting stations, improved frequency) and the Sandringham line (improved frequency, often touted as bringing in more revenue than it cost to upgrade the service), a whole bunch of new vehicles (Comengs, B class trams) rather than more fundamental things. Unfortunately, the showcase projects once showcased tend to do nothing more and the project then declines back to where it previously was (stations get vandalised, etc) and in addition, the so called successes are not repeated elsewhere (eg Sandringham line still has 20 minute evening frequencies, every other line still has trains every half hour).

There are some signs of improvement (eg Travelsafe staff on all trains after 8pm) but until politicians actually show some interest in the system, or the freeways all fill up and there's nowhere else to build roads and therefore no alternative but to improve PT, we will still be stuck with poor PT.

Such as slow trams, Lilydale and Belgrave trains that stop every station except East Richmond, Pakenham and Frankston trains that stop every station, hourly bus routes that finish at 6pm and don't run at weekends, etc. And the sooner the PT operators gang together against the car the better.

In Mr Guyot's defence, at least he is making noise promoting PT and trying to point out some of the issues. Your average non-interested Melbournian would understand his arguments. Especially the one pointing out that cars on non-tram roads are faster than cars on roads with trams. Therefore speeding up trams speeds up the cars... It is not Yarra Trams place to be making the noise though, it should be a lobby group funded by all the operators.

My cynical 2.2c worth anyway...

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