|
|
| Re: Here comes Staten Is. Light Rail? (269625) | |||
 |
|||
| Home > SubChat | |||
|
[ Read Responses | Post a New Response | Return to the Index ] |
|
||
|
Re: Here comes Staten Is. Light Rail? |
|
|
Posted by Rail Blue on Wed Jun 21 09:42:17 2006, in response to Re: Here comes Staten Is. Light Rail?, posted by Fytton on Wed Jun 21 04:05:38 2006. I think this subthread is being unduly negative about the Manchester Metrolink, which is actually a success story, in terms of passenger loadings. "Half a loaf is worse than no bread" seems to be general line of argument.It is worse when it's built in such a way as to preclude ever being able to sort out the other half, which is essentially what the street running has done. The money would have been far better spent on new trains and sorting out all the awful track layouts, particularly through Stockport. I don't deny that Metrolink works for the Bury and Altrincham lines when taken in isolation, but it has effectively removed any possibility of sorting out rail in large parts of Gtr Manchester. Ultimately, it was a scheme worthy of 19th Century robber barons, not 20th Century planners. The Birmingham system is a disappointment but of course only the first phase has got built so far. But I totally disagree with the proposal to close half its stations - one of the merits of light rail is that it can have closely-spaced stops for maximum passenger convenience - the idea being to attract people from cars, not to provide a suburban rail service. O.K., it slows it down, but it's still a lot faster than a bus, and British provincial cities are quite compact urban areas anyway, so the overall journey times are pretty acceptable even from othe outer termini. You're completely misunderstanding where the route goes. It doesn't really serve Birmingham at all. It's only stations in Birmingham are: a) City Centre stations: Snow Hill, St Paul's, Jewellery Quarter b) Stations in an area in which virtually no-one lives (which is why the railway line is there in the first place): Soho, Winson Green, Booth Street [if anything, these stations have simply worsened service on the number 101 bus] c) An interchange station on the city boundary: The Hawthorns. The line actually provides service to the Black Country, which is a collection of towns between Birmingham and Wolverhampton ranging from the medium-sized to the very small. These are compact urban areas in miniature, so it makes absolutely no sense to stick extra stops in the gaps and then claim it's convenient - you're just slowing down the service for the stops which people actually live near. And this slowing down is precisely the reason why people will not get out of their cars. Even if one were travelling between extremly convenient-for-metro pairs of points such as from Lichfield Street, Bilston, to Livery Street, Birmingham, it would be quicker to simply drive along the A463, A454, M6, and A38(M). With roads like those, you don't want to mess up your transit line with extra stops. As for your assertion that it's faster than the bus, it has an element of truth to it. There are, however, notable cases where it doesn't apply, mainly between Wolverhampton and Bilston, and for local journeys between intermediate points and West Bromwich and Birmingham. Of course, simply being faster than a bus isn't good enough. The 64 was faster than the conventional 61, 62, and 63, but that just meant that longer distance bus riders got on a different bus (if it came), with virtually no modal shift towards buses. There are actually good reasons for making the line "Light Rail". Firstly, it allowed electrification and consequently better acceleration than the diesel Class 150s. Secondly, steeper gradients can be included (for flyovers on the cheap). And thirdly, it keeps it out of the hands of Westminster, Whitehall, and their cronies. The problem is that it's a type of Light Rail wholly unsuited to the Black Country (there are distinct parallels to the system of local government some clown imposed in 1974, but that's another matter). There are actually plenty of corridors in the West Midlands Conurbation (Birmingham, the Black Country, Wolverhampton, and various adjoining areas) which would work very well for close-stopping conventional light rail, notably certain Birmingham radials (the Walsall Road (51), Kingstanding Road (34), Tyburn Road (67/114), Bordesley Green (96), Coventry Road (57/58), and Bristol Road (62/63) corridors) and some rather awkward to describe routes focussed on the southern part of the Black Country: 
|
|
(There are no responses to this message.)
|
|