How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car

Re:How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car by mikelward on Thursday August 01, 2019 @02:37AM (#20581494)

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).

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Re:How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car by 9nGQluzmnq3M on Thursday August 01, 2019 @03:02AM (#20581599)

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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Re:How Sydney destroyed its trams for love of the car by sytringy05 on Thursday August 01, 2019 @03:04AM (#20581610)

I think the metro distinction is often frequency of trains and usage of the tracks. Ie London runs trains every 2 mins basically from 6am - 8pm on virtually every line vs a heavy suburban rail which will run every 15 - 30 mins, share track with freight or intercity rail and so on.

I know it doesn't look too different to a passenger but operationally I think they are very different.

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