Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Richard Savage on June 22, 2011 at 23:02

I agree that the proximity to the roadworks on the North Circular, would make more roadworks to install a tram system not a lot of fun! Still, trams are a good thing generally, cos they can coexist on the same piece of road as cars whereas buses tend to end up with cars stuck behind them. The Bounds Green Road is wide enough to accomodate trams, in fact there used to be a tram route up it way back when, one of the stops was outside the Ranelagh pub!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John on June 25, 2011 at 14:01

To be more than a pipe-dream, light-rail schemes need to draw in money from big developement sites on their routes.

 

There is such a proposal called the 'North and West London Light Railway' - you can search for it on the web. That plan promotes DLR-type trains, rather than trams - and so avoid digging up any roads.

 

That plan would only reach Finchley Central Northern Line station, but the line could easily be extended to the North Circular, and then follow that corridor east to New Southgate and Arnos Grove stations.

 

To reach further east would require tunnelling, until the North Circular Road widened again. The aim would then be to somehow interchange with Bowes Park branch out of Kings Cross, and then with each of the Liverpool Street lines.

 

 

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kevin on June 26, 2011 at 1:25

I must admit I am not convinced by the use of trams particularly after the fiasco of the Edinburgh Trams.

Trolly Buses seems a much more cost effective and less disruptive way to go, allowing them to share the same road space as cars whilst ensuring they can drive around the endless roadworks we suffer.  Things have really moved on with trams now able to work "off-wire" and with small motors or batteries they are able bypass broken wires and cope with road diversions.  Modern Trollybuses

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John on June 26, 2011 at 1:52

Trolley buses are excellent for avoiding diesel engine pollution, but surely there is no spare road space to give any advantage over ordinary buses.

 

The fiasco in Edinburgh was a fiasco about contracts and filthy lucre - it has rather little to do with trams.

 

And if you bid Edinburgh, I trump you with Blackpool - a fantastic newly rebuilt system, that the whole community is in favour of.

 

Trams would find equal problems to trolley buses getting through the crowded streets of Haringey, just like the West London tram found.

 

I think on off-road system like the DLR - because there happen to be existing possible routes - has more going for it. However, without tunnelling, it would never reach the really dense urban areas.

 

Further west, this possible orbital scheme has been supported in principle, unanimously at full council meetings, in Ealing, Brent and Harrow

• ▶ Reply