The Volks is owned by the council.
However use more normal size trams like the West Midlands Metro CAF Trams or a Croydon Tram.
So conversion of the Metro Bus Guided Busway network in Bristol would be a good start?
That is a great way of putting it, like the South Wales Metro, with the Cardiff Crossrail and the class 398s.
The tram or VLR route from Stadium MK to MK Coachway you propose sounds like a great idea, although it should be extended a bit further south to Bletchley station for reasons of connectivity.
The VLR is standard gauge and 2637mm wide (per https://www.coventry.gov.uk/coventry-light-rail/technical-specifications - other quote not relevant) so almost the same as the 2.65m width of trams in Croydon and most other UK operations. So it's not really optimised for narrow lanes. Some re-design of the body might be possible but would reduce on-board space and also battery capacity, and going to a narrower track gauge would be a more radical change. Nottingham and many of the French tramways use a narrower vehicle, but it's a big reduction in capacity for little or no cost saving.
Probably slightly off-topic a bit, but seeing as you mentioned the French tramways - are the Amsterdam trams (the new-ish ones) wider than the older ones that were around in the late 90's? I believe the tracks are the same gauge, if so then places like Manchester who have reasonably wide trams with 2 x 2 seating, narrower ones on the same tracks (2x1) could find it easier to get around the narrow streets should new lines appear around the city centre and so on?
It is probably more density of population and jobs along a specific corridor than absolute size. Often the problem making a business case stack up in UK smaller cities, compared to say those in France, is our low density suburban housing hence insufficient demand rather than purely high capital costs. Although those don’t help either.
You would probably require some form of gap filler to do that and retain accessibility. Also as trams as guided they require a narrower right of way to enable the same width of vehicles as buses. Assuming a bus requires a 3m wide road for a 2.55m wide bus based on the Alexandra Dennis Enviro400 bus.
The Amsterdam Combino trams dating from the early 2000s, and the newer Urbos, are both 2.4m wide according to Dutch Wikipedia (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdamse_Combino's, https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdamse_gelede_trams_15G - nothing else relevant to quote here). These are/were both "standard platform" designs from different suppliers, that could/can be delivered in a range of different widths.
Thanks, must have been my imagination/bad memory they look quite thin on that page!
It used to be like that until around 2019. They changed a lot of it under the 'Valley Gardens' scheme. It used to be basically a clockwise one way system from Preston Circus to the sea front with northbound traffic going up Marlborough Place and Southbound traffic coming along Viaduct Road then down past the Level and onto Grand Parade. It generally worked but I moved away as the new scheme was being put in. Bus lanes had their own 2 way route past the church and then the two split apart to join the relevant traffic directions.
The Volks is only 2' 8¼" gauge (?) And it's owned by the council.
It became part of the council in the 1930s, when the Brighton Corporation purchased it. The Brighton Corporation was the transport part of Brighton Council.
Either you leave the Volks alone as a tourist attraction, or you completely get rid of it in converting it to a proper tramway.
If required I would convert it into a tramway.
Would you, why? it serves absolutely minimal potential travel demand in the city, and there's plenty of room for a conventional tramway either on the adjacent roads (on top or below) or on the edge of the beach next to the VER and the road.
Of course they'll remain expensive to build if we refuse to build anything. If we got on with it, say these 10 cities and large towns need trams from scratch + all existing systems need extensions and then standardise the planning process, construction and material. Gave engineering and construction firms as well as builders, the certainty of a rolling programme of works for the next 25 years, I wouldn't be surprised if all 10 ended up costing what just 1 or 2 tram systems cost us now thanks to a joined up approach.
Even if that is the case (and things certainly aren’t rosy) we should be working on preserving / creating alignments for future use when economics permit.
We don't get out of the hole but standing still though. We had 14 years of Tories using the poor economy as an excuse to not invest and guess what? The economy is still rubbish, we wasted all that time and even historically worse off Eastern European countries are better off now. Also funny how the economy never crashed over the high cost of HS2 or literally any new infrastructure but it did with the Truss tax cuts for the rich which actually produces bugger all. Even with things as they are now, the economy can handle borrowing for things that will bear fruit in the future, especially transport which only ever increases productivity. If anything, lack of investment is starting to prove more expensive now.
Indeed.
I think the 25, 28 and 29 were meant for getting people out of the city centre as quick as possible, so they use the eastern side after leaving the Steine. The 24, 48 and 49 all serve London Rd shops and Lewes Rd so unless someone's heading beyond the Universities they don't really need to change along the Lewes Road, at thr Gyratory or the bus depot, for example. The 50 goes to the Uni as well (via Hollingdean) so it covers all bases while preventing London Road from becoming gridlocked.
Only a very limited amount. The UK economy has huge debts and is paying high levels of interest on them. Bearing fruit in the future doesn't pay interest now.
Without taking the thread too far off track, trams are essentially local projects and sould be financed by local, rather than central, governement borrowing. That's how most continental european tram systems are financed and how they used to be, and should be, financed here as well.
Local authorities in the UK have limited powers to borrow, commensurate with their limited powers to raise revenue. Without revenue raising powers local authorities can't pay the interest on the debt.
Leicester could work - particularly if the new conurbations on the outskirts were planned with trams in mind. The routes into the city centre are increasingly congested and I struggle to see how you'd accommodate trams on routes such as Belgrave Road or even Hinckley Road.
