Trams in Stoke-on-Trent?

[thenorthern]

Last year there was talk by the council of constructing a tramway in Stoke-on-Trent and there is still occasional talk of doing it.

Does anyone think this could ever come to fruition?

Personally I would like to see trams return to the area but I think the geography of the area and also Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent being under completely separate Councils it will probably never happen.

http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Trams-city-track-success/story-19623881-detail/story.html

Trams 'can put city on track for success'

TRAMS should return to the streets of North Staffordshire after more than 80 years – councillors have claimed.

Stoke-on-Trent's last electric trams stopped running in 1928, but light rail transit (LRT) systems have since made a comeback in many British cities.

Members of the development management policy group at Stoke-on-Trent City Council raised the idea of trams and better local rail links during a discussion on sustainable transport yesterday.

Councillor Andy Platt, pictured below, who is also cabinet member for green enterprises, believes Stoke-on-Trent should follow the lead of Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield in investing in trams.

Mr Platt told the committee that sustainable transport proposals for the Stoke-on-Trent were too focused on the city's road network.

He said: "It just seems that in 10, 20 or 40 years we're still going to be talking about the same minor improvements to our roads.

 

[Yew]

It could be useful, stokes interesting city layout would probably lend its sel for a tram network

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I'd agree that the Stoke area would lend itself to trams, certainly more so than Edinburgh anyway! Being that it is really a collection of small towns rather than a single city, and with the main commercial centre (Hanley) is currently cut off from the rail network. Perhaps the old 'Potteries Loop Line' could be re-used in part, though a 'Potteries PTE' would help to co-ordinate the planning of such a system.

 

[thenorthern]

How much of the old Loop Line is still free from development?

 

[WatcherZero]

Having lived there im not so sure it would work, the towns tend to be highly built up with short narrow roads linked by very busy main roads, theres not really any straight corridors you could give over to jam busting trams, instead lots of weaving and tight turns which is exactly what trams arent good at.

 

[HSTEd]

Well Citadis Compact is good at fitting in small gaps.
And I think the primary benefit of light rail in most peoples mind is the reliability of the timetable as opposed to busses and whatnot.

 

[starrymarkb]

The Citadis compact is a dinky little thing. Also the town buying them is only about 30k pop! (and is running them free of charge)

Tramway Citadis compact Aubagne en cours essais centre Alstom de La Rochelle by thierry llansades, on Flickr

 

[MK Tom]

I don't want to play the pessimist too much, but we've been through so many failures and cancellations of tram schemes, I now find it impossible to get excited about a prospect until it gets very far down the planning line.

That said, this would be neat!

 

[WatcherZero]

Yeah but unless you can segregate them to some degree they will be no better than buses and there isnt the space in Stoke to do that due to the historical street layout. If you look at the town buying them its a motorists paradise resembling Milton Keynes.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

The idea of an LRT network for Stoke is one which pops up on a regular basis. :roll:

I think the local councillors have the memories of goldfish and simply cannot recall suggesting exactly the same thing 12 months previously. Nor have they any recollection of the response they were given. Alternatively they are children who keep pestering their parents for sweets until the parents give in and buy them some simply to shut them up.

I suppose it generates some press and makes it look like they are doing something progressive for the hole that is Stoke-on-Trent.

The idea has been studied a number of times, always with the same result - not a viable proposition. No concentrated city centre activity to generate the flows necessary. Retail, leisure and employment activities dispersed across the 5 /6 / 8 town centres and all points inbetween.

The road network is generally incapable of absorbing street running and where it could cope, the trams would simply be held up in congestion thus not delivering faster journeys necessary to effect modal shift.

 

[Mugby]

I completely agree with that, it would never be viable in a million years!

Proposals like this illustrate the downside of local democracy - they're usually a bunch of crackpots. Anyone who has been in the city centre, Hanley, will know that after 6pm it's a ghost town. The other satellite towns, Stoke, Burslem etc. are even worse. For any tram system to be viable it needs to have a large catchment area which is a vibrant and happening place, with the best will in the world, Stoke isn't. The fact that a councillor compares the area to Manchester or Nottingham says it all really, sorry to be so blunt but the councillors in Derby are just as stupid!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Is this another idea that the Development Management Policy Group of the council have floated, having not had much joy with their HS2 station proposal ?



--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The Citadis compact is a dinky little thing. Also the town buying them is only about 30k pop! (and is running them free of charge)

Tramway Citadis compact Aubagne en cours essais centre Alstom de La Rochelle by thierry llansades, on Flickr

Can you imagine what "graffiti flights of fancy" this featured livery would come to the mind of the brain-dead graffiti "artists" in the area of Stoke-on-Trent once they saw it....