It has been interesting to see the reaction to last week’s announcement that the ARC will be bringing trams back to Auckland’s waterfront, through a 1.5 km loop around Wynyard Quarter.
Friday’s Herald Editorial was positive about the idea:
Statements supporting the tram circuit invariably mention its potential to be part of the region’s wider public transport network, with a route wending around the southern and eastern edges of the Viaduct Harbour to Britomart.
This, however, raises separate issues. It is true that at some stage, when the apartment market recovers and the residential sector of the development takes shape, there will probably have to be a direct connection to Britomart.
Buses have been suggested. But they would be a blot on the landscape, undermining the views from the bars and restaurants and introducing an unpleasant aspect to the public places where people like to stroll.
Trams or light rail might be preferable, but the whole question warrants reappraisal and should be set to one side.
Fortunately, that must be the case anyway because any public transport will have to await the replacement, in 2016, of the temporary foot bridge that will link the Viaduct Harbour with the Wynyard Quarter during the cup.
Set in isolation, the tram circuit is a reasonable idea provided the cost is in keeping with the inherent risks. One way of mitigating these would be to use Motat’s technical expertise as far as possible.
Heritage trams have been a big drawcard elsewhere. There is no reason, with the correct back-up, a similar popularity cannot be achieved in Auckland.
Columnist Brian Rudman was a little less enthusiastic:
Auckland regional councillors are rushing through plans for their little Tank Farm heritage tramway, claiming it’s all about the Rugby World Cup. But the haste has much more to do with the desire of light rail enthusiasts like chairman Mike Lee, to scrawl “Kilroy was here” before the waterfront falls into the clutches of the new waterfront CCO in a few months.
There’s an almost evangelical hope that once built, this 1.5km circuit around the boundaries of the Wynyard Quarter development site will prove so popular, that the inheritors of the ARC dream will have no option but to extend the tranway into the CBD and onwards along the waterfront, up Queen St, down Dominion Rd and who knows where else.
As a fan of a waterfront light rail, I’d love them to be right. But I fear it’s just as likely to become a little-used, out-of-the-way clanger that puts the cause back another 50 years…
…The big appeal of the ARC’s little tramway proposal is that it’s cheap, at around $7 million, can be funded through ARC’s proxy development company, Sea+City, and be locked into place before the November 1, Super City takeover. But in the haste to leave a legacy, the risk is it will become a legacy of the wrong sort, a reminder of why the November revolution was needed. I hope not.
Mayoral candidate Len Brown seems to be a fan though:
Trams on the right track says Len Brown
Mayor Len Brown has praised the return of electric trams as a being on the right track for the future of Auckland’s public transport.
“This is the most exciting development for inner-city transport seen in many years,” says Len Brown.
“These innovative ideas show that with consensus driven leadership and vision progress can be made towards an efficient world-class transport system.
“I can see future options for the development of electric trams across Te Wero Bridge to further down the waterfront or up into the inner city streets.
“I am delighted that tram travel will, once again, be a reality for Aucklanders, in a way that contributes to the development of the waterfront and the success of the Rugby World Cup.
“Congratulations to Mike Lee and the Auckland Regional Council for their success in bringing back transport options for Aucklanders..
What I find particularly interesting out of all these reactions is that people are now talking about “where could this go next?” and thinking about the role that trams – whether in their heritage form, or in the form of modern light-rail vehicles, or perhaps a mixture of the two – has in the future of Auckland’s city centre. That’s pretty exciting I reckon. As an example of how this announcement has really got people thinking, there was an interesting extract in an otherwise unrelated story on a possible convention centre being located around where the old train station is in Friday’s NZ Herald. Here it is:
“We see it as a golden mile. The vision should be that it leads to the development of the whole of Quay Street. We’re an anchor site. The two points of the bottom of the anchor are the Viaduct and us, with Queen Street as the middle.”
With the Auckland Regional Council bringing back trams to the Tank Farm in time for the Rugby World Cup, there was also no reason a line connecting the two couldn’t be paid for by the developers.
That would move tourists around the city sharing out economic benefits, he said.
So just one day after the announcement we have a completely separate organisation thinking about how having a tram line could help their project. In many ways, I feel as though that is half the point of the first little loop – to get the ball rolling.
So where could things go next? I guess that depends on how we want to think about the future of trams in Auckland. Do we want a future tram system to be mainly for the benefit of tourists and other recreational visitors – or do we want it to be a serious commuting alternative along certain routes? What kind of mix between heritage trams and modern light-rail vehicles would we want?
Looking at it first from a tourism/recreational perspective, there are two obvious future extensions (in addition to the obvious link to Britomart) – and they involve an extension along Tamaki Drive to Mission Bay or perhaps even St Heliers – and at the western end an extension to Ponsonby and perhaps even a link back through K Road to Queen Street and Britomart, creating some sort of a loop.
Here’s the possible Tamaki Drive extension – with the link to Britomart in green and the blue line showing an extension along Quay Street and Tamaki Drive out to Mission Bay. I don’t think this would be too problematic to build as the road is fairly wide for the majority of the way, although perhaps some on-street parking would need to be removed at some pinch points. Linking the city with Kelly Tarltons, Okahu Bay and Mission Bay via a tram would be really popular both with tourists and locals I reckon.
And here’s the possible Ponsonby extension. The planned Wynyard loop is in red, the Britomart extension in green and the remaining extension in blue. In some areas the tram would need to share space with buses (such as along Ponsonby Road and also on K Road and Queen Street) but I don’t see that as too problematic. I think this route would be popular as a link between many of Auckland’s entertainment hubs:
The F-Line and Market in San Francisco shows us that heritage trams can be immensely popular as tourist attractions, but also often very useful for locals if the route is right. I think both these routes potentially offer benefits to both, although I would promote both of them mainly as tourist/recreational projects. If we wanted light-rail for predominantly commuters, then I think we’d start with Dominion Road.
Even with just the link to Britomart I think the tram line would be pretty popular, as in the future there will be a lot of people working/living/shopping/visiting the Wynyard Quarter area – and very limited road/parking capacity available for them to drive there. Maybe it would take quite a while to extend the system in one of the ways I have mentioned above, but I think it’s good for us to have a think about longer-term possibilities.
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While I see this as a ‘foot in the door’ for real tram lines in Auckland, I have concern about the redundancy of the loop in a transport system once it was extended. I can see why they would pick a one way loop for a short tourist circuit, but it is about the worst option for a proper trasit line.
IMHO, if I were to build a tram line for the purposes of providing good public transport to the Wynyard Quarter, it would be a two-track two-way line bisecting the wharf precinct rather than looping around it. The wharf is only 450m wide, a line down the middle would be within 200m or so of any point in the precinct. Thats perfect if you ask me.
I.e. from Britomart, across the Viaduct to Jellicoe St and then down Daldy St to terminate at the Northern Busway stops on Fanshawe St.
One possible variant to the “Ponsonby Loop” could be the incorporation of a “Parnell Loop” (ie: Queen St> K’Rd> Park Rd> Museum> Parnell Rd> Vector Arena> Beach Rd> Britomart!) this would bring the Domain Heritage Attractions (Wintergardens/Museum/Parnell)firmly into the Day-Tripping Tourist realm, while bringing the Parnell/Strand ‘entertainment/restaurant’ destinations into the CBD circuit as well. … all we need is a bit more inspired political leadership … maybe we can all send our condensed thoughts to the likes of Mike Lee or Len Brown, ;o) (after all it IS a Council Election year!)
I never paid much attention at the time but the plans drawn up under Christine Fletcher seemed quite advanced from memory and included trams down Dominion Rd. Perhaps someone knows how close they were to getting finance for the whole project? and if it seemed achievable for the council at the time I think we should push hard for the next council to start taking a tram system more seriously. We have had no traction under a Banks council, for idelogical reasons rather than reality, so I’m really hoping to see a council at the end of this year that is more interested in making some big changes to Auckland rather than merely focusing on keeping the status quo in order to keep rates at inflation. We can also blame the Banks’ led council’s cost cutting for ending up with merely a Wynward loop as the bridge proposal as originally planned would have allowed this to have continued all the way to Britomart and that, in my view, would have provided a connection popular with locals as well as tourists.
I’m also liking the fact that, as pointed out, extensions to the loop are already being discussed and it’s not even built yet! I think this has the potential to really put trams back on the radar in much the same way that Britomart has put trains back on the agenda – and brought a lot of funding on stream.
The loop around Ponsonby would also be extremely popular for commuters and daytrippers and could really help to revitalise Ponsonby Rd – turning two lanes into bus/tram lanes would help to significantly cut down on through traffic and help return this street to pedestrians.
Nick, yeah Jellicoe and Daldy Streets was the original preferred route for light rail in Wynyard Quarter. The loop could be OK as a split in an eventual track, so you d”dn’t need to double track that part of the route. Not necessarily ideal, but certainly acceptable I reckon.
Rtc, unfortunately I am too young to remember the details of that light-rail proposal. I will have a look around to see if there are any old maps of what was proposed anywhere.
RTC, I think one of the problems currently is that the light rail project was ‘replaced’ by the current heavy rail upgrade… so now if you mention light rail the response from local government is “but we’re electrfying the railway and building a CBD tunnel”. It is still seen as a one or the other situation, rather than the potential to each mode (with different strengths and weaknesses) in the same transport sytem.
I think that is perhaps the most suitable angle to lobby for trams and tram extensions, that they are the ‘middle’ piece in the transport puzzle that are ideal for routes where buses aren’t capacious enough (or undesirable from and urban design perspective), yet where a new rail line or underground tunnel would be expensive overkill.
FYI, the Auckland Collection at the city library has all the brochures on the old plan, and if you are really keen you can get everything from the scoping study to technical drawings from the city archives in the library basement. Just remember to take a digital camera and snap all the pages for future reference. The 1996 (I think) Land Transport Strategy covers the scheme in detail.
Well to extend the loop to Three Lamps from Gaunt St is only 1.3 km.
“Do we want a future tram system to be mainly for the benefit of tourists and other recreational visitors – or do we want it to be a serious commuting alternative along certain routes?”
All in favour of a commuter emphasis. If you’re going to spend rates on tourists then there are almost certainly alternatives that tourists would prefer. Free beer for tourists, for instance. Or jugglers. Or free tours of the harbour.
Try as I might, I just don’t see the tourist attraction of the Wynyard loop scheme. Next year we’re expecting rugby fans to leave the pubs they’re inhabiting, walk 500m down Fanshawe and Daldy Streets, and then ride an old tram around an area of light industry and construction sites. Why would they do that? I just don’t get it. It’s like Sydney has an Opera House, while Auckland is planning tram rides around a tank farm.
My personal opinion is only the Dom Rd corridor currently has the patronage or QTN designation to make a real success of an extension… I’d propose a two-stage first extension, Britomart on to Mt Roskill, then re-evaluate after that…
@admin/ Jarbury The history of Fletcher’s and Hubbard’s light rail plans are here http://www.aucklandtrains.co.nz/2010/06/07/light-rail-back-to-the-future/
Daldy St is a good idea as one line could serve the whole of the area north of Fanshawe St, another advantage of it is that big boats aren’t going to be driving down it so there would be no issues with overhead cables like the current proposal has. The only problem would be when it came time to extend the route to Ponsonby an extra two turns would be needed to get back to Beaumont St unless there was some way to take a corner out of Vic Park (can’t see that being to popular)
Also one advantage of the Te Wero bridge not being built yet is that when it is it can be designed with trams in mind. If it had of been built already then you can almost guarantee that it wouldn’t have been built big or strong enough.
Jarbs I like your idea about splitting the track into different directions if the route is extended. At least it means that the money spent wouldn’t have been wasted (providing the extensions happen)
Just looking at it a bit further, the loop from tankfarm, up College hill and along Ponsonby Rd, K’rd and back down Queen St is about 5.4km. double tracking this based on the price of $4500 per meter per track gives us about $48.5mil to build (not counting the extension from Jellicoe St to Britomart), not a huge sum big enough to bring out a lot of opposition. This brings me to another point, there hasn’t been much opposition to this from the wider public and I wonder if this is because cost is small enough to get under the radar of many people.
Interesting costings Matt. $48 million isn’t actually THAT much money in the scheme of things. NZTA are spending more than that on just investigating the Puhoi-Wellsford motorway.
They are spending TWICE that on Puhoi..!
This is what was approved at the October NZTA board meeting: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/planning/what-funding/board-decisions/20091030-sh1-puhoi-wellsford.html
All up that’s close to $140 million!
We would need a few modern trams too, if we got 7 for Matt L’s route that would give us enough for 4 1/3 minute frequencies each way (assuming an average speed of 25kph) and a spare to allow one to be off the rails for maintenance. Anybody know what nice trams are worth? we could possibly get away with 5 trams (6 1/2 min frequencies) if the cost was too prohibitive.
I would love to see grassy median strips like in the image below.
I however think we should do the dominion road route first. I understand it would be much more expensive but it now seems like the time, before it gets a major upgrade. My preferred alignment sees it running: Dominion road -> New North Rd -> Symonds St -> Wellesley St -> Queen street ->Britomart.
This would allow for a huge catchment in the city… k-rd/central connector transfer point, Uni, Mid town and Britomart.
My costings were only for the track based on what I read in the Herald the other day (this is the figure they use for Christchurch). Of course this wouldn’t include the actual rolling stock needed.
Just working out a rough rolling stock cost calculation
In 2009 30 Bombardier Flexy Swift (250 passengers) cost €129 million for Karlsruhe, Germany. At that price they are 4.3m euro each or $NZ7.7m each.
That’s more expensive than i expected…
5*7.7m = $38.5m + track cost = $87m the package (track and huge flash trams), still cheap compared to major civil projects. But i can see why they went with the “heritage trams”.
Scott/Matt… Does your track cost include the overhead bits, or just the rails?
Using the above costings the Dominion rd route via uni, midtown to Britomart (~10km each way) would cost $96m for track and $69.3m for rolling stock (5 min freq at average 30kmph – 8 trams + one spare). Total cost = $NZ165.3m (rough estimate only – does not include stabling, running costs. Street upgrades are planed already so are not included). So… how much better are trams than buses? could the three fold increase in capacity of this route be justified?
The most recent tram extension in Melbourne (Box Hill) was AU$12.7 million a kilometre, not including the vehicles themselves.
This was a high quality ‘light rail’ type extension, with dedicated median lanes, rubber noise-isolated track, low profile overhead lines and ‘super stop’ style platforms, the sort of thing you might expect through down town or the waterfront.
Compare this to the Central Connector bus route that cost NZ$42.7 million, or NZ$13.8 million a kilometre (also not including vehicles).
@ obi I was just using Matt L’s value, no idea about there source.
obi – not sure, the article I read said that is the figure that Christchurch uses but didn’t mention what it includes.
“Also one advantage of the Te Wero bridge not being built yet is that when it is it can be designed with trams in mind. If it had of been built already then you can almost guarantee that it wouldn’t have been built big or strong enough.”
The Wero design specifications to my memory always included being strong enough to carry trams.
And thanks for this article, Jarbury* – nice slant on the tourism routes. I think Eastern Bays would be a lot easier from the viewpoint of actually realising it. Fewer directly affected locals to moan and bitch on that route. And yes, a great tourist route with some transport applications too, even if there’s no catchment until you get to Mission Bay.
As it is, though, I am afraid I am a pessimist and have to side with Obi and Brian Rudman (makes retching sounds at having to agree with Rudman). This is a dead fish without any link to anywhere. It will have all the ambiance of a run-down carnival ride.
*I never know whether it’s rude to call you that since I met you in person! Maybe I should just go with ‘admin’ 😉
Cheers Max, “admin” is probably least confusing I think.
I also think the waterfront route should be the priority, more bang for your buck as Ponsonby is already quite well served by the Link bus.
I guess the point of this loop in many respects is to make a Tamaki Drive route seem possible, especially once it links in to Britomart. It is my hope that the Super City will fast-track the Te Wero bridge a bit, so the time period of the loop being isolated ends up being just 2-3 years.
Having a Circle Tram Line (Ponsonby Rd > K Road > Grafton Bridge > Park Road > Museum > Parnell Rd > Beach Road > Britomart > Viaduct > Victoria Park > Ponsonby Rd) would be an excellent way to make the torturous Link Bus redundant.
@ uroskin I would think making the route as a radial route from Ponsonby Road to Kingsland. A cross town route from Newmarket to Western Springs. Another radial route from Greenlane through Newmarket to Parnell. A crosstown route from St Heliers through to Britomart, Wynyard Quarter, College Hill and Jervois Road. This would eliminate the bunching effect that the Link bus develops and would be an excellant example of the network effect (this is rapidly becoming my favourite thing). I would suggest a soft boundary between the routes where two routes run side by side for 2 or 3 stops, this would eliminate the OMG I just missed the transfer moment! If you combine this with a Queen St/Dominion Road line then you’ll be sorted. It would also enable you to build it in stages and use buses for uncompleted stages. We need a system built around transfers if we have any hope of building a decent system.
I would like to see two main tram routes, one crosstown along the waterfront (with extensions to Ponsonby and Mission Bay) and one up Queen St (with extensions along Dominion Rd).
Once there are a few high quality radial and crosstown routes you can rely on the Link would start to become pretty redundant.
James, yes you’re right that we need to build our system around transfers. I agree with Nick that it’s difficult to see too many routes that would be suitable for an upgrade to light-rail in the medium term. I think a good test is if we’re getting close to 5 minute off-peak bus frequencies – as we are on Dominion Road now.
Or if there’s something a bit ‘special’ about the route, like you get in Tamaki Drive or the link to Tank Farm.
Well I would argue that they should be doing it now with the present Link bus and then just upgrade it to trams when and if the capacity is needed. I agree with you two as well that the greatest priority should be given to those two routes.
I have thought how the Link Bus could work well as a tram route. Although I think many of those benefits could be achieved through simply making the route have bus lanes as much as possible.
Ok this is slightly off topic but when are they going to get rid of the parking on the Viaduct. It is an absolute disgrace to have the nicest public square in the city filled with cars for much of its time.
Probably quite soon once the build the temporary viaduct harbour bridge, or at least post 2016 once the real bridge is built. You can see why they have parking there at the moment, that space is a complete dead end with nothing on it (except during the odd function/event).
As an aside it is such a shame that they never built that downtown stadium, if that was built I doubt they would have cancelled the main bridge, plus the tramway right along to Britomart and on to the stadium would have been the first stage surely.
@Nick R I liked the Carlaw Park option that was proposed, unfortunately the plans for developing it into a bunch of soulless boxes were alerady well advanced.
I think the site on the corner of the container terminal (not the finger wharves) was the best scheme. Carlaw was a better option than Eden park, but a little constrained in site and a touch remote from the CBD/waterfront (still not as bad as Sandringham though!).
When in Europe I used a tram-train system which operated like a tram in the central city streets, stopping at all the intersections, it then left the road onto the rail system and operated like a suburban metro, stopping at stations. It then lowered its connector to the overhead wires and started its diesel motor, continuing out beyond the city servicing the smaller towns like a regional train before arriving at the next city over a 100Km away. It was quick, efficient and integrated – tram, metro, train all rolled into one, and all because the inner-city tram tracks were the same gauge as the railway tracks. (search Wikipedia for Tram-train).
I hope Auckland will think carefully about the track gauge for any trams making them the same as the railway gauge, and surely a integrated system using all the same infrastructure is more economical to run than separate systems.
I don’t think that’s viable in Auckland Shayne. Our railways are narrow gauge, whereas just about every tram system in the world is standard gauge. I think keeping the two separate in Auckland makes good sense, because the rail system will be used very intensively in the future and therefore it makes no sense to mix the two.
Not so, many European city radial and regional tram and train lines are narrow gauge, Switzerland and Germany have very extensive narrow gauge systems, the Linz system is only 90cm.
And some networks handle 30+ million passengers a year – far, far more than the entire Auckland system, many tram-trains are about 40m long (the Combino Supra is 54m), and snake along the streets without a problem. There was also interest in the future Alstom double decker trams with its 2-8 car configuration which would increase capacity greatly.
If this system can work in bigger, old European cities with their narrow rails and streets then it can work in a modern city like Auckland, and when it comes to people moving the Europeans do it like no one else.
Also would Auckland need to build an expensive underground rail loop if the city loop could run at street level along a central reservation. It would require modern 21st century rolling stock, but that would cost a lot less than a long tunnel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtbahn_Karlsruhe
Narrow gauge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWJM03gBJl4 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tgw6lisXrU
I disagree, admin. The argument that one can’t have narrow gauge trams when the Europeans run tram-trains on wide gauges sounds strange to me. Trams aren’t that wide, and they would be custom-built anyway.
As for the rail system being used very extensively – well, there is no reason why trams in the train mix should be any issue. A big tram has similar capabilities than a train in many regards, and being able to use existing rail corridors could be very useful in some locations (classic tram line Dom Road and then into the city tunnel to Britomart?). So it’s not as if service per service, they would cause any degradation on the rails. But running both in a system designed for interoperability would increase flexibility hugely.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S-Bahn-Karlsruhe.JPG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram-train
OK so there are narrow gauge trams.
Regarding the need for the CBD rail tunnel, I don’t think any surface level investment can offset the need for this project. The current rail system can’t increase frequencies or extent until we have the tunnel.
In terms of tram-trains using the tunnel, I can’t see it having the necessary capacity. The tunnel will only be two tracks, which means that around 20 trains per hour can travel each way along it (unless it bypasses Quay Park Junction). Assuming we end up with my idea of joining the Western and Southern Lines up, and joining the Eastern and Airport Lines up, we will be able to have trains running at 6 minute frequencies max on each of the four lines into the CBD (western, eastern, southern and airport). I see those frequencies as very necessary, so therefore I can’t see any capacity in the tunnel for anything else.
If I understand things correctly the big problem with putting trams on the existing rail lines would be the speed differences. Trams/light rail tend to max out at about 80kph where as our new electric trains will be travelling at up to 110kph. With higher frequencies already needed at many times of the day the main issue would be that the slower trams would hold up the higher speed trains resulting in slower journeys for everyone.
Also while there are some narrow gauge trams the vast majority are standard gauge which means that manufacturers are better setup to build them so they should be cheaper to make, easier to get parts for and maintain etc.
My main question on this topic is why would we want to run trams on the rail lines, or vice versa?
How are tram-trains superior to having a grade-separated heavy rail network (with CBD tunnel) that interchanges with a street level tram network (with a tramway up Queen St or similar). Why not have heavy rail on the long main ‘RTN’ lines and light rail for the busier QTN lines in between?
As it stands Britomart’s maximum capacity is about 20 six-car trains an hour, or about 18,000 people per hour. This is what it will be when the new electric trains are fully deployed. To carry this with tram-trains would require 75 vehicles an hour. With a CBD tunnel the heavy rail max capacity will be about 36 trains an hour (conservatively), which would require 135 LRVs and hour to give the same capacity.
(based on Melbourne C2 class Alstrom 32m long five-sectional articulated LRV with capacity of 240pax per vehicle at crush load).
These sorts of trams would be a great idea on the busier bus routes which see a bus every couple of minutes. They can carry four or five times the number of people with only one vehicle and one driver, and with greater speed and ride quality. But anything less than six car heavy EMUs on the central city corridor and the main lines would be a major step backwards.
I have the feelings you folks are missing the point I am trying to make – if and where the heavy rail network is already at capacity, it is indeed not useful to have trams compete for that share. However, tram-trains offer the ability to use heavy rail tracks and then go right along the street to where people want to go, rather than deposit them at a heavy rail station that may be quite far away.
Seeing that getting infrastructure funding for rail (whether light or heavy) is like trying to pull teeth, sometimes that added flexibility of using an existing line may be what makes something feasible as well.
Finally I see no reason why trams could not match a 105 km/h if built that way. Maybe the difference we are having is that I consider “modern trams” = “light rail”, and consider the main feature of light rail the ability to do street running, whether on their own right of way or not.
But where are the applications in Auckland where that would be the case? In the CBD the best answer to dropping people where they want to go is to build the CBD tunnel, the second best answer is to have a legible and frequent system of buses or trams that connect to train stations and a ticketing system that allows people to transfer without hassle.
Building light railway/tramway and heavy railway costs the same, so for suburban extensions it is simply a case of deciding whether the most appropriate mode is a trunk heavy railway or if it should be a light railway.
I certainly understand they have had great success with this concept overseas, I just don’t see where it would be the best solution in Auckland.
The whole point of Tram-trains is that they take the best that both have and roll them into one!
Modern Trains are good at moving large numbers of people at high speed over a long distance from station-to-station.
Modern trams are good at moving large numbers of people at low speeds over a shorter distance in built-up city streets, have low floors and have no need of run-time leeways.
A tram-train can be as long as a train or as short as a tram depending on the requirement of the route or time, they can do speeds of 120Kph, carry comparable passenger numbers, have easy access low floors negating the need for building expensive maned stations, are able to use existing rail corridors and Is easier to extend the lines when needed as they don’t need large tracks of land as can run in streets, can be diesel, electric or both and the passenger dispersals and boardings are spread over a larger area, can run close together providing a more frequent service and are able to service the inner metropolis or the intercity routes. Are manufactured for Spanish broad gauge to Austrin 90cm gauge.
In short, they are über flexible in their usage and are becoming the system of choice in Europe. Auckland needs to think big, long term and integrated! And matching the tram gauge to the rail gauge would give that future option of integration.
Certainly I can see the advantages Shayne, I just can’t see where in Auckland you’d use them.
You could, for example, run a tram along Tamaki Drive, enter the heavy rail line near the minigolf course at Hobson Bay, stay on the heavy rail until you get through Britomart (saving that distance of investment, works only once CBD tunnel or eastern approach tunnel widening get built of course, but let’s assume that) then continue either along city tunnel or back onto street running into Ponsonby.
In my earlier example, you could street-run along Dominion Road, and then use the CBD tunnel to drop off at various city stations and end at Britomart and/or loop back along Newmarket.
You could street-run all along Manukau Road, and then enter the heavy rail line at Newmarket.
Or you could heavy-rail tram services from the south along the NAL, but split them OFF at Newmarket, and run them down into town along the Central Connector, as street-running. That WOULD work without CBD tunnel or approach tunnel extension, BTW.
Similarly, you could heavy-rail from out west, and then detour the light rail route along St Lukes Road and Great North Road / Ponsonby Road into Britomart. Again, possible without CBD tunnel.
Or you could street run along Lincoln Road, then heavy rail it from Henderson onward. Okay, probably the weakest example.
You could use the existing light rail designations along Te Irirangi Drive (rather than struggle to get that upgraded to heavy rail) – i.e. finally BUILD the sucker, even if it stops in Howick (i.e. is no loop back west). Instead of having terminating heavy rail services at Manukau City and a very simple Manukau Central-Howick tram single line stub, you’d have tram-trains from Howick that could go all the way into the CBD again.
Lotsa places!
Amin, no offence, but are you serious? Where would we use these???
We would use them were we want to run trams and were we currently use trains, we would use them all over downtown Auckland like Melbourne does, we would use them from the waterfront to Helensville and Hamilton!
Have some vision man 😉
Auckland’s transport system is a joke and we need to look to other countries to see what works and build a system for the 21st century not stick to the technologies of yesterday. We need to have the option to do this in the future, but we’ll only have this option if the tracks are the same gauge!
I can definitely see that tram-trains are a great idea, but the problem is that I can’t see where they’d go in Auckland. The heavy rail network will be so intensely used in the future that I just don’t see any capacity on it to run anything but full length heavy rail. I certainly think trams have a role to play, but as an independent system.
That opinion is based on the Auckland situation. I think tram-trains could be great in Christchurch.
Max, with your example my question would be why not simply continue to run the tram along Quay St and through the city to Ponsonby? That way people can have good street level access along the waterfront rather than having to go to the one main rail station to get on.
Or Dominion Rd, why not have light rail along Dominion, stop at a heavy rail station at Newton or wherever to allow access to the city tunnel, then continue the light rail down Queen St to the watefront.
For Manukau Rd, have a tram that stops in front of Newmarket Station, then again at Grafton station, then down along the Central Connector route to Britomart.
Jose, none of Melbourne’s trams share an inch of track with the heavy rail network, however they do interchange directly at many stations allowing people to do. For Helensville or Hamilton, surely a heavy rail trip is the superior mode for a long trip on the mainlines. If getting around at the Hamilton end is the issue then the answer is probably to have a tram system in Hamilton that connects to the main station.
I guess my point is in the Auckland situation (where we do have heavy rail to the CBD and we are planning an underground heavy rail link) it is better to simply have a tram system as well as train system and integrate the two via interconnections rather than vehicles that use both types of tracks.