Tram meeting report Zero cost to Bath Council tram proposal
Meeting well attended by 37 persons in all.
Chairman and ex chairman of council, leader of conservative group, also Lib Dem party rep and green party rep.
David Andrews who called the meeting explained that he had no financial interest in trams but was promoting the idea having had widespread experience of trams and their virtues whilst working on the continent.
He paid tribute to Andrew Tuddenham who had done pioneering work 10 years ago with detailed engineering costings produced by a profession group of engineers and economists which showed that trams were highly practical and economic for Bath.
See website at http://www.bathtram.org/
Prof Lesley explained reasons why trams were good for bath:
- Private funding would provide a superior tram service at less cost than buses, and zero cost to council
- Bath is heavily polluted with diesel fumes and trams remove pollution from city
- Trams attract people from cars because they are more comfortable, prestigious, and above all faster than buses or cars.
- Trams are 40 x less using of road space compared to cars and therefore free up road space for essential car users
- Trams are quieter
The proposed routes (seehttp://tx1.fcomet.com/~claverto/cms/the-extensive-tram-network-in-bath-up-to-1939.html of old route similar to new proposals) including a loop around the city centre with spiders off to:
bathford,
university,
The Globe,
lower weston
Combe down via Wellsway
The university,
Landsdown
Lower Weston
Oldfield Park
The meeting was mainly to explain the overall reason why modern trams are much better than buses and how they have solved congestions in many European cities, including ones with tighter streets than Bath, and similar populations eg Graz a world heritage city, Fribourg, and Lisbon with steeper hills than Bath, there being several hundred trams systems in Europe and growing all the time.
Principal reason is that research has consistently shown that people will transfer from cars to trams but not cars to buses or trolley buses.
The questions from the audience were generally positive.
The nucleus of a committee was formed to carry the proposals forward
The reasons why the Edinburgh tram situation were a disaster and which need not be repeated in Bath were explained.
It was explained that modern tram track laying does not require the closure of roads and single tram beams can be laid one at a time, extremely quickly over night.
There need be no overhead wires in the centre or near sensitive buildings because in the central loop trams can travel on batteries with overhead wires only used on the outer regions.
One questioner said how can we have trams in a world heritage city, to which the answer was how can you have so much unnecessary numbers of polluting and noisy cars in a world heritage city?
It was pointed out that the Moorlands Road estates were only possible because of the tram networks without which the estates would not have been built.
Also the original Bath network, along with 20 other ones were all built with private capital by the entrepreneur MR White the founder of the Bristol Aeroplane company at no cost to council
Mr Lewis Baker produced a tram ticket he had found under his floorboards valued at 1.5 p
The existing article on the Bath Chronical is still capable of receiving comments so please use it:
The next meeting of the nascent tram group will be in the Raven Pub Science Cafe at 630 for 730 13th of April, where professor Lesley will explain the economics of how such a tram system could be provided AT ZERO COST TO THE COUNCIL OR TAX PAYERS and with fares lower than with buses.David Andrews
On 2 April 2015 at 09:50, Anne Moore <anne.moore@bathchron.co.uk> wrote:
Hello,
It’s Anne Moore from the Bath Chronicle.