Interesting - over the past week, I learn that the track system used in Princes Street is not designed for or used elsewhere by buses with the intensity of the services on Princes Street - apparently over 250 buses/hr in one direction at peak times.
To deliver a road surface which will stand up to buses accelerating, braking, and turning is a challenge - even for tarmac, and LB person dealing with the interface issues revealed that the only solution seems to be a very expensive system of bonded block paving.
Apparently some people with experience of designing urban tram & bus systems recommended having the tram going one way on Princes Street with the buses going the other way, and a reverse position on George Street. If delivery vehicles were more appropriately sized the we MIGHT be able to use Rose Street and the original lanes network for the purpose that they were designed for (as the service roads for the properties on Princes Street and George Street).
Such intensity of bus services, many with buses barely half filled suggests we need a rethink on routes- fewer buses actually passing through the core and looping - perhaps in along Glasgow Road and out on Lanark Road, or 'kissing' Princes Street from Leith and then off to Dalkeith, with a bus ticket valid to jump on a tram to Haymarket*, or a circulating city core bus route, free to hop on and off (avoiding the major cause of delay and requirement for buses to maintain a frequent service)
*the potential interchange at York Place, which could allow this is not well sited and only a single track, limiting its potential.
It very much appears that the realm of road surfaces, footways etc was being managed as a separate entity to the realm of the tram tracks, with a lack of a unified approach to comprehensive connection of levels and interfaces, so that the footway, although widened is not always a flat surface across the width.
The street track in Edinburgh has been built to a very heavyweight standard, which of course leaves a very costly issue if it has to be dug out and sorted - again. Manchester actually had this when the rubber pads under the rails broke up and crumbled away leaving the rail able to 'pump' up and down, eroding the steel, and further breaking up the supporting material. I posted a video earlier, showing a tram track system from the same supplier being installed over a 2 day period on a tram route in another country, and the production rates for track laying/rebuilding demonstrated for the projects such as Airdrie-Bathgate, and Paisley Canal (track overhauled, lowered in places and line electrified in 44 days) show the speeds that can be delivered.
So what has caused the failure to deliver as swiftly for light rail?
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