I think underground is Holland is technically very dificult since there you have negative sea levels, and the highest point is only 25 metres above sea level.
Countries with Best Roads, Infrastructure
- Thread starter 4K8KW10
- Start date
I think underground is Holland is technically very dificult since there you have negative sea levels, and the highest point is only 25 metres above sea level.
Most have trams. Holland looks to have at least 50 tram systems, i didn't count:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_town_tramway_systems_in_the_Netherlands
The UK has just 8...
"There are eight tramway/light rail systems in the UK—in Croydon, London's docklands, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle, Nottingham and Blackpool. ":
http://www.thetrams.co.uk/tramsinuk.php
Show me a UK city that has cars, trams, pedestrianisation and independent cycle ways occupying the same space. it's bloody hard because there isn't the space for all that infrastructure (and here's the important bit) between buildings. Linking cities etc.. is irrelevant, we're talking about inner city. You don't need pedestrianisation, cars, tramways and cycle paths linking cities etc.. so my argument makes total sense, thanks.
Trams and massive cycle ways are great, but if we could do that here then we would have. There isn't the space between buildings so we don't. end of.
fair
B@
Last edited:
Soldato
I drove to the Nurburgring and back in September, I found that 90% of the roads on the continent (granted I was generally using main roads) were of a very good quality.
Conversely, our roads are a ******* joke and the UK councils etc should be nauseous at the state of our ******* road network.
Conversely, our roads are a ******* joke and the UK councils etc should be nauseous at the state of our ******* road network.
Soldato
- Joined
- 2 Apr 2006
- Posts
- 3,740
The electorate in this country have become sheep. Are we to believe there isn't enough money to do the basics correctly?
Before modern day tram networks, most cities and even towns had trams and trolley buses (an electric bus with a pantograph and running off overhead wires). Trolley buses don't really need any more spaces than regular buses, they're the same size.
Nottingham's trams weave through some fairly tight sections of inner city and inner city suburbs, take a look on streetview where the route is. The system was designed so trams can negotiate curves with a minimum radius of 18 metres. I've been on it many times, and can assure you- it's tight!
Bristol city centre isn't denser than Nottingham's, it's more spread out if anything. Much of Nottingham city centre's street plan is not later than Victorian, there aren't big, wide boulevards in the city centre (particularly on the tram route).
What has happened in Nottingham is that there have been gradual modifications of traffic flow, increased pedestrianisation, big investment in Park & Ride sites among other things. New schemes work best when there's a synergistic effort.
So I repeat, it's definitely possible, just requires the will and funding.
you mean before everyone had a car and they got rid of them all because there wasn't the space for both to operate effectively? Trolley buses don't require extra room but they often occupy room that could otherwise be taken up with cars/buses.
You haven't actually answered my question, is there a DEDICATED area for trams, cyclists, pedestrians and cars in the same space? even if you get that in a few sections in Nottingham it's nothing on how extensive it is in Holland. Provide me an image on Google Street View of Nottingham and these dedicated sections all together please.
Living in Bristol i can assure you that there is absolutely not room for an effective tram way in the majority of the centre along with cars, bikes and pedestrians - there often isn't even room for dedicated cycle ways. This is the problem, you could stick it in about 300 metres sections before it becomes impractical; there's no chance of a tram working along Cheltenham Road, for instance. It's not a plausible solution due to lack of space. This is exactly the reason that they're looking into building an underground in Bristol right now, they've already established trams won't work.
disagree, there is not the space in most cities for an effective tramway ALONGSIDE cars, cycle paths and pedestrians.
B@
Last edited:
The thing that gets to me is that in the UK, drivers collectively pay a fortune towards a mandatory road tax. However, when you examine the state of the roads in the country, you can't help but question, is the money paid towards the "road" tax actually being spent on the roads, or is it being used on objects beside the road, i.e. speed cameras - to generate more £££. I lean towards the latter.
Sorry but I have to ask, why do you sign every post when you have your name as your signature?
Caporegime
Japan, I mean come on, look at this..
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-vast-fukuoka-city-sinkhole-repaired-two-days
2 days !!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-vast-fukuoka-city-sinkhole-repaired-two-days
2 days !!
This is the THIRD time someone posts the same news article. Guys, you must be very impressed by the Japanese.
They are the number one Technologically super advanced country - super power in the world.
Caporegime
Some of us haven't the time to read the entire thread.
Of course there are, London gets 6 times more per person spent on transport than people in the rest of the UK.
Only London folk are deserving of investment, everyone knows that.
habit really, plus it gets the point across that my name is BatThing, not Bathing.. i'm not having a bath
B@
Last edited:
Oh know spending money on big mass transit projects where you have the highest concentration of people.Of course there are, London gets 6 times more per person spent on transport than people in the rest of the UK.
Only London folk are deserving of investment, everyone knows that.
Makes perfect sense and I don't live near London.
I was simply responding to the first post.
Why do the trams need to run alongside cars? Many tram systems are just on-street running, they mix with the traffic. The usual idea is that you want to remove vehicular traffic, rather than just complement it.
As I alluded to before, clever engineering is often used to give trams priority on certain routes into the city, through the city centre, etc. It's normally managed by restricting access to cars, only permitting buses and taxis, the usual.
Of course, an underground system is faster. It's also much more expensive. Hell will freeze over long before Bristol gets an underground. You'd make a start by having a decent bus system.
This is a photo of a road to a hotel in South - East Europe where many UK tourists go every winter
Meh, looks like half the roads in Canada.
Road quality is going to be (semi) directly proportional to climate. Significant temperature fluctuations (especially when they go below freezing) and rain/snow cause major damage to road surfaces, not to mention frost heave in places with more than surface frosts.
Mountain roads and roads in places like much of Canada and the North east USA, colder parts of Eastern Europe and Russia are going to take a pounding, far more so than roads through warm, dry deserts (the UAE/SW USA). Places with mixed weather like the UK have a reasonable chance of keeping roads in good condition, but then population density and use make a major impact.
In my experience major roads can usually be better in poorer countries, because they’re newer and used less (alongside usually having more benign climates), but on the flip side the side roads are usually (a lot) worse. More developed countries have more consistent road quality as the state is usually paying for all the roads, whereas the major roads in many poorer countries are in part funded by other countries/organizations (like the EU).
Spain is a reasonable example. It’s got a benign climate in much of it, and most of the main roads are beautiful. Many side roads not so much, with a lot more chance of hitting gravel roads than the UK for example. Look at more extreme examples, Romania is one, and going to even more extreme examples, many African countries have beautiful main roads, but as soon as you leave that main road (paid for by international aid and development funds in most cases) you’re down dirt alley.
Edit: And in response to your suggestion of a universal standard for road, that just wouldn’t work.
Roads are constructed differently in different parts of the world for a reason. Take asphalt for example. It’s composition is very different in a hot area of the world like the UAE/Australia than that used in the UK and parts of Europe. Not just because of local availability of materials (you don’t want to be carting hundreds of tones of granite around the world when there’s a metamorphic rock or limestone that’s just as good nearby for example) but because it needs cope with different environments. Asphalt used in the UK and Europe would melt and buckle in temperatures as high as those seen in the desert, but equally asphalt used in hot deserts wouldn’t last anywhere as long as asphalt currently used in the UK, which is designed for colder climates.
That’s just the surface layer. Again, discounting access to materials road construction in a hot, dry desert needs to be different to road construction in an area with a three foot deep freeze level, or in an area with significant rainfall. Realistically each country, and each project needs to be considered as separate entities because of the variability in climate, environment, load and what it’s being laid on.
Last edited:
Because we've been discussing effective transportation infrastructure, the Dutch setup was suggested and I've said the Dutch system won't work here, as pictured below. Even the 70s shot full of cars has a butt ton of space:
Cycling is only so popular since they made the infrastructure rather than the other way around.
Amsterdam in the 70s vs now... fuel crisis made people abandon cars. They built tonnes of cycling infrastructure and made it the most convenient way to travel, naturally people followed.
Look at the last picture, look at the space and look at how ALL forms of transportation co-exist independently. We don't have the room and no amount of planning is going to make existing buildings further apart. We can fit 3 out of 4 means of transportation, at best.
I didn't say anything about it being faster, they didn't do it because it was faster (though it is), they did it because they had no choice. And you're correct that hell will freeze over before Bristol gets an underground, but the fact they've dismissed trams and are looking at an underground says it all doesn't it? They are improving the bus system btw, slowly, the Metro Link is eventually going to get moving.
B@