Basel’s Famous Trams
The Basel metre gauge tramway network (German: Basler Strassenbahn-Netz) is a network of tramways forming part of the public transport system in Basel, a city in Switzerland, and the Swiss part of its agglomeration. It consists of 13 lines. Due to its longevity (the network is now more than a century old), it is part of Basel’s heritage, and, alongside the Basel Minster, is one of the symbols of the city.
The trams on the network are operated by two transport providers: Basler Verkehrs-Betriebe (Basel Transport Service) (BVB) and Baselland Transport (BLT). Both operators are part of the integrated fare network Tarifverbund Nordwestschweiz (TNW), which in itself is part of the three countries-integrated fare network triregio.
BVB is owned by, and operates in, Basel-Stadt, the small canton comprising the city of Basel and two smaller municipalities, both situated right of the Rhine. Its green trams operate mostly in the city, although the termini of its lines 3 and 6 are in the more rural canton of Basel-Land, whilst line 8 terminates across the frontier in Germany.
BLT is owned by Basel-Land, and its yellow and red trams operate in the outer suburbs to the south of Basel, and at one point pass through the territory of France.[5] However, the three lines it operates, lines 10, 11 and 17, all also run over BVB track in central Basel. In addition line 14, while owned by BLT, is operated by BVB well into Basel-Land.
Trams really are the ultimate mode of public transit. They are inexpensive and offer practically door to door service. They are about as close to perfect as there is when it comes to moving a large number of people to universities or downtown central business districts. They run on the roads and blend in with other traffic. They discourage urban sprawl because people typically only commute 30 minutes (one-way). Trams traveling at 20 kph make developers undertake the redevelopment of brownfield sites within 10 kilometres of the downtown core to tackle urban blight.
http://persquaremile.com/2012/09/13/marchettis-constant/
On the other hand, driverless induction rail transit or DIRT at 40 kph opens up new and cheap green-field sites in Coquitlam within 20 kilometres of Burnaby, for instance, where many jobs have relocated from Vancouver. This in my mind is the real reason for DIRT here – open up green-field sites for developers laundering money into high rise condo real estate.
http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episodes/the-condo-game
In 15 minutes, the distance traveled is five kilometres by tram (20 kph = 20 km per 60 minutes = 5 km per 15 minutes) and five kilometres is the median distance (50th percentile) commuted in Vancouver. It takes 15 minutes to bus it to the centralized DIRT station. Basically, by the time 50% of the commuters have completed their trip by tram, commuters taking DIRT are transferring from buses to start their commute on DIRT. Statistically, therefore, tram service is faster than DIRT service in subways and on viaducts.
After over 100 years of tram service in Tashkent, the mayor is ripping up the tram lines to widen the roads for cars to reduce road congestion! There is a bright side to this lunacy. Tashkent’s loss can be Vancouver’s gain if we elect a smart mayor and snap up the practically new trams from Tashkent for Vancouver at a good second hand price:
“Umid Abdullaev posted: “Maybe in a couple of years, Tashkent’s next authorities will realise that they made a big mistake and for the sake of the environment decide to rebuild tram rails and buy trams.”
“Idiots, they recently bought new trams for an average price of $300,000 [£200,000] per unit”, posted Schastliviy Papa.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36115515