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Tram route is a great idea – but not in residential street
• BOTH the proponents and the opponents of the cross-river tram are right in their way, but both need to take account of the views of the others.
While as at Croydon trams offer a highly efficient means of using street-running to link disparate branch lines to the town centre, to other transport connections and to each other; off-street fast running is also necessary to justify the inflexible and expensive capital expenditure elsewhere.
How are passengers to cross Kingsway to catch a tram if there are two meeting each other with a cumulative length of some 90 metres (300 feet)?
And how slowly must trams travel past pedestrians in Camden High Street and residential roads in Somers Town if an emergency stop without a standing passenger spilling the coffee?
But there are off-street routes which can be used which would bypass the one and more than off-set the other. One obviously is the pre-existing tram tunnel to Theobald’s Road from, now, Waterloo Bridge bypassing the traffic of Kingsway. High Holborn, Aldwych and the Strand with intermediate stations still accessible for passengers. Widening the tunnel or signalling to accommodate modern wider vehicles would not be any more difficult than heightening it in 1930 for double-decker trams.
Another, given that overhead cables have to be high enough to clear other tall vehicles is to use double-decker trams for which we have the technology so as to make use of the available height while offering passengers a ride away from constantly swishing doors and reducing road space taken up.
The best advantage will be for the first time a direct link between Waterloo and King’s Cross/St Pancras International.
It is not proper, and totally against good planning practice of traffic hierarchy, that this should be through residential secondary streets in Somers Town which will be slow for passengers and intrusive for pedestrians and residents. Much better to run them along the six-lane Euston Road already with its central divide and bus lanes in each direction.
There could be a branch westawards along the Euston Road linking Euston, Euston Square, Baker Street and Marylebone.
The stretch between Theobalds Road and Euston would run along roads freely crossed by pedestrians, but the rest would be along dedicated tracks largely away from front doors and where the benefits of faster, smoother running can kick in.
Unlike Cross-rail, it would be ready in time for the 2012 Olympics.
Adrian Betham
North Road, N6
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