Latest news with #tram
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Roosevelt Island locals want fast pass to take tram as selfie-crazed tourists turn transit into attraction
Fed-up Roosevelt Islanders want 'priority boarding' for residents who are routinely forced to wait in line with hordes of selfie-obsessed tourists who've turned the transportation system into a carnival ride. Lines to board the tram to Roosevelt Island from the Upper East Side's Tramway Plaza have gotten so out of hand locals may wait up to 45 minutes, residents told The Post. 'There's no animosity against the tourists at all, we encourage them to come and enjoy the place we have,' said Paul Krikler, a five-year Roosevelt Island resident and Manhattan Community Board 8 chair. 'But the trouble is, it's become a tourist ride, not public transit.' There are other options to get on and off Roosevelt including ferry service downtown and F train on the subway — but locals said there aren't enough to compete with the demand when locals are scheduling doctor's appointments or arranging school pickup and dropoff. 'What we just want and need is the understanding and respect as residents, as employees,' said Felicia Ruff, the vice president of the Roosevelt Island Residents' Association. 'We're late for work because there's a crowd … we understand it's a bucket list [item], but you can take the next tram as a visitor.' Tram ridership has surged as the scenic ride made several social media 'Top 10' lists for visitors to the Big Apple. There were a million more riders last year than the year prior, the latest data shows. 'It's become a nightmare,' said 69-year-old resident Louella Streitz, noting the island's sole F train station's elevators are often out of service, which cause a headache for the area's aging population. 'We can't get home. I fight [tourists on the tram], I can't wait – I just push my way in.' The battle over tram access inspired a rally at Tramway Plaza on Sunday afternoon, with the likes of council member Julie Menin, Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Democratic mayoral candidate Scott Stringer showing support for the disgruntled Roosevelt Island commuters. During her remarks, Menin proposed a 'win-win' solution for residents to enter the tram on a fast-track – and offer a tourist pass to boost business once visitors are on Roosevelt Island. 'We would let residents go first, and we could also promote all of the incredible tourist destinations on Roosevelt Island,' said Menin, adding that she will be meeting with Gov. Kathy Hochul's office this month to discuss the matter. 'It is very common sense, and we want to make sure that it happens now.' The call for priority boarding on the tram is hardly new. When the F train was suspended from August 2023 to April 2024, locals asked the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) – the state agency that manages the tram – for passes to bypass burgeoning groups of social media-obsessed tourists returning to Gotham after the pandemic. At the time, RIOC argued it's illegal to discriminate against riders based on residency under state transit law, as well as the terms of its various contracts with the MTA and the city. A rep for RIOC told The Post its 'official comment is the statement we put out in 2023,' which rebutted that the tram is 'open equally to all New Yorkers and to the millions of people who visit New York City every year.' But residents like Krikler claim the new congestion on the tram has caused a 'transportation crisis' that creates a 'reasonable' need to prioritize Roosevelt Island locals and workers — and jurisdictions from Portland, Maine to Puerto Rico already tout similar preferential programs. Despite RIOC's refusal to consider the proposal, over 2,500 locals signed a November petition and the local community board passed a resolution the following month opting for the priority boarding passes. In its resolution, the board argued priority passes for the tram were issued to locals in 1976 amid similar tourism concerns. The group pointed to other preferential programs such as a 2023 toll rebate program for Queens and Bronx residents who use the Henry Hudson Bridge and Cross Bay Bridge. Krikler told The Post he and other locals surveyed tourists waiting in line in December, who reported they 'wouldn't mind at all' if priority passes were issued to residents — but not all tourists appear to agree with the plan. First-time visitor Yolanda Pedraza, of Colombia, told The Post the policy seems 'unfair' to those who travel from around the world for the panoramic views. 'It's a beautiful place to visit,' she said. 'I know many people come from all over the world – no, I don't think it's fair.'
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
‘Cleaner, greener and absolute reliability': trams make UK comeback
In a sidestreet in central Coventry, a possible vehicle of the future has been making its first public foray: a 60-seat, battery-powered miniature tram. On smooth, almost silent, test runs, its pioneering wheel system allows it to round the corner without slowing – a small bend for this tram but a sharp turning point for tramkind. The embryonic Coventry very light rail (CVLR) is riding a bigger wave; suddenly, trams are go again. British cities trail Europe but once led the way, before retiring the hundreds of street trams that once flowered under horse and steam power. And although the likes of Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham re-established tram networks, the number of modern revivals were almost matched by the list of cancelled projects, with schemes for Liverpool, Bristol, central London and Leeds dropped. But now the dreams are back – and funded. In the run-up to next week's spending review, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, confirmed £15bn for cities to develop urban transport. That money will be spent partly on new tram lines in the West Midlands and Greater Manchester, as well as developing plans for a possible tram line from Bristol to Bath. Notably, it includes £2.1bn for the biggest city in Europe without a fixed transit system – Leeds. For the West Yorkshire mayor, who has long campaigned to get the city its tram, the announcement was critical. 'This gives us absolute certainty and security that we will have spades in the ground by 2028,' Tracy Brabin says. While Brabin has championed enhanced bus routes and services, two tram lines – one running from Leeds to Bradford – will be the backbone of an integrated mass transit system. 'There is a reason why European cities have trams,' Brabin says. 'They can carry three times as many people. They are often segregated, so they are reliable. And you can time your journey. It's absolute reliability: you go to the tram stop, and the tram is there in a few minutes. It's also cleaner and greener.' Brabin says the Leeds-Bradford line will benefit 675,000 people. 'That's massive – not just for people on the line, but to also unlock areas that have really struggled. The tram connectivity will absolutely unlock housing and development,' she says. Perhaps the tram, or light rail, has suffered as neither fish nor fowl: never boasting the speed of a train or the solidity of a railway station for the passenger; nor, for the public purse and politicians, the lower infrastructure investment and higher flexibility of a bus network. Yet this halfway house has multiple benefits – and modern innovations may provide the answer. So why don't more people want them? David Andrews, the chair of the campaign group Tram Forward, says: 'The cost is one thing but mainly the disruption. People don't want trams because they worry about the disruption, and it's true that in Edinburgh it went on for years. But if you can just lay it on the surface, you can do it overnight.' Battery-operated trams are starting to appear around the world, from Florence in Italy to Doha in Qatar, potentially cheaper than installing and maintaining an overhead wire network, although Andrews says that concerns that the lines are unsightly can be overblown: 'In Vienna, you've got the cables pinned to the side of the Grand Opera House and people don't notice them.' The bigger element of the cost and disruption of laying a tram network is what lies beneath the road: the pipelines for gas, electricity, telecoms and water. Traditionally, for a heavier tram, installing rails has meant digging down several feet and having to divert utilities. It is a slow and costly process that helped push the price of building Edinburgh's 11-mile tram line to more than £1bn, and drove residents and businesses to distraction over years of construction delays affecting the heart of the city. Engineers now believe much of that can be avoided, by laying concrete slabs with embedded rails over the roads: excavating only 300mm from the surface and leaving the pipes in place. The lightest footprint yet may be found in Coventry, where the public can try out a local innovation bringing its automotive tradition and new battery developments into what it terms Very Light Rail. Using a smaller, composite vehicle – carrying about 60 people but weighing less than half the tonnage of a normal tram – the CVLR team says the cost of installing a track can be halved, down to about £10m a kilometre from typically £25m (costs have reached £100m a kilometre on some projects). Pioneering bogies – the wheel-axle system underneath a tram or train – allow the vehicle to make much tighter turns, permitting routes through narrower city streets. Riding the prototype, the city councillor, Jim O'Boyle, says: 'The vehicle itself can go around 15-metre radii. But the alchemy is the track beneath.' The concrete slabs and rails were installed with a fraction of the disruption of a traditional tram line. The 220-metre test track here was laid within weeks – not much more disruptive than resurfacing a road, the engineers claim. Running on battery, there are no overhead wires. Yet for a tram this size, why not simply run a bus? Nicola Small, the CVLR programme director, says: 'It's permanent infrastructure. People can see that the tracks have been laid and that it's here to stay. They know where the route's going because they can see it and that gives them confidence – and it also gives businesses confidence to invest in the area, because they know that there's going to be that connectivity.' Intriguingly, research shows that while car drivers avoid buses, there is no such stigma about the tram. Small says: 'From looking at statistics, most bus users are non-car owners, so they are using the bus because they have to. Whereas when you look at people who travel by train and tram, many of them have left a car at home so they are making a choice.' The other saving that the CVLR scheme could offer is through autonomy – or driverless vehicles, minimising staffing costs and allowing more trams to run on fixed routes. The city hopes to license the technology and produce the vehicles, joining the West Midlands' automotive legacy with plans for a gigafactory, as well as build a better transport network for Coventry. The publicly funded pilot project is being delivered by a consortium of partners, including local industry and academia. The tram will run at a maximum of 19-25mph (30-40km/h) – though O'Boyle claims to have got it up to 37mph when allowed to drive on another test track. For now, the vehicle of the future is doing little more than 12mph on its brief foray down Greyfriars Road. A couple of seconds around the corner, the brakes are applied and we are at the end of the track. And the 50-second ride is over? O'Boyle shakes his head: 'The ride is only just beginning.'
The Sun
5 days ago
- Business
- The Sun
UK city reveals plans for new trams as part of £800million transport upgrade – after they were scrapped 84 years ago
A TRAM line could be on the cards after planned changes to key roads in the city centre are set to create an 'unbroken' corridor — a crucial step towards building a future mass transit network. In Bristol, the proposed route would run from the Long Ashton park and ride in the south-west, through the city centre, and along the M32 to the north-east, largely separated from other traffic. 4 4 Transport leaders say it's a strong contender for the first phase of a tram or rapid bus line. Over the next two years, significant roadworks will take place at several central hotspots including Bedminster Bridges roundabout, Redcliffe roundabout, Union Street, the Haymarket, and Bond Street. These upgrades will benefit the existing Metrobus M2 and set the groundwork for a future tram or rapid bus route. Transport officials at Bristol City Council say this new 'red route' could form the spine of a tram network. Speaking to councillors on the transport policy committee, Green Cllr Emma Edwards said: 'This route in future could potentially turn into a mass rapid transit route, whatever that might mean: more buses or maybe other modes as well. "We're trying to solve a problem for the future by creating an unbroken route that could turn into mass transit. "We're trying to think about the long term.' While the exact form of the network is still under discussion, trams and bus rapid transit are the main options being explored. The idea of a mass transit system for Bristol has been debated for decades. Former mayor Marvin Rees had proposed a partially underground system, but the spiralling cost halted progress. In 2023, former West of England Mayor Dan Norris vetoed the underground element entirely, calling it 'unrealistic'. Since then, the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) has continued to explore alternative solutions — without agreeing on whether a tram or bus system is best. Labour's Helen Godwin, the newly elected metro mayor, has yet to commit to a specific plan. Meanwhile, Bristol City Council is pushing forward with the groundwork. Adam Crowther, head of city transport, said: 'Whether mass transit there ends up as a bus or a tram, either way it needs to be fully segregated from traffic, otherwise you get stuck and that's when they become unreliable and therefore people don't want to use them. "So it's about providing that full segregation.' He acknowledged that new bus lanes on Bond Street will worsen car traffic in the short term. 4 But councillors hope the changes will encourage more people to leave their cars at home in favour of public transport or cycling, reducing congestion in the long run. Labour Cllr Tim Rippington added: 'One bus carrying 50 passengers really should be given priority, in my opinion, over 25 cars queuing up. "I don't see a problem with stopping the traffic in order to allow a bus to pass by. It's all designed to deliver this red route. "The worst thing that could happen is that we deliver all the infrastructure and then the lanes stay empty and we don't deliver the mass transit route until 10 years later. "I'm not even sure that the new metro mayor is aware that this route is our plan.' Redcliffe roundabout changes will also enable a potential orbital bus loop around the city centre, initially running anti-clockwise. Left turns are easier to implement than right turns, but funding remains uncertain. Franchising may be required if commercial bus companies are unwilling to take it on. The full red route begins at Long Ashton park and ride, travels along a bus-only road to Cumberland Road, and then through the newly controlled Bedminster Bridges junction. Redcliff Street will become bus-only, and a bus gate at Bristol Bridge already blocks general traffic. From there, it heads through Union Street and past Primark at the Haymarket. Further bus lanes are proposed along the M32, with a new park and ride to be built, though the location is still being debated. In the long term, the motorway could be downgraded to an A-road to accommodate tram or bus stops. WECA is currently developing an outline business case to assess the best way forward. Construction, however, is unlikely to begin before the 2030s. 4
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Rachel Reeves announces £15bn investment for trams, trains and buses outside London
The chancellor unveiled Labour's transport plan for northern cities and the Midlands, with Greater Manchester to receive £2.5bn for projects including new tram stops in Bury, Manchester and Oldham and an extension of the tram network to Stockport. South Yorkshire will get a £1.5bn investment ,while the East Midlands will be allocated £2bn to renew its transport infrastructure
BBC News
03-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Nottingham trams facing 'long-lasting' disruption after crash
Nottingham's tram operator says there will be "long-lasting" disruption to the network following a crash between a car and a tram on Fire and Rescue Service said it was called to Queens Walk in The Meadows after a car crashed into the tram and caused it to Express Transit (NET) said the driver of the car, the passenger and the tram driver were taken to hospital and three passengers were also treated by paramedics at the operator said there would be no service running between Ruddington Lane and Nottingham Station until further notice and advised passengers wanting to travel between the two locations to use the NCT Navy line. Trevor Stocker, head of operations at NET said: "We are still in the process of assessing the full extent of the damage caused to the tram and track."Due to the severity of the incident, we are currently working closely with The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) on what is now an ongoing investigation."As such, there will be long-lasting disruptions to the tram schedule until further notice, with no service running between Ruddington Lane and Nottingham Station."
