The state of public transport investment in the UK is really so atrocious that another British city (after Belfast and Liverpool) wants to add “trackless trams”
My favourite type of tram is the kind that uses rubber wheels, has no tracks, has a vehicle registration plate on the front and back, and needs to be operated by someone with a category D driving licence
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@ShadowJonathan you don’t understand. “The vehicle combines elements of a bus, tram and train”! Now, it doesn’t run on rails like a tram or a train, nor does it have the speed of them… Or anything else that makes it anything like them… But I promise you, it’s just like a tram!
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@yassie_j @ShadowJonathan I mean…… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-tyred_metro
these are pretty cool
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@yassie_j @ShadowJonathan But yeah these are just busses, rubber tyre metros are grade seperated, have a guide rail and are quite niche. Most of the time a traditional rail system suits you best.
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We could have been like France, where even the smallest towns have at least one tram line
But nope
We just want to engage in car dependency
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amy not at rust week
amy@sk.girlthi.ng@yassie_j “why do we have no government funding for important things”
the government funding:
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@yassie_j
UK cities spending 75+ years destroying any and all traces of the tram systems they had in place, then reinventing the tram (with extra steps) while doing everything they can to make it sound like an entirely new concept is...infuriating, and fucking wild, and so very British.
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@yassie_j I once lived next to a street with tramless tracks and did not realize someone invented the opposite of it.
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luna aria ielenia 
ielenia@ck.catwithaclari.net
@yassie_j ….trolleybuses? that seems quite reasonable (as long as it’s not replacing old rail infrastructure)
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@ielenia yes, but the problem is that they’re not trolleybuses, they’re being marketed as an alternative to trams or trains
If it was just a bus, it wouldn’t be a problem. But it is just a long, articulated bus, that they are pretending is like a tram
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luna aria ielenia
ielenia@ck.catwithaclari.net
@ShadowJonathan @yassie_j this sounds like a trolleybus to me which are… fine
(in some parts of the US they call them “trackless trolleys” because they replaced the old streetcars)
now granted if you can install an actual tram/streetcar you should do that but trolleybuses are not inherently bad
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@ielenia @ShadowJonathan the problem is not the mode, the problem is that they are identifying a problem that needs a tram (or a train) and then suggesting that a long bus can fix it, but not actually calling it a bus, but instead some new idea
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Charlotte 
/Cinny 
charlotte
@nagirin @ShadowJonathan @yassie_j the one in essen (guided bus so overground and running relatively normal buses that also go on the street) used to be tram tracks but west germany closed down a lot of tram systems over the years because fuel was cheap
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Spring Jo 🥚 
🍀
ShadowJonathan@tech.lgbt
@charlotte @yassie_j @nagirin I wonder how that turned out :)
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@ShadowJonathan @yassie_j @nagirin idk we have known for half a cenury that fuel prices can suddenly go up but this has not signifficantly affected political decisionmaking in the medium and long term
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Spring Jo 🥚 🍀
ShadowJonathan@tech.lgbt
@charlotte @yassie_j @nagirin but I thought business people liked it when line go up 
/j
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