Trams will put our transport future along the right lines

8:43am Wednesday 12th March 2008

Recent repair work at the top of St Enoch's Road in Bradford unearthed an interesting reminder of the past - the metal tramlines that were laid in 1907 to connect Wibsey to the city centre.

The great pity is that the last tram ran in Bradford in 1950, replaced by the trackless trolley buses, themselves with only 20 more years to run, and diesel buses. The same happened elsewhere, with the exception of Blackpool, which kept the trams running along the front without any break.

It was thought that trams hindered the increasing number of cars used for personal transport and that they were too traditional and did not reflect modern post-war thinking at a time when the internal combustion engine had become more reliable. There was the additional cost of maintaining the track and the overhead electricity supply.

Much of Western Europe saw the same changes but to the east, in the Communist countries, there was less threat from personal transport, and many of the old tramway systems continued. Indeed the recent television tour of Eastern Europe by Michael Palin showed well-used tram systems in almost all the countries he visited.

The UK was tramless from 1962 to 1991, apart from Blackpool, with its double-decker trams which are unique in Europe, and only in the last 20 years have modern tramway systems made a comeback.

Sheffield and Manchester are two local areas with state-of-the-art modern trams. The West Midlands and Croydon also have modern trams but perhaps Nottingham's 2004 development is the most successful, with its low-floor entry vehicles, conductors to give tickets and five-minute frequency.

Despite the evidence that they are favoured more than buses, give a smoother ride, get more respect from other road users and can be given right of way at junctions, development is costly. Leeds had plans for a decade for a new system that should have been well on its way by now, but the extra finance was not forthcoming. This may well prove to be short-sighted.

With oil now at $104 a barrel and no sign of the price falling, it is clear that public and personal transport using petrol and diesel is going to become very much more expensive in the near future as world oil production peaks and then declines.

Public transport driven by electricity from renewable sources will certainly be cheaper in the long-term, and prudent investment now will not only reduce the amount of carbon dioxide but will take cars off the road and reduce congestion.

Plastic bag legislation is moving too slowly as the planet warms up, and a proper step forward would be to ensure that public transport of the future is plentiful, electrically-powered and CO2-free. The future could be tram-shaped.

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