Could trams provide traffic congestion in Canterbury? The historic city in Kent are about to start investigating ways to solve severe traffic congestion and one possible solution is said to be trams to avoid Canterbury becoming left behind by other similar cities.
While the local press have gone in with the headline that trams could be the solution, the Leader of Canterbury City Council, is far more circumspect just saying that no idea is off the table in seeking to relieve the severe traffic congestion. A report last year stated that the city’s ring road had reached the limit of its effectiveness and that it must be redesigned for the future with a possible 16% of vehicles by 2031.
With this in mind a review into what can be done is being taken and Council leader, Cllr Ben Fitter-Harding, said: “If I went somewhere else I don’t think I’d want to have to park up, get on a bus which gets stuck in traffic and then arrive in the city. It’s about finding new ways of getting people to their desired locations quicker – however that may be. It could be fast bus routes or trams for example. There may well be a lot we could do with those type of things. Obviously it would all need to be looked into and I don’t know how it could work yet, but I want to be ambitious so no idea is off the table. If you get on the park and ride at Sturry, you then get stuck in congestion as there isn’t a full bus lane along the route.”
Whether anything comes of this in regards to trams remains to be seen.
How trends run in circles – how many local authorities cited traffic congestion as a reason to close tramways?
Another one! How many projects have there been in the last decades? Cambridge, Bath, Coventry, Preston, York, Bristol, Portsmouth, Leeds, Liverpool, West London, Cross river London, and nary one of them built. I’m sure there are more. the cost of Covid will mean there is no money as London Tramlink Merton extension has just been cancelled effectively as TfL is almost bankrupt. Not even the loop in central Croydon was ever started. It’s all another round of fantasy tram projects, sadly.