>>1304110where I'm from it would have cost £ 9000 to maintain the trams for another 50 years
but they spent that on a fleet of 12 greyhound bus and tearing up the tram tracks
now there are no greyhounds and fewer bus routes than there were tram routes
car traffic is fairly dense at the moment and there has been a slight up tick in bikes in the past 5 years or so
30 years ago helmet law and some fear of "dangerous bike" seems to have axed %80 of casual bike use
and only slightly before that time there were six bike shops and three bike manufactures in town
now there are two bike shops and no bike makers
photos from 100 years ago show cars and horse drawn carts mingling with trams pedestrians and bicycles and some how room to spare
and also that borough's and neighborhoods on the edge of town were assessed mostly by tram
nation wide the situation is along the lines that roads are funded for the benefit of trucking company's and car makers
with only a few sections of the rail network actively maintained the rest is kept in just enough condition that it can be repaired for use later
the road network also killed off coastal and river shipping of goods
without rail economic developments are mostly confined to the proximity of deep natural harbors
my general opinion is that roads are best for situations only where there is not enough volume and frequency of traffic to maintain a rail line
current trucks are limited to 44 tonne for normal roads and 50 tonnes for the three or so roads that are to be improved
a train can of course carry 30x what a truck can manage but there are only one or two industry's left the call for this
its hard to tell what would result in the employment of more people but I have the feeling that roads take this
even with the maintenance and crews depot crews accounted for
