FURTHER VIEWS ON TRAMWAYS VOUR correspondent, Mr. F: Pledger, whose
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letter I appeared in your issue dated August 27 seems to have based his objections to tramways on standards at least 40 years old. Even so, these standards are not appreciably lower, as far as urban transport is concerned, than those of modern buses.
It is undeniable that. where they have been modernized. tramways have athieved standards of capacity, comfort, reliability, safety and speed quite beyond those at present obtainable by what its prota gonists term " flexible " transport. It would therefore seem 'advisable, subject, of course, to economic considerations to modernize the tramways wherever: possible, rather than to abandon them.
The alleged dange:s of tramlines and of tramcar loading and unloading do not exist on modern reservedtrack tramways Even where trains operate under the most unfavourable conditions there is nothing to show that they are a mo.te potent cause of accidents than buses and trolleybuses. There is -no indication. that " flexibility " gives greater safety than the automatic steering of tramcars, and it is indisputable that less strain is involved in driving a tram than a rubber-tyred vehicle of comparable size.
Mr. Pledger is wrong in stating that London Transport considers electric vehicles "a little too rigid " to serve in its area.. Tube railways are being extended in spite of their being much more rigid than tramways. The modernization of London's remaining tramways would result in a form of transport combining the sliced of tube railways with the accessibility and cheap fares so characteristic of urban tramways. Buses can never achieve these.
It is needless to point out that such tramways would free both fuel and road space for goods and private transport. F. H. HOLLOWAY.
London, N.W 11. Hon. Secretary.
(For Tramway Development Council.)