REASONS FOR METRO TRAMS

Midland Metro started in 1981, according to Wikipedia.  Once it got going, it was found to be impossible to stop.  No officer or member wanted to step out of line and to say,

"We must review the wisdom of going ahead with this expense to replace or duplicate buses and trains."

"Everyone on Europe has trams, so it must be a good thing."

But they didn't destroy their urban railways to get the trams, like we do.

"Manchester has trams and we must compete with them, otherwise we can't claim to be the Second City."

It would have been cheaper for Manchester to have simply put the trains back and have electric buses, so dispensing with the "bus on rails" trams on railway tracks and, running buses directly on roads.

"Unless it is super duper flash, so swish and smart - the Concorde syndrome or, the cover photo on the tourist brochure - it will never attract motorists out of their cars."

After 40 years, finally, 8 m passengers a year on one Metro line.  It now takes over the Five Ways underpass previously allocated to buses.  The many buses, on eleven different bus routes, now all have to stand with the rest of the traffic in queues at the lights at the roundabout above the tunnel!

The transport planners and engineers love working on something special and less mundane than boring buses.  It ensures their jobs.  The jobs at any price circus.  However,

Better to have Universal Basic Income to ensure a decent level of existence than to escalate the deadly greenhouse effect.

You get what you pay for.  The more expensive it is, the better it is, especially when it's electric.

The problem is this.  Each electric "bus on rails" tram is eight times more than each electric bus.  Today is 16 June and every tram has been out of order, withdrawn, banished to the depot since 11 June.  A recall!

Spending is all good for economic growth - the be-all and end-all of all life on earth.  The GOD we must worship.  But it rests on the fallacy, the folly, the fake foundation of living infinitely on a finite planet and living unnaturally on a natural planet.