Opinion: Newcastle trams and city traffic

In various planning documents made public last year, the government’s consultants set out likely traffic flows through the city until 2028. This traffic modelling found that things are likely to improve at many of the city’s main intersections once the light rail and an accompanying suite of roadworks are completed.

Regardless, Stewart Avenue’s intersections with King Street and Hunter Street are still predicted to suffer some of the biggest peak-hour delays, with ratings, in some circumstances, at the highest end of an “A-to-F” rating scale, with F representing an average delay of more than 70 seconds per vehicle.

In reality, only time will tell as to whether Stewart Avenue descends into the chaos the naysayers predict, or whether the government is right, and the light rail vehicles are able to slip back and forth across the road in time with the nearby traffic lights.

When the Herald joined a Hunter group in France last year inspecting light rail services, hosts Keolis Downer said that similar concerns were raised in French regional cities before light rail was installed, but that these faded away once the system was up and running.

This is not to say that Newcastle’s peninsular geography will not present its own unique set of difficulties: it may well.

And the two years of construction will undoubtedly test the city’s patience.

But having come this far, we can only hope that the experts are right, and the overall result will be a better city, both to live in and to move around.