...] greater connectedness – but the real secret to increasing its mode share, as I’ve argued many times before, is to increase the cost of car travel. That might or might not come about as a result of peak oil, [...

You suggest placing trams underground would be a major improvement. This is doubtful. I think you will find that in almost every case where trams have been placed underground, someone, perhaps conscious of safety, has required a signalling system. This markedly reduces capacity, it would be almost impossible to allow two C or D class trams in the same underground station at the same time. Can be done on the surface, where there are ample indicators for the driver to assess distances and closing speeds, but in a subway these are nearly all gone. Hence safety first, and signalling is the rule. In Philadelphia, the signalling system in the tram subway has recently been ‘upgraded’ with the appalling result that capacity has been reduced, speeds reduced, and blockages have occurred. Both in Boston and San Francisco, in their tunnels, trams have been ‘rear-ended’, causing more delays.

But trams in Swanston Street do not stop for pedestrians. The traffic lights at the ‘little’ streets should be removed, and traffic in those streets be LILOO (Left In, Left Out Only). This would enable trams to run as fast as possible to the stop at the next intersection. With traffic lights only on a completely rectilinear grid, the cycles could be optimised so that each tram would arrive at the next stop at the start of the red, alight and board passengers, and depart as soon as the green comes on. This would have the effect of ‘complete tram priority’ without the snags.

In short, putting the trams underground would be a very expensive was of making the situation worse. If anything should go underground, it is the cars. Consider instead a car tunnel on King Street from south of Flinders Street to north of Dudley Street!

...] – Do we want cars in the city centre? [...

There would be nothing stopping Melbourne from leaving one or two routes to serve the surface streets and placing the rest underground either.

If you have a tram coming every 1 minute or below that, and a traffic light takes 1 minute to change from red to green and back again, if you give priority to the tram always then that light is going to be permanently stuck on red for all other traffic.

It would be like imagining having a level crossing just outside Flinders St. train station. The boom gate would be permanently down because the frequency of vehicles making the crossing is so high.

Trams placed in Class A right of way with their own dedicated alignment free of traffic lights and all traffic will have far better service characteristics than trams operating in Class B (own lane but share traffic light intersections with cars) and Class C right of ways (no priority whatsoever).

That artery is well used, it is in the inner city and it makes a lot of sense.

...] – Do we want cars in the city centre? [...

You point out the logic of using Domain transfers yourself. Most Swanston St trams are relatively empty from Flinders St to Swanston St. A select few are very full from Melbourne Central north, and Flinders St south, but only the front one. Having some trams terminate at Domain, allowing others to go faster, and carry the same number of passengers more efficiently makes sense – which is why it has been on the agenda for 50 years. Redirecting trams currently on Swanston St to the west-end of the city – which is under-serviced by transport from the south – would be better again. The William St tram goes up to Melbourne University anyway, so there would be no major disadvantage for passengers on those routes.

I think a lot of the problem isn’t just the slow moving surface vehicles, but also the times between connecting services.

During peak hour, every street and every platform in the CDB should have services operating every 3 or 4 minutes tops. Instead what should be a 20 minute journey frequently turns into a 30 minute journey because you’re waiting for your connection for 10 minutes.

Of course this won’t be possible with the number of cars in the CBD, bringing me back to your point.