A good example of Alderley Edge parking here, taken from the wonderful YouParkLikeA****.co.uk -

36.media.tumblr.com/828006fd3350b9c0d5015cd2836492...g

Someone has to service the football elite and their hangers-on.

There are many benefits afforded by trams

They are cheaper to build than full railways

They are suitable for city centres including pedestrianised areas

They have a narrow footprint (take up less road space) especially when going straight compared with buses; as they are not steared by the driver they will not deviate or wobble outside their intended path

They can be joined together to make the tram longer thus affording high capacity

They do not pollute the city centre, thus the air is cleaner and more friendly for all

There are some disadvantgages too

They are fixed to the route set out by the tracks

They shift pollutuion to other areas, eg areas where the power generation takes place (although if the power is via hydro electricity this may not be such a problem)

They require their power to be transported to them at the place of travel via fixed installation, eg long distance power network and extensive overhead power supply network

They are more costly to bring to life compared with busses due to the need for track and stops to be constructed

They are easily delayed by selfish humans, eg parking on the tracks, and once a delay has set in it could quickly impact a large areas of the network

Overall trams must have a postive role to play in urban transport, otherwise why would have so many towns & cities around the world bothered in installing and still be running them.

All too often politicians like to spend our hard earned on expensive, headline-grabbing 'wheezes' that, as you say, are often best spent on simple, 'un-sexy' policies. Cambridgshire County Council (if I recall correctly) spent £150M (budget around £115M) on its 'guided busway' (actually only about 16 miles of specialist 'guided' sections), when additional ordinary roads and bus services would've been fine. The 'stops' on the way are in the middle of nowhere (IMO) so it still takes just as long using the Guided Bus service as cars or normal buses.

Such services, and trams, are in my view a complete waste of money running through old cities such as Edinburgh, London (Croydon) and Cambridge as the existing road system cannot cope with fixed-wheel (or equivalent) services and ordinary vehicles due to the old road layouts and general congestion.

Trams and light rail might be suitable for new towns (if needed) or to connect smaller-medium sized towns that used to have rail services but were axed in the Beeching cuts of the 1950s, but need better transport links because they've significantly grown in size in the last 40 years or so.

Sadly such poor/short-sighted decision-making has gone on for nearly 100 years at both local and national level, especially as policy-making in areas that have a direct effect on transport (housing, city/business development, education, welfare and immigration) have also been very poor, and have a huge impact on transport.

Big cities become congested nightmares (including on public transport), whereas outlying towns in the countryside and in former industrialised (run-down) areas become veritable ghost-towns during the week.