Traffic lights and congestion
Yesterday morning, I noticed there were 7 north bound trams line up on Swanston Street just south of Franklin - i.e. almost all the way to La-Trobe street. People were pouring out of the trams, like something had gone wrong. However, when we walked past the tram at the front, it started moving like nothing was wrong. Weird.
Today, we were trying to cross at the East side of the Victoria St/Swanston St traffic lights. The traffic lights took ages (ie. at least 5 minutes but I didn't think of timing it; note: the lights had been red for a while before I arrived, as someone else I knew was waiting when I got there) to change because of congested on Victoria Street (which makes no sense - if the road is congested - nobody can move - a shorter cycle would be better then a longer cycle). This also resulted in trams banking up. One long tram parked across Franklin Street, possibly on the assumption it would be out of the way before the Franklin St traffic lights changed...
Possibly the first incident was also due to the traffic lights at Victoria st too, but if so I couldn't see any trams in front of the on at Franklin St (the tram line was clear as far as I could see north of Franklin St). It might have cleared before I got there...