Dear friends
Monday 4 November 2024
WMCA involvement in Lebanese/Palestinian slaughter
Sunday 3 November 2024
Stolen Transport describes ...
... how so well-intentioned public transport modes like 'Hi (there) Speedy 2 fast-to-stop at stations and isolated from HS1', Metro "bus on rails" trams and the Sprint bus that "thinks it's a tram", all take money, time and officers away from addressing the leaky, energy wasteful homes of the people at the bottom of the heap. It's those above them who unintentionally forget them and concentrate on the flash, high-prestige projects they benefit from.
Lowest incomes continue to lose out as those at the top sort out their grandiose, luxury but climate-intensifying HS2, Metro and Sprint.
This double phenomenon takes us away, even further, from reducing our ultimately deadly greenhouse gas emissions.
Saturday 2 November 2024
MP essentials
Dear Sarah and TfWM Customer Services team - please correct me if I'm wrong in any detail, here:
to Timothy Huxtable, Chair of TDOS at WMCA
Dear Timothy
- As Chair of TDOS do you have any say in recommending to your Committee that they might like to vote to stay in line with Manchester and keep the £2 single fare cap?
- You wrote, "the local centres need to be connected by a form of public transport that works for passengers and is value for money". Do you see the bus as the cornerstone of public transport that could be much cheaper and work better for everyone?
- Is your Committee able to recommend less money going from Capital (Metro expansion, for example) and more to Revenue to follow Manchester's example to keep fares as low as possible?
- Eventually, regional Fare-Free Public Transport as I have had for nearly 17 years because of my age?
- Do you think we should get the two main public transport modes as least as good as the average on the mainland of Europe?
- Does having a multitude of rail modes (HS, HR, LR, VLR, ULR) detract in any way from getting bus and train as popular as they were before the advent of mass car ownership?
- Could cutting down on car commuting with a similar rise in bus use be a useful measure of success?
- How do you think this should be done?
- Financial inducements from Capital expenditure to Revenue and charging motorists (the car commuters) who fail to register as essential vehicle users to avoid the road use charge?
- Has CAZ been a success in any way?
- Has CAZ reduced car use by a percentage or two, do we know? Or, even more than that?
- Will you press for the Dudley Tram to stay on the mainline railway to connect it with the national railway network at Stourbridge Jct?
- By your agnosticism, why are you supporting the TfWM line that the tram must go into Merry Hill SC to give the owners an entirely free asset that makes them even wealthier?
- Could a free electric bus from the Canal Street Hart's Hill tram stop be a more useful option to get tram passengers into Brierley Hill High Street and to Merry Hill?
- Or even, reinstate the 1990s monorail?! Why was it never connected to the railway that could have been re-opened then with commuter, regional and intercity TRAINS?
Friday 1 November 2024
Those with too much ...
No Limits to Health
FOR CYCLISTS, WALKERS, RUNNERS, HORSE RIDERS AND (definitely) THE LESS MOBILE
I attended your excellent event yesterday at Halesowen Library, about the early 20th century, black cycling hero, Marshall 'Major' Taylor. THANK YOU for putting it on!
There are two car parks on the route, on either side of Wombourne, too! SEE:-
SAVE MERRY HILL SHOPPING CENTRE AND IMPROVE CONNECTIVITY FOR STOURBRIDGE!
"SAVE MERRY HILL SHOPPING CENTRE AND IMPROVE CONNECTIVITY FOR STOURBRIDGE!
Wednesday 30 October 2024
Transport Tragedies drive Climate Tragedy
This is why we need franchising! All that money would just line shareholders pockets, whereas in Manchester they've announced they're doing exactly as you say and every penny goes to bus passengers - starting to see the importance of franchising yet?
Tuesday 29 October 2024
A wonderful, sensible alternative for much improved connectivity
Dear Mike
Your marvellous, mighty Metro is creeping ever closer to devouring my own 1990s magnificent, vertical guerrilla garden, plus public open space, nature, housing land and these trees ...
You can avoid all this destruction by terminating the tram at the Waterfront.
In the early 1990s, my family and I much enjoyed free parking at the Waterfront but, paying 40p each for the monorail ride into Central Station at Merry Hill SC. And the station is still there in the heart of the shopping centre - in the roof - and you can view it from the top of the canal embankment, too! In the past, public viewing of the station has opened at anniversaries of the monorail.
MORE GOOD NEWS!
The Swiss-engineered monorail by Von Roll may still be in use in Queensland, Australia. You could buy it back and this time, unlike your predecessors, actually connect it to the Dudley Tram at the Waterfront. Your predecessors, together with Don and Roy Richardson in 1990, left it 400 metres short of the freight-only mainline coming up from Port Talbot to Round Oak Steel!
Or, simply use an electric bus to connect the Waterfront tram stop to Merry Hill and keep the tram on the railway to connect with the national railway network at Stourbridge Junction. After all, the UK tram promotion group, in your Transport HQ, called the tram "a bus on rails" on the 'Today' programme in 2016, after the Croydon tram crash: "Of 69 passengers, there were seven fatalities and 62 injured, 19 of whom sustained serious injuries." Wikipedia
Mike, let me show you what I mean with a site visit.
Monday 28 October 2024
From flash capital to foundational priority
Dear Richard
Do Direct Action by diverting capital funds that are the wrong, mistaken priority.
Hi John - thanks for writing and the excellent direct action Acorn is doing to help Palestinians and Lebanese.
GHG accumulating faster than at any time in history, says WMO
It will impact all life on earth said WMO
Dep Sec Gen of WMO said,
"Every fraction of a degree rise in temperature matters.
It matters in terms of the speed of glacier and ice retreat.
The acceleration of sea level rise, ocean heat and acidification.
It matters in terms of the number of people exposed to extreme heat each year. The extinction of species, the impact on ecosystems and our economies."
Keep your car engine running when stationary - and you won't need to switch it on. OBVIOUS. Save your own energy!
REASONS FOR WHY THE ENGINE MUST NOT BE TURNED OFF:
ReplyForward Add reaction |
Sunday 27 October 2024
TWO EMERGENCY RESOLUTIONS for our AGM on Wednesday
Can these, please be put to our AGM on Wednesday?
- Israel is part of our All Dominating/Controlling Western power bloc of nations, led by the USA.
- Our side has primary responsibility for Israel's criminal attacks and for our Western arms manufacturers giving them the where-with-all to conduct a war condemned by the international community outside our American led All Powerful Hegemony.
- It was the British Mandate caving in to Jewish terrorism at the end of its unfortunate, thirty-year-rule and failing to solve the deepening rift between Jews and Muslims/Arabs that left the door wide open to the tragedy that befell that part of the Middle East in 1948.
Saturday 26 October 2024
UN Resolution 181
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, also known as the Partition Resolution, was adopted on November 29, 1947. The resolution called for the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with Jerusalem under a special international regime.
The resolution was considered a legal basis for the establishment of Israel by the Jewish community in Palestine, but was rejected by the Arab community. The resolution was followed almost immediately by violence, including the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
- It confirmed the international community's recognition of the Jewish people's right to a state in their historical homeland.
- The formula of two states for two peoples remains Israel's position in peace negotiations.
- The Arab population's refusal to accept the resolution demonstrated their unwillingness to establish their own state if it meant allowing a Jewish state to exist.
ACORN must address transport accelerating Climate Catastrophe
Hi Kez
THANK YOU so much. You are excellent at engaging and debating the WMCA's major expenditure, not to benefit the poor or to slow Climate Catastrophe but to worsen the plight of both in favour of the most greedy, luxurious and extravagant transport provision imaginable, viz: HS2, Metro and Sprint.
Since the 1990s, you have been the only 'ordinary' member of the public who has had the decency to argue your case coherently, intelligently and extremely well. I have had replies from Centro, the Integrated Transport Authority (ITA) and, since 2017, from TfWM/WMCA and conversation with countless officers and councillors at 16 Summer Lane and other council offices.
Since the 1990s I've been writing, first letters and then emails to Centro about the scandal of the Stourbridge to Walsall railway line being ready and waiting for its commuter trains to return. And, arguing against Metro trams spoiling it.
In the 2000s I came across this excellent colour brochure from the Railway Development Society, aka Railfuture since that decade.
I then learnt that this mainline railway runs from Stourbridge Jct all the way to Lichfield and on to Burton on Trent/Derby is almost totally unused! Yet, it runs alongside or near to major Black Country roads and Midland motorways - all choked with traffic congestion.
Even worse, millions have been spent on safeguarding the 120 Kms between Worcester stations and Derby station, with every crossing built as new roads and motorways were added across the railway. But still not used on the 56 Kms between Stourbridge Jct and Burton on Trent. Apart from steel freight coming up from Port Talbot but, only as far as Round Oak, next to the Waterfront complex, next to Merry Hill SC.
PHOTO of one new crossing on the wasted principal mainline:
QUOTES FOR THEIR INTENTION TO RETURN FREIGHT/PASSENGER TRAINS:
"Light rail investment provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time." Tom Magrath, Passenger Services Director, Centro in a letter to me dated 18 September 2000.
"Passive provision" for both heavy rail and Light Rail and Very Light Rail will have it all sorted. Don't worry, Tim!
"We don't need freight trains on the railway until the 2040s, at the earliest."
Tuesday 22 October 2024
Failed, tragic, one trick pony Israel
The Jews never got an agreement with any of its neighbours to turn Palestine into its own State of Israel. From the outset, first with the three terrorist gangs, the Jews fought the British for control of Palestine and then fought with all its Arab neighbours to gain the land of Palestine for itself. It has won every war, just as it did 3,300 years ago when Israel's aggression took over the land of Canaan for itself.
Sunday 20 October 2024
80 years of violence for the Promised Land for God's Chosen People
I do wonder what on earth (in heaven) the good Lord thinks of it all!
Official fraudulence/scam
Only a small minority of passengers can ever use Metro trams and HS2. It is fraudulent to claim that these billions are transforming public transport and are responsible for motorists deserting their cars for trams and trains.
It is fraudulent to claim that all railway passengers will notice the vast improvement once the 100 miles of HS2 and the 150 miles of Metro trams are up and running.
It is a fraudulent misuse of £45 billion (2019 figure) of taxpayers' money for HS2 and £15 billion (Jan 2020 figure) for W Midlands trams.
What we are more likely to notice are the effects of Climate on life support systems.
Friday 18 October 2024
FROM: https://premetro.co.uk/stourbridge-proposal-could-save-taxpayers-millions/
Pre Metro has proposed the Stourbridge Dasher be considered to connect Dudley sooner rather than later, which could save taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds while delivering enhanced connectivity and economic revitalisation.
The Stourbridge Dasher is being proposed as a cost-effective replacement for Phase 2b of the Wednesbury and Brierley Hill Metro extension, a project fraught with budget overruns and delays. Originally allocated £449 million, the Metro extension’s costs have skyrocketed to an estimated £650 million.
Phase 2b, linking Dudley with Waterfront, is expected to cost £228 million, with additional funds required to reach the Merry Hill Embankment and Brierley Hill High Street. These escalating costs have raised concerns about the project’s affordability compared to other local initiatives.
Pre Metro’s service would utilise the existing Round Oak dual-track freight line, converting one line into a bidirectional rail service between Stourbridge Junction and Canal Street. Connecting Stourbridge to Brierley Hill could be achieved with just £30 million.
The potential benefits of the Stourbridge Dasher extend beyond cost savings. Local surveys reveal strong community support, with 87% of residents expressing interest in using the new service and 40% of businesses along the route expecting increased customer footfall. Employment opportunities are also likely to rise, with projections showing a 63% increase at Merry Hill alone.
Not only that but extending this scheme to include Dudley would total only £50 million—a staggering 78% saving when compared to the currently proposed tramway. In addition to substantial cost savings, the Stourbridge Dasher offers a faster implementation timeline, reduced disruption to local communities, and improved access between Dudley and Stourbridge.
By repurposing existing infrastructure, the project aligns with principles of efficiency and sustainability, addressing the region’s transport needs while ensuring better value for taxpayer money.
Concerns over excessive spending on recent tram extensions within the West Midlands— reportedly costing over £100 million per kilometre, far above global norms—have cast doubt on new transport initiatives in the region. With public funds finite, accountability is paramount, and VLR seems to offer a less disruptive and more cost-effective solution.
Despite these clear advantages, Transport for West Midlands has deferred consideration of the Dasher proposal until 2027, citing the need for further financing and study. This delay risks missing a critical opportunity to connect southern Dudley and Stourbridge, leaving local businesses and passengers underserved.
Pre Metro has urged the West Midlands Combined Authority to collaborate on adapting the Metro proposal sooner rather than later to save public money and improve regional connectivity. This approach would reduce costs and expedite project completion.
Steve Jasper, Director of Pre Metro, and local resident, ratepayer, and former Public Transport Manager, emphasised:
“It’s time for the Combined Authority to prioritise financial accountability and embrace transformative alternatives. By safeguarding public funds, we can deliver a brighter, more connected future for everyone.”
As an SME, Pre Metro has already pledged £25,000 to advance the Strategic Outline Business Case. They are now requesting that the Authority review current proposals and assist in evaluating an alternative that offers quicker results and better value for money.
Stourbridge’s Bigger Picture Strategy can be accessed here.