To be fair this isn’t my area of understanding. If I get elected, I don’t believe this will be a subject I will be invited to contribute towards. Because the vast majority are oblivious to the phenomenal cost of trams to replace buses and trains and to push buses out and to turn our local mainline railway into a piddling little shuttle tram line, a test track, a trail of trees and a cycle-walkway. If the money can't be used to get Network Fail and TfWM/WMCA to FINISH the railway with the forgotten trains and stations, then the money should go to offset years of cuts to the Police, NHS/social care, education.
and,
Trams of course seem to be very much part of WM combined authority vision. Because they have been improperly influenced by vested interests. The national tram promotion group is in the same building as TfWM/WMCA that have easily been influenced to go for trams instead of the more obvious and sensible measures to reduce urban congestion and air pollution. Earlier this decade, three top people in UK Tram Ltd were also top people in Centro. Complicity + collusion = corruption. And since their introduction they have been very popular as a form of rapid transport. PTA/Centro got the money in the 1990s by declaring (exaggerating/lying) that passenger numbers would be 15 to 20 million every year. Only with the extension, that misses out Snow Hill and goes straight to Grand Central Shopping Centre did it rise to 6 million a year. They got the money because the sole reason for the extension was to connect Snow Hill with Grand Central - NOT to bypass Snow Hill as has been shown to be the true objective! They have become the WM version of the Tube. Yes. The WM version of putting Tube trains on the Eurostar, HS1 line to Paris, in the case of the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill extension. Pretty idiotic! They have more money than sense.
Rail is an alternative means of transport and reintroducing the historic lines is an infrastructure cost that perhaps should be argued in addition to rapid light transport, from memory the Wolverhampton segment utilised a fair amount of former rail infrastructure. Please read my:
Thanks for responding. I am a fan of trams, although I don't like the cheap and nasty hard, plastic seats on our Metro trams! If the 1950s was today, I would be insisting that the authorities should NOT dismantle the tram network for diesel buses. Simply modernise the trams instead of destroying them. Wise and sensible expenditure. Like my proposals for seeing a sea change in social attitudes towards bus/bike commuting instead of car commuting to free up the road space for essential business vehicle users. My family has started!
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