Edgbaston tram but its BUSES that need the tender loving care and attention!

Dear John - and copied to Fare-Free Public Transport pioneer and UK expert witness on the issue, Bob Whitehead who lives in Brum.  Copied, too to the Chair of the Transport Delivery Committee of Transport for W Midlands.  KATH - please could you comment?

Thanks for writing.

So our question was read out, then, was it?!  That's great news.  Can you confirm for me, please, whether or not Andy read out what I had written, John?  Did he mention my name?

You mention "a statement of the social-economic case in non-technical language. No doubt this has been done but I don't have the material to hand." 

Here is something that Bob Whitehead wrote about FFPT - clearly written, authoritative and all sources are referenced. Are you able to open them?

 The Case for FFPT in Birmingham.pdf

 BIRMINGHAM – A FFPT PIONEER?

Should the least well off without cars, and everyone, not just the elderly, be rewarded with, and compensated for the slightly higher risk of getting Covid when travelling on bus, train and tram, by being given Fare-Free Public Transport?  About 100 towns and cities around the world have it, including Dunkirk, Luxembourg and Tallinn, Estonia.

I feel that the £15 billion to 2040, going into mainly underground and overground Metro trams to replace some buses and trains, should be used to pay for it all.  And, thus, raise the status and attractiveness of bus travel that is, far and away, the most well used mode.

Andy is very keen on trams because it adds to the public transport pool of different ways of getting about on public transport.  He calls it multi-modal public transport.  Unfortunately, it ends up being multi-mixed up; and, with yet more changes and slower journeys between the different modes.  It is much better just to stick to bus and train.  Simpler, quicker and fewer changes.

AN EXAMPLE for those who come in to the city centre on Hagley Road:

Those who come in by bus down Hagley Road now get diverted on a longer and slower journey into Colmore Row via the Arena.  And, the bus no longer uses the underpass at Five Ways which is given over to the tram.  If we change for the tram at 54 Hagley Road, we then have to cross the busy main road and wait for the tram (opens next year).  Again, a slower and less helpful journey to hardly encourage people to give up the car and use the bus!  And those without cars are penalised, once again.  So give them FFPT as a reward, on bus priority roads!