ISRAEL IS US (USA and UK)

ADDED 6 July 2021:

I'm concerned about the Hamas/Palestinian and Jewish/Israeli bad neighbours that has gone on for 73 years.  I think that both sides are behaving like the Prodigal Son and both sides need to be Good Samaritans to the other.  The constant hammering of one to the other with hatred, aggression and violence needs to be repented of and replaced with doing good to the other should be tried.  But it does need Israel and the West to try a more humanitarian, radical and justice to get peace approach.  Israel and the West have to take the initiative and make the sacrifices to get the bigger prize of peace with justice. 

30 June 2021:

Are we, in the rich and powerful West, hopelessly compromised and guilty, too?  I think so because Israel is a member of our tribe and group.  We refuse to condemn her disproportionate and, I think, barbaric behaviour because she is part of us - lock, stock and barrel!  And, our side lacks the honour, the integrity, the imagination to try a different method to stop the Hamas rockets and incendiary balloons.

I don’t think the Israeli Ambassador to London has ever been called in to answer for Israel’s actions.  Our government lacks the guts to stand up to Israel over her 73 years of consistently unjust and immoral treatment of Gaza and the Palestinians. Probably, because our government will be called anti-semitic and be well and truly slated by Israel and most Jews. The only solution that both faith adherents and secularists can ever understand is revenge, hatred and violence!

OUR GUILTY SILENCE

What does it say about us, that the collapse of a housing tower block in Miami makes more news than our friend and ally causing the collapse of occupied housing blocks in Gaza?

MULTI-MODAL MIX UP with Metro and Sprint to the detriment of trains and buses

Trams make public transport worse eg. 11 different bus routes no longer using Five Ways underpass; WBHE destroying 6.7 Kms of the Derby to Devon via Dudley railway line; taken out of use one mainline railway and station at Wolverhampton, with 4 or 5 Kms of railway line and, platform 4 at Snow Hill. What a catalogue of errors! LR and VLR has taken over one of only two north-south principal, mainline railway lines between the centre of Brum and the Welsh coast. WHOOPS!

Sprint is duplicating existing bus services when every bus must be electric, have bus priority traffic lights and on bus lanes on nearside lanes to allow cars only in the overtaking lane. And free for the young, too.

Already well to do with everything already Solihull gets HS2, Metro, Sprint plus the regular bus and railway services!

Commonwealth Games, HS2, Metro and Sprint all add to expenditure, economic growth, the exhaustion of resources and accelerate the runaway greenhouse effect. Nearly 50 C in parts of Canada and the USA this week.

THESE WARNINGS CAN HARDLY BE CLEARER OR MORE URGENT

Saying nice warm words; but carrying on regardless with business as usual

Ask the landowner and the walking, cycling, horse riding community to sponsor a footbridge or stile/gate.  Footbridges over 10 metres long should be maintained by Highways and the landowner.  There must be many wealthy landowners with the Bill Gates philanthropic tendency!

Why are the local authorities, regional government and national government doing the exact opposite of what is required to tackle their own self-declared climate emergency?  I have made suggestions to the WMCA, to our councillors and my MP but they just carry on swaying along, drunk on fossil fuels, on the broad road to destruction.  I have set my own fossil fuel budget by slashing my car mileage by 50% on 2019, on walking and cycling for shorter journeys and we spend a little over £1 a day on gas and electricity.  What about the rest of you following our lead and showing what they have to do?  Trains on railway lines instead of everything but the kitchen sink; PV solar on every roof and climate-proofing every building in the land, for a start.

WORSENING PUBLIC TRANSPORT AND CLIMATE EMERGENCY!

Hi Mark - too much to read, here I know so don't bother!  Just read the next para!   Tim

Thanks very much for sending me the article, that is exactly what you had to write and is very good.  Thanks so much for giving me a mention - actually, including me!

from your piece:

He said public transport spending had gone up “nearly tenfold” with £38 million (SELF: 2016/17) spent the year before the combined authority was introduced (SELF: that means 2015) compared to £363 million this year. (SELF: 2021/22?).

It seems that the start of the "nearly tenfold" explosion of transport spending coincided with the opening of the Metro extension in 2016, five years ago and the formation of the WMCA in the same year.  It just shows how phenomenally expensive Metro "bus on rails" trams are!  Yet, road and railway congestion and air pollution are as bad as ever, five years on!  Slightly relieved by Covid, I expect.  Andy should be thoroughly ashamed that throwing money at the "solution looking for a problem" has made no difference and made no sense.  Actually, made things worse with railway infrastructure destroyed and buses without rails on roads replaced by the "bus on rails" trams on roads and railways.  SEE BELOW

What was/is the cost of the WMCA and how many people employed?  I will ask an FoI question.

As the extension opened in 2016, the start of the hundreds of millions for Metro extensions pre-dates the WMCA if they got the money for that extension before.  Neither it nor Andy can claim credit for the explosion of transport spending on Metro.  It had nothing to do with him because he was not in the CA.  He was elected in 2017 and during the most recent election campaign he was saying that during his four year term there had been a sevenfold increase in transport spending.  He was claiming the credit!  Sevenfold over the last four years and tenfold over the last five years.

In only five years, at a time of low inflation, their expenditure on only transport has gone up nearly tenfold.  This is shocking and disgraceful in the light of the climate, ecological, nature emergency they have declared.  Ten times more greenhouse gases to accelerate the runaway greenhouse effect!  This is ecocide.

Spending = fossil fuels burnt = greenhouse gases emitted = intensifying greenhouse effect = runaway greenhouse effect = turning earth into planet venus = THE END.

FOI answer:

"The total budget for the Transport Delivery Capital Programme in 2016/17 was
£39.6m. The total budgeted value of the same programme in 2020/21 was £277.2m. Full

details can be found in the WMCA Board Financial Monitoring Report (March 2021)
Appendix 5 pages 19-21 available on our website at:
https://governance.wmca.org.uk/documents/s5398/Report.pdf"

Therefore, he can claim that the devolution deals and the setting up of the CA in 2016 was responsible for the extra money but NOT his work as the representative, spokesperson or ambassador for the Combined Authority.  

Sevenfold increase in four years (tenfold in five years) is not due to inflation but the shocking, grossly extravagant, greenhouse gas emitting Metro trams - even more expensive to construct than the Maglev train projects in China, Japan and South Korea!  Each electric "bus on rails" tram is 12 times more expensive than one electric coach!  Construction of tram lines on roads and railways is 19 times per Km more expensive than rebuilding the Borders Railway in 2015 - £7 m/Km for the railway; £133 m/Km for the 1.7 Kms Eastside Metro extension!

Please read this that is important for your background information as to what has been going on.  I think there needs to be an independent public inquiry over what I have uncovered, here:

INSTITUTIONALLY INCOMPETENT

Our transport authority, over 70 years, has been institutionally incompetent.

In the 1950s they dismantled the electric tram network that needed updating but, instead replaced it with smelly, poisonous diesel buses.

In the 1960s, they continued to close and build on the railway network that had started in the pre-war years.  That decade saw Brum's principal mainline Victorian station demolished and replaced with an underground, smelly, poisonous, diesel railway station.  (There were fans to draw out some of the diesel smoke.)

The 1970s, saw Brum's second principal, mainline Victorian station of 8 platforms demolished and replaced with a station of only four platforms as Centro continued to support road building and motorways and the use of private cars that clogged up roads for buses.

The 1980s saw, in 1981, the start of rebuilding the tram network on the road and railway network.

The 1990s saw the announcement of 15 Metro lines over 200 Kms by the year 2000.

Yet, the year 2000 saw only one Metro line had opened.  This, on a mainline railway too, that also destroyed one and a quarter mainline stations and 4 or 5 Kms of double track railway lines!!

The year 2016, saw the extension of the tram on the railway line that closed Wolverhampton Low Level Station but, now the tram on the railway completely missed out Snow Hill Station to go straight passed it to 'Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Underground Station In The Basement Of The John Lewis Store', instead!

In 2021, there is still not one passenger or freight train returned to even a single kilometre of mothballed, 106 Kms of railway lines.  And platform 4 at Snow Hill remains closed!

All this incompetence when every councillor supported the transport authority over the 70 years with the expansion of roads, motorways and buildings on about 100 Kms of railway lines.

And not a single electric bus until, perhaps, this year!

MORE INCOMPETENCE, BELOW:

On Fri, 18 Jun 2021 at 19:30, Tim Weller <timweller1@gmail.com> wrote:

Reasons for my saying, below, that the Metro trams have made public transport worse:

• Metro One, which opened in 1999, meant that the railway to Shrewsbury only has one route now, from Grand Central Shopping Centre because the mainline was converted to a tramline.  Hence, three or four Kms of double-track railway line to Shrewsbury was built on and Wolverhampton's second principal manline station was turned into a conference and events centre.
• The continuous rise in passenger numbers on the railways was unstoppable from the mid 90s up to Covid, in 2020.  25 years of rising numbers, at a time when the railway industry was continuing to destroy its infrastructure by turning its railways into roads, buildings and tram lines.
• The 2021 opening of the Metro extension to Edgbaston Village tram stop has led to a slower and worse public transport journey for those passengers wanting to leave their cars at home and use it.  All, except those who are in walking distance of where the tram terminates, have to now decide whether to wait up to 15 mins for a tram into the city centre.  Or, to have a much slower and longer journey, on the diversion, by staying on the bus into Colmore Row.
• Eleven different bus routes that used the Five Ways underpass, must now join the traffic jam and traffic lights, in order to go round the roundabout.  Previously, every bus along Hagley Road used the underpass into the city centre.
• Exactly 40 years of Metro tram expansion has led to about 100 Kms of Black Country and Brum railway lines being destroyed as congestion and pollution has steadily worsened.
• The number of Black Country railway lines destroyed by our politicians, the railway industry and transport experts is now in double figures.  Two make up the 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway!
• And, then they go and build climate worsening HS2 after all that lunacy and destruction!
• And, top priority is given to HS2's little sister, Metro with a £15 billion expansion programme of eight lines and 150 miles of underground and overground "bus on rails" trams.
• The 120 Kms Black Country Railway between Derby and Devon via Dudley remains ready built but unused, broken and wasted over 56 Kms - one of only two north-south lines between Brum city centre and the Welsh coast!

MANY THANKS, AGAIN!

Tim

On Thu, 17 Jun 2021 at 16:43, Mark Cardwell <mark.cardwell@trinitymirror.com> wrote:

Hi Tim,

Here's the piece - https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/west-midlands-combined-authority-turns-20839686

Thanks very much for your help on it and sorry I couldn't go into your points in further detail.

All the best,

Mark

--

Mark Cardwell

Local Democracy Reporter covering Birmingham City Council and West Midlands Combined Authority

Birmingham Live/BBC

Tel: 07930 752 886

Twitter: @mlrcardwell

TIM, AT 73 YEARS, ASKS OF TfWM!

 Ask TfWM:

• No more Metro trams - 150 miles are planned to 2040 to get a multi-mixed up public transport.
• Trains on train lines, instead.  No more railways made into roads and roads turned into railways.
• Free electric buses on bus priority roads instead of "bus on rails" trams.

In more detail:

1. Please ask on my behalf that commuter and regional trains must go back on the 47 Kms of our Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance" between Derby and Devon via Dudley.
2. 47 Kms is still available after Metro "bus on rails" trams go on 6.7 Kms out of the available 56 Kms between Stourbridge Jct and Burton on Trent.
3. Please ask for no more expenditure on wastefully extending what is officially called "bus on rails" trams.
4. Instead, ask for electric buses to go directly on bus priority roads, without the railway tracks!
5. PLEASE say to TfWM that this particular OAP wants his regional Fare-Free Public Transport (FFPT) to be given to the younger generations, too.  This, to end the disgraceful discrimination against the middle-aged and the young.
6. A Something for Others campaign - a wonderful legacy to leave our descendants and, we get to rest peacefully in our graves!!
7. Six simple sentences, above to suggest easy ways of lessening the climate emergency.

Response to Jonathon Porritt's blog

Thanks very much for this helpful overview, Jonathon.

You talk about "legacy fossil fuels" where I write about finite fossil fuels.  What do you mean by 'legacy' and why that preference?

You speak in glowing terms of what Biden is doing in the US but what is your verdict on the UK?  We have very big spending on HS2, HS2's little sister in the West Midlands called Metro "bus on rails" trams and, Sprint?  All costing billions of pounds in deadly greenhouse gas emissions.
 
Sprint gives a 1st class bus service while still having to run a 2nd class bus service for those bus stops that the Sprint does not stop at.  Why not make both a unified 1st class bus service?

 
What is the point of HS2, Metro and Sprint?  Why not simply end the discrimination against the young and middle-aged and give them what my age group has had for nearly all of this century - regional Fare-Free Public Transport?

Pointless HS2, Metro and Sprint in unnecessarily using finite resources, adding to the heating greenhouse and continuing with nature turned into concrete, brick and tarmac.  Just stick with trains and buses only, to make for fewer changes between different modes and a faster public transport journey.

Public footpaths are a disgrace

Many thanks for this, Simon.  How nice of you to write.

I have just written this, below, to a friend (using your helpful website) who is similarly browned off with decades of neglect of Dudley's public footpath network in an important area that is the foothills of the Clent Hills Country Park.  Dudley is part of the Black Country that is like living in the stone age!  70 years ago they demolished the whole tram network and then started on the railway network by thinking that their train lines were meant to have cars and buildings running down them; and, since the 90s, that the tram network was meant to be rebuilt on them - as is now happening with our very last railway line and the most important!

"Please email Dudley Council Plus and Kevin and Heidi, above (as I have done with this email) who are both top officers at Dudley Council and are responsible for the increasing difficulty that many have in getting over ancient stiles without steps.  All of us OAPs are losing the right to roam because of access difficulties from our infirmities!  Kevin and Heidi are supposed to have £9,500 to spend in Dudley only, since last year but, I still cannot see any improvement whatsoever in our 32 sq Kms Clent Hills Regional Park, enclosed by the three main roads! "SOME BACKGROUND https://www.gov.uk/guidance/public-rights-of-way-landowner-responsibilities#problems-with-public-rights-of-way This government guidance from Natural England suggests that landowners are responsible for the upkeep of public rights of way with their stiles and bridges.  However, since the 1980s, the councils have relied on individual volunteers and voluntary groups rather than making landowners do the job.  When I put in two really hefty waymarking posts that were 10 feet in length, as part of the NW Worcestershire Urban Fringe Countryside Action Project (UFCAP) in the 80s and 90s, the farmer soon came along and removed them!  And, this was an official, professionally organised Footpath Improvement Programme in association with Dudley and Worcestershire Councils.  Since then, virtually nothing and many stiles and bridges have become dangerous to use. "More people need to write to ask for rural stiles and bridges to be properly maintained.  The farmers and landowners will not do it without legal enforcement action that councils do not do, it seems." Very many thanks, Simon for writing.  Please tell me what you think, what your experiences are or, where you stand on what you've read from me.

USA's "huge stimulus programme", "go big" (Today News, 23.6.21) fueling inflation and fueling the runaway greenhouse effect for earth to follow venus

USA's "huge stimulus programme", "go big" (Radio 4 'Today' News, 23.6.21) fueling inflation and fueling the runaway greenhouse effect for earth to follow venus

Kate Raworth, like many others, has highlighted how economic growth has brought and is worsening the climate, ecological, nature emergency.   In brief, economic growth = living infinitely in a finite world and living unnaturally in a natural world.  Very foolish!  Economic growth has brought so many untold blessings with prosperity for the majority.  However, it is a mixed blessing and we are seeing the downside, the curse of human-induced climate catastrophe unfolding, while we all carry on regardless with business as usual.

Paul and Simon Chief Exec, Paul Robinson (probinson@worcestershire.gov.uk) and the WCC leader, Cllr Simon Geraghty (SGeraghty@worcestershire.gov.uk) are part of the greater West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) that has just seen its fifth anniversary, last week.  The CA is continuing with everything that is bringing us down.  An official £1.3 billion is being spent right now by our leaders on all the wrong priorities: with Metro "bus on rails" trams replacing buses on roads and, replacing trains.  70 years of turning our railways into roads and buildings; now, with the 40th anniversary of Metro, 40 years of roads being turned into railways and railways into tramlines in the Black Country and Birmingham!  This includes our own Worcester, Kiddi, Dudley, Walsall, Lichfield, Derby principal, mainline railway being broken up into heavy rail (HR), light rail Metro (LR), very light rail (VLR) test track and the ultra-light rail, Stourbridge Shuttle extension proposal - all, would you believe, on a mainline railway between Derby and Devon via Dudley!!

Midlands Connect and the Black Country Chamber of Commerce have NOT withdrawn their support for the 87 Km, 8 lane, Western Orbital Motorway to complete the Midlands motorway box.  They started a campaign three or four years ago, according to the 'Express and Star' report I saw at the time.  Yet more of nature turned into concrete, brick and tarmac when we humans are part of nature!

All this work and much more is great for economic growth but disastrous for the future of humanity and all life on earth.  I would like us to question them about these matters and, of course, those of local concern to the Wyre Forest area - housing, open space and active (fossil fuel-free or more human-powered) travel on public rights of way (not just tarmac!).

'Anti-Zionism and the Death of Tragedy'

Dear Howard

Are my comments, below anti-Israel propaganda?

QUOTES FROM YOUR SCRIPT:

"A tragedy of two rights; a tragedy of two wrongs."

Common man: "Easily swayed by simple narrative.  Quick to feel but slow to comprehend.  Lacking knowledge and power of imagination and the description fits those choric marches that go on filing through our cities, himming (what was this word that you said, please Howard?  Presumably, 'continuing'?) the prejudice that hasn't changed for millennia.  Defaming in the name of anti-racism the most racially defamed people in history.  This is to take nothing from the acute agonies suffered by Palestinians over the years of this cruel conflict.  But tragedy teaches you can have affliction without a villain."  Howard Jacobson

Howard Jacobson is saying that there is no villain in this 73-year-old conflict and is, therefore, playing down, in fact ignoring the disproportionate response of the Israelis in killing 2,200 Palestinians in 2014 and a further 250 in 2021.

Is not Israel more of the villain in having, but not using, the power and authority to end the war that the Palestinians do not have as the subjugated people?

Are we, in the rich and powerful West, hopelessly compromised and guilty, too for our very own 'member' of our tribe and group, is Israel?  We refuse to condemn her disproportionate and, I think, barbaric behaviour because she is part of us - lock stock and barrel!  And, our side lacks the imagination to try a different method to stop the Hamas rockets and incendiary balloons.

Howard is revealing that he has no insight into how Palestinians see things because he is giving both sides equality - both right, both wrong, both victims and both villains!  That is true but, it does not go far enough, by a mile, to address the problem, the conflict, the war that our side, Israel and the West, has more responsibility for than Hamas.

He seems to be saying, don't use Zionism or Zionist.  I'm saying: or, perhaps don't call Palestinians as terrorists or, Hamas members/fighters/people as terrorists.  Both sides use these shorthand labels.  Both sides are victims, both sides villains.  But, the problem is hatred, leading to revenge, leading to violence.  The Gandhi way was successful but he arose when the timing was on his side, in the twilight of the Raj.

How can both sides be the Good Samaritan to the other?

How can both 'heap coals of fire on his head'?

In addition, are both sides behaving like the Prodigal Son in the Gospel of Luke story (chapter 15)?

BOTH SIDES USING THE SAME TACTIC, here:

Fire fighters often fight a fire with fire. They set controlled fires in front of a wildfire hoping to burn up the fuel source so the wildfire has nothing left to burn.

The phrase "fight fire with fire" is also used to reflect the idea that you use the same tactics to fight people who attack you.

For example, some people suggest we should fight terrorists using the same tactics they use, fighting fire with fire.

And it's like a bully at school picking on people. Someone may say, "We have to fight fire with fire," suggesting they use the same tactics against the bully he's using against them.

Christians Fight Fire with Fire
Paul says that a godly response toward an enemy "will heap coals of fire on his head" (Rom. 12:20, NKJ).

So as Christians, we fight fire with fire. But our fire is different from that used by our enemies.

Our Fire is Goodness
Paul says, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Rom. 12:20-21, NKJ).

When we respond to an enemy with goodness, it heaps coals of burning fire on his head. We fight fire with fire.

Goodness cuts our enemy to the quick, and hurts him more than merely retaliating with the same bad behavior he's shown us.

As a result, our enemy will respond in one of two ways. He'll see the error of his way and repent. Or he'll be inflamed and continue to mistreat us.

from: https://m.biblestudyguide.org/articles/fight/fight-fire-with-fire.htm

Best wishes, to you Howard.  And thank you.

To Wyre Forest Green Alliance

Thanks for organising yesterday's excellent workshop.  It has prompted these thoughts.  Could this be forwarded to the others who attended, please so I get their comments?

I think we must fight doughnutty, weird and wonderful priorities:

1. The authorities (Midlands Connect/WMCA and the Black Country Chamber of Commerce) want the 87 Kms Western Orbital Motorway instead of the Kiddi, Dudley, Walsall, Derby mainline railway finished with passenger and freight trains and Railfuture's nine stations.  They are destroying the railway with their "bite-sized chunks" of trams, Very Light Rail (VLR) test track and the National VLR Innovation Centre yet, saying all the time, that they actually want the trains and stations back!
2. WFDC and WCC are non-constituent members of the WMCA, if I remember correctly.  Therefore, they are supporting the disastrous, greenhouse gas-emitting, showpiece, grossly extravagant, Metro "bus on rails" trams, instead of electric buses on roads and trains back on existing, mothballed railway lines.
3. Regenerating Kiddi and Dudley town centres are not giving small to medium-sized, Passivhaus standard housing as their top priority.  They should be, I think if they are responding to their self-declared climate emergencies.
4. Keith helpfully told us that housing is being put outside the doughnut (Kiddi town), instead of in the centre of it where the empty retail units are.  Can Keith write who highlighted this, perhaps?
5. Failing to put cycle-walkways alongside main roads, eg Dudley Southern Bypass.  What can be done in Kidderminster?
6. My suggestions, here are green growth to counter economic growth that spurs greenhouse gas emissions.
7. Can Worcs CC and Shropshire CC, with our writing in support, appeal to walkers (like me who has promised £1,000 towards the proposed R Rea footbridge near Marlbrook, nr Mamble) to sponsor a stile/gate, footbridge, favourite path?  The authorities have very little money for their maintenance, so we are very slowly losing the right to roam on our rights of way.

Are there any comments, feedback, agreement, even support that others would like to give me, please?

FFPT

Stop converting railway lines and bus routes into tramways for "bus on rails" trams.

Use electric buses going directly on roads, without the railway tracks.

Use the money saved from abandoning tram extensions into Fare-Free Public Transport (FFPT) for all and not just old people like me that I have enjoyed for 13 years!

Move from multi-modal transport that is multi-mixed up transport with more changes and delays, into sticking with making buses more sought after.  That means FFPT and electric buses on bus priority roads.

FFPT is essential to compensate for a slightly higher risk from Covid transmission when using public transport.

FFPT is essential to cut greenhouse gases, congestion and polluted air in cities.

FFPT is a reward for leaving the car at home.

INSTITUTIONALLY INCOMPETENT

Our transport authority, over 70 years, has been institutionally incompetent.

In the 1950s they dismantled the electric tram network that needed updating but, instead replaced it with smelly, poisonous diesel buses.

In the 1960s, they continued to close and build on the railway network that had started in the pre-war years.  That decade saw Brum's principal mainline Victorian station demolished and replaced with an underground, smelly, poisonous, diesel railway station.

The 1970s, saw Brum's second principal, mainline Victorian station of 8 platforms demolished and replaced with a station of only four platforms as Centro continued to support road building and motorways and the use of private cars that clogged up roads for buses.

The 1980s saw, in 1981, the start of rebuilding the tram network on the road and railway network.

The 1990s saw the announcement of 15 Metro lines over 200 Kms by the year 2000.

Yet, the year 2000 saw only one Metro line opened.  This, on a mainline railway too, that also destroyed one and a quarter mainline stations and 4 or 5 Kms of double track railway lines!!

The year 2016, saw one extension of the tram on the railway line that closed Wolverhampton Low Level Station but, now the tram on the railway completely missed out Snow Hill Station to go straight passed it to 'Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Underground Station In The Basement Of The John Lewis Store', instead!

In 2021, there is still not one passenger or freight train returned to even a single kilometre of mothballed, 106 Kms of railway lines.  And platform 4 at Snow Hill remains closed!

All this incompetence when every councillor supported the transport authority over the 70 years with the expansion of roads, motorways and buildings on about 100 Kms of railway lines.

And not a single electric bus until, perhaps, this year!

MORE INCOMPETENCE, BELOW:

On Fri, 18 Jun 2021 at 19:30, Tim Weller <timweller1@gmail.com> wrote:

Reasons for my saying, below, that the Metro trams have made public transport worse:

• Metro One, which opened in 1999, meant that the railway to Shrewsbury only has one route now, from Grand Central Shopping Centre because the mainline was converted to a tramline.  Hence, three or four Kms of double-track railway line to Shrewsbury was built on and Wolverhampton's second principal manline station was turned into a conference and events centre.
• The continuous rise in passenger numbers on the railways was unstoppable from the mid 90s up to Covid, in 2020.  25 years of rising numbers, at a time when the railway industry was continuing to destroy its infrastructure by turning its railways into roads, buildings and tram lines.
• The 2021 opening of the Metro extension to Edgbaston Village tram stop has led to a slower and worse public transport journey for those passengers wanting to leave their cars at home and use it.  All, except those who are in walking distance of where the tram terminates, have to now decide whether to wait up to 15 mins for a tram into the city centre.  Or, to have a much slower and longer journey, on the diversion, by staying on the bus into Colmore Row.
• Eleven different bus routes that used the Five Ways underpass, must now join the traffic jam and traffic lights, in order to go round the roundabout.  Previously, every bus along Hagley Road used the underpass into the city centre.
• Exactly 40 years of Metro tram expansion has led to about 100 Kms of Black Country and Brum railway lines being destroyed as congestion and pollution has steadily worsened.
• The number of Black Country railway lines destroyed by our politicians, the railway industry and transport experts is now in double figures.  Two make up the 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway!
• And, then they go and build climate worsening HS2 after all that lunacy and destruction!
• And, top priority is given to HS2's little sister, Metro with a £15 billion expansion programme of eight lines and 150 miles of underground and overground "bus on rails" trams.
• The 120 Kms Black Country Railway between Derby and Devon via Dudley remains ready built but unused, broken and wasted over 56 Kms - one of only two north-south lines between Brum city centre and the Welsh coast!

Edinburgh Conservative Gp OPPOSES their tram extension. WHY NOT OURS?

Edinburgh Conservative Gp OPPOSES their tram extension.  WHY NOT OURS?

 

Thank you for email regarding the Edinburgh Trams.  Myself and the Conservative Group have consistently opposed the completion of the tramline to Newhaven.   Kind regards,  Graham Hutchison  

 

The first section was completed at a cost (as you indicate) of £55.43m/km.  The proposed cost of the extension is £87.01m per km before overruns and before the ‘lessons learned’ enquiry by Lord Hardie has reported.  Cameron Rose  Conservative Councillor,  Southside & Newington ward 4 March 2019

 

Thank you Tim. Noted - the Conservative Group won’t be supporting the extension as we consider it too expensive and not the most pressing transport need in the city at the current  time and that better investment in road space, buses and park and ride would serve more of the population and address the congestion from inward commuting giving more people the opportunity not to drive by providing reliable alternatives. Regards Jo Mowat 4 March 2019

Isn't it funny - every business case is called robust;

‘robust’ justifies every kind of expenditure from spending £1 billion of public money on 14 Kms of tramline to duplicate a bus route in Edinburgh in 2014;

to spending nearly the same but, private money on the M6 Toll for 43 Kms in 2003;

to splashing out £17.6 billion of public money on 117 Kms Crossrail;

to justify spending £44,000/metre to extend your £1 billion tram line to Newhaven to replace buses;

to justify spending £44,000 per metre to convert our ready made, but they forgot the trains and stations, 120 Kms mainline "of national strategic significance" into a piddling little shuttle tram line on two short, middle sections, totalling 6.7 Kms.   

"The latest work to refine the scheme and the efficiencies to be developed within the Midland Metro Alliance give a good level of confidence that the project can be delivered within the current funding envelope” (SELF: of £44,000 per metre, times 11 Kms.  Eleven times the cost per kilometre of the second attempt at returning trains between Wolverhampton and Walsall.  The first attempt was a failure last decade!).  

Every business case comes up with a great Cost Benefit Ratio that compels massive expenditure, eg to dismantle/destroy the tram network and to rebuild it on the road and railway networks a few decades later.  This is called high Value for Money when it is 2.03:1.  In other words, you double your money.  Therefore, whatever you pay up front, you get more than double that back in destroying yet another urban and intercity railway line, in the case of trams taking over the UK's one and only mothballed mainline.

Deborah Cadman, Chief Executive of the West Midlands Combined Authority, replied to my e-mail, in which I gave practical suggestions for reversing the decline in bus use, with this:

"Whilst the bus network is facing certain challenges, including falling patronage and declining speeds, it remains the most popular and important mode of public transport in the region."

Yet, she is spending £1.518 BILLION to 2026 on only 31.7 Kms (£48 m/Km) of trams taking over mainly bus routes but also 6.7 Kms of the half used, 120 Kms Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance" (letter to myself from the DfT and Network Rail, dated 8 March 2018).  These are trams duplicating and even replacing buses and, also preventing forever the return of commuter and regional trains to a half used, nationally important railway.

timweller1@gmail.com 8 March 2019

REASONS FOR METRO TRAMS

Midland Metro started in 1981, according to Wikipedia.  Once it got going, it was found to be impossible to stop.  No officer or member wanted to step out of line and to say,

"We must review the wisdom of going ahead with this expense to replace or duplicate buses and trains."

"Everyone on Europe has trams, so it must be a good thing."

But they didn't destroy their urban railways to get the trams, like we do.

"Manchester has trams and we must compete with them, otherwise we can't claim to be the Second City."

It would have been cheaper for Manchester to have simply put the trains back and have electric buses, so dispensing with the "bus on rails" trams on railway tracks and, running buses directly on roads.

"Unless it is super duper flash, so swish and smart - the Concorde syndrome or, the cover photo on the tourist brochure - it will never attract motorists out of their cars."

After 40 years, finally, 8 m passengers a year on one Metro line.  It now takes over the Five Ways underpass previously allocated to buses.  The many buses, on eleven different bus routes, now all have to stand with the rest of the traffic in queues at the lights at the roundabout above the tunnel!

The transport planners and engineers love working on something special and less mundane than boring buses.  It ensures their jobs.  The jobs at any price circus.  However,

Better to have Universal Basic Income to ensure a decent level of existence than to escalate the deadly greenhouse effect.

You get what you pay for.  The more expensive it is, the better it is, especially when it's electric.

The problem is this.  Each electric "bus on rails" tram is eight times more than each electric bus.  Today is 16 June and every tram has been out of order, withdrawn, banished to the depot since 11 June.  A recall!

Spending is all good for economic growth - the be-all and end-all of all life on earth.  The GOD we must worship.  But it rests on the fallacy, the folly, the fake foundation of living infinitely on a finite planet and living unnaturally on a natural planet.

from Dave Parsons

Tim

Having read councillor Harleys poor response to your Email on the above subject, as leader of Dudley council Mr Harley has a duty to be answerable and accountable to constituents on decisions the he and his fellow councillors make.  If he cannot stand the criticisms or questions asked from him then he should not do the job.

I take it that councillor Harley knows very little regarding railway infrastructure especially in this area and is therefore given advice by box tickers and other environmentalists who deemed this Metro route through Dudley ( for the sake of image it will bring to a dilapidated town centre, plus other funds given to demolish cavendish house and to regenerate the town centre which of course would not have been available if the heavy rail route through the Dudley tunnel was reopened) a necessity.

“The industry “which he quotes ( I presume he means  Railtrack) who closed the rail route through Dudley no longer exists, but Network rail who still manages the route from Stourbridge to Round oak  are not dismissive that they would never reopen this route through to Walsall or beyond  in the future.

Mr Harley seems to think that the matter is closed but because Mr Harley promoting this Multi Million pound route Metro route through Dudley, perhaps he could explain why it’s terminating at Brierley Hill & not Stourbridge?

In his own words what commercial or viability is that? Not to mention that every 17 years or so the tram rails in Dudley streets will need replacement, which in not an overnight job,and has caused loss of trade as they did when they renewed the rails along the road out of Wolverhampton.

Mr Harley is wrong to suggest that there’s no support to reopen the heavy rail route, many people I know are disappointed by this route being taken over by a tram system that’s costing a fortune, and with the building of the VLR test centre at the former Freightliner depot site at Dudley this completely ruins any chance of freight sharing with trams.

As Mr Street and Mr Harley promote these projects,then they have to accept that they are accountable for the decimation of the Black county rail route.

Regards

Dave

Twitter to David Shukman, Roger Harrabin, Sandra Green

HMG is institutionally complacent & incompetent, like my own W Mids Combined/Climate Worsening Authority that celebrates its five years in power by destroying the UK's very last principal, mainline railway from Derby to Devon via Dudley - 1 of only 2 between Brum and Welsh coast!

Sandra, Please support Fare-Free Public Transport for ALL, not just old crocks like me. I've had it for 13 years. It only needs extending to your age group with the money being wasted on "bus on rails" trams on roads and railways when electric buses directly on roads is needed.

£227 m for 1.7 Kms = £133 m/Km. Is that really right? Therefore, nineteen times more expensive per Km than the REBUILT Borders Railway in Sept 2015! This is a shocking waste of finite resources that nicely accelerates the runaway greenhouse effect to make earth like venus.

WMCA formed on 17 June 2016 - 5th anniversary

Thanks so much, Mark for phoning.

Please be bold in asking these pertinent questions and use my name whenever you like.  Blame me!  You could take the approach of being sceptical, even unbelieving over what I have told you and, all the time, being on their side.  Really, you need to be neutral, of course!   Tim

THE UK's LAST MAINLINE RAILWAY - Derby to Devon via Dudley - wasted, unused between Stourbridge Jct and Burton on Trent

1. How is it that you still maintain that "light rail investment provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time"?  (letter to Tim Weller, dated 18 September 2000, from Tom Magrath, Passenger Services Director, Centro)
2. More recently, how is it that your Laura Shoaf, MD, TfWM, told BBC reporter Peter Plisner on 'Midlands Today' that "passive provision" would still enable freight and passenger trains to return to the double tracks being given to trams on two nibble sized sections, totalling 7 Kms, to spoil a 120 Kms mainline railway?
3. What, exactly, is the "passive provision" that is being built in to the Metro line at the very time we speak?
4. How can "passive provision" be built-in when the only feasible site for a rebuilt Dudley Castle Hill Railway Station has been given to the National Very Light Rail Innovation Centre?
5. Tim Weller says that it is hardly surprising that you are spending £15 billion of public money to 2040 for mainly underground and overground Metro trams, over 150 miles and 8 lines, when you share the same building with the national tram promotion group.  Is he right?  Is there improper influence?  Are you finding it difficult to maintain a professional distance between yourselves and a lobby group?​

 Railfuture's full map.pdf

​​

 WBHE map

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 Metro map with my notes.pdf

​

ACTIVE TRAVEL aka fossil-fuel-free travel or human-powered travel

1. When the Ordnance Survey has it down on their Explorer map as a "traffic-free cycle route" on two disused railway lines over 22 Kms, why is it that the Dudley section is particularly unacceptable and very slow going because of the mud and waterlogging in wet weather?
2. When will the WMCA be giving this major business, commuter and leisure route for mainly cyclists to use, a National Cycle Route number?
3. When will it be upgraded for responsible shared use between walkers, cyclists and horse riders?
4. Why has it never had any recognition and is even missed off on the Starley map, as a significant, even important, off-road route for those taking the climate emergency seriously?
   
    Disgraceful Dudley section of BC Cycle-Walkway ...
   
   
    Disgraceful Dudley section of BC Cycle-Walkway ...
   
   

SOURCES:

Report from self, dated 22 September 2015

"In a letter dated 18.9.2000, from Tom Magrath, Passenger Services Director:

"light rail investment provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time."

To tell me that light rail Metro was needed to be put on the Black Country Line in order to be able to restore heavy rail services at a later date on that line is complete nonsense.  That idiocy is now repeated with the insistence that Very Light Rail must go on that inter-city line but that it will not stop express and local trains returning at a later date (conversation with David Golding, Principal Strategic Planner, Network Rail at ITA meeting on 16.7.2015)  No wonder, I am thinking that there is something very corrupt, very wrong at the heart of the West Midlands Combined Authority, Network Rail, ITA, Centro - and, for decades, too.  They all want express and local trains returning but want Light Rail and/or Very Light Rail, first to help get the everyday trains back!