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!