Wednesday 2 November 2022

Regional Transport Chief invitation

I'm still angling for a proper discussion with you, please, that we did not have when we met at your surgery on that occasion.  Or, a walk and talk meeting and site survey of what your officers are wanting at Merry Hill as Phase 2 of WBHE.  I will treat you to coffee and cake as, not a bribe but a reward for seeing my landscape enhancement scheme at Merry Hill!  Seriously, please come over to a different part of your patch and see the monorail station and where the tram is due to go.  You are the regional transport chief, after all.

I've now watched all of the YouTube recording - parts twice, even, in case I misheard!

I thought you were very good, knowledgeable and you came over extremely well, as you always do.  However, I want to pick you up on a couple of things you said.  Your wish you had been bolder on the A45 bus priority; the two statements you made on HS2; your thoughts on Berlin transport; Edinburgh's handling of trams; and, road pricing experiment for Hagley Road only.

In addition, your feedback on this:

1.   Pausing Metro and Sprint extensions.  Andy wants tens of billions of pounds to be spent to 2040 on eight lines and 150 miles of Metro expansion, alone.  What do you think?

2.   POSITIVE: The carrot of Fare-Free Public Transport extended from my old crocks age group to everyone else.

3.   HELPFUL: The stick of the Clean Air Zone made stricter; as well as road pricing to penalise the car commuters who don't need their motors for their job but who thoughtlessly clog up the road space for essential business users.

4.   CONSTRUCTIVE: My two year Hagley Road experiment, as here:


These basic, vital proposals are in the light of multiple crises: climate, energy, cost of living, inflation, resource shortages, population, spending way beyond what the planet can possibly deliver.  My proposals/suggestions are for pure humanitarian reasons - above all else!

Can WBHE terminate at Level Street to save, at Merry Hill, housing land, public open space canal embankment, a nature site that includes my guerrilla garden and, trees, shrubs?

As CA Transport portfolio holder Ian, is there any chance you can promote the UK's major 22 Kms, urban-rural-urban, Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway - please?  The Dudley section is a disgrace and, most immediately, needs the vegetation cut back to about 1.5 to 2 metres to allow wind and sun to dry out the puddles, pools and mud from the Barrow Hill Nature Reserve section, going towards Himley.  It should be a popular, commuter, leisure and business route for cyclists, walkers and horse riders.

The other cycle matter is no kind of pavement, let alone a professional cycle-walkway, is provided down even one side of Duncan Edwards Way in Dudley, let alone both.  Even in the 90s (the bypass was open in 1999, I think), HMG was telling local councils to provide for walkers and cyclists on new road schemes - but Dudley did not!

More on both schemes, here:

Best wishes

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