I am asking TfWM to concentrate on our existing bus network rather than putting more of the available resources on expanding the Metro light rail network to 150 miles and eight lines by 2040 for £15 billion (2020 figure). What is your opinion on this, please?
SCANDAL of accelerating the climate emergency and doing the poor down
Service Total subsidy 2022/23 (source: Transport for W Midlands)
Bus £9.695m - for 1,000s of Kms of bus routes in the TfWM area.
Metro £7.6m - for only, after 43 years, 23 Kms of tramway, of which 18 Kms are on the first mainline railway destroyed by the tram.
This is a colossal annual subsidy for the Metro passenger/Km travelled compared with the bus passenger/Km travelled. Very poor value for money for the tram! Could the money be used to benefit low income people with Fare-Free Public Transport and, with more buses on roads less clogged with car commuters who could be using bus, train and tram to get into work?
When there are only 23 Kms of one Metro tramway, this is a scandalous amount of public money going on a totally unnecessary but highly prestigious and extravagant transport mode to replace or duplicate bus and train services that desperately need the money and upgrading.
I think, the massive Metro subsidy should be going to extend the concessionary bus fare scheme to everyone - called Fare-Free Public Transport (FFPT). Guardian editorial on 8.1.24 on FFPT, I have just heard on the Radio 4, 'Today' programme. And to boost bus use at the expense of trams and car commuting by doing this
This is outrageous, too:
2015: £7 m/Km to rebuild the 56 Kms railway through the Southern Uplands of Scotland from Edinburgh to Tweedbank.
2023: £144 m/Km for the Birmingham Eastside Metro through Digbeth. Expected to open in 2027. By then, it will be even more expensive!
The principal Black Country Mainline Railway,
between London and Edinburgh, is destroyed by 6.7 Kms of trams, plus Very Light Rail (VLR) innovation centre and test track put on it. But it could still be the world's first train-tram-train mainline railway but the majority view is to keep the congestion and poor air quality on M5/M6!!
Next up for destruction is at Merry Hill Shopping Centre - nature, public open space and housing land - all for Metro when it could stay on the mainline railway down to Stourbridge Jct and the national railway network! I would love to have your help - or just your thoughts! Maps are below to show what I mean.
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