FFPT = Fare Free Public Transport
VLR = Very Light Rail
GHG = greenhouse gas
TfWM = Transport for West Midlands
Liverpool's Glider transport is like our TfWM Sprint buses - the bus that thinks it's a tram - that is being put, along with Metro, on the Walsall-Brum-Solihull corridor that is already very well served by buses and trains, unlike other areas that do not have trains on existing, already built but, not yet destroyed, railway lines. Their priorities need to be put right, methinks!
Priority One for improving our streets: Scrap Metro and Sprint and put all that money into financial inducements to bribe car commuters who do not need their motors for their work, to use the bus, train, tram or, to car share instead. So much money is being wasted on fancy, flash transport schemes instead of FFPT, as one essential, to bribe/reward everyone who uses bus, train, tram. Non-essential car commuters to free up road space for essential vehicle users - by rewards for doing what's right and penalties for doing what's wrong (driving into work when bus/train/tram is a 10 mins walk away to keep them active and healthy and blooming with rosy cheeks when they get into work fresh and ready for a day's work!!).
Priority Two - get existing active travel routes, including towpaths, up to scratch so we can actually use them, eg deal with the mud and the overgrowing vegetation on the UK's major, Black Country Cycle Super-Highway of 20 Kms between Brierley Hill unused railway station/mainline and onwards all the way to NW Wolverhampton and its canal towpath network, via Wombourne.
Priority Three - provide a cycle-walkway alongside all roads that do not have footways/pavements, where there is room, without narrowing down road space and so upsetting our precious motorists. Eg, Duncan Edwards Way, aka the Dudley Southern Bypass. One side is to have the tram because the former mainline railway has the VLR test track. The other side is grass verge for active travel. Nick McGork take note!
Priority Four - stop destroying railway lines and put TRAINS and STATIONS on them - for goodness sake!
Priority Five - scrap the tens of millions in price and in weight of GHG emissions going into bus franchising that will not make a scrap of difference to bus use when they already have the Enhanced Bus Partnership with the bus operators. This is where the bus companies get paid for socially necessary but unprofitable bus routes. I think that is fair enough, works really well with direct talks between Pete Bond/Jon Hayes and the bus companies. If the regs were changed there is no earthly reason why TfWM should not become a shareholder in National Express and Diamond. Much more sensible! Bus franchising means more bureaucracy and paperwork and less action/fewer results. There would be very much more money for lower fares, more buses, bus routes and trains back if Metro, Sprint and Franchising were all scrapped.
All the best
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