Hi Carol - thanks so much for writing. Lovely to hear from you and of your concern.
Why HS2/Metro/Sprint thinking should be anathema to all right thinking people
These mega projects reflect how society feels so entitled, already but wants ever more!
£15 BILLION to 2040 (Jan 2020 figure) for 150 miles, 8 lines and 380 tram stops for Metro expansion.
These three projects reflect our greedy and selfish idea of entitlement - of our right to have them - whatever the cost.
We can afford these luxuries, so we are going to have them. When we already have plenty!
Metro trams are a lovely, greedy, luxury that I take every opportunity to travel on. I travel from home in Halesowen to Wolverhampton via the bus and then the tram from Edgbaston Village. But Metro expansion, that you fully support, is deepening the Climate Emergency by taking money that should be going to the poor to insulate and future proof their homes. And to help with their food and energy bills.
HS2/Metro/Sprint are all deepening the Climate Emergency by very high greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting concrete and steel in the construction of all three.
Deepening the Climate Emergency in this way, too:
There are lots of unused or freight only railway lines that we will not use because we want to give the money to trams instead at the most colossal expense in price and in weight of GHG emissions as well as being many times more expensive per kilometre to construct then if we simply rebuilt the stations and put the trains back. Climate justice and social justice mean we must cut back on expenditure that makes the Emergency even worse.
PHOTO, below
You see the climbers and trees, of mostly my vertical guerrilla garden, and a small part of the 400 metre long, Dudley No 1 Canal embankment which are wiped out with the concrete and steel tramway viaduct, costing over £100 m for the 400 metres of Climate catastrophe concrete and steel:
My guerrilla garden cannot be relocated to another site and this is just one of many sites that I have beautified and greened up over the decades! My other main site that I have worked on since the 1990s is at Frankley Services Northbound. The owners, Moto, give their passive permission, as the owners do at Merry Hill SC. Do take a look at both, Carol.
PHOTO: The same canal embankment. All wiped out and very much more for £261.4 m (see below) to destroy the embankment:
I think you councillors and MPs need to think again because the money now going into Metro expansion in the W Midlands, as well as for the West Yorkshire tram network, takes money away from HMG's 'Restoring Your Railway' section at the DfT. SEE:
Tram expansion is stopping our remaining railway lines from getting their trains back. What a waste! No more 'Restoring Your Railway' because you good councillors and MPs prefer tramways built on railways and bus routes. Extraordinary. And we are all so entitled, wealthy and well provided for, compared with the Global South!
" ... on the delivery of the Metro extension Phase 2b totalling £261.4m.
Phase 1: Wednesbury to Flood St., Dudley
Phase 2a: Flood St, Dudley to Waterfront Business Park
Phase 2b: Waterfront to Merry Hill Shopping Centre
Phase 2c: Merry Hill Shopping Centre to Brierley Hill Town Centre
"Since rewriting and submitting the FBC and the SAF appraisal in May 2024 it is noted
in this report the total projected cost of Phase 2a, 2b of the WBHE project remains at
£654.9m." END OF QUOTE
For another £261.4 million for only a maximum ONE KILOMETRE (1 Km) of the route from Waterfront to Merry Hill, is SCANDALOUS! And it is deepening the catastrophic Climate emergency instead of urgent mitigation, that is still not seen (apart from my house that is a warm home).
The £15 BILLION to 2040 (Jan 2020 figure) for ourselves in the W Mids, is taking money away from returning passenger trains to our freight lines and, both to the other forgotten, empty, wasted railways in our region.
You councillors, led by Cllr Phil Bateman in the early 1980s and Richard Worrall, turned your Bilston railway station into a shuttle tram stop with Metro. Bilston was on the mainline railway from Snow Hill station to Shrewsbury via Wolverhampton Low Level station. It is now a popular tramway. But it was a popular railway and could have had its trains back in the 1980s instead of waiting for the trams when the tramline eventually opened in 1999 - and TRAINS for a fraction of the price, too! And, it was a lie that it would reduce congestion on the parallel A41. It has not because it took bus passengers off the road and not car drivers with their polluting cars. What a deception by members and officers at the time - and it's still going on with WBHE!
The full scandal is recorded here and Bilston is mentioned. Can you find it?:
Very best wishes
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