Dear Katie
Many thanks for this and for your concern and action on Climate, ecology/economics and simply wise spending. In my old age and retirement I want to encourage and support you in every way I can. As I do with my own 36 year old youngster and one 40 year old, both in environment paid work.
You wrote, "boosting efforts, and to inspire and support new groups." This is fair enough but I would want the WMCA and all you full-time, professional officers to be taking a lead for the rest of us to follow. And I really don't see that, Katie. The CA and the seven councils are moving so slowly and you are all desperate for the 150 miles and 8 lines of tramways (LR), VLR in Coventry, now guided busways I've been told by Calthorpe Estates that will save the demolition of their fine HQ building. Plus, Sprint buses and High Scam 2 that has no stations to be of any practical use at all, apart from for frequent flyers who will have the alternative of flying through the air on land, instead of the air!
All this, when there are existing railway lines lying unused or partly used alongside or near to congested main roads and motorways. One purpose built, principal, mainline railway "of national strategic significance" is being turned into yet more of a cycle-walkway between Walsall and Lichfield. Astonishing! Perhaps 100 Kms in the West Midlands is available. Only one railway station has been rebuilt this century and that was the existing University station that was rebuilt many times bigger for £50 m. An enormous building when it was the platform that needed to be made three times longer, as it now is!
And, Metro and Sprint for wealthy Solihull town centre that already has very good railway and bus routes - and, an airport not far away!! Billions spent by the wealthy, like me, at Tram/Transport HQ at 16 Summer Lane. One billion £ in price = One billion lb in weight of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) is a very rough but helpful and stunning rule of thumb, such is our foolish but understandable addiction to finite fossil fuels in our lifestyles.
You are concentrating on groups and those speaking on behalf of groups. One very important group is the Birmingham Route to Zero (R20) Taskforce, as here:
"The launch of the Birmingham Route to Zero (R20) Taskforce followed a cross-party declaration of a climate emergency by Birmingham City Council in June 2019, with the council’s Cabinet then agreeing in July 2019 to make tackling climate change one of the authority’s main priorities. Climate Change has been recognised as an existential threat to Birmingham, the UK and the World for at least the last thirty years or so. Now action is called for. This new climate change taskforce for Birmingham has drawn up a plan of action to tackle the causes of climate change to make our city and our world a better place for future generations to come. The taskforce works in partnership across the city, engaging with our many different communities, age/disability groups, and business, commercial and residential areas." (from - https://lunarsociety.org.uk/resources/ian-ward-presentation-the-future-of-transport-in-birmingham-and-the-west-midlands-july-2021/ )
Are you engaging, inspiring and challenging this taskforce?
May I see their "plan of action" and are you working to it and on it, Katie?
Bob Whitehead's brilliant W Mids Climate Coalition plan of action is here:
This is Dudley FoE's:
However, in 57 years of closely following transport affecting Climate/ecology/economics in Brum, nothing has changed. Road traffic congestion, demolition/rebuilding, the destruction of nature for concrete, brick and tarmac and the exhaustion of finite fossil fuels has continued apace. With Labour as the worst offender.
It was in 1981 that two LABOUR councillors, Phil Bateman and David Sparks, got cracking with getting a 200 Kms tramway network by the year 2000 to rival Manchester's. By that year, they had got precisely 20 Kms with all but 2 Kms on the first mainline railway wrecked! The Green Movement and Green Party are all in favour of this mish mash of different public transport modes when the urgency is, in fact, insulating and solar powering and making highly energy efficient the homes of the poorest in the W Midlands. No redundancy or unemployment. Simply, WMCA transport officers retrained and redeployed to work on Bob's Action Plan.
Best wishes
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