Wednesday, 18 June 2025

Metro is our HS2 fiasco - Radio 4 'Today' this morning!

Dear Laura and Anne and Richard are responsible for our own regional transport tragedy

Eastside Metro is duplicating the abandoned 1980s/90s plan!  Why go back to it?

In the 80s and 90s, Metro was planned to go from the city centre out to the airport.  Terry Davis ​MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill opposed it because it would cause far too much disruption for his constituents.  Homes demolished in particular.  So it was put on the unused mainline railway from Snow Hill platform 4 to within 2 Kms of the Wolverhampton Low Level railway station (now a conference and events centre).  ​It terminated at St Georges Sq Wolverhampton, not even to the bus station and railway station.  It took decades to reach them!

There is so much uncertainty over Metro Eastside opening because of the HS2 station needing to be finished and, perhaps, opened first before trams can go down Digbeth.  The tram goes through the station, I understand.  Remember, that the many billions needed for HS2/Metro vastly increases greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  The money, and consequent GHG emissions, should be used, instead to slow the quantities we are spewing out by insulating, making energy efficient and solar powering the homes of the poorest in east Brum.  Not demolishing their homes and giving them a luxury, flash, over indulgent, unnecessary tram - a​s well as buses and trains!

​The tram is destroying railway lines and many more railway lines are only partly used!  SEE Railfuture's map:​
​We can't go on widening motorways, either!

Tim​ Weller

No comments:

Post a Comment