Questions for Michael Solomon Williams of CBT

With the West Midlands Metro tram extensions costing over £100 m/Km to build, even on the former London to Edinburgh principal mainline railway through three of the four Black Country boroughs, is this the best way to get modal shift from wasteful and unnecessary car commuting onto buses and trains?

Is this ​one way to free up road space for essential users if car commuters are fined for using their cars​,​ when they have Fare-Free Public Transport?

Is it good economics and ecology to be converting our former mainline railways into tramways, as the West Midlands started doing in 1981?

Do tramways consisting of light rail, very light rail and ultra light rail complicate the public transport journey when we already have heavy rail, express or intercity rail and regional commuter rail - and, from the mid 2030s, high speed rail?

200 years ago we started converting our industrial tramways into railways as being a more modern and effective way of getting about than relying on canals.  Why are we going back to the future with tramways when there are hundreds of miles of existing but unused and freight only railway lines?

Can passenger trains be put on freight only or, existing but mothballed railway lines, of which we have about 100 Kms in the Midlands?

Or, should they be converted to tramways?

Do you think Fare-Free Public Transport that I've had for 17 years, paid for by abandoning trams replacing buses and trains that could be FREE - like I have?

Why always flash, expensive, highly prestigious, wealth flaunting, over-indulgent transport schemes like ​LR and VLR trams?

How could the money be better spent​ to help the lowest incomes?