"Better Buses for Brum" petition

Dear Liz - the petition has:

Please explain why you have always fully supported "bus on rails" Metro trams, together with your political party

"The Mayor has failed to secure enough money from his own government to fund transport properly."  NOT TRUE!

In fact, since 2017 when he was first elected, Andy Street, on behalf of Transport for W Midlands, fully supported by all political party colours (including those on the left and good eco-socialists, as I am), has secured many hundreds of millions of pounds in both price and in weight of greenhouse gas emissions for Metro trams to replace and duplicate bus and train services.  This is stupid and irresponsible and escalates the climate emergency.

Tram extensions are the second most expensive transport mode to construct after High Scam 2 that is the world's most expensive to construct.  The money should have been used to extend Fare-Free Public Transport from my old crocks age group to all you youngsters.  And, for all the bus priority measures on the nearside lane of dual carriageways to inconvenience thoughtless car commuters who don't need their cars for their work and should be using buses - buses having top priority.  This will help to free up road space for essential vehicle users.  Expand buses directly on roads (minus the railway tracks) without the grossly extravagant "bus on rails" trams blocking them!

Your actively pursued and extremely costly in finance and climate wrecking policy of "bus on rails" Metro trams is still planned to take precious housing land, the destruction of nature, trees, public open space and my wonderful, vertical guerrilla garden.  PLEASE STOP, CANCEL WBHE PHASE 2 FOREVER and DO BUS PRIORITY MEASURES as I have advised for very many years.

Please write back and explain why I am wrong and you are right, Liz.

Many thanks

MY TOP 3 PRIORITIES FOR METRO MAYOR

 Truly addressing the Covid/Climate/Nature emergency by slowing the rise in greenhouse gases by:

1. building affordable homes and adapting all housing to meet Passivhaus standard of energy efficiency to meet a maximum of 5 units of electricity/day.
2. training the workforce and new entrants for jobs to meet this rigorous standard as soon as possible.
3. extending the present regional fare-free public transport for elders to the younger age groups for reasons of fairness, as compensation for the slightly higher risk of getting Covid and, as a reward for leaving their cars at home as much as possible.

Very nice to read your article in 'Rail Professional', April 2020 issue

email dated 24 March 2020:

Dear Transport Convener, Cllr Lesley and friends - fun photos to click on, below.  As your reward for reading to the bottom - don't cheat!!

Re: the Edinburgh tram line - 'Trams to Newhaven' and coals to Newcastle

You ended your piece by writing, "the status quo is quite simply not an option.  To Newhaven - and beyond!"  To infinity and beyond, of course.

Do you know why your predecessors destroyed the tram status quo, to go for diesel buses some years ago?  We did the same in the Black Country and Brum but I am ignorant of the reasons, if you are able to help, please. 

We then had the status quo of diesel buses for many years that you want to partly change, it seems as no longer being an option.  Why all the chopping and changing between two different status quos over the decades?  Why not simply transform the two basic modes - bus and train?

Did we see the growth in diesel buses as Edinburgh grew and prospered?  Grew and prospered with humdrum buses and not flash trams.  Therefore, for many decades the diesel buses were the real deal, the satisfactory status quo, the success that you are upsetting, yet again, for the return of the tram status quo, once more.

Perhaps you meant that you wanted a high-status symbol to befit a world, grandstanding city like Edinburgh?  Something more prestigious and glitzy and glamorous.  Or, a solution looking for a problem?

However, is the bigger and grander the project the more expensive it becomes and, therefore, the more greenhouse gases are spewed out to screw up the world's climates for the worse?  In other words, the more we spend on finite resources like fossil fuels the more unsustainable our society becomes to turn it into planet venus, as some scientists fear?

Why should the "bus on rails"* tram on tracks on the road be better than smart electric buses straight on to the road without railway lines having to be laid first?

Or, could you join the current European mainland trend of even fare-free public transport in some places like Tallinn in Estonia, Luxembourg and Dunkirk?

You want the trams "to complement and support our excellent bus services" but could the danger be that the trams will replace some bus routes?  And, at the most colossal expense, as here:

 Edinburgh Conservative Group OPPOSES their tram...

With every good wish for fareless electric buses to bribe the car commuter to use the humble, mundane, workhorse bus.

* quote courtesy of UK Tram Ltd, the national tram promotion group at the heart of our Transport HQ in Brum.

Regional government by decree not democracy

Regional government dictat, instead of debate and vote, gives £15 BILLION to 2040 for underground and overground "bus on rails" electric trams to duplicate and replace buses and trains.  We could have, instead, fare-free electric buses on bus priority roads.  And the 120 Kms Black Country Mainline Railway "of national strategic significance" actually FINISHED.  Wonders would never cease!