Not so obvious, at all!

Why have an electric "bus on rails" on roads when an electric bus, without the rails, can go directly on roads to meet, not a "bus on rails" but, only commuter, regional, intercity trains at stations?  Called integrated transport!

Do this, at a fraction of the price that could then go to give everyone free bus/tram/train travel as their reward/compensation for using public transport.  I've had it for nearly 13 years and I still use the bike but, then, I'm unique!

Use the bus priority roads for fareless electric buses and the railway lines for trains.  Obvious, really!

REASONS FOR STANDING IN 2021

to instil some urgency into how changes in transport, jobs and housing policy can reduce the impact of human climate breakdown; and postpone Attenborough's "collapse of civilisations" and "extinction of much of the natural world" and "time is running out" warnings.

For a more sensible, cost-effective and easier ways to reduce congestion and pollution.  Fareless, electric buses for ALL; not for the few, like me!​  To free up road space for essential users.  Paid for by abandoning Metro, diesel Sprint and CAZ.

standing in elections is all part of good campaigning

to bring this scandal or anomaly, incompetence or oversight to the attention of the public by standing as a candidate in the hope that I can bring maximum embarrassment to the Combined Authority at the hustings.  I will be asking the public, at those meetings, if they do agree with what I am asking should be done or, are on your side.  I can't be fairer than that.

CRUCIAL QUESTION: "There is a half-completed principal mainline railway of 120 Kms between Worcester and Derby, via the Black Country.  The middle half is missing all trains but is fully built and available.  Should that middle half be given over to 6 Kms of trams with 2 Kms of a test track and extended cycle-walkway?  Or, should the mainline have its commuter, regional and intercity trains back on the full length?"

to continue the effort, the campaign to slow all 3 crises - virus, climate and urban railway negligence crisis.

To 36 Dudley Labour councillors

Dear friends

Do NOT be in a hurry to be shot of hero Corbyn

I think the red wall of Midlands and North Labour strongholds voted Tory because of their strong Brexit, pro military/patriot, anti immigrant, anti foreigner, pro Brits first, sentiments.  And, concerns over Britain being 'Full'.

We Brits have always won every war, from the Boer War onwards.  'The Guardian' in February 2014 proved, in a four page spread, how in every single year since at least 1914, the Brits have been engaged in warfare on other people's land.  1968 was the only year that a member of our armed forces has not been killed somewhere around the globe since 1914.  The number of Brits slaughtered in warfare since 1945 has now reached over 16,000, I believe.  Corbyn must have known that and, I hope, was disturbed.

For me, Corbyn fearlessly, over decades, took the moral high ground with his UN first, pro justice with peace in the Falklands, N Ireland and in Palestine/Israel.  He took the moral high ground with his 'war as a last resort, diplomacy first, upholding international law at the International Court of Justice at the Hague', principles.  A man of conscience and compassion, too.

It seems, Corbyn has been the traditional, stereotypical Englishman standing up for the underdog in his pro Palestinian stance.  Hence, he incurs the ire of the State of Israel, a member of Team America, as BBC's Jeremy Bowen put in last week.  Israel is our great friend and ally in protecting the West's strategic interests in the Middle East.  Perhaps, Corbyn is seen as disloyal to the West's supremacy in the Middle East.  Israel's displeasure with Corbyn has been shown with their relentless campaign of labeling him as antisemitic soon after he became Labour leader and ever since.  The media, too has locked onto it with glee, too.  Any irony, humour over traditional views of Jewish businessmen and women has been slapped down as examples of antisemitism.

Both Corbyn and SNP First Minister Sturgeon fearlessly stated that if the UK was attacked with nuclear weapons, neither would retaliate with firing off Trident missiles.  Both are rightly, nuclear/WMD pacifists.  NOT conventional weapons pacifists, however.  But their renunciation of the use of WMD is unacceptable to America, Israel and the UK establishment.  Certainly, unacceptable to most English and Welsh voters and the unionist voters in N Ireland.

Labour must inspire and lead towards humanity and all life on earth FIRST urgent policies.  That means postponing extinction for all life on earth.

Labour must stop the conversion of the 120 Kms (74 miles) Black Country principal mainline railway being turned into:

• VLR tram line with the proposed extension of the Stourbridge Shuttle onto a mainline railway!!
• LR Metro tram line to destroy the integrity/unity of the 120 Kms.
• VLR and innovation centre on the only feasible site of Dudley Castle Gate railway station
• new extended 16 Kms cycle-walkway from Walsall to Lichfield on this forgotten, still unfinished mainline railway

Use the £2 BILLION to 2026 to bring in fareless buses for ALL at all times; and, electric buses.  Fareless buses are found in about 100 towns and cities around the world - 30 in the USA and about 20 in France, according to national FoE.

Happy Christmas

Tim Weller

Whistleblowing summary

SUMMARY OF ALLEGATION:

£1.8 BILLION of public money is being spent on trams and Sprint diesel buses to replace trains that have the unintended consequence of destroying other transport infrastructure, too. eg: Metro One now gives an inferior service for train users between Snow Hill Station and Shrewsbury because the principal station and railway lines have all gone for good to allow for trams.

WBHE is stopping for ever any future possibility of finishing the middle section of the Black Country Mainline Railway "of national strategic significance" when many millions have already been spent on every tunnel, bridge and viaduct for commuter, regional and even intercity trains!

Over £300 million is being spent to replace smart looking Platinum diesel buses with less frequent stopping Sprint diesel buses.  What is the point of that?

£1.8 BILLION would be more wisely spent on giving everyone fareless, electric buses with traffic light priority on 100% bus lanes on every dual carriageway to entice those wedded and welded to their motors to free up the road space for those who really do need their vehicles for their jobs.

7 June 2019

DEMOCRACY DENIED BY THE VERY PEOPLE WHO GO ON THE MOST ABOUT IT!

As regards Metro and Sprint spending, discussion and debate is excluded, quite apart from consultation and voting that are all conveniently overlooked as being irrelevant!  This is done to spend over £1.8 BILLION of taxpayers’ money, to 2026, in only part of the West Midlands, to increase road congestion and pollution, to worsen overcrowding on our commuter and regional trains and to ruinously accelerate the rise of greenhouse gases and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  £1.8 billion wasted at a time of austerity and poverty for many!

It seems that every political party, even the West Midlands Green Party, co-operated with this policy of scandal, idiocy and dictatorial behaviour by TfWM/WMCA.  It appears that not one local or regional political party has ever bothered to discuss any of this, let alone vote, in even one of their meetings. Including the Green Party, I believe.  I would love to be corrected. Will the Brexit Party do any better?

Certainly, not a single political party is sufficiently broad minded or, at all bothered, to hear a different point of view.

TfWM/WMCA remains strongly influenced by - even colluding with - the nation’s tram promotion group to continue the fifty year old policy of doing everything with Beeching’s closed urban railway lines in the Black Country, than to put the trains and stations back.  This summer, Metro trams and a test track are to go on the UK’s only mothballed, easily reinstated, half finished mainline railway - the Black Country Railway “of national strategic significance”. A tram stop and a £30 m innovation centre is to be built on the only feasible site for Dudley railway station that will also prevent the re-opening of the Black Country’s second railway line.  Hence, the second to be destroyed by trams and, in total, the fifth to be given over to everything but commuter and regional trains - and the kitchen sink!

Tim Weller timweller1@gmail.com 8 June 2019

Steve Eling opposes Clean Air Zone

Dear Steve - I believe, I have not had one reply to any of my emails or texts, up to now.  Just complacency, apathy and negligence.  But you are not alone.

I am sorry to be so condemnatory, once again of your council's lamentable performance.  Last summer, it was the loss of 72 leaflets that I had been led to believe were to be placed in the 72 councillors' pigeon holes but were thrown away, instead.  Last week, I was told that my new leaflets could only be put in councillors' pigeon holes if they were in envelopes with each of the councillors' names on the front.  Ruth Darby kept them and they have not been returned.  Not one other Black Country council has this oppressive, rigid and unreasonable policy.  I am asking for the cost of the lost leaflets to be paid to me, please.

This evening, I have just read the report in the Halesowen News that you are opposing the Clean Air Zone extension.  Wrong move, Steve.  You are in a closed mind, tram rut and, are paralysed with inertia over increasing road and railway congestion and pollution as the population rises.  The report says you have plans for cleaner buses.  What plans are these?  You and your fellow WMCA leaders are planning SPRINT diesel buses at huge expense in Brum.  All that is needed are swift moves to get electric buses on 100% bus lanes where there is a dual carriageway, with traffic light priority for all buses; and, FARELESS buses for all and not just the few in my age group.  Old crocks like me need our cars as we lose our mobility.  The young and fit like you, who help to run UK plc need free staff buses to get you into work to free up the road space for essential vehicle users.

Over your years as a councillor, Steve, I expect, along with previous and current West Midlands leaders, you are responsible for the following:

Here is corporate corruption and idiocy and, corporate incompetence and negligence.  I think these are the only words that can appropriately and properly be used to describe this never ending financial and transport scandal, viz:

1. Scandal One: At a time of austerity and last week’s UN report on extreme poverty in the UK, £1.38 BILLION from 2018 to 2026 is to replace some buses and trains with the second most expensive transport mode after HS2. Tram extensions are even more expensive than nearly all Maglev train projects in China, Japan and South Korea. Proof here:
   
   
    Transport costs per kilometre
2. Scandal Two: building roads, housing and trading estates and retail units on over 100 Kms of urban railway lines - all since the 1960s closure programme that was so necessary as we all went out and bought cars. Councillors gave planning permission.
3. Scandal Three: decades of 106 Kms of under-used and completely unused, urban, double track railway lines in the Black Country, Brum and south Staffordshire, as we've all crawled along bumper to bumper in car or bus on choked roads and motorways.
4. Scandal Four: While, at the same time, many tens of millions of pounds were used to build tunnels and bridges for the Black Country Railway for new road and motorway schemes to pass over or under but, then, never to take the next step to put the trains and stations back.  Only trams on two short sections, totalling 6.7 Kms!
5. Scandal Five because, since 1981, yet more tens of millions were being used to promote - not getting the trains back on 106 Kms - but, Midland Metro trams with a team at Centro House and glossy brochures produced to show what was going to be done.  But, the 15 lines covering 200 Kms never was done! Only one line was ever done, in 1999 on a railway line, of all things.  Instead of simply putting the commuter trains back! Now, being extended to Edgbaston to replace and push out buses that have to and will always have to take a much longer route to avoid the trams, six to ten every hour, in narrow Broad Street.
6. Scandal Six: Metro One extended in the other direction, on an even more important railway line, to wreck any possibility of finishing the 120 Kms, principal, mainline railway between Worcester and Derby!
7. Scandal Seven: Two piddling sections of tram line to muck up a 120 Kms principal main line railway. A similar short section, of 11 Kms of passenger trains, is to duplicate the 529 Platinum bus route. The bus takes 33 minutes outside the rush hour and 45 minutes in the rush hour between Walsall and Wolverhampton. 11 Kms, when the whole 41 Kms via Walsall, Aldridge, Water Orton to Brum needs to see the return of its commuter trains. And last decade's attempt at the same thing failed. Nothing quite like failure breeding failure, of course. A parochial stitch up by Walsall and Wolverhampton leaders, perhaps. Leaders who cannot or will not see the bigger picture. Leaders who cannot get their priorities right. Blind leaders ineffectually failing to show any leadership.

This is the proof that all seven leaders, the opposition leaders and, Andy Street who rubber stamps whatever you leaders want, are in no way up to the job. You have let us all down.

This is all a bigger fiasco than Brexit - by you politicians.

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