Time to debate/vote over Metro expansion

Dear friends

This email from Mark calling on FoE members to attend the committee meeting on Thursday at 6 pm is brilliant.  Please attend and have your say, as I hope I will be allowed to.

However, I am very concerned that all of you who fully understand the dangers we are all in from climate breakdown, resource shortages and pursuing lifestyles in defiance of respecting and living in harmony with nature and her life support systems, are failing to oppose the idiocy of expanding multi-modal public transport.  Coming up, below are my reasons for opposing light rail trams (LR), very light rail trams (VLR) but fully supporting ultra light rail trams (ULR or Stourbridge Shuttle) on the world's shortest (1.8 Kms) branch line - that I helped to get, incidentally, with my letter writing, followed by emails, in the 1980/90s - and by supporting John Parry.

• In my opinion, there is not a shadow of a doubt that both main mayoral candidates (one of whom will win) are far too weak to stop the roll out of eight more tram lines over 150 miles with 380 tram stops over the next twenty years and costing £15 BILLION (Jan 2020 figure when it was announced by Andy Street's team).
• Since 1981, when it all started, hundreds of millions of pounds in both price and weight of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been squandered on replacing perfectly good buses and trains with trams.  A paltry 23 Kms in 42 years of effort!
• Those buses and trains should have been electrified but, instead this mad, mad world we live in went for rebuilding the tram network (obliterated only 20 years previously) on what was left of the destroyed railway network, to also destroy even more of that!
• Hence, the UK's very last mothballed but virtually ready built, principal mainline railway "of national strategic significance"
   "of national strategic significance".pdf
   has gone for ever because nearly everyone wanted the 11 Kms Dudley Tram to rush Sandwell and Dudley residents on the former mainline railway to Merry Hill to shop.
• All they had to do was to give us electric buses between Dudley town centre and Merry Heaven.  From its opening, there has always been diesel buses between the two bus stations.  All they had to do was to make them electric and not to bother with the highly expensive, in climate/resources and price, railway tracks for the flash "bus on rails" to run on!
• Just because something is public transport - like constructing then going on High Scam 2 and flying - does not make it sensible or right in the light of our totally unsustainable lifestyles.  How we all adore speed instead of sense, choosing style over substance and vanity of vanities!
• Under the Victorians, tramways were turned into railways.  In our so,so sophisticated, modern, highly intelligent age, we turn our railways into tramways.  We're just too clever by half!

Such is the seriousness of our plight and the accelerated worsening of our predicament from tram expansion, for the first time ever in any of the seven councils since 1981, there should be a discussion, debate, vote amongst the full elected members of the Climate Change Select Committee over this suggestion.  Edinburgh City Council did so, twice (opposed by the Conservative Group because "the money could be better spent") before building their two tramways.

As was wanted by one train operating company (toc) when all the contracts were up for grabs last decade, Jewellery line trains from the two Brum stations must reverse out of Stourbridge Junction station to use the Black Country freight line to meet the trams at Cinder Bank roundabout where the tramway must end.  An electric bus can take passengers from Brierley Hill transport interchange on the railway into Merry Hill.  For 100 years the Victorians and Edwardians ran passengers and goods trains on the same lines.

MAP to help you see what I mean:

 Railfuture's full map.pdf

I will send this suggestion to the committee members and to the two Cabinet members who attend as observers.  But do any of you have any doubts over this idea, please?  Or, does anyone like it?  And these nine action points from the W Mids Climate Coalition that was none of my doing but I so like.  What do you think?:

 Nine Action Points from W Mids Climate Coalitio...

See you on Thursday

15 January 2010: Govt urged to make swift decision over Metro

http://www.birminghampost.net/dailybulletin/news2/2010/01/13/govt-urged-to-make-swift-decision-over-metro-65233-25596792

"The head of Birmingham’s transport authority has urged ministers to make a swift decision about plans for a new £55 million tram system in Birmingham city centre."

Not lording it over but simply the PR man!

15 June 2022

Dear Bob

You stopped me when you thought that I was talking about transport on a retrofit Zoom.  Fair enough but this was what I wanted to say and I think it needs to be said as clarification and correction.  There was a discussion about the WMCC and the WMCA that I was responding to.

As you know, the WMCC councillors were elected and it was they who approved the Metro project in 1981.  At one time, if I remember correctly, it was for 200 Kms by the year 2000.  Not the WMCA but Andy Street is elected and it was he who published in Jan 2020 his £15 billion tram scheme of 8 lines and 150 miles.  He was re-elected with that intention in his manifesto.  With both the CC and the CA there has never been a single debate in any council chamber, although I cannot be 100% sure about that in the 1980s but, I very much doubt if there was any vote in the 80s.

Andy's powers, from what I have read, do not include lording it over the seven district council leaders but to be their mouthpiece and representative and public relations man.  Hence, there needs to be a fair process of discussion, then debate, followed by a vote to determine councillors' wishes. 

Tens of millions are now being spent on trams when that money could be used for retrofitting - urgently. Or, to help with fuel/food bills when many are suffering from inflation and the fuel and cost of living crises, especially those on UC.  Therefore, Metro is immoral, socially unjust and is the exact wrong thing to do to build an eco-socialist society!

Transport money is the key to accelerating retrofitting.  And free solar electricity from your roof, not solar farms, must be emphasised because it is so urgent to get electricity without using oil and gas from Russia that is our main weapon to punish them and, to try and reign them in.  Rather than using violence and certainly not to widen this disgraceful war.

One thing leads to another!

Best wishes

Nine Action Points

Nine Action Points

These actions were created by W Mids Climate Coalition to lobby the West Mids CA in support of a zero-carbon region by 2030.
 
RETROFIT BUILDINGS. Domestic insulation and heating programs need to be massively accelerated. This is a rapid way to reduce carbon emissions and save households money on their heating and energy bills. The WMCA should immediately publish and implement a comprehensive plan for the retrofitting of housing in the WMCA constituencies with the highest levels of fuel poverty revealed in a new league table from the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, based on Government figures.
FARE FREE PUBLIC TRANSPORT. Transport for West Midlands should follow the lead being given by Swansea, Newport, and Herefordshire by setting up free public transport schemes. A feasibility study into the economic, social, and environmental benefits of FFPT for the West Midlands should start work now. The WMCA should bring the region's buses back into public control, following the example of Greater Manchester, as a step towards FFPT. 
END SUPPORT FOR HS2. Apart from the environmental devastation it is causing, HS2 is vastly expensive. The money should be used instead for big investments in local and regional public transport. The current business model of the HS2 project is to increase economic growth and consumerism, however this will contribute to planetary destruction, and is not something we need more of.
DIVEST THE WEST MIDLANDS PENSION FUND FROM FOSSIL FUEL INVESTMENT. Pension funds investing in fossil fuels are contributing directly to uncontrolled global warming and in support of a sustainable future for all should invest instead in green renewables. 
END THE INCINERATION OF WASTE. The continuation of waste incineration is an environmental crime. Plans should be made immediately to increase recycling (including food waste) and to transition to ecologically sustainable degradation.
CURB AVIATION. The WMCA should encourage its residents to limit the excessive use of environmentally damaging national and international flights (pending the development of zero carbon planes) to one return flight every two or three years. 
TEACH THE CHILDREN. Local authorities within the WMCA area should actively promote proper climate and environmental studies in all schools for all children and young people, appropriate to their age.
PAUSE TRAM DEVELOPMENT. Trams are more accessible than buses and trains for disabled people and prams, but they are also hugely expensive to build and emit a large amount of carbon dioxide from cement and steel in their construction. New growth of this network should be paused, and the money diverted into upgrading the current regional public transport system, including the opening of new routes.
BUILDING A WORKFORCE FOR THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY. The WMCA should use its resources to collaborate with the region’s trade unions, FE colleges, universities, and employers to create and implement a long-term strategy for the creation of green jobs and a just transition for workers in high carbon workplaces as they decline.

The 10th action point from me is:

STOP multi-modal, multi-mixed-up transport of different modes as they are giving to us, according to one email I had from Andy Street, ie HR, LR, VLR, ULR, Sprint and regular buses.  Make every bus and every bus stop as welcoming to every fossil-fuel free, 4-wheel user as trams.  Andy Street's Jan 2020, 20 year, £15 BILLION plan for mainly 150 miles of trams must go to the many who need help with paying their bills.

Twitter to W Mids Metro

I love trams because they look great, glitzy and glamorous. The problem is that for all their attraction, we now have a slower and worse journey into the city centre. We either have to change and wait for the tram or stay on the bus and have a longer and slower ride. This is not progress!

5 Clever Tricks

1. Why is it that for decades our political leaders and transport experts are so useless that they dismantled our extensive tram network?
2. Their next clever trick was/is to rebuild the tram network using the railway  network, of all things!
3. At the same time, idiocy no 3 is still to think that homes, shops and offices are meant to run down railway lines!!
4. Today, £35 m is to be spent to build an innovation centre on the only feasible site for the Dudley Castle Hill railway station. This, on the UK's only mothballed and easily reinstated mainline railway.
5. But it's being turned into a piddling little shuttle tram line! THIS IS SUCH STUPIDITY THAT WE NEED THE EU TO BAIL US OUT!

Donald Tusk on his special place

There is a special place in heaven for all those who repent.  Especially, those bright sparks at transport HQ + every cllr, MP, MEP and one Metro Mayor who all think that Metro trams are the silver bullet to solve our road and railway congestion problems in Brum and in Dudley (rundown) town centre. Their sketch of a plan features the second most expensive transport mode after HS2. Tram extensions are up to 3 times more expensive, per Km than building a 6 lane motorway. All this to supplant existing buses and trains. Brexit just can't compete with this idiocy!

Brexit is costing us billions and ratcheting up fossil fuel use at the very time when we should be reversing this ecocidal behaviour.  Even more is being spent on vanity, prestigious projects like HS2 (£55.7 billion) and £1.41 billion, for installation alone, on replacing only a few buses and trains with trams at £3 m each.  This is ecocidal idiocy.  Retrenchment is urgent out of self interest, alone.  That means trains and stations, urgently, on the 106 Kms of surviving train lines.  Fareless, electric buses on 100% dedicated bus lanes with traffic light priority for them, not commuter cars.  SCRAP £112 m ​spending on ​SPRINT buses​ for the few​, too.  Put the money into existing buses​ for all​.​  BUS FIRST, NOT CARS or, trams for the lucky few.​

A sea change in social attitudes is urgent to free up road space for essential users, by commuters using fareless buses, trains on train lines, biking and walking.  Give businesses less congested roads to cut their fossil fuel use.

Moral choices are vital; not vanity choices - HS2, Metro and Sprint - that entrench us in enhancing the natural, protective greenhouse layer.

READ today's IPPR report on reducing our over consumption, over-fishing, decarbonising our economy, carbon neutral homes, carbon sequestration, the impact of human climate change and the loss of life giving habitats on the planet.  Halve our emissions by 2030.  "We have to do multiple things simultaneously in an integrated way ... working together."  ('Today' on Radio 4, 12 Feb 2019)

Decision makers can be influenced!

Many thanks, Pam.  Much appreciated.  You are quite right, of course.

This WOM business seems to have been resurrected by Maria who was on TV last week, I think!

Her address is  mcadmin@midlandsconnect.uk

She is another of the transport bosses who are all stuck fast in the grossly extravagant and irresponsible tram rut of putting this "bus on rails" on a half finished mainline "railway of national strategic significance", instead of doing the bleeding obvious!

Other addresses are here:​

 May 2018 A5 flyer - double sided

​

Please flood them with e-mails just saying, perhaps, those five words: 'WESTERN BYPASS RAILWAY BEFORE tramway or motorway'.  Or, whatever you want to say but, say 'Yes' to something better, so as not to appear negative.  Thanks!

Pam's "decision makers" can be moved/changed.  We can change what seems inevitable eg:

1. In the 1990s, we stopped both the 16 Kms KBH and the 87 Kms WOM in their tracks!  That was a huge victory.
2. 2015 decision to put trains not trams, after all, on the 9 Kms Camp Hill railway in Brum.
3. 2016 decision for train operating companies to bid for the new franchise by putting forward a proposed passenger service on the half used 120 Kms Black Country Railway.
4. 2017 decision to put trains on our main line railway from Stourbridge Junction to Canal Street tram stop at Hart's Hill.  This was a step in the right direction but needs to go all the way to Burton on Trent, of course.
5. A paper decision in a letter to me on 8 September 2000 to get the freight and passenger trains back but, the very costly "bus on rails" trams must be done first - you pay twice to get what you say you really want all along - a proper railway passenger service!
6. The decision to put the Very Light Rail test track on the railway from Dudley Castle Hill to Dudley Port was reversed in 2015 or 2016.  It now goes in the opposite direction.  However, still, on a nationally important railway!!
7. 8 March 2018 letter, Network Fail and the DfT finally conceded that our railway is "of national strategic significance".
8. More recorded here:​
   
    10 quotes: Bring the ghost of Queen Victoria ba...
   ​

MANY THANKS TO YOU ALL.  PEOPLE POWER; PEOPLE PRESSURE; PEOPLE PREVAIL!

Tim

My scathing denunciation of UNUSED, urban rail lines!!

End 34 years of apathy, drift, indecision, fudging and failure over Midland Metro trams.

You wanted a dozen tram lines throughout the West Midlands.

They have NOT been built - anywhere!

One tram line, on almost all of a passenger rail line that you should never have closed, is very poor performance.

GET A GRIP AND RAISE YOUR GAME, LEADERS.

Reject today's report for a review of Metro - more time wasting.

STOP wasting our taxes.

Instruct your officers to scrap Metro and to work on URGENTLY re-opening our urban passenger rail lines and rebuilding the stations.

STAND UP to Network Rail and order them to co-operate with you.

Send a delegation to see George Osborne and Patrick McLoughlin to get them to make the funds available for something worthwhile, at long last:

45 MILES OF UNUSED OR UNDERUSED DOUBLE TRACK RAIL LINES IN BIRMINGHAM AND THE BLACK COUNTRY MUST BE FULLY USED - for commuters and inter-city passengers.

GOOD NEWS: Public transport is looking up. We have a new Vision of the future!

"the refreshed rapid transit proposals": -

• All our West Midland councillors are now ambitious for "public transport connectivity" (report on website http://www.wmita.org.uk/media/1296/item-11-black-country-rapid-transit-review.pdf)
• To this end, they formed themselves into the West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority last year.
• This year, if they approve a report on WEDNESDAY 28 JANUARY, the seven leaders will form a steering group to review snail-like progress, since 1980, on getting a comprehensive network of trams across the West Midlands.
• In 34 years of fruitless endeavour, one line from Wolverhampton to Birmingham has been achieved when the Birmingham city centre extension is finally opened to New Street Station - THIS YEAR.  Praise be!
• The late arrival of the trams has been cleverly designed to coincide with the £600 million cosmetic refurbishment of New Street that is designed 'to enhance the passenger experience' as they wait for their (very, very occasional) delayed or cancelled train or tram.
• Not content with their lack of success over light rail Metro, our leaders are now wanting VERY light rail while not abandoning light rail Metro on the same one mile line that for 100 years had passenger trains on the Oxford, Worcester, Wolverhampton Railway Company line that took hundreds of thousands of passengers to Birkenhead and the NW.  This was a journey that was considerably longer than the one mile that is their medium to long term ambition, now.
• Umpteen reports, studies and plans are sweated over, poured over and finally produced.  But to what effect?
• NO!  That's not fair.  We have had 50 years of ghost trains on 45 miles of our unused or grossly underused double track freight lines - all from our Integrated (no less) Transport Authority.  Extraordinary performance!