Bristol Underground

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Sounds like a whole lot of money down the drain ...

Until I saw the context of the post, I thought we were headed for Waterloo and City improvements ...

[Red Squirrel]

Bristol will have a £4bn underground rail network 'within 10 years', says Mayor Marvin Rees

Three lines would connect city centre to Bristol Airport, Emersons Green and Aztec West to the city centre.

Bristol’s elected Mayor has said the city will have its own underground rail system “within 10 years”.

The three-line network would connect Bristol Airport with the city centre and also include lines through the north and east fringes of the city.

Mayor Marvin Rees flew to China on Tuesday, December 5 in a bid to secure private funding for the multi-billion pound London-style system and other city projects.

The Bristol Metro would reportedly cost £4 billion – a substantial portion of the £8.9 billion transport vision drawn up for the Bristol region.



Full article: Bristol Post

[SandTEngineer]

Blimey, is it the 1st April already.......

[simonw]

I am afraid I am not convinced with this plan.

Much better to complete MetroWest, add a few more train lines, add a few trams lines, integrate bus services with MetroWest and trams.

Finally, commit to a fixed annual budget for many years to upgrade all main roads to have separate cycle lines.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Ah, but you're not Marvin Rees.  He has his own, quite different, visions of what transport provision could look like in Bristol in ten years.

His term of office is four years, from May 2016.  So, if / when his grandiose plans go pear-shaped, he'll be well out of it by then.

[simonw]

True, but I still think an annual budget on £50-100M a year for five years would deliver MetroWest phases 1|2|3, enhance Metrobus to a point where it might be helpful (and not a distraction), add a few tram lines and improve cycle lanes (and not narrow strips along busy roads).

Creating a Bradley Stoke - Southmead - Bristol Temple Meads underground line sounds wonderful, but I am not convinced Bristol is big enough for a Metro system. A Glasgow style subway loop, under the City Centre, may work well in Bristol provided it links well with existing rail lines. Also, short runs of 'subway lines' between MetroWest stations may also work, but a full Undergound system with a population of about 1M between Bristol, South Glouc and BaNES is probably too much.

[Red Squirrel]

True, but I still think an annual budget on £50-100M a year for five years would deliver MetroWest phases 1|2|3, enhance Metrobus to a point where it might be helpful (and not a distraction), add a few tram lines and improve cycle lanes (and not narrow strips along busy roads).

Creating a Bradley Stoke - Southmead - Bristol Temple Meads underground line sounds wonderful, but I am not convinced Bristol is big enough for a Metro system. A Glasgow style subway loop, under the City Centre, may work well in Bristol provided it links well with existing rail lines. Also, short runs of 'subway lines' between MetroWest stations may also work, but a full Undergound system with a population of about 1M between Bristol, South Glouc and BaNES is probably too much.

I like the way you toss the words 'add a few tram lines' into the middle of a sentence  . It is pretty inconceivable that there will ever be an overground light rail solution for North and North-West Bristol, because Gloucester Road and Whiteladies are too narrow. 

It's a crude measure, but London Underground's 400km of routes serve about 9 million people. Marvin's 'plans' have 40km of track serving 1 million. On that basis, it doesn't look completely mad, but I won't hold my breath.

[Bmblbzzz]

It took about 65 years for Warsaw (pop. ~2 million) to get a metro, from first ideas to the first line opening (2000).

[martyjon]

The Burgermasters of Bristol are well adept at throwing taxpayers money at consultants to produce this report or that report and then quietly secreting those reports to history in the basement of the central library on College Green.

With todays technology tunneling techniques being far superior to when much of Londons underground was built but the costs per mile would be far beyond the pockets of the treasury department of Bristol City Council.

As regards Central Government heaving some dosh Bristols way is a non starter as its not London and the home counties.

Whats happened to the areanal, supposedly George had the bulk of the funding in place ready to dig the first sod but was kicked out by the citizens and Marvin it seems has kicked that project into touch and is now trying to forge his own legacy for Bristol until he too gets the boot at the next mayoral elections and a new broom comes along with a stunning revelation to solve Bristols transport problems, a network of cable-cars quietly gliding above the main arterial roads of Bristol radiating out from the central area of the city.

[grahame]

... a network of cable-cars quietly gliding above the main arterial roads of Bristol radiating out from the central area of the city.

 ... many a true word spoken in jest.  Like Mexicable?


I think the Bath proposal for a cable car has fallen, and when we were in London the other week, we went to try the Emirates Line and found it shut because of high wind.

[Red Squirrel]

It took about 65 years for Warsaw (pop. ~2 million) to get a metro, from first ideas to the first line opening (2000).

I know, I know... sounds dizzyingly quick, doesn't it, compared to Portishead? But did they get the proper checks and balances that the GRIP^▸ (Guide to Railway Investment Projects) process could have delivered, given another half-century?

[TonyK]

Does any other city in the world have an underground bus route connecting stops some distance from the two busiest railway stations?

[simonw]

By adding a few tram lines, here are a few suggestions

• Bristol Parkway - Mall@Cribbs
• Southmead - Mall@Cribbs
• Bristol Airport - Temple Meads
• Bristol Centre loop

More seriously, why does no one suggest a MonoRail? They are a lot cheaper than undergrounds, and provided we accept MetroWest as the local transport backbone, MonoRail links could then be used to link disconnected communities and places of interest and work.

[Red Squirrel]

By adding a few tram lines, here are a few suggestions

• Bristol Parkway - Mall@Cribbs
• Southmead - Mall@Cribbs
• Bristol Airport - Temple Meads
• Bristol Centre loop

More seriously, why does no one suggest a MonoRail? They are a lot cheaper than undergrounds, and provided we accept MetroWest as the local transport backbone, MonoRail links could then be used to link disconnected communities and places of interest and work.

Several cities in the US have 'heritage' tram operations in their downtown areas, e.g. Portland:



Something like this could be pretty good for a loop round The Centre and up to Clifton, especially if it ran on batteries and avoided the issues of putting up OHLE in Bristol's nicest suburb. Other than that, I think any funder would be looking for a system rather than an assortment of point-to-point lines.

I'm not sure I understand the advantages of a monorail - assuming you mean something that runs on the surface, or elevated, then we're back to the problem of finding suitable routes. An underground doesn't have that problem to such a degree.

[stuving]

I'm not sure I understand the advantages of a monorail - assuming you mean something that runs on the surface, or elevated, then we're back to the problem of finding suitable routes. An underground doesn't have that problem to such a degree.

Indeed, just north from Portland, in Seattle, they have had a monorail for ages. When I was there in 2002 they were earnestly debating (as only Americans can earnestly debate) how to expand their urban transport network. The main choices were more monorails, light rail taking over mainline railways, or more buses based on a short tunnel in the centre (confusingly called "Seattle Metro"). In the end they didn't pick monorails, but extended their tunnel to form an underground light rail line (Link) across the whole urban centre, extended to SeaTac airport largely on viaduct. Knowing  how much Americans - even the barely American ones in Seattle - love public spending, that must prove something.