Bristol Underground System proposals - merged posts

[whole diary]

[TonyK]

Underground Bristol is, of course, full of old mine shafts, with the tunnels from the East Bristol and South Bristol coalfields meeting right under Temple Meads station. That should offer both opportunities and challenges for an underground system to be developed.

The two coalfields never quite met, I am told, but it was close. The tunnels will be of little benefit to any putative underground system. Bristol lost out to South Wales because the coal was in such small seams comparatively, and a lot more dross had to come to the surface with it. It also wasn't as good coal.

I would think that the main problem will come when the boring machines hit patches of fossilised bats and newts.

[Robin Summerhill]

I would think that the main problem will come when the boring machines hit patches of fossilised bats and newts.

The problems will come when they hit the first rills (drainage channels) that have been happily draining water away from where the coal faces were for the last 500 years, and nobody will know about them until the borings get flooded...

Perhaps we should dig up Marc Brunel - he had a few water breakthroughs on the Thames tunnel.

[TonyK]

The problems will come when they hit the first rills (drainage channels) that have been happily draining water away from where the coal faces were for the last 500 years, and nobody will know about them until the borings get flooded...

Perhaps we should dig up Marc Brunel - he had a few water breakthroughs on the Thames tunnel.

It wouldn't be without precedent, with the Severn Tunnel being at the extreme end of the examples in Britain. Work on the big long sewer from Hanham to Avonmouth encountered quite a few springs and underground waterways. A friend who plastered my walls in the house we bought in 1985 had worked on it, and was briefly famous in an anonymous sort of way when the tunnel he was digging broke through into a shaft outside the then HTV studios, and his was the hand that shook the hand of the waiting reporter. You don't get telly like that any more. A grout made of mainly power station fly ash, and costing ten times the price of normal grout, was used because it would go off under water if need be. They were not so deep in places - a hundred feet or more below Totterdown, but in Hill Avenue by Victoria Park, they started to find bricks dropping from the foundations of the houses above. Nobody above knew, and the houses were left left much stronger than when they were thrown up.

All of which beggars the question as to why tunneling should be such a problem or so expensive, if Wessex Water were able to drill something big enough to drive a Mini through with little disruption, and in a short timescale.

[infoman]

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/construction-bristols-mass-transit-system-6916221?utm_source=bristol_live_newsletter&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter2&utm_medium=email

[DaveHarries]

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/construction-bristols-mass-transit-system-6916221?utm_source=bristol_live_newsletter&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter2&utm_medium=email

I think this will happen first.


Dave

[johnneyw]

More doubt being cast on the future of the mass transit system in Bristol 24/7 from the deputy mayor who places the blame at WECA^» (West of England Combined Authority - about)'s door.

https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/funding-for-bristols-mass-transit-system-at-risk/

[Red Squirrel]

Transport is WECA^» (West of England Combined Authority - about)’s responsibility. Bristol City Council was never going to build a public transport system on its own, and WECA has never been anything other than lukewarm about an underground. So what is the point of this story, and who benefits from the outrage it seeks to create?

[Bmblbzzz]

Outrage has, unfortunately, become an end in its own right for many media outlets.

[infoman]

https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/underground-railway-network-transformational-bristol/?utm_source=Bristol24%2F7&utm_campaign=b446299960-bristol247_newsletter_250822&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_67a9a4e1bd-b446299960-38758697&ct=t(B247_newsletter_250822)&mc_cid=b446299960&mc_eid=86ae7efe71

[johnneyw]

The article, like those before, is light on detail but I'm guessing that it's intention is to keep the issue in the public eye rather than providing anything more specific. 
There still seems to be discussion regarding and underground system versus a "mass transit" system.  If the term "mass transit" in reality is "constructive ambiguity" parlance for "bus system" then perhaps Bristol could sell itself as a late C20th public transport theme park.

[Bmblbzzz]

perhaps Bristol could sell itself as a late C20th public transport theme park.

Excellent idea! But not limited to the late C20th. We've got buses, double and single decker, running on diesel, methane, CNG^▸ (Compressed Natural Gas) and electricity. We've got ferries. We've got urban trains. We've got electric scooters and bikes. We've got an underground railway which hasn't run for almost 90 years and probably has a claim to be the world's shortest underground rail system. We've got trams, or at least tram sheds. And we've got plans for every other system you could possibly imagine as well as some you couldn't!

[Red Squirrel]

This is the Bristol Mayor's press release:

Mass transit: Bristol’s underground studies

The mass transit plan, including going underground, is Bristol and our wider region’s only real option for a future transport system that works. Bristol has been left behind on transport while all other big British cities have built and modernised mass transit: our city has delivered nothing in recent decades.

Those of us old enough can remember the endless announcements for tram lines, the announcements of transport systems of the future, and political promises that offered 21st century travel options. The reality is nothing was delivered and Bristol commuters continue to crawl.

We have made real progress since first announcing our aspirational plans, and remain unapologetic about our ambition for Bristol. There is no time to fail and no time to delay.

Today, ahead of the Strategic Outline Business Case and a West of England Combined Authority consultation on options, we’re publishing the executive summaries of two major studies into the potential of mass transit for our city and region. The next stop on our journey to mass transit follows on from us securing further funding in February for more studies to continue building the detailed case for mass transit in Bristol.

The first study, by CH2M and Steer Davies Gleave, agreed that the idea was worth pursuing. It said that an underground system moving around 3,000 passengers per hour per direction would be deliverable. For a growing city of 472,000 people, with 1 million people here during the work and school day, this is not at all a big ask. We should rise to the scale of the challenges we face, not limit ourselves with the failed thinking of previous administrations.

The second study, by Jacobs and Steer, said that an underground is a reasonable prospect, which could deliver value for money and “transformational” economic benefits for the city and region. It emphasised that an underground, unlike un-deliverable above-ground trams which councillors forewent in the early 2000s, would avoid the disruption and destruction of having to knock down one side of buildings along key yet narrow arterial routes like Church Road or Gloucester Road.

These expert studies demonstrate that delivering an underground transport system for Bristol isn’t some grand design. It’s us punching at, not above, our weight, in line with Newcastle, Liverpool, and Glasgow. We’re a core city, and a global city, not a village. We need a modern, low carbon transport system, yesterday.

159 years after London opened the world’s first underground, they’re still expanding its network through the £19 billion Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) across the capital. It’s more than time for Bristol and the West to get our fair share too.

We are part of the combined authority and are working with Metro Mayor Dan Norris and his team, as well as the leaders of South Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset to deliver a genuine transformation of our transport.

We must keep this project on the rails and finally transform the way we travel in and around our city.

Source: Mayor of Bristol

You can link directly to the Executive Summary here: https://thebristolmayor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Combined-exec-summaries.pdf

[grahame]

perhaps Bristol could sell itself as a late C20th public transport theme park.

Excellent idea! But not limited to the late C20th. We've got ...

Do we also have guided buses ... dockside railway ... vertical public transport (lift) in Trenchard Street car park to take you up to Park Row.  Avon Valley Railway.  Concorde to see at Filton, and a working airport on the top of the hill somewhere to the south of the city.

[Bmblbzzz]

And infinite continuous moving stairways in every shopping centre!

[froome]

And a few backbreaking cobbled streets.

Step forward Wilder Street and the small section of road outside the public library, both of which I often have to cycle along.