Bristol connections: Metro, Bus Rapid Transit, PTE, ITA and local councils - discussion

[whole diary]

[Timmer]

I'm on business in Manchester next month so looked up transport from Piccadilly station to my hotel. The Metrolink tram system will virtually take me from door to door. Amazing how much Manchester's tram system has grown since it came into existance in 1992 with further expansion planned.

Then I think of Bristol, one of the most traffic polluted cities in Europe and what could have been if the Avon Metro had got the go ahead. Well done to all those in the eighties who blocked its every path. Look at the mess transport in Bristol is today with some pathetic BRT^▸ (Bus Rapid Transit) system about to blow a whole load of money that will do nothing to solve Bristol and the surrounding area's transport problems.

You are absolutely right trainer, look at the evidence from every city that has bought back trams.

[anthony215]

Your exactly right which is why other cities like Cardiff are looking at bringing back trams and there is a campaign to bring trams back to Swansea. Certainly trams back in Swansea would help cut the congestion especialy along Mumbles road

[TonyK]

Not fans, then, Timmer and Trainer? Nor am I. Reading The Post take on events, this awful scheme seems to be primarily a road-building project with a few buses chucked in to get the DafT to pay towards it.

Millions to be spent to ease traffic problems

PLANS to ease traffic congestion in South Gloucestershire have taken a step forward after councillors agreed to invest millions of pounds in transport.

The authority's policy and resources committee yesterday agreed to buy up any land not already under council ownership along the route of the flagship ^102m North Fringe to Hengrove rapid transit scheme.

This would include the ^29 million Stoke Gifford Link Road, which would run from Great Stoke Way on the northern side of the railway line near Bristol Parkway station and join up with the Avon Ring Road near the M32 roundabout.

Councillors also agreed to spend ^4 million on improving the Gipsy Patch and Filton A38 junctions.

Councillor Brian Allinson (Con, Stoke Gifford), who is the chairman of the planning, transport and strategic environment committee, said: "This is major financial commitment for the council and once again demonstrates our ongoing commitment to do what we can to tackle traffic congestion, promote public transport and improve air quality and journey times in and around our communities.

"The more land we can buy up now from willing landowners along the rapid transit route, including along the Stoke Gifford Transport Link road, the sooner that we can be ready to start construction work because we can minimise the amount of land that will be subject to the lengthy compulsory purchase process."

When I first read anything of what was Bust Rabid Transit, but is now MetNo Bus, it was scheduled for completion in 2015. The BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) report says work will start in 2015, and Cllr Allinson says that is only if West of England Partnership do not have to start the "lengthy" compulsory purchase process. The result of the Planning Inquiry into the central part has been put on hold until the outcome of the Mayoral review of the route (he may yet tell them to f@%k off), and there will no doubt be further PIs into other parts of this lame duck project with virtually zero public credibility.

So first bus to run in 2019?

Whilst in Manchester, Timmer, if you get a chance, take the tram to Oldham. Get off at the temporary Mumps stop, and walk back through the town centre route, currently under construction, to get an idea of the level of disruption caused by building a tram route. Worth it in the end, though.

[chuffed]

I too am a great fan of trams .....but playing devils advocate for a moment, it would appear that the Edinburgh, ( sssh not so loud !) tram system will have to win over an awful lot of canny Scots with an eye watering amount of money  having being wasted . I think it turned out to be cheaper to go ahead than scrap the scheme ! When I was up there a couple of years there was a huge  NO campaign in full swing with Princes Street about to be dug up yet again ! At least it now looks it will be running a full system rather than a curtailed one, going from nowhere in particular to somewhere else out in the sticks.

[stuving]

Yes, there is a warning there. If you think your local council would struggle to install a toy tram system in their back bedroom, the scope for messing things up with a real one is huge. So in Edinburgh they did get all the dug-up streets, punctuated by long delays in the middle for legal disputes, massive cost overruns, and now only half a system (to the airport, but not Leith).

In most places people do, on the whole, get to like their trams. It will be interesting to see how many in Edinburgh become fans of theirs.

[trainer]

Edinburgh is a salutary warning to get the project management right, not to abandon light rail as a solution to city transport needs.

[TonyK]

The Manchester Metrolink expansion illustrates that point very well. Extending the system to Oldham and Rochdale meant ripping up the heavy rail line from Victoria. For three years, there was no rail service, and because of problems with meshing the brand new tram management system with the older system, there were substantial delays. The Manchester Evening News and the Oldham Evening Chronicle carried a number of disaster stories, and the comments from readers dripped with vitriol. All that stopped on 13 June last year, when the first tram ran. It stopped at the first stop outside of the depot around 5.10am, to be met by half a dozen enthusiasts, who had deciphered the raw timetable date, and figured it out. It was a busy tram  by the time it got halfway to Oldham. There remains some disgruntlement over the disruption through the town centres in both Oldham and Rochdale as work continues on street-running sections, but the service is heavily used with 5 trams hourly.

Edinburgh suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous political fortune. At the time their government was Labour controlled, and seemed unconcerned by costs of anything, as the Scottish Parliament building itself showed. The SNP was in opposition, and was fiercely vocal against the tram plans. The other problems, with disputes with contractors and suppliers, arose against the backdrop of this antipathy. As trainer says, project management was well off the radar.Then the SNP won the election, tried to scrap it, but as chuffed said, it proved cheaper to carry on.

In Bristol, we have a bit of a puzzling situation. Even BRT^▸ (Bus Rapid Transit)'s mother thinks it's ugly. It has more knockers than the Sun. Supporters, when they can be found, are usually less than effusive with their praise, calling it things like "Not ideal, but better than nothing". The Mayor is against it, as are the Greens. The Lib Dems championed it, but have just had a kicking at the polls. Labour are for it, even  though their transport expert and soon to be cabinet member, Mark Bradshaw, called it a lame duck. The people of the city either don't know, don't care, or don't like, although when they realise how it will affect  their district, they rise up in arms, and yet debate is muted. There's more to this than meets the eye...

[Red Squirrel]

You could almost forgive Bristolians for thinking they could safely ignore the Bonkers Rusty Transit on the basis that it will never happen. Let's face it, every major (and almost every minor) transport initiative in Bristol has gone the way of the pear since the Outer Circuit Road died the death in the late 70's. Welcome to Bristol - the city where there's always something going on, but nothing ever happens.

I think it's fair to say most Bristolians feel almost pathetically disempowered; in part this is due to our own squabbling representatives (and I'm starting to lose faith in the transformative power of red trousers) but it is also, as ever, related to the ability of the Dibleys to scupper anything that crosses the parish boundary - which means they can scupper everything.

[TonyK]

In fairness to our current "leaders", it was probably the development of Bristol over the years that gets in the way. The original settlement was on the north side of the Avon, where Bristol Bridge is now, and where the Frome met the Avon prior to 1245, when King John ordered it to be moved to alleviate silting problems. Redcliffe, on the other side, was a port independent of Bristol, whose people resented having to help dig the new course of the Frome. Bristol Castle was to the north, and most development took place on that side until Victorian times. You will find Georgian, Regency, and even older buildings north of the river, but with the exception of St Mary Redcliffe, very little south. By Victoria's day, we also had the New Cut, leaving Bristol with two rivers separating north from south, with only a few crossing points. It is the lack of crossing points that concentrates traffic where it does, and proposals for new crossings that cause the most trouble. Prince Street bridge is clearly unusable by heavy traffic in its current form. It is historic, and the plans to adapt it for BRT^▸ (Bus Rapid Transit) use are at the root of the antipathy.

A better way would be to add a road to an existing bridge, such as Bedminster Bridge, as bus only, but that would lead to narrow roads through Bemmy, as the original BRT route did also. Using the rail corridors for expansion of people movement thus makes perfect sense, which is why it hasn't been considered this time. There are obvious reasons why cities tend to grow beside rivers, and this problem is not unique to Bristol. Others have found a way, we need one too.

[trainer]

Sheffield has many hills that make Park Street look like mole hills (only slight exaggeration) and a climate most Bristolians couldn't cope with (I've lived in both cities), Newcastle metropolitan area has a substantial river to traverse, Nottingham has a historic market place, Manchester has shopping streets similar to Bristol.  They have all overcome the physical obstacles to provide modern light rail systems.  Sadly, FourTrack and Red S are right on pointing out the fractured local authority arrangements we have around Bristol (I personally worked for and had no problem with Avon, but that argument's done and dusted) and the failure to provide an overarching regional transport planning authority just means squabbles rather than heads knocked together to find solutions. 

However, I must point out as a North Somerset resident, although our council is pretty ropey when it comes to strategy (being mainly free-market oriented) I observe little stability in Bristol local politics and a constantly shifting point of view when it comes to long term planning.

[TonyK]

However, I must point out as a North Somerset resident, although our council is pretty ropey when it comes to strategy (being mainly free-market oriented) I observe little stability in Bristol local politics and a constantly shifting point of view when it comes to long term planning.

Harsh words, trainer, but by no means unfair. Change is afoot. The current political model in Bristol has one third of the council seats coming up for election in each of three years, with the fourth year lying fallow. I think that as a way of keeping things modern, it is based on mediaeval crop rotation techniques. This changes as soon as 2016, as the city moves to an all-out election every 4 years. That should give a period of stability, which may or may not be a good thing. We could be saddled with no overall control, and 4 years of horse trading, we could get a Mayor of one colour and a council of another, and endure a French style cohabitation, or we could end up with four strong councils who decide that transport is too important to be subject to overt political control, and should be farmed out to an ITA^▸ (Integrated Transport Authority).

Time will tell. Bristol can adapt to anything, except change.

[Red Squirrel]

Just read my FOSBR^▸ (Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways) Whitsun Newsletter.

I was at first bemused, then amused, by their suggestion therein that we should be looking to double capacity between Bristol and Bath by...

...repoening the Somerset and Dorset line to Bath... ...An emotive issue demonstrated by the protests against its use as part of the Bristol Rapid Transport.

Even with these clues it took me a while to work out that they refer to those parts of the Somerset and Dorset which most of us would describe as the Midland Main Line* and the Mangotsfield - Bath branch.

I'm sure people must have looked at this route in recent years, but with the way things are going it may not be completely out of the question to start thinking about its advantages again - it would increase capacity to both Bath and, by adding the line north of Mangotsfield, the North; it would provide local services to east Bristol (Fishponds, Staple Hill and Mangotsfield), and provide a good diversionary route. The fact the northbound connection bypasses Parkway and the London-South Wales route could be an advantage for freight too.

The FOSBR newsletter also points out that...

If the Scots can reopen the Waverly line to Galashiels then anything is possible

I've been following this project and it certainly opens the mind to what is possible - houses built on the trackbed have been demolished, sections of the line have been rerouted to negotiate new roads, and a cycle track is being diverted. All these things would be required to reopen the Midland route to Bath, but the precedent has been set.

Speaking as a cyclist, I objected very much to the proposal to build a concrete busway along this route, but I would very strongly support any plan to re-lay the rails. I wonder how the other users of the railway path would take it?

*Edit: From my Bristolian perpective, it's the Midland Main Line. I am aware that there is another line somewhere up north** that also goes by that name. Would it have been less ambiguous if I'd called it the Bristol & Gloucester?
**From my Bristolian prespective, 'up north' is anywhere north of Engine Shed Junction.

[JayMac]

Rails relaid from Yate through Westerleigh to Bath? With similar from St Philips to Mangotsfield (handy triangular junction there, largely untouched) and perhaps even Clay Hill to Clifton Down station and onward. Could all be done on a light rail/tram basis.

Obviously some back gardens in the Fishponds Road/Muller Road area would be encroached upon and those upstarts at the Avon Valley Railway would need buying off, as well as Sustrans giving up their Bristol and Bath Railway Path. But with the political will it is possible. Anything is possible.

In the meantime, I'll keep taking the medication....

[anthony215]

Rails relaid from Yate through Westerleigh to Bath? With similar from St Philips to Mangotsfield (handy triangular junction there, largely untouched) and perhaps even Clay Hill to Clifton Down station and onward. Could all be done on a light rail/tram basis.

Obviously some back gardens in the Fishponds Road/Muller Road area would be encroached upon and those upstarts at the Avon Valley Railway would need buying off, as well as Sustrans giving up their Bristol and Bath Railway Path. But with the political will it is possible. Anything is possible.

In the meantime, I'll keep taking the medication....

Certainly would be nice for Bristol if these proposals do happen.
I wonder has somebody looked at some of the proposals for tram-train operations around Swansea and Cardiff and decided bristol should get in on the act.

Of course that could save some money if all three cities had the systems open around the same time and teh rolling stock was the same.

Anyone goit a few ^billion lying around they want to invest : )

[TonyK]

Anyone got a few ^billion lying around they want to invest : )

No, sadly. Tram-train is a brilliant idea imho, though, because it can open long continuous journey paths using short on-street connections to underused rail lines. Bristol's railway is far from under used, but with those two extra tracks to Filton Bank, so much could be possible.

If anyone official is reading this, I am available to help with planning such a system, and have my own pencil sharpener.