Artist’s impression of Bristol BRT Bus Rapid Transit
Campaigners fighting the proposed Bus Rapid Transit plans for Bristol have published a dossier of evidence that they claim shows the £200million project is “a massive mistake”.
A consultation for the South Bristol Link draws to a close a week on Friday, while plans for the North Bristol section – the North Fringe to Hengrove Package – continues until July 13.
A project spokesman has said the network would have “clear information, fast boarding and smartcard ticketing linking with wider bus and rail services, creating a new way of travelling and be a catalyst for transforming public transport travel across the West of England area”.
But the Stop BRT2 group says the public is not aware of what the transport plans would entail, and would reject it out of hand if they knew the facts.
“It is clear the Bristol public generally know nothing about BRT2 and as soon as they do, think it’s a crazy and a pointless waste of money,” said Pip Sheard, spokesperson for the group.
“Local councillors and particularly [council transport chief] Councillor Tim Kent have now had hundreds of emails opposing it. The public has a clearly stated and longstanding desire for transport money to be invested in trams and our undeveloped and neglected local rail network. And local people would like a real say – rather than simply being told they have to have BRT.
“It is now time for councillors to abandon BRT2 and to consider asking the Government for permission to spend the Government funding allocated to BRT on rail based rapid transit for the city instead.”
Members of the public have been invited to give their comments on the scheme online at www.travelwest.info. An exhibition of the plans will go on show at Bedminster Library on Thursday between 5pm and 8pm.
The one thing that is always missing when it comes to BRT is an explanation as to who are the passengers expected to be. BRT2 is basically an up dated version of the present P&Ride. Will the increase in passenger numbers, if any, justify the outlay. Who will take BRT from Hengrove to the northern fringe, when from my observations, most people get off at East Street or Broadmead. If the BRT South Bristol Link is so important, why such an infrequent service? The Airport Flyer will have a simpler route into Town, but not much good for local people unless you live near the station, as it will no longer go very near to where people live, although it seems the Flyer will be more frequent than all the other users put together. So can we have some answers please, or is it really a case of having it purely because we can.
Arry,
I wasn't decrying excessive spending. I was speculating whether people would be willing to have their council tax doubled if that meant we'd get a light rail system instead of BRT.
I don't think the Ashton Vale – Temple Meads BRT mimics an existing rail line. It takes people from Ashton Vale P+R to the city centre (not M-shed). I think there's also a case for a metro service from an Ashton station to Temple Meads or North Bristol, for a different group of people.
Alright, so you propose to do let normal busses take care of things. Smaller busses, higher frequency, deregulation.
Fair enough.
Personally, I don't think that'll make a huge difference. It won't provide an improvement in journey times. For that you do need new infrastructure, be it bus lanes, priority junctions, new bridges, or whatever. Smaller busses are generally perceived to be even less comfortable and shabbier than larger busses. That's just how it is. Thata's not how you're going to attract people to use public transport who currently aren't using it. Of course it's completely irrational, but that's how people are. They will be perfectly happy to hop on a tram, but would never even consider taking a bus running on the same route with the same frequency, for the same price.
Lastly – deregulation: this seems the most interesting point to me, since the general consensus of local transport policy makers seems to be shifting in the other direction, and not only for Busses, also the Bristol Metro (according to my understanding at least): increase regulation, set pricing or at least cap pricing, subsidise services to enable higher frequencies, pay for services that wouldn't run at all otherwise.
I don't see how deregulation can be squared with higher frequencies and smaller vehicles, that doesn't seem to add up economically, unless you're convinced that the increase in frequencies alone will attract so many new punters that it will pay for itself (seems unlikely to me, but perhaps you know of cases where that worked?).
> And your spend for just 3 BRT routes can build an entire
> metro rail system instead.
In other countries (Germany, say), sure. But not in the UK. I don't know why that is, but that's just how it is, unfortunately.
Tim
In your first post you decry excessive spending stating "Would anyone be willing to pay double council tax for the next 25-50 years? Everyone? "
Now you champion an Ashton Vale to (close to) Temple Meads BRT which you seem to admit is "shite" and will cost £50,000,000 and probably much more and will merely mimic an existing rail line but in a worse way.
Your sole reason for favouring BRT is to provide a short stop servive to mutiple points in the centre which a rail system cannot do. My proposal for that is you use Buses. Not multiple million pound, specialist engineered "rapid transit" buses. But just buses.
- Deregulate the service.
- Reduce the size of the buses and increase the frequency (not the opposite as proposed by BRT)
- run them on existing road, with routes which can be altered and adapted to meet demand and change
Capital spending cost – £0
And your spend for just 3 BRT routes can build an entire metro rail system instead.
Arry, it's not a matter of "favouring" BRT (over heavy rail, presumably?). Both are needed in some form, though not necessarily as suggested by the planners. Both solve different pieces of the transport jigsaw puzzle. It is of course perfectly legit to argue against the BRT plans. They are not great after all (understatement). But if you do that, you must also have a credible alternative to the 'city centre' part of the transport puzzle. It is the either-BRT-or-rail thing that I find unconvincing.
> I would call the M Shed "in the City Centre"
I would say it's just about borderline. It certainly serves some of the southern parts of the city centre. But it's too far from St. Augustine's Parade / Park Street / Cabot Circus / Castle Park, for example.
> Anyone wishing to travel from Ashton to the Centre
> would probably be happy with being dropped by the
> M Shed. Espeically if they are on rail and not stopped
> by road traffic.
It depends where they want to go. If it's raining heavily and they want to visit the Hippodrome or do some shopping in the centre, they probably wouldn't be too happy. If they were headed towards the Arnolfini, it would probably be ok.
You seem to be happy to just define the problem away and ignore the fact that heavy rail doesn't cover large parts of the centre where people actually want to go. This does not seem credible to me. (Note that this doesn't mean that BRT is actually needed or sound, I'm just commenting on the rail-will-solve-it-all attitude I seem to detect in some quarters).
> Anyone wishing to travel from Ashton to Temple Meads
> would prefer a train which actually takes them to the
> actual station
Fully agreed.
> Anyone wishing to travel from South to North Bristol
> would probably be happy that the rail line skirts the
> centre of town before heading East, North or
> North West. Rather than passes through the centre,
> getting clogged up in the traffic there.
Probably. Assuming they are lucky enough to live near a station, that is. I am, so it's all the same to me, but what about people in e.g. Knowle, Hengrove, Bishopsworth?
> There is no need for a tunnel. You have
> set up a strawman argument.
Of course, in a world where everyone from South Bristol just wants to travel to either Temple Meads or North Bristol, and vice versa, there is no such need.
If you want to actually serve the city centre (by heavy rail), that is the only way, however.
Note that this has no bearing on whether the BRT plans are shite or not. All I'm saying is that you can't serve the city centre with heavy rail, so heavy rail won't solve all problems. So in order to effectively argue against BRT, you need to (in my humble opinion, at least) come up with a non-heavy-rail based solution for city centre access that provides a credible alternative, instead of saying "just invest it all in local rail, that will sort it".
> I do not believe that any rational person
> favours the BRT.
I guess it depends what the alternatives are. (Again, I don't think heavy rail is a credible alternative, it's complementary). I believe the alternative is this or nothing happening for the next 10-15 years. (Other than local rail improvements, which will be happening independently in any case).
> It is simply a device to open up the greenbelt to
> development. It was designed to serve the 10,000
> new houses to be built on agricultural fields bought
> by property speculators. That is its sole purpose.
That is quite possible. I wouldn't know. Though I doubt you need BRT for that given that there's a railway line going right through it. Are you going to oppose the Bristol Metro scheme as well because it might serve an urban extension there (you were refering to the "Ashton Park" proposal I presume?)? Just look at the map at http://greaterbristolrail.com/vision/map-of-local… – notice that big gap between Parson Street and Nailsea? It doesn't feature a 'possible new station' dot yet of course, but it fits right in there, doesn't it? Coincidence?
Not that it has anything to do with BRT, but if I look at the satellite map on google maps it seems obvious to me that that area is going to be developed sooner or later, and given that it sits right between the A370, A38 and a major railway line, I'm not sure how much impact BRT will actually have on tht. The "link road" might make it more convenient to develop in a piece-meal fashion though. Last I checked local authorities weren't exactly keen though, and not because of lack of access.
Arry, it's hardly fair to call the South Bristol Link ( the bit that slices through the Greenbelt ) a BRT route. With little more than 3 buses an hour and bus lanes only at junctions, this is a new road which happens to be occasionally used by buses. Surely, at the end of the day, BRT should be measured by the number of people likely to use it, against the massive cost, much of which will be fall on the tax payers of Bristol. Personally, as someone who has lived in S/Bristol all their lives, I really don't see people giving up the excellent "showcase" bus which travels into the heart of their communities, for a new BRT that in most cases does not. The biggest people to gain from these schemes will be travellers using the Airport Flyer, commuters from North Somerset, and from South Glos. but it will be the tax payers of this city picking up most of the "tab".
arry – I'm actually well aware of all of those things, and I do also hope that Ashton station will be re-opened and that athe line to Portishead will be re-opened for passengers.
What I meant was simply that the existing (heavy) rail infrastructure can't serve the city centre, and there is little prospect of new (heavy) rail infrastructure such as a tunnel being built to serve the city centre. So the industrial museum / M-shed is as close to the city centre as it gets with (heavy) rail. Would you agree with that?
Next, I think there's no way you can tackle Bristol's transport problems without having a plan what to do with the city centre. How to connect the city centre to the rest of the city. If you like me assume that we will not see heavy rail going anywhere near the centre, nevermind right through it, then you have to ask what the alternatives are: it's plain old busses, some kind of special/superior/metro busses (like BRT), or light rail. For light rail there's simply no money, unless they're doing a really fantastic city deal with the government.
That doesn't mean rail improvements aren't important or are less important. It just means that heavy rail alone is not able to address a huge chunk of Bristol's transport woes.
Lastly, I don't have any particular opinion on the BRT routes chosen. I don't know if they make sense or not, or if there are better alternatives for some parts of some routes (like connecting the Long Ashton P+R to temple meads by heavy rail – but then how many of those people actually want to go to Temple Meads and not the centre?). I also hope the Bristol Metro plans take off. But one thing I do know is that most of the BRT routes at least pass through the city centre, and as such contribute something that heavy rail improvements simply can't do. The only question for me then is if it wouldn't be better to value-engineer the BRT system down to metro busses with smart ticketing and use the money saved for something else, be it a future tram, an arena, or to re-open a few local stations here and there.
I would call the M Shed "in the City Centre".
Anyone wishing to travel from Ashton to the Centre would probably be happy with being dropped by the M Shed. Espeically if they are on rail and not stopped by road traffic.
Anyone wishing to travel from Ashton to Temple Meads would prefer a train which actually takes them to the actual station rather than a bus which drops them off at a bus stop a several minutes walk away.
Anyone wishing to travel from South to North Bristol would probably be happy that the rail line skirts the centre of town before heading East, North or North West. Rather than passes through the centre, getting clogged up in the traffic there. There is no need for a tunnel. You have set up a strawman argument.
I do not believe that any rational person favours the BRT. It is simply a device to open up the greenbelt to development. It was designed to serve the 10,000 new houses to be buult on agricultural fields bought by property speculators. That is its sole purpose.
The train tracks are already in place for a perfectly good metro rail system, particularly for South Bristol.
Tim – you seem not to be aware of the existing rail tracks along the harbour side and the new cut .
You also seem not to be aware that the Ashton Vale to Temple Meads BRT will run over or alongside existing rail track for much of its journey. There already is a railway station at Ashton with existing rail tracks to Temple Meads.
The only difference between the existing route of the railtrack and the proposed route of the BRT, is that the BRT after Ashton slices through the greenbelt to the site of the proposed 10,000 new houses on the greenbelt, currently rejected by planners but no doubt to be revived in the future.
No doubt we need more investment in local rail. No doubt everyone prefers trams. Unfortunately, none of those two things are alternatives on offer.
Investment in local rail is pretty much independent from all those BRT schemes, and solves completely different issues as well. Local rail will simply not cover any of the central areas in the next 25 years. This much we know because they have not started digging that tunnel under the city centre yet that we'd need for that.
Trams – well, they're just too expensive (esp. the need for utility diversion), and no one's willing to pay for them (or prefers to spend it on the olympics, new aircraft carriers or nuclear defense systems). And they're already too expensive on the planned BRT routes, which are fairly easy from an engineering point of view. Would anyone be willing to pay double council tax for the next 25-50 years? Everyone? Everyone within 1 mile of a tram line? I doubt it.