Trams v underground: The Bristol mass transport debate
West of England Mayor Dan Norris says trams could be the better option
The Mayor of the West of England is suggesting trams rather than an underground network would make a better mass transport system for Bristol.
The city's Mayor Marvin Rees wants to build the latter but appearing on TV last week (February 20) his regional counterpart Dan Norris said point blank that it won't happen.
As leader of the West of England Combined Authority (Weca), Mr Norris is in charge of funding major transport schemes across the region.
We've caught up with him to get more detail on his thoughts, after several recent announcements on bus improvements, due in come in from April.
"Buses are certainly the quick fix in the short term (for the region's transport problems)," he said.
"We mustn't forget that, because people are stuck not able to get around now, and I'm aware of that and it worries me and I want to do something about it.
"But that doesn't mean of course that we jettison any other plans.
"Of course we have ambitions for the future."
Bristol's Marvin Rees has been pursuing his underground scheme for several years now, though rather than it being entirely tunnelled, it would instead feature largely overground lines with a smaller underground section through the city centre.
You can read more about the idea as it was initially proposed, here.
Mr Rees has always said the underground element would cost £4 billion pounds with funding coming from a mix of public and private sources, but details of a Weca report revealed last week, suggest it could actually cost as much as £18 billion.
This is thought to be why Mr Norris is so adamant it won't happen, but a spokesperson for Mr Rees says the Bristol Mayor "totally rejects the report and its findings".
“It was commissioned by the West of England Combined Authority and their brief for WSP was initially challenged by Bristol City Council," a statement from the spokesperson reads.
“The costs are far removed from previous estimates and are a response to the flawed approach that some in Weca have taken to this point.
“Buses alone are not the answer to Bristol’s decades of transport failure, which we set Weca up to solve not ignore.
“Bristolians need and deserve a mass transit system, so the Mayor of Bristol will continue to strongly argue for the next tranche of delivery.
“Failure of leadership to deliver a mass transit system fails our city and our region.”
We asked Weca Mayor Norris, what the alternative to an underground is.
"I suspect those ambitions are going to include things like trams, which will provide the kind of mobility and efficiency like we see in other regions in the country, just think of Manchester and Nottingham and places like that," he said.
"But what we need is something that will give us credible ambition, because it is really important that we are able to secure money, both from the government and privately to make these things happen.
"They will know what's happened in other parts of the country, they will know how much it costs to do these various options, and we've got to persuade people to invest in us so we have to be credible."
The tram argument
Ironically, both Bristol and Bath have already had trams in the Victorian era, but both systems were ripped out in the 20th Century.
A campaign group to bring them back , called The Bath and Bristol Area Trams Association (BBATA) has existed for years and we spoke to them back in 2021, when we were told Weca was taking the idea seriously.
At that point Weca was still run by Mr Norris' predecessor, Tim Bowles.
David Andrews Chair of BBATA said at the time: “We have conclusively demonstrated that only a tram / light-rail system can deliver a low carbon, low pollution economic regeneration of our towns and cities.
"This has already been found to be the case in eight other UK cities, with trams / light-rail at the heart of the systems integrated with feeder buses for rural areas and lightly trafficked routes..."
"Other city regions such as Manchester, Croydon, Edinburgh, Blackpool, Docklands, Birmingham, Nottingham, and Sheffield, already experience the many benefits that trams bring (Nottingham has one of the lowest pollution levels of any UK city due in a large part to its trams) and we are delighted that Bristol and Bath will now be joining them."
Of course the statement that the West Country "will now be joining them" is yet to bare any fruit.
It is also worth noting that when first revealing his underground idea, Mr Rees said it could well be a tram network in reality, that just passes underground at certain points.
"What we are showing you is a snap shot, and we're being direct enough to show you where we are at, but not predetermining which options we eventually take up, but what you've got is a very strong indication of the direction of travel.," he said at the time.
"We're trying to get people to stop thinking about a London Underground big, heavy rail based option.
"We could be talking light rail, we could be talking about some sort of tram system, again that is segregated, or we could be talking about pods on rubber wheels.
"So it's not track based but basically follows a white line, driverless pods that follow white lines on the floor.
"The exact technology that we would be using is still yet to be confirmed."
The issue is that Mr Rees seems convinced that some of the network will need to be tunnelled, which would almost certainly make financing the scheme more difficult.