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Plans were published some 9 months ago for a Bristol Underground.

These plans were generally welcomed as the congestion problems in and around Bristol as we all recognize are severe. Some considerable doubt was cast however over the funding required for such a radical scheme. If Bristol is to have a future as a dynamic city this is a massive hurdle that has to be overcome. I would suggest that doubters visit Bordeaux to see what can be achieved.

In terms of what the scheme as proposed would deliver was in my mind, however, most disappointing.
Principally, the catchment area was within a narrow north/south channel, so that there was little attraction to residents living in Western or Eastern areas. Further, the system proposed was very much Bristol city centre centric. The newly introduced Metrobus line also occupied much the same catchment areas.

My view at the time was that there had to be a more imaginative design that would address these issues.

The intention was to use much of the existing infrastructure where possible. On the continent, where new integrated city transport networks have been successfully introduced, this was shown to be crucial in delivering a cost-effective solution.

It was also felt highly desirable to link up with the Henbury loop line which has gained considerable support and backing.

Another key consideration was the need to minimise disruption during the construction phase where possible.

If we are to have an integrated transport system, we have to have in my mind a plan that embraces a vision which people and the politicians can buy into. In the interim, we should go with a sticky plaster approach for the short term if needs must, provided it conforms with the overall plan/vision. To achieve these goals and commitment all round, healthy debate has to be encouraged.

As regards myself, I would describe myself as a frustrated Bristol resident shocked at the transport legacy systems in use, shocked at the political in-fighting within the whole area, and shocked at the lack of foresight/imagination of the powers that be.

The plan I have put together is based on 3 loops, together with an Airport Expressway.

See attached Link for Bristol city centre map and 3 Loops Solution schema.
   
https://ibb.co/n28Pg7

https://ibb.co/eikRuS



The overall schema entails 4 interlinked construction projects to be phased over some 15 years.

There will be numerous civil engineering challenges but none of which are perceived to be insurmountable.

It is envisaged the network will consist of a combination of existing tracks, new tracks both overhead and above ground, plus underground tracks - some of which in the centre will be tunnelled below Bristol's waterways.

I applaud you for your imagination, JC.  And for your look at precedent and the sort of thing that can be achieved - in your example Bordeaux.

There are many, many experts who have qualifications and experience in town and city and transport planning and operation, and vested interests in that field too.  I don't know your background, but the knee-jerk reaction to the potentially inexperienced, though bright and thoughtful idea is to wonder what's wrong with it, on the basis that the whole business is far too complicated for a newcomer to understand, so something must be wrong.  Such experts may have a natural aversion to not-invented-here, a feeling that the suggester isn't going to stick around for the long term and could give them a baby then leave them to bring it up, and a feeling that it's going to be biased towards providing a superb service for the suggester's home and typical journey far more that it merits.  They will also,almost inevitably, be in the midst of 2, 5, 10 and 20 year transport and scheme plans, in which effort and money will have been invested, and will not want to change horses mid-race, with a problem that the race is a perpetual one so there's never a good time to change.  Please do not shoot the messenger!


Yes, sensible


Generallity - who felt that.  Figures?  Evidence?  Group policy?  I'm asking the questions here that others will wonder but may not ask.


GWR and Network Rail don't seem to agree with you on that one - or if they do, they're not making a very good job of it.

There is indeed a need to keep services running ... but there is a balance between time, cost of work, and disruption.  For example, they have gone for 50 weekdays of closure of Pewsey, Bedwyn, Kintbury, Hunderford, Newbury, Newbury Racecourse, Midgham, Thatcham and Aldermaston this year to get works done quicker and cheaper than if they worked at nights and on Sundays.   Same thing for Filton Bank and the Severn Tunnel.


Agreed on healthy debate ... but then JFDI.  (definition of JFDI within [here] (http://www.sewweb.info) )



I'm going to let others comment on that; I am not a Bristolian and have enough different views and thoughts from experts, politicians and residents without me (none of those three) chucking another load of specifics and ideas in.  If it were me, I might suggest that Portishead could be served by a branch off a redoubled Severn Beach line at Sea Mills to Pill - a few hundred yards of straight and level track, with (admittedly) a bridge, that would make a huge saving through the gorge.

The problem with a bridge at Pill is headroom.  I believe that the requirement for tall ships to reach Bristol (which resulted in the very high M5 bridge at Avonmouth) still applies so your bridge will need to be a swing bridge.

There you go - told you not to listen to me about Bristol  ;D  ;D  ;D .   Wonder what the relative cost of a swing bridge is, and whether it would be more acceptable to Network Rail than the Ashton Gate level crossing issue?

Sea Mills - Change here for ferry to Pill.

Nah. Its Shirehampton for the Pill Ferry. Well it was until 1974. ;)

(https://image.ibb.co/hhvoon/rps20180505_223731.jpg)

You get a great view across the river to Pill whilst supping an ale in the beer garden of the Lamplighters Inn, Shirehampton.

One of the last boats used as a ferry at Pill is still used as a passenger ferry around the Floating Harbour in Bristol.

https://www.bristolferry.com/our-boats/margaret/

Time for a few hundred yards of tunnelling then.

You'd be better by far in the Duke or the Star...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9rZdEXRqt8

South Glos Mayor Marvin Trump has made his 'State of the Nation' address. Apparently everything was awful when he took over, but it's all brilliant now, so that's all good.

For me, the most thrilling bit concerned the new Bristol Underground. According to Bristol 24/7 (https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/14-things-learned-marvins-state-city-address-2018/):


I think this statement is helpful because it is good to know where to set your expectations: slightly better than a wheezing corporation bus, but not quite as compellingly indulgent as MetroBus.

You can't have people in tunnels under a city, or in segregated mass transit, Marvin.

That's a security liability.  ::)

No, it's only the proximity to Temple Meads that would make it a security liability. Which is obviously why MetroFuss doesn't go there.

The recent announcement from the Boring Co ,

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46616902  (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46616902)

The article outlines the building of 1 mile of tunnel at $10M, with a width of 12ft. This intrigues me because I believe that the Glasgow subway is even narrower!

Surely, Bristol could build such a system? Would it be worth Mr Rees and Mr Bowles to visit  the Boring Co @ Los Angeles to investigate the possibilities?

Don't suggest that otherwise that billion £'s Mr. Bowles has to spend on infrastructure will be all gone, he's already spent or committed millions to projects other than infrastructure like setting up an IBB board, Invest in Bristol and Bath rather than getting anything done to assist Bristolians and their neighbours get anywhere quickly. Both Rees and Bowles ought to get off their backsides and travel round Bristol and the surrounding area as front seat passengers on the top deck of a double deck bus and they'll see where the pinch points really are and then set up a 'quick fix' team to sort the problem out in a matter of hours.

Foe example, a couple of parking bays on an arterial route into Bristol causes congestion because two 8 foot 6 inch vehicles cannot pass each other whilst travelling in opposite directions.

Solution, take a couple of parking  cones, remove the white sleeve from the cone, with a black felt tip marker pen write on the sleeves 'BAY SUSPENDED', replace the sleeves and them dump the cones in the offending bays AND THEN go through the official paperwork route to get the bays removed under the necessary road regulations.

A now retired council officer told me of how councils waste money and gave me an example. A road marking exercise was a bit ambiguous and so a simple addition of a bit of white lining was required which the contractor billed the council £498 for the job. The councils internal costs for that exercise was £8,500 when all the officers time was totted up, drawings had to be produced, royalties paid to Ordnance Survey for the use of mapping data, a council official had to go and check the job had been done to specification despite the road lining contractor being very reliable, some junior council employee writing up a report to be presented to councillors even though the minor project was enacted by way of delegated powers.

The whole job could have been done by a single council employee meeting the white lining contractors team foreman who armed with a can of white spray paint could spray where a split arrow should go and where a white line should be extended to and thus saved the council taxpayer well in excess of £6,000 - £7,000.

Apparently they had a quick fix team to sort out the layout of deckchairs on the RMS Titanic; when the ship went down the Feng Shui was spot on... ;)

Probably everyone has a favourite pinch point that could be sorted out for the price of a pot of paint or 20 minutes with a JCB, perhaps by stopping someone else parking near their house or removing someone else's safe route to school... The real problem is that there is not sufficient road capacity for the number of people currently wanting to use it. It really doesn't help to imagine that there's a quick, easy or cheap solution to this.

I was thinking about Marvin's statement that the MetroMetro, which may or may not be in tunnels, could be guided by something as simple as a painted line. Surely this is a great opportunity to implement holistic unique multisensory autonomous nodal control systems?

My Spanish isn't that good, but it would present a unique opportunity to anyone fed up with having it running past his house. No court action, lobbying, TV appearances needed - just sneak out at 2 am with a pot of white paint, and draw a diversion down a nearby side-street.

No Spanish needed, just Holistic Unique Multisensory Autonomous Nodal control Systems.  ;)

Or una olla de pintura (thanks, google!).

De nada! Hablo un poco de español, suficiente para comer y beber. But whatever the language, there won't be a Bristol Underground, unless it's a group of radical centrists determined to get rid of a couple of the mayors.

I've just been reading about trams and Warsaw. What's that got to do with the "Bristol underground"? I'll try to explain the link my thoughts made. Warsaw has ordered 123 new trams, with an option for a further 90, to add its fleet of 530. Why is this possible there and not here? There are obvious physical differences: population, area, topography (Warsaw is flat), planning and development (most of Warsaw is 20th century or newer thanks to what in this context could be called the creative destruction of history), and the fact that trams were never scrapped. None of these are insuperable but they may not be as important as differences of attitude: being the national capital means not only a focus of investment and economic development but Warsovians think of their city differently than Bristolians do, and more importantly, the whole country has a different attitude to it.

But just to show that some problems are widespread, the head of Warsaw Trams said they'd rejected the previous idea of 45m trams, compared to the city's standard 33m, because "People didn't know how to use them. They all crowded into the first car, leaving the second half-full and the third totally unused."

Full article: https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/fully-underground-rail-system-unlikely-for-bristol/

Surprise surprise!

this one died an early death - I was expecting it to last until shortly after the next mayoral election.

Cutting out the unwanted words in the report, it looks as though WECA will now spend £100 million looking at all options before deciding on more MetroBust and using whatever they can get out of government towards it to build a couple of new roads. Look at what is being said:


which are known in other parts of the country as double-deck buses. Doesn't matter how they try to ponce it up, it's buses. If that's the starting point, then nothing will change. We also have a mass-transit route identified as:


that being the one that runs parallel to the railway line, currently worked by the 39/X39 bus.

This has the air of misery about it, with councillors trying to put a positive spin on it by talking about rubber-wheeled vehicles, or the vehicles used by MetroBust instead of telling the people of Bristol the cold unpalatable truth - our fantastic new cutting edge scientific idea for getting Bristol onto public transport is - roll of drums please - more buses. At least we asked for trams once, before being downgraded to buses.

Clueless.

Without wishing to sound pollyannaish about this, is it possible that this is just a case of Amanda Cameron (whose story, interestingly, also appears word-for-word but with different illustrations in the Bristol Post) chosing a negative angle, and being subbed with a negative spin? OK, so Marvin Rees gives the impression of being at best lukewarm about rail-based solutions - but it's WECA's call, not his, if I understand it correctly. All Adam Crowther is saying is that we won't be getting 8-car trains on 90-second headways; did anyone think we were?

Of the four corridors under discussion, one - the north Bristol route - would pretty well have to go underground for some distance as there is nowhere to put it on the surface. The other three routes have surface routing options (some more obvious than others, and some more controversial than others).

Incidentally, Amanda Cameron had another piece published in both the Bristol Post and Bristol 24/7 today:

Full article: https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/ambitious-plans-to-double-number-of-bus-trips-in-bristol-by-2036/

How this bus strategy fits in with the rapid transit strategy (and MetroWest) isn't quite clear to me, but one would have to hope that this is under consideration...

Is this the beginning of Marvins marching orders at the next mayoral election and Tims at the next WECA election. The architect of 'the trams to the airport', EAR (of the North Somerset Parish) lost his seat at the last Local Council elections. So, is this the beginning of the end of the big talkers who promise so much so long into the future but cant sort out todays simple problems tomorrow.

I thought "radial and orbital routes" was how the buses already ran. But certainly the programme to find out how far people are willing to walk to the bus could be something new. But who will they ask? Hopefully not only bus passengers.

Judging from how far from temple meads the new bus stops are, they think we could all do with some more exercise.

That would be my fear. Though in fact most of us could do with more exercise, but... The article talks about (in broad terms) increased frequency on fewer main routes or "radials". Which is great in some ways, such as speed and frequency of service, but not so good in terms of geographic coverage and reaching people who are less able to walk (such as elderly, disabled, parents with small kids) and I'd have guessed those are the people most reliant on the bus service. They might, however, not be a significant enough part of the current bus passenger population to have a voice equal to their numbers. But maybe they will, as elderly passengers seem to be quite numerous at least.

Whilst buses and their related infrastructure are relatively cheap, the problem is that you can only fit so many down a corridor and even if they are electric, research suggests that rubber-tyred vehicles may be quite polluting in terms of particulates.

So once you get beyond a certain traffic level you really need to be going with either tram, DLR-style light-rail (or a French-style rubber-tyred VAL), or a full metro along those axes.

Arguably trams would be the best option for Bristol, as there's unlikely to be enough usage to justify a full metro, you get the option of street running and not requiring segregated infrastructure, both in the city centre and suburban areas. OK, they are unlikely to be driverless, but that's not terrible if you look at the total cost of ownership. 

But the problem in Bristol is that there's relatively little, if any space for segregated street running on those axes - hence sending Metrobus up the M32. Even construction is likely to screw majorly with the city, so short of drastic demolition programmes or banning cars, the best solution if you want it to speed up times considerably, is to have part of the route tunnelled.

But that brings two problems. Firstly there are limited options for tunnel portals and other construction worksites without serious demolition. For example, if you want a tunnel to shadow the Gloucester Rd, the first real opportunity you have for a portal northbound is Horfield Common, southbound is probably the Bearpit. Secondly, tunneled stations are very expensive both to build and run, and there's the question of where you can fit the surface buildings, ventilation shafts etc.

And all this in a city where the good folks of the inner-city riot when a Tesco is opened...

As for the airport, realistically you need both a heavy rail station (including a south-facing connection for the South West), a light-rail solution and a dual-carriageway connection  to the A370 junction at Flax Bourton. Yes, I'm quite aware that's a lot of money and will spoil a lot of people's views but if you want to have an airport and grow the economy in a sustainable way then it is just something that needs to be done.

By "full metro" I presume you mean "underground railway"? There are quite a few other things it could refer to.

Another disadvantage of tunnel running is that it's simply not that pleasant for passengers. There's also evidence from London Underground that the air in the tunnels is more polluted than at street level.

The Bearpit was built as a precursor to a grade-separated junction between urban motorways, so there is as you say plenty of room there for a tunnel portal. However there is probably room for street running on the section of the A38 between Stokes Croft and The Arches; it's north of there that the troubles start...

With a bit of clever engineering, it may be possible to do something using the embankment between Montpelier and Redland stations for a portal location; odder things have been done in London.
The northern route is shown as running rather to the west of the A38, which perhaps opens up more possibilities in terms of finding space for surface running. A couple of routes through Southmead suggest themselves, with the potential to hook into Brabazon/Cribbs...


Um... I don't think you can really draw any inference from that.

I haven't given the matter any detailed thought, but some rapid transit systems around the world are elevated, such as in New York. Would that be an option in Bristol? I doubt it would be more expensive than tunnelling.

The B4054 Cranbrook Road? Less than half a minute walk from me, might actually be handy.

I remember hearing a rough estimate that building an elevated road, railway or similar structure costs around twice as much as building it on the surface. But building it in a tunnel costs four times as much. I'm not sure I've remembered the ratios correctly, and in any case it's bound to vary with geology, topography and so on, but underground is definitely more expensive than elevated.

There is also the matter that might have been covered earlier in this thread - I'll admit to not reading it all  ;D - is that coal has been mined in the general Bristol area for at least a thousand years. There will be tunnels down there that have never been mapped, and drainage rills with them. All you need to do is hit a big one that you're not expecting and you've got "The Great Spring" all over again.

I read that piece too. It seems that the idea is to replace, for example, the X39, 349, and 1 with buses running along big roads like Bath Road, and connected to places like St Annes by buses like the current number 36. Services such as the 75 and 76, running from Hengrove and Hartcliffe via the A38 to town, would also be replaced by buses. To make room for these new bus routes, we would need to ban all cars, and hope they don't find alternative routes.

This passes for radical in Bristol.


My thinking a long time ago! If it could manage Linden Road, it's a nice gentle downhill slope to Southmead, then onwards to Filton and the dear old airfield. North Road would suffice, too, which would fit RS's idea of a turnout from the line between Montpelier and Redland.

Oh yea. It'll be like MetroBus, years late, massively over budget and heavily trimmed back on the original plans.

I see they've sort of admitted defeat with MetroBus ;-

From SGC website ;-

Summary of forthcoming bus service changes in South Gloucestershire
....
Service Changes 1 September 2019
....
Service m1 – Bristol Community Transport (Cribbs Causeway – Bristol Centre – Hengrove) Frequency amended to reflect demand from 10 to 12 minutes Monday to Saturday off peak and from 10 to 20 minutes Saturday mornings and evenings. Sundays and Public Holidays frequency’s remain unchanged. No change to route.

....

AND by 2036 it will be cheaper to pay the weekly lease charge on a brand new electric car than it will be to pay for a Bristol Zone Dayrider Ticket.

Too many changes. I mean too much need to change buses on any one journey, not too many changes in what's going on. A direct journey on a slow bus almost always beats two fast buses: it's simpler, you don't worry about missing your connection or having to wait a long time in the rain, or whether you'll get a seat on the second bus, or indeed which bus it will be. And especially difficult for eg wheelchair users, parents with prams, people with loads of shopping, etc.

So the expansion is actually a 17% cut in weekday off-peak services, and a 50% cut at weekend. Plus the M3?M3X has news:


My emphasis.

I would have quoted more of this article, but I think the headline really says it all. The spirit of Sherlock Holmes live on.

I disagree. More investigation is needed. I mean, the Blue Mountain isn't even open anymore.
https://www.culturecalling.com/uk/features/top-5-underground-clubs-in-bristol

I very much doubt that an elevated system would be allowed in an existing urban area, consider the scale of the NIMBYfests.
The New York system has been largely dismantled, regrettably in my view. It was steam powered in the early days, but soon electrified.

In my opinion,if the underground ever gets built should follow a path

City centre Clifton Westbury Southmead hospital cut across to Filton roundabout

and back down the A38 in a circular route to the City centre.

So passengers could get on in either direction and get to their destination.

Its no good going from the City centre to a termination point.

I think most of us have come back on the last bristol bound train from London.

Its packed at Paddington,and very few are still on the train on arrival at BTM

Hopefully there would be some services in east and south Bristol too.

According to my sources, two tunnels are being considered:

One would go under Temple Meads station, as a way of linking the station to a reopened St Philips Marsh-Brislington-Whitchurch rail line (possibly this could be a BRT scheme), with the option of then going to Bath via the A4, or to South Bristol on-road via Callington Rd-Hengrove Park; or both.

Another would go from Brabazon (North Filton) to ‘Montpelier’, there to link into central Bristol. This would involve about 4 km of tunnel and one or more stations, e.g. (presumably) Southmead Hospital.

Some initial costings should be available later in the spring.

I think the chances of some services in east and south Bristol are as good as the chances of underground services within the rest of the city and surrounding area.

Looking at the history of transport in Bristol and surrounds can be a dispiriting thing. Modern day trams were proposed and lost thrice at least. The decades long saga of Portishead shows little sign of resolution. Portway station has started to rise from the ground, some 12 years after I remember Tim Kent telling us it would be up and running by 2013. MetroBust's business case had the eye-watering sums borrowed by the councils for their share of the cost being repaid by access charges ponied up by the many different operators eager to run services on the infrastructure. Not only has that not happened, but yesterday's Bristol Live reported that a subsidy is being offered in a tender exercise, to find an operator to run the first buses on the South Bristol Link Road since it opened four years ago. First Group haven't said yet how much they want to be paid to bring lots of fresh air from Hengrove to the city centre, but I am sure they will. Against this backdrop, I can see absolutely no way in the world that underground tunnels of any significant size will ever carry traffic of any kind through Bristol unless old railway tunnels are returned to their proper use. It is the fantasy of a mayor who may soon not even have a job to fight to hold on to, and will have to resort to becoming a MP.

The search for proper public transport throughout the greater Bristol area is more urgent now than it ever has been. This is because so far, all transport schemes have had the overarching aim of reducing air pollution caused by traffic. By the time this particular saga has run its natural course and been dropped as unfeasible, many, many people in the area will have followed the admirable example set by Red Squirrel, and bought an electric car. That means the end of the pollution argument, and it won't be easy telling voters who have paid tens of thousands of pounds on an emission free runabout that they can't have roads to drive on because they are needed for more MetroBust routes.

There are obvious routes that could be used for light rail above ground, shifting crowds of up to 400 behind a single "Drive" if Manchester's model is followed. I'm sure the price would be huge, but compare favourably with that of tunnels below Temple Meads and elsewhere. More importantly, it would actually work. Talk of pods or underground buses isn't helpful, and nor is Marvin's oft-repeated mantra of "mass transit". That sounds like more buses, but whatever it is, he needs to make his mind up and come out with specifics, before the post of elected mayor is unceremoniously Colstoned by his loving electorate,

Giving Marvin Rees the honour of being the most often elected Mayor of Bristol?  ;)

Cars don't work as a form of transport in cities.

This has been known since Buchanan did his origin and destination studies in the early sixties. Ever since then the problem has been political - how do you tell people who've invested heavily in motoring that they have been sold a pup? Cars take up a ludicrously disproportionate amount of space, and ruin cities. Compact, liveable cities require good public transport and limited access for private cars.

Maybe one day someone will find a way to get people to digest the awful truth that cars are actually a form of pollution. Until then perhaps clean air and security are convenient excuses for increasingly excluding cars. 


Rees, as you will know, won't be standing for re-election. I am pretty sure he'll be the last person to hold the position, which was anachronistic from the outset - other cities were supposed to elect for mayors, but didn't, leaving Bristol on its own.

The West of England is now the Transport Authority, albeit not an Integrated one, and any meaningful decisions will increasingly be made at that level.

Indeed so, but wasn't it supposed to be the case during the mayoralty of the previous Western Super Mayor, and prior to that the Joint Transport Committee of the Local Enterprise Partnership? If the idea was to smooth out disagreements and get stuff actually done, it hasn't worked yet.