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From the BBC

A £2.5bn "mass transit" underground for Bristol has moved a step closer.

Elected mayor Marvin Rees said the city needs a "three dimensional solution" to its transport problems using "underground and over-ground" routes.

The council has commissioned a £50,000 study to determine if it is financially viable.

Mr Rees is also looking to bid for £3m to examine rock samples to look at how the project could work practically.

That money, from the West of England Combined Authority (Weca), would include looking at existing tunnels under the city.

The planned line would connect the city's airport and Temple Meads railway station linking on to the Cribbs Causeway shopping centre.


BBC West political reporter - Robin Markwell

Flagship transport schemes in Bristol are famed for hitting the buffers.

Several failed attempts have been made to revive the trams that were scrapped after the war, but the mayor's big idea of going underground is different.

He believes that some of the city's old tunnels could be brought back to life and Bristol's streets are so crowded that - in some areas - the only way is down.

Mayor Rees is looking to raise much of the two billion from private investment but his critics warn there is no magic money tree and this risks going the same way as the so-called "supertram".

Mr Rees said if the idea proves possible he will go to the government and the world market to find the investment to bring the project to life.

"We can build tunnels under the city, but the question is whether the cost of the tunnel stacks up financially and can we get investors to bring the scheme to life. That's what we're looking at now," the Labour mayor said.

Mayor Marvin Rees says Bristol's transport problems could not be solved with just one project

Asked how this would work with the city's controversial MetroBus project, he said Bristol's transport problems could not be solved with just one scheme.

"It has to be about an integrated transport system, MetroBus is one of the interventions but there are more that are needed to complement that," Mr Rees said.

"We need a mass transit scheme for Bristol, we've known that for decades.

"Some of it will be over ground, some underground - it's about connecting the key communities and economic areas.

"So the airport into the city centre, through Bristol south connecting all the communities to all the employment hot spots, and out to the north fringe as well."

Several failed attempts have been made to revive the trams that were scrapped after the war, but the mayor's big idea of going underground is different.

Milliards?  :D

The Bristol City  UNDERLGROUND !!?.

I sense the need for some elucidation: In linguistic terms (let's not get sidetracked by the excellent products of Bristol Commercial Vehicles Ltd) the Bristol 'L' is a letter that is only ever attached to the end of a word; indeed among students of Bristolian it is sometimes referred to as the 'terminal L'. The skill in applying it lies in the native knowledge of those words which are in danger of letting dust in - for the terminal L's purpose is to exclude dust where it might otherwise penetrate and cause damage. There is never any potential for particulate ingress in the middle of a word, so UNDERLGROUND is just not possible.

Maybe it would help to consider this shibboleth: "Eva Turner, prima donna of the Carl Rosa Opera". To a native it is a simple manner to assign L's as required; I'm sure all Bristol folk would agree that "Evil Turner, primal donnal of the Carol Rosal operal" sounds much better. A foreigner, maybe someone from north of Olveston or east of Keynsham, would almost certainly reveal themselves by applying the L to 'Turner', creating a vile chimera along the lines of "Turnall" or, worse, "Turnerl". The apparent gender reassignment (from Carl to Carol) is actually nothing more than a misunderstanding - it is simply the logical consequence of actually pronouncing the letter R, rather than dropping it as RP speakers insist on doing.

Arsel exceteral exceteral  ;D.

I know of two. There usefulness is the question. One runs from near Temple Meads towards the new cut which I understand is used as a shooting range. Another (I think) runs by the Portway from near the Clifton Rocks Railway to somewhere near the Clifton Down Tunnel portal in the gorge. Now, with some imagination, could these be useful?

Are you sure that's not the covered in River Frome ? Used to be a cylindrical blue police type box outside Electricity House which led underground to the culverted river....

Just on an imaginative theme. If the covered part of Bristol Centre is as wide as the Frome, then the tunnel could, just could, have a use if the Frome was alternatively channelled. Fantasy mode enabled.

It was "cut and cover" by design.

And Bristol really needs another digging up of The Center!

I wasn't thinking of it as a transport link - though (hoping you weren't being ironic) it might work as one. I was just thinking it would be pretty. Like Nyhavn in Copenhagen:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/Nyhavn_24-6-2003.JPG/220px-Nyhavn_24-6-2003.JPG)

There are clearly existing ex train formations that can be better used for a start to a meaningful mass transit network. But later?

Bet that Evil Turnerl prima donnal of the Carol Rosal Operal company was appearing in Cavalieral Rusticanal..... or perhaps Aidal. She had two daughters Idle and Normal.

Sounds like a whole lot of money down the drain ...

Bristol will have a £4bn underground rail network 'within 10 years', says Mayor Marvin Rees

Three lines would connect city centre to Bristol Airport, Emersons Green and Aztec West to the city centre.

Bristol’s elected Mayor has said the city will have its own underground rail system “within 10 years”.

The three-line network would connect Bristol Airport with the city centre and also include lines through the north and east fringes of the city.

Mayor Marvin Rees flew to China on Tuesday, December 5 in a bid to secure private funding for the multi-billion pound London-style system and other city projects.

The Bristol Metro would reportedly cost £4 billion – a substantial portion of the £8.9 billion transport vision drawn up for the Bristol region.

(https://i2-prod.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/article929363.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/Bristol-Metro.jpg)

Full article: Bristol Post (http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-4bn-underground-rail-network-929360)

True, but I still think an annual budget on £50-100M a year for five years would deliver MetroWest phases 1|2|3, enhance Metrobus to a point where it might be helpful (and not a distraction), add a few tram lines and improve cycle lanes (and not narrow strips along busy roads).

Creating a Bradley Stoke - Southmead - Bristol Temple Meads underground line sounds wonderful, but I am not convinced Bristol is big enough for a Metro system. A Glasgow style subway loop, under the City Centre, may work well in Bristol provided it links well with existing rail lines. Also, short runs of 'subway lines' between MetroWest stations may also work, but a full Undergound system with a population of about 1M between Bristol, South Glouc and BaNES is probably too much.

... a network of cable-cars quietly gliding above the main arterial roads of Bristol radiating out from the central area of the city.

It took about 65 years for Warsaw (pop. ~2 million) to get a metro, from first ideas to the first line opening (2000).

By adding a few tram lines, here are a few suggestions

• Bristol Parkway - Mall@Cribbs
• Southmead - Mall@Cribbs
• Bristol Airport - Temple Meads
• Bristol Centre loop

More seriously, why does no one suggest a MonoRail? They are a lot cheaper than undergrounds, and provided we accept MetroWest as the local transport backbone, MonoRail links could then be used to link disconnected communities and places of interest and work.

I'm not sure I understand the advantages of a monorail - assuming you mean something that runs on the surface, or elevated, then we're back to the problem of finding suitable routes. An underground doesn't have that problem to such a degree.

I just can't get how anyone sane can think that this is going to get off the ground. 

In an ideal world, local people should have to pay a local transport levy, similar to Police and Fire changes to ensure all members of a local community have access to reliable public transport.

A population the size of Greater Bristol. could generate this £50M pa to invest in MetroWest, MetroBus and better (or more frequent) rual buses to connect to MetroWest|MetroBus stops.

I just can't get how anyone sane can think that this is going to get off the ground. Even if some Chinese corporation waves a cheque book, not in a million years is the DfT or Treasury going to let a British city sign up to a deal like that.

I suspect this might turn out to be a disadvantage of directly-elected city mayors; that each will instigate successive medium-to-long-term big projects in the knowledge that nothing is likely to come of them, and if it does it will be because their successor has for some reason chosen to not cancel it. In theory this should be countered by the combined authorities acting as a damping force, but those effectively consist of a directly-elected mayor too...

The warring councils would merely spend most of it on new roads, like they have with the MetroBust project. The new third level mayor is conspicuous by his absence in this debate.