Everyone in Bristol wants improved public transport, however
recent news reports have highlighted that some Bristol residents don’t feel
that MetroBus is the solution. In this post I want to advance a few reasons why
it’s a good idea and debunk some of the reasons put forward for cancelling the
scheme.
Benefit 1: Cost
The estimated cost of all three MetroBus schemes is £200M.
Sounds like a lot but it’s cheaper than building a tram. Consider that in 2003
the Bristol Supertram was budgeted at £200M (or £250M in today’s prices) for a route
which only went from Bristol Parkway to the centre. MetroBus goes a lot further
than that and costs less.
A recent article in “The Economist” quotes stats from the
American Public Transportation Association that the capital cost per mile of a streetcar
(an American tram) is between $30m and $75m, while a rapid bus service costs
anywhere between $3m and $30m.
The case is clear cut – Rapid Bus Services cost less than
trams.
Benefit 2: Flexibility
If you build tram lines then only trams can use them. If it
gets busy then you can’t quickly lay on more trams. Similarly if no one is
using the tram then you can’t re-deploy the existing trams for other purposes.
If you build the MetroBus, then existing buses can be
inexpensively modified to also use the MetroBus routes. This makes it much
easier to increase/decrease capacity quickly.
With a tram you make two journeys, one to the tram stop and
one on the tram. With the MetroBus your normal bus can use the MetroBus lanes
and you are making just one journey.
The arguments above apply equally to conventional railways
as they do to Trams, in fact conventional railways cost more and are less
flexible.
Now to debunk a few
of the reasons put forward by the opponents of the MetroBus scheme:
Reason 1: The MetroBus
won’t have any impact on congestion, it will only increase bus passengers by
200 people, basically it won’t have any benefits.
These arguments involve selective presentation of the facts
and do not give the full picture. The North Bristol package has a benefit-costratio of 2.34. This means we get back double what we pay in wider benefits.
These benefits run to over £400M of which, £189M is reducedtravel time in the North Bristol area. To say the MetroBus is going to cost a
lot of money and we’re not going to get any benefits back is clearly a load of
rubbish.
Reason 2: Costs are rising exponentially, the current cost is underestimated therefore we need to cancel.
First, What does exponentially actually mean? It sounds bad but is it £1M, £10M or
£100M.
Second, cost increase alone this is not a reason to scrap
the scheme. The actual questions are: Does MetroBus still offer significant
benefits? Does MetroBus still offer value for money compared to other methods
of transport? The opposition does not answer these questions.
However it is true that costs have risen between 2011 and
2014, I agree that this is unacceptable. The people who originally estimated
the cost of this project need to be held to account. We need to know why and
how it will be avoided in the future. We need to demand reforms to the project
cost estimating process. This is the real argument but no one seems to be
passionate about this.
The opposition to MetroBus paints this as an either/or
issue. In fact we can - and are going - to have both. The project to re-open
these rail lines is called MetroWest and funding of £81.4M has already been
received.
Construction on the Hengrove Loop is due to start in 2020
however work on it has been paused while the Bristol Port Company carries out
an assessment on the impact on freight traffic. The delays to this project are
an example to us, somebody always objects! There are no easy solutions.
It’s obvious that re-opening the train lines won’t solve all
the problems MetroBus does. For example, Emersons Green doesn’t have a train
station yet a lot of new houses are being built in the area. How does Emersons
Green get reliable public transport? If you want to build a new train station
and train line here then you are looking at a very large cost.
Reason 4: Buses
are worse for the environment than trams
This is simply not true. The MetroBuses will emit 25% less
carbon emissions than a normal bus. If you think this is still not enough, then
lobby the council for electric buses. Electric buses will still be cheaper than
trams and they will be emission free.
On the Feed
Bristol project
Bristol City Council (BCC) has been supportive of Feed
Bristol and the Avon Wildlife Trust:
- BCC provided the Stapleton allotments for this project when Avon Wildlife Trust’s original site became unavailable.
- BCC told Avon Wildlife Trust the size of their site would be reduced by MetroBus when they signed the lease three years ago.
- BCC have waived the rent on the site and provide support from allotment staff free of charge.
I point you to the Avon Wildlife Trust's statement on the matter.
It is undoubtedly a shame that MetroBus will lead to a
reduction in the size of the Avon Wildlife Trust’s project. However, in the end
I believe that MetroBus will lead to less roads being built, improve air
quality and make Bristol a greener city. I do believe that the dedicated bus
junction onto the M32 is needed. If you’ve regularly sat in traffic queuing for
the motorway then you will know that the ability to avoid this is a major
benefit.
We could go on all night, we could spend hours debating the
pros and cons of cost benefit relationships, we could argue about whether there
is enough time to re-design the route before we lose the funding and no matter how
long we go on for there will always be more objections to answer. In the end, I
believe George Ferguson when he says:
MetroBus is the right solution for Bristol.
