What Bristol Needs

I have travelled all over the world, and Bristol, unfortunately, has some of the worst traffic problems I have seen. Our roads are full of potholes (we can blame government funding for this, but it is the vehicles on the roads that are causing the damage to the roads), are always full of traffic and journeys across the city can be very problematic. We now have the Emissions Zone, which I am in favour of, but people need an alternative. Buses are infrequent and slow, are cancelled with no notice, and journey times are still delayed because they are sat in the same queue as the rest of the traffic. Electric cars are great, but they still use the same roads as all other traffic, meaning queues are still long and journeys are still arduous for most people. Not everybody can cycle or walk to work, especially physically impaired people, and the access in and out of buses, can make it extremely difficult for them. And the Electric scooters seem to cause more problems than they solve.Bristol needs a mass transit system urgently. Constant changes in council leadership and quarrels between the elected politicians debating a new mass transit system, is making Bristol a laughingstock and a less desirable place for people to work and visit. We are no closer than we were in the 1970’s, but our traffic is now much worse and still no real plan is in place. More roads are not the answer, because we will just fill the roads with more cars and traffic. More bus lanes are not the answer, as this simply creates longer queues of traffic on already strangled roads.Most people in Bristol and the surrounding areas, don’t realise that Bristol already has an extensive urban railway network. We can get trains from Temple Meads to several areas of Bristol and beyond, at very reasonable prices. Some services are fairly frequent (every 30 mins), while some are not so frequent. The trains are quite full at certain times of the day, showing that there is demand for urban railways in Bristol. Dreams of an underground system are just that, a dream. Don’t get me wrong, I think an underground system would be amazing, but I think it would be too expensive and unnecessary. My son lives in Newcastle, and they have an excellent metro system (The Tyne and Wear Metro), mainly consisting of existing rail lines with some tunnelling within the city centre. It’s well used and offers frequent, affordable mass transit around the city, to the airport and further down the coast past Sunderland. I have put together a proposal of a very similar system to the Tyne and Wear Metro, which is much lower in cost than the proposed underground, which can be expanded to grow with the city, while still allowing vehicles to use the roads where necessary, and hopefully, by 2030, using zero carbon emitting vehicles. The proposal uses a mix of existing infrastructure and new tram lines, to create a zero-carbon mass transit system, which could be up and running within one to two years and I believe, with some forward thinking, fully functional by 2030. I believe that this metro system will make people rethink their travel around the city, encourage overseas travellers to visit and spend money around the region, attract new investment from large companies looking to move out of London and it will give Bristol a new worldwide identity, while creating a much needed zero carbon emitting city, maybe even the first in the UK. I have listed the proposal into phases, and I’ve included pictures to help.