The future of transport in the West Midlands

[Steve3229vp]

I like the tram, it's clean and it's quick, but my problem with future extensions is that it's expensive but the main problem is that it takes far too long to build.
Then we have "Sprint", this also will take too long to get going, so my solution:

TO IMPROVE WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE

At the moment we have Sapphire and Platinum and these are popular with passengers, this should be expanded further as routes like the X51 have been very successful. I'd be interested to see if passengers whom travel from City to Smiths Wood would switch to the X12 rather than the 94 (I know the routes in Smith's Wood are different).
The Cross-City train service uses Class 323 3 coach units, but sometimes these are joined together to provide 6 coaches. If it is possible (not easy I know) to get more units to create 6 coach units all the time to increase capacity.

This is my reason for improving on what we have already got.

[Trident 4194]

I believe it's the route that it takes not the quality of buses of these express routes which increases patronage. Yes some people may want partial leather seats, but main reason for travelling is speed

[Kevin]

Improving what we've already got makes sense but is kinda limited by infrastructure, some routes cannot support anything more than already exists.
You cant really deny that certain rail reopenings would be incredibly beneficial (Camp Hill line and a Walsall - Wolverhampton direct service) as would all the proposed tram routes if they didn't take forever and a day to come to fruition
And the less said about Sprint the better...

[:D]

I believe the point of Sprint wasn't to have a fancy bus that acts like a train. The point was to have a dedicated route between two places. There were also plans to convert it into a tramway once enough funding was obtained.

I still think it's a good idea nonetheless, the problem we have isn't that buses are crap (they're actually nice IMO) but the problem is they're too slow.

That idea kinda of feeds itself, people drive because buses are infrequent and slow. More cars on road means roads gets more congested and there are less buses because of less passengers, so more people drive and so on.

To break the loop, one must do something that disincentives drivers from driving. Bus lanes are good solution.

I'm aware that bus lanes didn't work in Coventry, Nottingham and North Birmingham but I feel that they didn't use them in correct places. Bus lanes are only effective when it is used on busiest sections of bus routes, not full length of its route.

A good example I can think of is Pershore road which has a bus lane for a few miles into the city centre.

[Bob]

Sapphire hasn't been that much of a success. On one hand the 110 might do ok but look at the 1 from Cannock...the frequency got REDUCED after conversion plus the Streetshites are off it and it gets whatever Cannock can turn out on there.....and the 2

[markcf83]

The class 323 units currently in Manchester are expected to move South once the new electric units for that area arrive.

[Tony]

The class 323 units currently in Manchester are expected to move South once the new electric units for that area arrive.

That depends on whether the franchise winner has included them in the bid.

[Sandy Lane]

Consider this one!

Is there a future for public bus services under the new government and the fiercely aggressive lobbying from the motor car industry? Do cars rule the West Mids?

What do you think?

[Sandy Lane]

How about this!

The Welsh TrawsCymru bus network is now free to use by residents and VISITORS at weekends until May 2918.

Wow!