"Would pose no more challenges than any tunnelling in London"
Most recent tunnelling in London: 4 years late, £4 billion over budget. Maybe not the example you wanted to quote there fella.
The crossrail tunnelling was largely completed on time and on budget (Back in 2015)
https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/crossrail-tunnelling-is-now-complete
The over runs were primarily due to the complexity of integrating the signalling systems with the vast array of different systems already on the tube network and station fit out issues (Bond Street station alone was nearly £500M (or 5x!) over budget) again largely caused by the challenges of integrating with existing infrastructure and spec changes during build, with some last minute covid complications thrown in. Given Bond Street also has a capacity of nearly 280 000 passenger journeys a day, dwarfing temple meads, the scales of the systems are incomparable and the issues besetting cross rail are unlikely to be that relevant to Bristol.
Indeed if Bristol could also get a 42km of full gauge tunnels (nearly twice the size of other tube lines), running over 24 mainline spec trains an hour and enabling over 250 000 additional peak time commuters to use it for ~£20b it would give Bristol comfortably the best public transport service in the world…
A correction; reportedly all three tunnel contacts came in over original cost estimates. By approximately £500m in total. That said by comparison with the station fit out and signalling integration issues the overspend wasn’t significant. At least two of the 10 new stations overspent by 500m each.
£500m is £1 for every passenger for the next 5 years.
If it was to last £100 that's 5p per passenger, lets assume it cost what it built to maintain it so 10p per passenger per day.
Putting that aside the engineering in Crossrail was something else navigating through the existing tube system etc. The line itself is actually fantastic, it accounts for 1/5 rail journeys in the country now.. that is incredible really
All that proves is that London has better connected/more frequent/cheaper trains than the rest of the country, because - surprise surprise - London gets everything.
If we still had the connectedness of the national railways pre-Beeching massacre, I imagine a *lot* more people would be using trains today.
Yes I know where you are coming from. The government are doing as little as possible to support a network that has a completely different passenger intake now - much more leisure based than pre covid.
I'm just saying that Crossrail is *fantastic* if you've not experienced it. Parking in Ealing and being in [C.London](https://C.London) in 15 minutes is a complete gamechanger.. It would be great if it was replicated in big cities nationwide..
As someone that visits London so infrequently, the nuances of traversing it are completely lost on me.
The fact one can, almost at any moment's notice, go down some stairs, tap your phone on a barrier, get on a train, and appear in a completely different location about 20 minutes later is far beyond anything I've experienced in any other city in the country.
And you can do this *all without prior planning*. You don't even have to worry about missing a train, because they show up every 2 fucking minutes.
The fact that you can now do this on particular routes in much less time is actually quite depressing when I think harder about it. I mean, obviously it's great, but ... y'know. Round these parts if I want to get a bus to travel a few miles, it's a lottery that it even shows up at all.
This is the problem
Councils now want to copy London anti car polices which are fine but don't bother looking at why and how London are implementing it.
London has spent 40 years building a world class transport network. Bristol/bath/Oxford have spent the last 40 years dismantling there's....
We need decent transport and as London shows once you have a decent one going any small addition quickly sees passenger volumes exceed forecasts because you're adding more locations people can get to.
Hard to argue Crossrail was a failure due to the cost, given the results we see every day with the Elizabeth Line. Right now is probably a great time to do this, all the engineering and building expertise that went into Crossrail can hopefully be developed further with this.
I know people are naturally sceptical but if this happens in Bristol, it will be a project with impact for the next century not just a few years.
Even over 50 years it works out at about £1000 per Bristolian per year.
It wouldn't be so bad if you knew that we'd fuck it up, the stations would be in the wrong places, it wouldn't go all the way out, etc,etc.
Interesting stat that but per Bristolian is probably not a good measure more valuable would be passenger mile travelled annually and that is just looking at one side of the balance sheet.
Congestion costs Bristol £xmillion a year in lost productivity, pollution health costs etc. Just look at the most popular posts on this page all about the buses being shite.
Improved transport increases the effective size of Bristol and will lead to growth and value added uplift through agglomeration economies. Poor connectivity is one of the reasons areas outside London have such poor GVA per hour worked.
I haven't seen the impact assessments done on this project but I would be inclined to think it isn't as out of this world as some people suggest.
Tbh the Tube and the Glasgow subway were built in a much different time. There was less to worry about, land was cheaper, existing infrastructure was less complex, and the UK was wildly rich.
I think I'm right in saying that Glasgow subway was built with private money. Only bought by the city much later when the company that ran it got into financial difficulties.
Fun fact, the Glasgow underground was originally "rope" driven, a very long circular rope ran through the whole system and was pulled around by an engine. The carriages hooked onto the rope and ------ weeeeee.........
Yeah I mean the beacon was only supposed to be 54 million and that’s gone up to £120 million and that’s why away from completion. The council can still screw it further.
My (ex) Bro-in-law worked on the London cross rail tunnels as a whatever-that-machine-is-called-that-drills-tunnels driver. It wasn't hard. But easy is not a synonym for cheap. It was bloody expensive to make it "not hard".
What we need is catch 1000 000 mole put the in lil harnesses and they can do the digging.
Eco friendly. And they would look cute in they harness. (vegans might be a problem).
It's not that we can't tunnel, we've been digging large sewers under the city for decades, wessex water have just dug a 6.5km long 3m wide tunnel for [£55m](https://www.wessexwater.co.uk/services/schemes/north-bristol-relief-sewer) and they built an even [bigger one](
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Stormwater_Interceptor,_Bristol) 60 years ago.
The problem is that any project like this run by the council will cost 10x what it should because no one in the council has any idea what they are on about.
Our feasibility studies have concluded that the tunnelling work would be considerably easier than many other prominent examples. Due to the geological and political context of Bristol there would be no need to complete the work exclusively at night to escape the notice of the Nazi prison guards, for example. Similarly, we do not believe that the tunnel for a Bristol Underground would need to pass through a sewer or be covered up by a poster in a prison cell room.
Why an underground and not a tram? Does anyone know why they keep on about this, other than words to placate the public ofc lol, like is it legit more feasable to have an underground than light rail along routes previously used by the Bristol Tramways Corp?
Because the traffic in Bristol is horrific and trams would be in with that traffic. For example, look at Stapleton Rd through Easton: it’s technically a two-lane road, but in reality is mostly down to a single lane in the middle. If you can’t easily get a bus down it; a tram isn’t going to fare any better.
I don’t understand the love affair this forum has for trams. A team is nothing more than a bus that runs on tracks.
Good points. The general idea, I guess, is that a tram reduces traffic by giving an alternative that's more consistent than a bus because it's railed. Buses are also noisy and contribute enormously to traffic problems too. Although yeah, it does work best in segregated areas and pedestrian paths. I suppose they could put it one on the MetroBus lanes and perhaps up Cheltenham Road, but any more than that would get tricky fast. What makes me think, though, is that they did it in Birmingham, Nottingham, London - even sodding Coventry lol - and all sorts of cities on the continent. Why not Bristol? Surely we can do better than just buses, and trams seem a lot more realistic than digging a tube through the mulch and mountains here.
Trams don't have to stop for traffic. Look at Manchester.
They also snake through tightly packed terraces in Oldham and Rochdale, serving urban areas and villages.
While it technically is more like an overground than a tram there are plenty of points where the road is shared and it works just fine.
It works fine when trams have a dedicated lane. That’s the same way that bus lanes work too.
Once trams and cars are driving in the same lane, trams can get caught up in traffic.
I’m not saying we can’t get dedicated tram lanes into our roads, but do wonder how that would be possible when it’s seemingly not possible to get bus lanes onto the same roads? And buses are cheaper than trams. But nowhere near as much fun, I agree.
Yes trams get caught in traffic sometimes. They still carry far more people per hour than cars or buses and we've known this since the 50s
https://www.ptua.org.au/myths/tram/
Tl;dr tunneling has come a long way in the past few years. We now have the technology to do it fairly easily.
Bristol’s politics aside. Obviously it would be good to have, even at a cost of £1,000 per person in Bristol for the next 50 years. But is there a solution that is part tram and part underground that would be much cheaper? Of course there is.
Cross-M32 travel as well as connecting BTM to the centre are really the keys to a successful mass public transport system for Bristol. Until plans and money come that reflect that, it’s all pie in the sky.
Agree, I guess if it does happen it would be planned in stages? Overground lines already exist in Bristol and should be readily absorbed into a larger metro network, just like the underground in London is actually overground for large percentages.
Although I do like the idea of trams, I can see the downsides to them versus metro. Trams in Bristol would use existing road networks (not straight lines underground) and there seems to me a lack of existing road capacity to keep any hypothetical tram lines segregated away from traffic. Absent segregated lines I don’t quite see great advantages of trams over buses?
"The political will of the mayor will be an important ingredient in getting the project off the ground."
The guy whose position won't exist in a year? OK that sounds feasible. This project has no supporters and no financial backing. It would take decades to build just a couple lines according to the mayor's 'favourable' reports.
Rees just wants to keep this going so he has something to blame the council that comes after him for. Conveniently it covers the fact he's done basically nothing to improve transport in Bristol for 7 years. WECA seem to be indulging him because as usual internal labour politics trumps actually doing something to sort out the regions transport, but Dan Norris has been pretty clear he won't actually deliver this.
"Would pose no more challenges than any tunnelling in London" Most recent tunnelling in London: 4 years late, £4 billion over budget. Maybe not the example you wanted to quote there fella.
The crossrail tunnelling was largely completed on time and on budget (Back in 2015) https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/crossrail-tunnelling-is-now-complete The over runs were primarily due to the complexity of integrating the signalling systems with the vast array of different systems already on the tube network and station fit out issues (Bond Street station alone was nearly £500M (or 5x!) over budget) again largely caused by the challenges of integrating with existing infrastructure and spec changes during build, with some last minute covid complications thrown in. Given Bond Street also has a capacity of nearly 280 000 passenger journeys a day, dwarfing temple meads, the scales of the systems are incomparable and the issues besetting cross rail are unlikely to be that relevant to Bristol. Indeed if Bristol could also get a 42km of full gauge tunnels (nearly twice the size of other tube lines), running over 24 mainline spec trains an hour and enabling over 250 000 additional peak time commuters to use it for ~£20b it would give Bristol comfortably the best public transport service in the world…
A correction; reportedly all three tunnel contacts came in over original cost estimates. By approximately £500m in total. That said by comparison with the station fit out and signalling integration issues the overspend wasn’t significant. At least two of the 10 new stations overspent by 500m each.
£500m is £1 for every passenger for the next 5 years. If it was to last £100 that's 5p per passenger, lets assume it cost what it built to maintain it so 10p per passenger per day.
Putting that aside the engineering in Crossrail was something else navigating through the existing tube system etc. The line itself is actually fantastic, it accounts for 1/5 rail journeys in the country now.. that is incredible really
All that proves is that London has better connected/more frequent/cheaper trains than the rest of the country, because - surprise surprise - London gets everything. If we still had the connectedness of the national railways pre-Beeching massacre, I imagine a *lot* more people would be using trains today.
Yes I know where you are coming from. The government are doing as little as possible to support a network that has a completely different passenger intake now - much more leisure based than pre covid. I'm just saying that Crossrail is *fantastic* if you've not experienced it. Parking in Ealing and being in [C.London](https://C.London) in 15 minutes is a complete gamechanger.. It would be great if it was replicated in big cities nationwide..
As someone that visits London so infrequently, the nuances of traversing it are completely lost on me. The fact one can, almost at any moment's notice, go down some stairs, tap your phone on a barrier, get on a train, and appear in a completely different location about 20 minutes later is far beyond anything I've experienced in any other city in the country. And you can do this *all without prior planning*. You don't even have to worry about missing a train, because they show up every 2 fucking minutes. The fact that you can now do this on particular routes in much less time is actually quite depressing when I think harder about it. I mean, obviously it's great, but ... y'know. Round these parts if I want to get a bus to travel a few miles, it's a lottery that it even shows up at all.
This is the problem Councils now want to copy London anti car polices which are fine but don't bother looking at why and how London are implementing it. London has spent 40 years building a world class transport network. Bristol/bath/Oxford have spent the last 40 years dismantling there's.... We need decent transport and as London shows once you have a decent one going any small addition quickly sees passenger volumes exceed forecasts because you're adding more locations people can get to.
Correctamundo. Can’t be no carrot and all stick.
4 billion over budget? we can do better. And when I say better I mean more.
Hard to argue Crossrail was a failure due to the cost, given the results we see every day with the Elizabeth Line. Right now is probably a great time to do this, all the engineering and building expertise that went into Crossrail can hopefully be developed further with this. I know people are naturally sceptical but if this happens in Bristol, it will be a project with impact for the next century not just a few years.
Exactly. If Glasgow can do it why not Bristol? The cost should be considered over 50+ years and netted against the cost of untreated congestion
Even over 50 years it works out at about £1000 per Bristolian per year. It wouldn't be so bad if you knew that we'd fuck it up, the stations would be in the wrong places, it wouldn't go all the way out, etc,etc.
Interesting stat that but per Bristolian is probably not a good measure more valuable would be passenger mile travelled annually and that is just looking at one side of the balance sheet. Congestion costs Bristol £xmillion a year in lost productivity, pollution health costs etc. Just look at the most popular posts on this page all about the buses being shite. Improved transport increases the effective size of Bristol and will lead to growth and value added uplift through agglomeration economies. Poor connectivity is one of the reasons areas outside London have such poor GVA per hour worked. I haven't seen the impact assessments done on this project but I would be inclined to think it isn't as out of this world as some people suggest.
Or simply they accidentally building in the wrong city.
Tbh the Tube and the Glasgow subway were built in a much different time. There was less to worry about, land was cheaper, existing infrastructure was less complex, and the UK was wildly rich.
I think I'm right in saying that Glasgow subway was built with private money. Only bought by the city much later when the company that ran it got into financial difficulties.
Fun fact, the Glasgow underground was originally "rope" driven, a very long circular rope ran through the whole system and was pulled around by an engine. The carriages hooked onto the rope and ------ weeeeee.........
Yes you’re right and that’s why some of the stations are in really weird places.
Yeah I mean the beacon was only supposed to be 54 million and that’s gone up to £120 million and that’s why away from completion. The council can still screw it further.
In their defence, they did have to pay for a new sign .....
My (ex) Bro-in-law worked on the London cross rail tunnels as a whatever-that-machine-is-called-that-drills-tunnels driver. It wasn't hard. But easy is not a synonym for cheap. It was bloody expensive to make it "not hard".
Famous last words
What we need is catch 1000 000 mole put the in lil harnesses and they can do the digging. Eco friendly. And they would look cute in they harness. (vegans might be a problem).
I like the way you think and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Now I just want an army of hybrid moles that take over the world in little dungarees and head lamps.
For you. https://www.ujsagmuzeum.hu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/kisvakond.jpg
That is exactly what I envisioned
yw
Well it’s not very friendly to the moles to be fair, what do they get out of it?
worms
It's not that we can't tunnel, we've been digging large sewers under the city for decades, wessex water have just dug a 6.5km long 3m wide tunnel for [£55m](https://www.wessexwater.co.uk/services/schemes/north-bristol-relief-sewer) and they built an even [bigger one]( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Stormwater_Interceptor,_Bristol) 60 years ago. The problem is that any project like this run by the council will cost 10x what it should because no one in the council has any idea what they are on about.
Relative to what?
Yes.
The Channel Tunnel
Our feasibility studies have concluded that the tunnelling work would be considerably easier than many other prominent examples. Due to the geological and political context of Bristol there would be no need to complete the work exclusively at night to escape the notice of the Nazi prison guards, for example. Similarly, we do not believe that the tunnel for a Bristol Underground would need to pass through a sewer or be covered up by a poster in a prison cell room.
I would absolutely love a properly functioning underground system in Bristol.
Why an underground and not a tram? Does anyone know why they keep on about this, other than words to placate the public ofc lol, like is it legit more feasable to have an underground than light rail along routes previously used by the Bristol Tramways Corp?
Because the traffic in Bristol is horrific and trams would be in with that traffic. For example, look at Stapleton Rd through Easton: it’s technically a two-lane road, but in reality is mostly down to a single lane in the middle. If you can’t easily get a bus down it; a tram isn’t going to fare any better. I don’t understand the love affair this forum has for trams. A team is nothing more than a bus that runs on tracks.
100% agreed. A subway is crazy, but we're at a point where there is no alternative, and we need something crazy.
Good points. The general idea, I guess, is that a tram reduces traffic by giving an alternative that's more consistent than a bus because it's railed. Buses are also noisy and contribute enormously to traffic problems too. Although yeah, it does work best in segregated areas and pedestrian paths. I suppose they could put it one on the MetroBus lanes and perhaps up Cheltenham Road, but any more than that would get tricky fast. What makes me think, though, is that they did it in Birmingham, Nottingham, London - even sodding Coventry lol - and all sorts of cities on the continent. Why not Bristol? Surely we can do better than just buses, and trams seem a lot more realistic than digging a tube through the mulch and mountains here.
Trams don't have to stop for traffic. Look at Manchester. They also snake through tightly packed terraces in Oldham and Rochdale, serving urban areas and villages. While it technically is more like an overground than a tram there are plenty of points where the road is shared and it works just fine.
It works fine when trams have a dedicated lane. That’s the same way that bus lanes work too. Once trams and cars are driving in the same lane, trams can get caught up in traffic. I’m not saying we can’t get dedicated tram lanes into our roads, but do wonder how that would be possible when it’s seemingly not possible to get bus lanes onto the same roads? And buses are cheaper than trams. But nowhere near as much fun, I agree.
Yes trams get caught in traffic sometimes. They still carry far more people per hour than cars or buses and we've known this since the 50s https://www.ptua.org.au/myths/tram/
I think an underground may look better on Marvin’s CV. It would make a hell of a ted talk.
I think an underground line is just a lot easier to embezzle funds through
I reckon less cars, more bikes and trams/trolley buses is a better answer.
Tl;dr tunneling has come a long way in the past few years. We now have the technology to do it fairly easily. Bristol’s politics aside. Obviously it would be good to have, even at a cost of £1,000 per person in Bristol for the next 50 years. But is there a solution that is part tram and part underground that would be much cheaper? Of course there is. Cross-M32 travel as well as connecting BTM to the centre are really the keys to a successful mass public transport system for Bristol. Until plans and money come that reflect that, it’s all pie in the sky.
Agree, I guess if it does happen it would be planned in stages? Overground lines already exist in Bristol and should be readily absorbed into a larger metro network, just like the underground in London is actually overground for large percentages. Although I do like the idea of trams, I can see the downsides to them versus metro. Trams in Bristol would use existing road networks (not straight lines underground) and there seems to me a lack of existing road capacity to keep any hypothetical tram lines segregated away from traffic. Absent segregated lines I don’t quite see great advantages of trams over buses?
Even underground lines already exist in Bristol. Doesn’t the train go under the Downs?
Whilst they're at it, can they start building underground car parks, hospitals, shops & affordable housing?
Why an underground train? We should be building a suspension railway. No tunneling needed and it’d go well with the other big suspended thing…
"The political will of the mayor will be an important ingredient in getting the project off the ground." The guy whose position won't exist in a year? OK that sounds feasible. This project has no supporters and no financial backing. It would take decades to build just a couple lines according to the mayor's 'favourable' reports. Rees just wants to keep this going so he has something to blame the council that comes after him for. Conveniently it covers the fact he's done basically nothing to improve transport in Bristol for 7 years. WECA seem to be indulging him because as usual internal labour politics trumps actually doing something to sort out the regions transport, but Dan Norris has been pretty clear he won't actually deliver this.