Will the latest 'transformational' public transport plans for Liverpool/Merseyside get off the drawing board this time?

 Rail & 'Bus' links to Airports

As a railway enthusiast, it's hard not to get carried away with plans like these (see link to Liverpool Echo article above) BUT.... Merseyside has been here and such transformational public transport projects have been talked up many times before. On that basis, we should be broadly supportive but rather skeptical too.

 

A surviving bookmark from the Merseytram project

 

 Remember the failed Merseytram project? 

 

It failed, in my view, because the destination of the first line could not be agreed upon. Merseytravel, the then public transport authority for Merseyside, wanted it to go to Kirkby whilst others in the constituent Merseyside local authorities* wanted it to go to Liverpool Airport. The then Labour government eventually pulled the plug on the finance most probably due to the local squabbling. Manchester got its now admirable tram system because of unity of purpose.

 

A 'Glider' is a bus

 

The 'Glider' concept is in all reality a bus made to look like a tram i.e. rubber tyres rather than steel wheels on rails. For it to work it will need the infrastructure to separate it from other road traffic otherwise it'll just be a bus, looking like a tram, stuck in traffic. Guided bus-ways have had a very mixed recent history and it's a concept that has not really caught on.

 

Liverpool Central Station

 

That Central Station needs enlarging is a given as it's effectively standing in the way of expanding the present Merseyrail system to places such as Wigan and Preston due to lack of capacity at the station.

 

So I suggest that we broadly welcome what's proposed but we'll need to keep a weather eye on delivery. If Merseyside ends up with a great high-speed rail connection to Manchester Airport and a second-rate bus connection to Liverpool Airport then there'll be a call for politicians' heads, as failing again is not an option.

 

* I was the leader of Sefton Council back then and supported the Liverpool Airport line option.