Why trams won’t be appearing in Liverpool
No, don’t worry, this is not another rehearsal of why ‘Merseytram’ failed back in the early 2000’s. That one has done the rounds probably too many times!
Back when the Tories were in power (pre June 2024) they allocated money to Liverpool City Region for transport infrastructure improvements and Labour has, in effect, confirmed that chunk of money. As any Merseysider will know the money is in significant part to pay for buses dressed up as trams and they’ll be running, we’re told, to Liverpool (John Lennon) Airport. Readers with longer memories will recall the first ‘Merseytram’ line was NOT going to go to Liverpool Airport and that caused quite a stink back then. So the City Region leaders knew what would happen if they talked about any new transport infrastructure without making an airport link, from the city centre, a priority.
Bendy-Buses!
Why not resurrect the tram scheme and build the first line to……. well you know where? Well, what they actually came up with were ‘Bendy-Buses/Boris-type Buses/Gliders’ (there may well be more names for them but I’ll omit the rude ones), in effect buses dressed up as trams and it seems our Labour gov’ confirmed the money could be spent on them. So, I guess, we’ll be getting them at some point.
Tram Raid
But why no trams? I’d always thought that the Tory and now Labour governments would be reluctant to fund trams in Liverpool/Merseyside due to cost and maybe the political hang-over from the ‘Merseytram’ demise. I had no evidence of this but felt that was the situation. Then Private Eye No.1672 (3rd to 16th April) dropped through my letter box and bingo on page 17 under its ‘Signal Failures’ column my thoughts were effectively confirmed under the heading ‘Tram Raid’.
West Yorks shunted back into sidings
Yes, that article is actually all about the farce over in West Yorkshire where their long promised tram/light rail system has been given more green then red lights than you could shake a stick at. And yes, of course, it’s been kicked back into the long political grass once again. But it’s the reason why it’s been kicked into the long grass that links to Liverpool City Region not proposing a tram system. You see it’s the words ‘might not be trams after all’ and ‘check whether (wait for it) buses would be more viable’ in that Private Eye article that made the penny drop for me. In essence Liverpool City Region was almost certainly told, by the last Tory government, don’t ask for a tram system as we won’t fund it and despite Labour coming to power in June 2024 the ‘advice’ has still been the same.
No Merseytram II
So now I think we know why Liverpool City Region leaders put in a transport bid for bendy-buses when, like West Yorks, local folk were fully expecting Merseytram II to be proposed by our local leaders. They didn’t bid for what they knew we all wanted/needed on Merseyside because they’d been told not to bother and they didn’t want to end up in the eternal shall we/shan’t we position that poor old West Yorks is in! Pragmatic, you could say, but my feeling is that settling for 3rd best in a contest where trams were both number 1 and 2 could well come back to haunt Liverpool/Merseyside Labour leaders.
A Geater Manchester Metro tram in Rochdale
