SLOW COACH GOVERNMENT LEAVES METRO IN THE SIDINGS

27-10-2006

A government which once promised an “integrated transport network” is delivering only empty promises to the West Midlands - that's the only conclusion to be drawn from the latest two year delay to the Metro.

An announcement on funding for proposed new routes running from Snow Hill to Five Ways and Wednesbury to Brierley Hill will now not be made until at least 2008 according to junior Transport Minister Tom Harris. And so another opportunity to tackle one of the defining problems of our age has been fudged.

The issue of gridlock is a daily one in this region, which is why we are home to the country's only toll motorway. It's not just about frustration for motorists sitting fuming in traffic jams - though that is important - but there are also knock-on effects to our health through pollution, andthe area'seconomic well-being suffers too.

Yet when a consortium of local councils recently put together a funding bid which would have trialled large-scale congestion charging on our major roads, it was knocked back because the time-scale wasn't ambitious enough.

One way or another, it seems there is always an excuse.

Even the revamp of New Street station - a costly business at £500million which will dramatically improve the concourse - will fall well short of the £2billion upgrade needed to ease bottlenecks on the track.

The existing metro route from Wolverhampton to Birmingham already carries four million passengers a years, offering motorists a real alternative, especially at peak times.

With Merry Hill shopping centre announcing today the introduction of car parking charges, a Metro route would have given shoppers a decent public transport option to one of our great retail meccas. The Snow Hill to Five Way extension would link the tram with local and regional rail routes.

We would, in short, have been evolving towards proper, joined up public transport. But for that, I guess,you need a government with joined up thinking.