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Thanks for that. In any event, as they do in Manchester, there would be no problem running the tracks in the roadway. Cheaper than constructing a separate section I would have thought?.
BTW - Ferry Road (strange road...) continues on down to Watermark apartments but also turns right up side of ASDA and ALDI until traffic lights opposite Frankie and Benny's then it becomes Dunleavy Drive. As I said.....strange road!
@Ash
Thanks for that. When I said 'strange', I didn't mean the name - more the configuration. I can understand it running from Avondale Road down to IKEA then along past what used to be Staples, then ASDA and on to Watermark. It just seems 'strange' to me that it is also that road which runs alongside ASDA and ALDI up to the lights at Frankie & Benny's. It would seem more practical for Dunleavy Drive to continue down past ASDA and ALDI to the roundabout at Ferry Road......if you catch my drift...?
Perhaps I have a need for things to be more straightforward??
Loving this post. It would be so good to see a metro style system in Cardiff as mentioned in the same way as the DLR in London.
Sadly it'll never happen because of the huge cost, although such a system would bring economic development and provide much needed alternatives to the ever congested roads in the City. You may even find that a viable competeter to Cardiff bus would inspire them to reduce costs and improve services.
If I could, I'd spend all the money in the Welsh treasury on building on, alle £12.34 of it. Maybe one day.
On the continent it is quite common for cities of Cardiff's size to have a completely integrated travel system. In Spain most 'big' cities have a metro. Malaga is even building one but the money dried up but tgat's a different story. It was very short sighted of the people of the past to get rid of the tram system in Cardiff. We need it and it is now going to cost us a lot of money to upgrade our system.
Even though the Welsh Government can't borrow is there a way that they could get the 10 or so counties which would be effected by these plans to borrow the money together to fulfil their part of the costs whilst WG could back them with the reserves? Or is that illegal under British or European law?
This metro should have happened years ago ( of course we still don't know if it will happen ) doesn't take much vision to see our extensive rail network in South Wales as a legacy of the coal era and see that a scheme like this is the natural way to progress. In my view it beggers belief why we didn't start thinking about this the same time as the redevolpment of Cardiff bay, construction of the Millenium stadium and all that "cool Cymru" shit in the 90s. Around here we punch above our weight in so many and in others not so much but we really should not have to put up with such a piss poor transport network considering we are a European capital city.
Is there any way that we could evenly distribute the numbers for metro and bus. We don't want too many people on the metro, and we don't want the buses at overcapacity, like they are now.
Just going on my childhood in South Korea, and my school years in Japan, people rely heavily on the metro, and the other methods of transport have low passenger figures because of it.
Hopefully, if it ever did happen, the inclusion of a metro would force the bus service to cut its prices to stay competitive.
Probably not that significant (or even relevant) but I did notice a couple of days ago that the disused railway bridge over Llantrisant Road near the old Rhydlafar hospital site (the one which used to carry the line from Creigiau Quarry to the Docks) had scaffolding erected on it and a skip at the bottom.
Today driving past I noticed that the skip has gone and it seems that all the vegetation that has accumulated over the years of inactivity has been removed!
I don't think they're about to reopen the line, but clearing the bridge to carry out structural surveys or repair work? Possibly! Like I say, might be nothing...
Metro is getting closer...
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/plan-overhaul-welsh-rail-network-5692680
all those have been on the books for years, nothing new, just a new call.
all good though.
still cannot see where the money comes from for most of it mind.
no rail service in wales makes money, everything we have is hugely subsidised. more people may bring in some more revenue but heavy rail is hugely costly.
where should the investment be focused, that's the question?
Can we please be clear about the Creigau line. It won't get built without some compulsory purchase going on and I'm sure they'd be a fair few people unhappy about a railway line suddenly opposite their back garden. Be nice to see though.
In the news today is 60m being committed by the welsh government over three years to kick start the metro region. I suppose it is better than nothing but what do they hope to achieve with 20m or so per annum. The total cost was estimated at 1.5bn. This is only going to rise over time.
20m per annum, the majority of which will be spent on public sector bureaucracy and waste rather than actual end results, is not going to deliver much at all.
I fully expect public consultations taking years to decide how to allocate the money, committed, sub committees, draft reports, implementation strategies and a whe host of other documentation that eats away at the budget and ends up in the pockets of consultancy firms and not infrastructure contractors pockets. I hope I'm wrong but this left wing state we find ourselves in cannot focus on results and can only work to processes without any thought of what they are doing and why they do it.
In the news today is 60m being committed by the welsh government over three years to kick start the metro region. I suppose it is better than nothing but what do they hope to achieve with 20m or so per annum. The total cost was estimated at 1.5bn. This is only going to rise over time.
20m per annum, the majority of which will be spent on public sector bureaucracy and waste rather than actual end results, is not going to deliver much at all.
I fully expect public consultations taking years to decide how to allocate the money, committees, sub committees, draft reports, implementation strategies and a whole host of other documentation that eats away at the budget and ends up in the pockets of consultancy firms and not infrastructure contractors who put the actual metro system in place. I hope I'm wrong but this left wing state we find ourselves in cannot focus on results and can only work to processes without any thought of what they are doing and why they do it.
Cardiff Civic Society held a conference on the LDP last night at the RWCMD. Mark Barry was one of five panelists alongside Rhodri Morgan, Kevin Morgan, Dylan Jones-Evans and John Punter (Professor in planning at Cardiff Uni).
Mark mentioned the impending launch of the Metro document.
The overwhelming view of the attendees was that the plan to build thousands of houses on fields in west and north Cardiff shouldn't occur until a Cardiff Metro exists or at the very least is fully funded.
Mark suggested that a Cardiff to Beddau line would be constructed after much of the housing at Waterfall had been constructed. No-one had any firm proposals for connecting the planned suburbs in north Cardiff fo the rail network.
The plan is to have express bus corridors, down either Llantrisant or St Fagans roads until the metro is complete. No proposals as to how the Metro will be funded were announced.
Kevin Morgan and Dylan Jones-Evans were opposed to the current LDP. KM believed the elecrification of the S Wales rail network allowed for revitalizing the Valleys at transport nodes and DJE derided the LDP's total lack of a plan to create 40000 jobs for the people who will live in the 41000 new homes to be employed in.
Prof Punter thought the LDP was great and had no criticism to declare.
Rhodri Morgan behaved very eccentrically and made little sense.
All panelists believed that strategic planning should be at a regional level but Punter and R Morgan had no answer to questions from the floor as to why this hadn't occurred. K Morgan wanted LDPs scrapped and to start again at city-region level.
Kay Powell, the former head of planning at Welsh Government was in the audience and agreed with K Morgan and demanded that we start again, plan for housing and jobs around the electrified rail network.
A £2Bn transport project will take £££ to develop. Nottingham Tram first phases cost £400M capex and took £10M+ to develop before anyone got near a shovel.....
Metro now has a budget line..... so applaud that ? Progress is being made...but it is a 20 yr project...with some "quick" wins
£10m spent - on what? that is my point, why can't you just start the project, why do you need all of this background noise that few if any ever read.
if we need to spend £10m on the initial paperwork that will be half of this years budget and one sixth of the overall budget available. shocking.
What public bank of note does the USA have? Do t say the bank of North Dakota as its tiny. This tier 1 capital that the welsh government is investing? Wouldn't it be easier to inject it via loans through finance Wales outside of the regulated banking system that is subject to the fca, prc and Basel accords 1, 2 and 3? Why would you choose a more heavily regulated way to invest into welsh business?
I'm not arguing with anyone. I asked mark a question about whether every single piece of documentation was necessary. It was a simple enough question even for you to understand. In my experience of projects there is a significant amount of overlap and repetition between documents and what they try to achieve. At no point did I say planning wasn't necessary, just that we don't seem to do planning very well in the UK, preferring a bureaucratic rather than a results based approach. it is going to take the uk until 2026 to build 100 miles of HS2 railtrack. That's about 8 miles per year. Have a look at how china goes about these projects: 5800 (five thousand eight hundred) miles in five years. That's nearly 1,200 miles per annum.
In Wales we have a project cost of 1.5bn (which will rise over time) and we are spending 20m per annum. That's going to take us 75 years at current prices. Yet you think I'm wrong to question our approach to planning (and funding). Mark clearly understands this project so why doesn't the welsh government say
'mark, we have 20m to spend, which elements will give us biggest bang for buck?'.
Mark will no doubt have his own opinions based on the work done to date so why do we need to reinvent the wheel. Why dant we ask the experts what to do and where to start and crack on with it?* do you think the Victorians had all this rigmarole when they laid down the infrastructure we have today? Mark has said Himself it is the standard public sector model to follow. that doesnt make it the right model to follow.
*I'm assuming of course that similar assessments were undertaken when drafting the report otherwise if they weren't would it be possible to accurately say (in the report) what the benefits, impacts and timescales will be?
The shining example you have given of a public bank is in the USA. It's a tiny piece of the banking system and you think its the model we should follow. If it was so successful why isn't the USA, the world biggest economy, using that model as par for the course? Have you got any examples of where public banks form the backbone of the banking system in a free market liberalised economies such as ours? Even china has dumped the state owned banking model in favour of the private sector model (look at the ownership of the four largest Chinese banks)
Jantra - I am a construction manager building international mega-projects and it is normal practice everywhere in the world to spend relatively small amounts of money at an earlier stage of a project to make sure that longer term goals are achieved at lower cost.
It is called front-loading or front end engineering and design (FEED).
Nothing to do with politics and everything to do with project management - although I agree with you that it does take too long to get anything built in Britain.
Jantra. It seems that you are jealous of other people's success and ideas and that you want to appear knowledgeable about any given subject. If an idea is proposed and then posted on this forum you are very negative about it. It doesn't really matter because nobody outside of CWM forum will ever take any notice of your views on these very important issues.
The USA, Canada and Uk are controlled by private banking cartels who, through their central banks (which have mysterious ownership) wish to maintain the hegemony of the City and of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. All other countries have different banking models eg Calcutta in W Bengal is building 3 new metro lines funded by the public banks in that state.
The proliferation of metro systems around the world (but not in the US or Canada and to a lesser extent in the UK than in Europe) is largely funded through public banks. The Mittelstand in Germany is funded through their system of public banks, Landesbanke and Sparkasse as is Germany's massive investment in local, small-scale renewable energy projects.
If you think that the Chinese State has relinquished control of its banking system then you are deluded.
Yes you are arguing. You can't help yourself.
I don't think it's wrong to ask what needs to be done before work gets underway, why that work needs to be done, how much will that take up of the budget, when will work (the type we can see) begin and what projects are likely to start first. I'd like to know all of that although I recognise that for many reasons those in the know will either not be able to provide answers or will be unwilling. I think Jantra asks some of the questions I would like to know the answers to although regretably for me he frames them in a way that seems to be designed to further his agenda re the public sector/WAG. That's my interpretation anyway.
I know next to nothing about how these projects move from an idea to physically getting built and as someone interested in development and architecture I'd love to know more. I'm very grateful to Mark for taking the time to post updates here(and Christopher on the Bayscape thread) and I don't think we realise just what a coup it is to have those 'in the know' giving us regular information. If the way that government (WG or Westminster) develop these projects involve duplication or waste (again I have no idea if this is the case) that's hardly Mark's fault and I'm not sure he should be asked to justify decisions/processes that are out of his control on here.
Just my two pennorth.
You could have checked for yourself before posting your normal rubbish:
"Based on OECD studies, the German public banking system had a share of 40% of total banking assets in Germany.This shows the important and significant role of this group of banks in Germany."
Each country has a different banking system. Public Banking plays a larger part in the system in every country than it does in the UK, Canada, Cyprus and Latvia. That is a fact, Feedbore/Jantard/Marshite.
Expect news soon on Public Banking in Wales.
Your cross-messageboard tirade against the Metro project is making you look like a cross between Scrooge and Forest Gump. You aren't hated or loved, Marmite.
You are dismissed by anyone with insight as a narcissistic crank with abandonment issues.
The metro is a medium to long term project but with some short term actions that could be brought forward. But the key will be electrification of GWR then Valley Lines and that is the timescale to follow.
In my opinion the first strategic step should be the splitting of the Arriva Wales franchise into two parts when it is up for renewal in 2017(?) - into a SE Wales network franchise which will form the core of the metro and a ''rest of wales' franchise - both of which should be fully devolved.
A SE Wales passenger transport authority should then be established to run the metro and personally I would establish THREE metro brands -
- Cardiff Metro operating all stations in Cardiff and VoG, operating city line, coryton line and cardiff bay lines, and also Cardiff Buses
- Glamorgan Metro operating all remaining stations in Glamorgan, operating Maesteg, Rhonnda, Aberdare and Merthyr lines
- Gwent Metro operating all stations in Gwent, operating Ebbw and Chepstow lines and Newport buses.
Rhymney Valley lines and stations could be in Gwent or Glamorgan metro?
As new stations and lines are added these would be assigned to one if the Metros and with new key bus services added, especially the cross valley links in Glamorgan.
Wouldn't marks report already include some of that? For the report to be accurate in any way some options would need to be assessed, costed with timescales estimated. Why can't marks report be used as the basis.
Do you really think IKB had to prepare a five case business plan? I don't. Have you had a look at what that template contains. Lots of overlap in itself and with the other reports suggested. Why?
The uk is poor at project delivery. The focus is on processes rather than results. You don't needs thousands of pages telling you what to do.
What I want to know is this:-
How much, if any, of the 1.5bn cost is being used for electrifying the main line?
Ditto with the 350m valleys electrification?
If the answer to both is neither, then what are we getting for the 1.5bn?
Does the report author have a commercial interest in project delivery? (More reports = more consultants fees)
Assuming the 1.5bn is not coming from central government, are we really looking at spending 20m per annum?
How much of the budget will be on project management and how much on actual delivery?
If this is a 20 year project as suggested, why doesn't the WG create a SPV and employ the required people through that vehicle than paying top end fees for external consultants? Get the same people on board but pay them a salary
My understanding - and I am sure this is in the published reports - is that the 1.5 bn for GWR electrification and 350mn for valleys lines electrification - covers the infrastructure and rolling stock of existing lines. This is the bulk of the expenditure in establishing a metro but clearly does not cover the cost of additional stations (at St Mellons, Crwys Rd, Llanwern etc) which come to around 5-10 million each nor the costs of any new lines to Beddau and/or J33 (100 mn) or cross city trams (200mn), Nor Cross valley bus services. The metro authority will have to make up a shopping list of what it wants and when, and then deliver this phased over a number of years. We are clearly not going to go from nothing to a fully integrated metro overnight- this is not the Middle East!
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