Bristol: A city whose transport missed the train

For a city known for progressiveness, Bristol's transport network is in quite a sorry state. Abandoned train lines, bus lanes costing hundreds of millions, and a sadistic local authority (South Gloucestershire) all paint a rather unpleasant picture of "The Gateway to the West". But it hasn't always been this way, and it doesn't have to be in future, so what can be done to get Bristol's trains and buses back in shape?

Sources:

Music:
Putting on the Ritz - Irving Berlin (performed by Freedom Trail Studio)
Side Steppin' - Otis McDonald

Photograpy:

(Bristol trams, photo of horse drawn tram and depot unknown) Garratt, (Brunel) Robert Howlett (British, 1831–1858) Restored by Bammesk, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

(Bristol Tramway Generating Station) Christine Johnstone, Creative Commons Licence

Ben Brooksbank / Local train at Lawrence Hill Station

(Tap On Tap Off machine) First Bus

(Boarding a First Bus) First Bus

(Pride of the North bus) Transdev

(metrobus fares list) TravelWest

(Bee Network buses in depot) Transport for Greater Manchester

(Departures from Lawrence Hill) Realtime Trains

(Railway path overview) Google Earth

(Monument station, Tyne & Wear Metro) citytransportinfo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

#bristol

[andycooke]

Bristol did get the funding for a tram line from the centre to south Gloucestershire in the past but the two councils squabbled about the destination and eventually the funding was allocated elsewhere.

[christopherwaller]

I think the reason for Bristol having a relatively high rate of cycling is sometimes more to do with Bristol's poor public transport and traffic congestion, than how good the cycling is.

[Tomniverse]

Lived in bristol for 4 years and this video is the first time I've ever heard first bus described as "doing a pretty good job". Still, I appreciate the research and detail you've put into this video, thanks for focusing in on this fun, artistic, radical, expensive, unequal corner of the South West

[Thatclimbingirl]

As someone in the outer suburbs of Bristol, there is only a bus every 30 minutes that goes into Bristol. Trying to get between other outer suburbs by public transport is a pain as you end up going into Bristol and back out again which is a real pain. It can take an hour to get to places that are only a 15 minute drive away from each other by car.

[grief_hammer]

Bristolian here, this video is spot on; the public transport is utterly dire. I live in South Gloucestershire, but am just about old enough to remember before the east part of Bristol was divided off in the 90s, and the 20 min drive to the centre takes 2 separate buses on two separate operators and up to two hours. I'm a few mins from the Bristol-Bath cycle path and a train on it would be a godsend.

This situation has gotten worse year-on-year sadly.

[aaronsmith]

Bristol's transport system is really frustrating to me, Temple Meads and the Bus Station seem to be able to get us to anywhere else in the country fairly quickly except other places in Bristol! I lived in Bedminster for a year and the local stations were a bit useless as service was too infrequent, buses hit and miss so I walked a lot. Apparently Bristol was supposed to get a new tram system 20 years ago but plans fell through as the councils couldn't agree on funding. For some reason, Greater Bristol is split between 3 councils (the city, South Gloucestershire and Bath and North East Somerset), to me this is where it completely failed. There needs to be one authority, the West of England combined authority doesn't go far enough, the old county lines still exist and still obstruct the essential infrastructure that Bristol and Bath (may as well plan them as one place) needs to bring the city region into line with its European counterparts. Nothing will change until the council boundaries are brought up to date (London's boundaries are causing similar problems when it comes to improving infrastructure, solving the housing crisis and transport too). I rode the Nottingham Express Transit system the other day, which is a much smaller city and I think that could fit Bristol needs (trams are every 10 minutes on 2 lines, making it very frequent on the shared central sections and has a lot of smart traffic priority), the Nottingham system is very popular and busy. But I think Bristol still needs a 2 or 3 line tube system on top of trams to connect to places further away like the airport and restore rail access to places like Wells and Shepton Mallet, buses are very slow to these places. It is encouraging to see the Portishead and Henbury lines reopen too but it needs to be the start rather than the end.

[JustAVaporeon]

I'm a Bristol local so I can expand on how transport is here, buses and trains

It's a very mixed bag to say the least

Some areas are well served by buses, I have one at least every 10-15 minutes in my area (mostly thanks to having multiple routes, all but 1 under the Citylines East brand)

But the further you go out of bristol, the worse it is, and most routes are a 30-40 minute frequency, which is really bad for a large city with rich cultural significance, especially since buses have been important to getting around. There are also a few areas that used to have buses, but now don't

Trains are pitiful sometimes, the current frequency is bad, I commute on the Severn Beach Line daily and I really wish it had a better frequency. And going between Temple Meads and Parkway has been painful, because its 2tph, since the Crosscountrys and GWRs leave behind each other. The plan to reopen the Henbury line is one I like, and one of the new stations is set to open this year (Ashley Down) so it's on the move

As for electrification, we are gonna be waiting a long while lol

[biscuit]

Glad to see someone talk about this! Whilst the North gets a lot of rightful attention, in my experience the South West gets lumped in with "the South" as having decent transport and investment when it really isn't the case. I've always enjoyed Bristol simply by nature of having some buses, which is more than can be said for anywhere outside the city, South West Wiltshire I'm looking at you. A proper metro service between Bristol and Bath would be a start, but I'd really appreciate something better connecting the Frome-Melksham-Warminster triangle up to Bath and on to Bristol. For such a short journey already you could do something with a frequent service with plenty of stops, theres already small rarely used ones like Freshford and Avoncliffe on that line. A tram VLR type thing maybe, 2 more stops in trowbridge to accomodate the town expanding, Bathampton, Bathwick, Yarnbrook, etc. already places that are on the existing rail line. Could do a branch to the Uni, which the current railway avoids like the plague. Alternatively, give us a bloody bus service and make it cheaper than £5-10 to travel 20-30 minutes!

[Dinoteddi]

Bristol needs at minimum a tram. Using the proposed Supertram route from the 2000s would be ideal, as its feasable to build, and would tie in well to a Filton Bank Electrification as well. The tram could also use the Severn Beach line as well, as a way to improve the line

[EdwinWalkerProfile]

I use the railway path quite often and I'm a little sceptical that there's adequate free space to introduce a tram running alongside, though I believe the idea has been mooted before. It cannot be understated how disastrous it is for the region that the Supertram project was cancelled. (20 years ago!) It probably would have made its way to Bath by now.

[anthonyholroyd]

I wonder if Bristol and Leeds could team up (like Brest & Dijon did in France, when building their tram networks) and present a joint development case to the government. They could argue they would save money through economies of scale, by building similar systems using the same rolling stock, signalling systems etc.
My personal choice would be to build automated light metro systems for both cities - using something like Hitachi rail Europes driverless light metro trains that are currently in use in cities like Rome, Brescia and Copenhagen.

[SiVlog]

In terms of the costs, even for trams, which were rejected on the grounds of "cost" it's still a fraction of the cost, say, for HS2 or even Crossrail in London. I'm a Londoner born and bred, but in my view, every big city should have access to decent public transport to help both develop the city and ease congestion on roads. Projects that have gone ahead in London get seemingly indefinitely deferred everywhere else with the vague argument of cost. Another case in point is the Castlefield Corridor in Manchester. A huge amount of rail traffic, both passengers and freight, use the corridor between Manchester Piccadilly and Deansgate, yet with exception of Oxford Road Station, is just two tracks, meaning that trains run back to back, one holdup for one train holds up all the others waiting to use it. Ideally, it would have been quadrupled decades ago, but the government is very London centric and keeps putting it down.

But I digress, I think Bristol deserves some sort of proper utilisation of the existing (or disused) rail infrastructure to take traffic away from the congested streets

[parkgeonhees]

It's SO crazy to me that there's lines that go near Ashton Gate that haven't got funding. It's a nightmare (in comparison to other cities) for anyone travelling into Bristol to go to a gig or a football match to get to Ashton Gate and that would surely be a big money maker? Why is no one motivated to spend something in order to fix it?

[EnterStationNameHere]

What I think we need is a mersyrail style city centre loop that combines local trains from Severn each, yate, bath soon to add portishead and henbury. Taking people from some kind of new underground platforms at temple meads around to the centre, the bus station and cabot circus.

To add to that, I am of the opinion that first bus should be taken over by the council or WECA. And while Metrobus is good, we desperately need bus lanes on the full length of the M32 as the service gets extremely unreliable during peak times.

[ianhalsall-fox]

The West of England combined authority is supposed to be the body that co-ordinates public transport and addresses the city boundary anomaly paricularly with South Gloucestershire and the denizens of Filton, Kingswood and Hanham certainly do not want to be part of Bristol! Nottingham has a very tight city boundary that only represents a third of the overall conurbation yet they managed to secure a tram system years ago.

[hens_ledan]

One of the root causes is that Bristol isn't a metropolitan area in the same way that Manchester is. Party politics is part of it, but South Gloucestershire (previously Northavon) is in direct competition with Bristol City, in effect building the new towns of Bradley Stoke, Emerson's Green and Yate, and mega-shopping complex around The Mall.

It doesn't *want* better rail transport links to the city, which is why reopening stations has been at the behest of Network Rail. There has been no shortage of money in SG for new roads, and it is quite happy with being at the nexus of the motorway system M4/M5/M32/A38.

Thornbury could be reconnected by rail easily, since the quarry at Tytherinton is rail connected and just a mile away from the town. Why hasn't it? Ask SG. Wickwar could have its station reopened, and so could Charfield. Both very feasible. SG simply aren't motivated to do it.

If you'd like a still more creative approach, how about reconnecting Bristol Parkway to a reinstated curve near Westerleigh, and then connecting Emerson's Green, Mangotsfield, creating a new park and ride at Warmley, opening up through to Bitton and a new link across the Avon Valley to Bath Spa. Again, very doable apart from where the old trackbed is now under the ring road, requiring a new bed to be laid. In terms of 'new' railways such as Thameslink or East-West Rail we're talking peanuts. It's all down to political desire.

We have to remember that since these lines were closed the population along them has quadrupled.

Another more limited project would be Lawrence Hill to Mangotsfield, and so part of a light rail city metro, including Whitehall, Fishponds, Staple Hill and Mangotsfield. Another simple reopening would be the sdtation at St Annes/Brislington, on the GWR to Bath.

On the South of the city, Portishead looks like it's finally happening, but some light-rail opportunities exist for Clevedon-Yatton (and then to Temple Meads), and consideration could be given for a light rail reopening Temple Meads to Whitchurch (again massive building in the last four decades), but some of the track bed has been built on.

In my opinion the hardest part is serving the centre of the city itself since it has the obstacles of the new cut, floating harbour, extensive road network and hills all around the West and North of the city. A circular tram route in the centre of the city (Temple Meads-Harbour-Horsefair-Old Market-Temple Meads or similar) will always be needed, but the question is integration with the rail network. Merely connecting with TM will never be sufficient, and more strategically rail linkages will be required to the South (somewhere in or around Bedminster, Parsons St or Ashton for rail links to Yatton, Weston, Portishead) and to the North (ideally Lawrence Hill for links to Parkway, Yate, and any new lines and stations in South Gloucestershire).

Nothing is impossible, and I've heard the 'It will never happen' nonsense every decade since 1970. The question is how SG can be brought to the table, and to a lesser extent North Somerset and Bath & NE Somerset with Bristol City to 'think big' and work collaboratively. I would suggest that a new regional group (with transport users at its centre rather than politicians) is formed that reports to the next government, charged with making it happen, and have Network Rail play a central role.

[JamesJamesW]

I used to live in a town around Bristol called Portishead. There is a trainline still under construction to Bristol that was supposed to be finished in 2017. It's looking likely to open to 2026 at earliest. That is the state of trains in Bristol and it's surroundings

[DIEMLtdTV]

£14 an hour to drive a massive bus around a busy city. Shocking pay.

[truckerallikatuk]

The reason Bristol and Bath busses are nice new ones, is because the old ones get shuffled off down the road to less prestigious places like WSM.

[michaeljohnson]

The reason there's a short length - and only a short length - of guided busway in Bristol is because having a guided busway was a condition of getting government funding for the Metrobus project. There was originally supposed to be much more, but guided busways are ridiculously expensive for what they are, and not as good value as normal roads: only buses fitted with the right kit can use them. Inevitably, the MetroBus project costs started spiralling upwards, so in order to save money the guided busway mileage was cut back. But it couldn't be abandoned entirely, because that would mean no government cash. So Bristol ended up with a token bit of guided busway, just enough to ensure the government paid up!