01.01.07
£600m Metro reinvigoration bid goes to Downing Street
The Tyne and Wear Metro needs a £600m cash investment to secure its future for the next 20 years, the Government will be told.
The Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Authority today has approved a business case drawn up by Nexus setting out exactly where, when and why the money needs to be spent to reinvigorate and modernise Metro, used by 37 million passengers every year.
Cllr David Wood, chairman of the PTA, and Bernard Garner, director general of Nexus, led a delegation to Westminster to press the case, handing in the business case personally at 10 Downing Street.
Their visit came with a warning that without new investment Metro could go into decline and begin to fail by 2018.
Metro was hailed as a world beater in providing integrated public transport to a complex conurbation when it opened in 1980, and today carries more than 37 million passengers a year.
Nexus has drawn up a 20 year-plan for Metro reinvigoration which would provide for the substantial overhaul and modernisation of the system’s 59 stations, 90 Metrocars and 56km of track, tunnels and power supply within its own control (a further 22km is owned by Network Rail in Sunderland).
The reinvigoration programme would provide:
• new ticket machines at all stations capable of taking notes, debit cards and smart cards by 2009.
• ticket barriers at 14 main stations to control fraud by 2009.
• complete £15.7m refurbishment of existing Metrocars and their future replacement with a new generation fleet costing £163m.
• more than £63m spent modernising stations to improve waiting areas, information and walking routes.
• the complete overhaul of signalling, communications, track, bridges and tunnels – the oldest of which date back to 1847.
Nexus will also seek funding for the substantial modernisation of North Shields, South Shields and Heworth stations and better park and ride facilities at other stations.
Reinvigoration is necessary to secure the future of the system at a time when passenger numbers are rising as urban redevelopment is increasingly focused in the city centres of Newcastle, Gateshead and Sunderland which Metro serves.
Cllr Wood said, “We and the government have always seen eye to eye on the merits of the Metro. We both believe that it is vital to the economy of the north east to have excellent transport links.”
Bernard Garner, director general of Nexus, added, “If Metro is not reinvigorated to meet the needs of the 21st century, then the costs, in terms of lost business through congestion and restrictions on movement, will dwarf the amount we are requesting.
“We have absolute confidence that the funding proposal is robust and while £600m may sound a lot, break it down and that’s £30m a year for a whole region over 20 years.
“We’re talking £250 million less than the new Wembley Stadium for a vital service that benefits more than 37 million passengers a year. We think that’s excellent value.”
Research undertaken by Nexus to support the business case indicates that at current levels of investment it would begin to fail around 2018.
No Metro would mean 15 million more car journeys forced onto Tyne and Wear’s roads, and four times as many buses crossing the Tyne Bridge.
Some 10,000 journeys every working day could be lost to Newcastle city centre as commuters and shoppers are put off by congestion.
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