This is the verdict and coming not from us and it isn't Railfuture either! If RAC can spend time and energy to call for better public transport, things must be dire! Horses for courses, but what makes for modal switch from road to rail?
The reality is things have been allowed to drift. There's a lack of dialogue and no will-way it seems. Wixams, Kempston Retail Park Station, route of Bedford - Cambridge issues and Bedford-Northampton - these rail issues need support and action, instead, we have pandering to out of town shopping, roads and road design schemes and a Government which tilts the expenditure to £27 billion new roads and only £500 million to rail reopenings fund.
Buses, X5 cut in half, 905 Bedford-Cambridge takes longer, is more a Cambs favoured thing with Bedford commuters losing out. It and Bedford-Northampton takes too long and that is negative for our town centre, dents will-way commuting aspirations and needs remedy. A faster end to end service alongside the local 'all round Will's mother's' would be desirable with X5 Bedford-Oxford style coaches able to take bikes and luggage and afford a toilet. So Northampton-Bedford-Cambridge via A422-A509 (Olney High Street)-Northampton (A428) could cut Bedford-Northampton to about 40 minutes each way. But Cambs is parochial looking after its own backyard, Bedford-St Neots an afterthought.
Bedford-Cambridge rail link:
a. will it be suitable for freight and passenger services 'fit for purpose'?
b. Will the design north of Girder Bridge Bedford (crosses the River Great Ouse north of Bedford) of Bedford-Cambridge have enough land to cross A6 Bypass at height for HGV clearance and will it require an expensive 3 mile tunnel under Ravensden/Renhold?
c. Will it find it easy to negotiate A1 trunk and/or A421 and/or Black Cat Roundabout before ascending to a flood plain at Tempsford with a station and housing = a mess unfolding.
d. Yes Oxford-Bedford will serve Bedford Midland Station, but should reverse out and go east on the old route via St John's site.
Happy to discuss, someone needs to fund it. Could road tolls on trunk and motorways inform a pot and/or extend CPZ area and ensure Borough ring fences revenue/gets a share for environmental modal shift/better public transport? Where is the vision, where is the hands-on connectivity? Where is the integrated plan? Silence, this is all we get and pandemic news, again, surely better for resources and Local Government to administer tests and grade/tier their own areas which they know better than Westminster/why are we becoming centralised and local government being seconded to just an arm of Centralised Government without any wriggle room for discretion and/or resources to inform better 21st Century public transport choices?
A debate is needed and some rethinking I feel. Alas, EWRC is not in talking mode, they are pursuing a scheme which is seriously flawed and in 2 engineers I have spoken to 'not-so-professional' in scope.
Cardington Road has a sign going away from Bedford at 30mph and coming onto a busy roundabout into Bedford at 40mph. Crossing Longholme to get to Tesco on foot or bike is a nightmare, with x 2-way traffic coming off the roundabout at speed and narrowly missing the kerbside. Cardington Road needs calming and 20mph with a single carriageway and a bridge over the old railway could aid that. It is an urban area, residential in nature and Tesco draws a variety of shoppers to it covering a wide area. Crossing the road has become dangerous and casualties have arisen. Priory Marina access, could be redesigned or a level crossing considered. That is the only impediment, A421 Bypass could be raised for the railway and Willington Bypassed to the north and go parallel to Great Ouse Valley on embankment over Great Barford Road, north of Built Blunham and approach Tempsford from the south, forget housing, forget stations new and changing/delays, plum for physical rail connectivity so you have sharing same tracks, trains to/from Peterborough, Cambridge and Stevenage/East Bedfordshire to County Town of Bedford and HAVE SOME PRIDE based on sustainable reaches and ranges of what rail can offer (platforms for more confidence). The Borough needs to talk to Grant Shapps and get a dialogue working. The auto-cue of consultations by EWRC have been set in motion and like a programmed robot it obeys the rule of it, without discretion but resignation or retirement as and when the mess becomes apparent. Yes, HS2 enjoys special dispensation, whatever the cost, whatever the barriers, bulldoze in the name of the greater good, but is that really a model for our local railway unfolding? It is to me at least, an alien style. The original route was discounted in Jan 2019 Consultation and location for Bedford, way out of the town centre, spoils car users, disenfranchises bus, walk and cycle /town centre users. It is hard-sold serving Bedford Midland which everyone wants, but 'go north my friend' solution seems half baked. Of course landowners will rub hands in glee, but theirs is income, not concern for optimal designs per se. I think we need to have local public transport for local people and balance cost/avariced studies with some basic research and common sense. What is available, what can be done, who, what and why. How much subsidy for 1 or 2 people to commute to Olney once a day for work from Yardley? I used No. 41 and Olney loadings are about half a dozen on a good day per time I use it, Bromham commutes to Bedford, a handful westwards. Brafield commutes to Northampton, few eastwards. Stagsden may be politically significant, but I see very, very few people boarding there.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Pill
ERTA Chairman and local public transport user/supporter.
richard.erta@gmail.com for joining our free email loop.
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