Back on Track: how to build new trams in the UK and get Britain moving
The ‘Back on Track’ report from Create Streets and Britain Remade explores why and how we can make it quicker, cheaper and easier to build trams and get Britain moving sustainably. Using Leeds as a case study our report demonstrates how making it easier to get around our towns and cities by public transport and creating new homes along these routes is critical to creating happier, healthier and greener places. Our report shows that trams in particular can play a key role in supporting ‘modal shift’ to popular public transport, unlocking new more viable opportunities to create beautiful, gentle density homes which can help the new government meet their housing and sustainability targets.
You can read a summary of our findings below and the full report here
The case for trams
Trams are experiencing a renaissance around the world, with 21 French cities creating tramways this century. Sixty German cities now have a tram. China has built 35 tramlines since 2010. Even America has 27 light rail systems, the larger counterpart to trams. Britain has fallen behind. Only seven British cities have a tram. The UK is missing out on the many benefits that tramways bring.
For too long we have failed to build the local transport that towns and cities need in order to thrive. As widespread evidence now shows, building more trams would enable more people to more easily get to where they need to go, reduce carbon and particulate emissions, and make travelling by public transport a more pleasant experience. People vote with their feet when it comes to transport, and it’s easy to see that the travelling public prefers trams. Munich’s East Tangent tram had 50% more users than the bus it replaced. Houston’s trams carry 40% more people than a like for like bus service, and many of the new public transport riders were drivers choosing to switch to the tram for their commute.
More trams could spur economic growth, by making it easier to get to and around the most productive areas of our cities. Trams are already making it easier for commuters easily to access new jobs. 10% of the commuters who used Nottingham’s trams who changed jobs in the previous five years said that they would not have been able to move jobs without the trams.
More trams could encourage and catalyse more regeneration and investment. Thanks to the Manchester Metrolink, the total Gross Value Added of the new Salford Quays doubled over the two decades since the tram opened with more than 1,250 businesses employing more than 30,000 people now open in the Quays.
The cost challenge and how to fix it – our recommendations:
However, Britain will fail to realise these benefits if we cannot solve our cost problem. New trams in the UK cost more than double the European average. To lower the cost of new trams and fund Britain’s tram renaissance, the Government needs to:
- Create consistent standards between tram networks and encourage a pipeline of new tram projects;
- Reform the current planning system for trams, which is too expensive and slow, by devolving powers to metro mayors;
- Fix utility guidelines to make sure only the pipes and wires that need to be moved are moved, with utility companies paying their fair share of the costs; and
- Give local leaders new powers to fund local transport extensions so they can get on with building instead of constantly having to appeal to Central Government for funding.
If Britain follows this plan, we can reinvent the age of the tram as is becoming the norm internationally. Our cities could be transformed with new gentle density homes, readier movement and more mixed-use neighbourhoods which intermingle shops, offices and homes.
Our relative lack of trams is the exception not the norm and is explained by high costs and poor governance. Exceptionalism is justifiable when it works. Ours isn’t working. It is time to change that.
Leeds 2035 and Leeds 2050
Leeds is the largest city in Europe without rapid transit. Around 830,000 live in the wider metropolitan area and must choose between insufficient local trains, crowded buses, or creaking and congested roads. New homes tend to be low density, land- hungry and car-dependent. Poor public transport is often withdrawn when section 106 funding ends.
No other European city of this size accepts this. The report sets out our vision for a transport system which would 39 miles of tram lines; 21 by 2035 and an additional 18 miles of tram lines by 2050 to serve Leeds’s citizens, boost productivity, unlock sites for new homes and offices and deliver beautiful ‘gentle density’ development throughout the city so that Leeds can grow and flourish.
It is an unapologetically big and bold vision that responds to the ambitions of national and local government. This is essential to permit between 8,800 to 17,760 new homes by 2035 and 19,455 to 38,910 gentle density homes by 2050 as well as a dense web of shops, offices and other uses.
This transport system can in turn, be funded by the value uplift associated with transport-linked development and intensification, and is an approach that would benefit other cities in the UK. Two years after a tramline opened, prices of homes near the tramline in Manchester, Edinburgh, and the West Midlands were on average 15% higher.
Quotations
Nicholas Boys Smith, founding chairman of Create Streets, said;
‘It’s time for trams. We took a historic wrong turn when we ripped up our tram system in the 1950s undermining the fundamental ease of movement and interaction for business and pleasure which underpins all successful places. Europe and the US have realised this. Now we need to as well.
If we are to decarbonise transport, cut air pollution, and boost urban productivity and growth then reliable and fast public transport is critical. We have unintentionally made it very expensive to create new trams. British trams are two and a half times more expensive than French trams per mile and almost three times as expensive as German trams. This is due to details in the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, The Streets Works (Sharing of Costs of Works) Regulation 2000 and the Transport and Works Act 1992. It’s time to fix that. The good news is that we know how. This report sets out in detail how. I hope that it will help unlock the new homes, increased productivity and sustainable growth patterns that the country desperately needs.’
George Payiatis, Senior Urban Designer at Create Streets said:
‘Making it easier to get around our towns and cities by public transport and creating new homes along these routes is critical to creating happier, healthier and greener places.
Our vision for Leeds is big and bold. This is essential to deliver 39 miles of tram and permit between 8,800 to 17,760 new homes by 2035 and 19,455 to 38,910 gentle density homes by 2050 as well as a dense web of shops, offices and other uses. With trams very much on the West Yorkshire mayoral agenda, this is an exciting time for Leeds, and as a native of the city I feel there is a huge opportunity to deliver something truly transformational for Leeds.
The findings and principles set out in our report apply nationwide. Our study find that trams in particular can play a key role in supporting ‘modal shift’ to popular public transport, unlocking new more viable opportunities to create beautiful, gentle density homes at 5o to 150 homes per hectare in locations that do not solely depend on the car and can help the new government meet their housing and sustainability targets using less land.’
You can read the full report here