Infrastructure Costs: Trams | Building trams in Britain costs more than twice as much as it does in the rest of Europe

7 comments

1. Trams, or light rail, and other transit networks are crucial for our cities in regards to accessibility, economic growth, traffic, and environmental concerns. Compared to Europe, UK cities have very little in terms of mass transit network options (tram/metro/urban light rail).

   A huge barrier is cost. The Edinburgh tram project is notorious for its price overrun, but it is not unique in the UK for its huge costs. British tram projects cost an average of £87Mn per mile, compared to an average of £42Mn per mile for Europe. This is not isolated to just trams, either, with the HS2 network being much more costly than other high-speed rail projects in Europe.

   https://preview.redd.it/wfjwv6cd2ede1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fbe9d6c90ac258c203cd90ece809fca6e6f13395

   How can we get around this? How can we lower costs to support the building of more infrastructure and not have capital lost or wasted needlessly, especially in a period where budgets are tight?

   >Edinburgh’s tramway was described as “hell on wheels” by its former chairman and cost £1.06bn (adjusted for inflation). Cost overruns meant that the original plan for 20 miles of tramway for £375m (£629m in 2024) was cut back to only 8.7 miles. In comparison, Cadiz in the south of Spain was able to build its first tram line, also 8.7 miles, for only £248m, less than a quarter of Edinburgh’s cost.

   >High construction costs make it harder for the UK to build the tramlines that we need. In our database, Britain has built 71 miles of tramway at an inflation-adjusted cost of £6.15bn. If Britain could build as cost-effectively as the European average, Britain would have an extra 75 miles of tramway without spending a penny more. At German costs, Britain could have built 181 miles more. That’s like having an extra three Manchester Metrolinks, Britain’s largest tram network. It would mean new trams in cities like Leeds, Bristol, and Cardiff.

2. Everything in Britain costs more than twice as much as it does in the rest of Europe.

   Better?

3. I reckon a lot of this comes down to a lack of scale and recent experience of building trams and train lines (or ferries for that matter). Both legislation around it as well as expertise are affected by this and result in delays and budget overruns.

   (n.b. this isn’t an informed opinion, merely a guess)

4. Do they provide a solution? It reads very much like a 55 Tufton Street lobbyist wanting to reduce environmental and workers rights. 

5. Funny coincidence that the most expensive countries are those with close ties to the UK and the UK itself.

   Is it the system we have and imposed on others?

6. High speed rail costs about £30M per mile in France, current estimates for HS2 are about £450 M per mile

7. As Finland is mentioned: I moved to Helsinki a couple of years back. When I was driving around, learning about the city, I was under impression I am getting lost and ending up the same place all the time, becuase whenever I wanted to go, I was ending up in some tram line construction site.

   It’s just the Jokeri tram project that is going around the whole city.

   I am amazed how much is happening here public transport-wise. Since I moved here, they opened about 30 km of new tram tracks (Jokeri line and, this summer, line number 13), a new tram project with a tram/cycle/pedestrian bridge across the bay is well advanced and the tram network lenght is to double in lenght within decade. Also, they have extended the subway by five stations into Espoo.

   And Helsinki itself is about the size of Glasgow and agglomeration is also of similar size (well, on paper is bigger, but towns past Vantaa are included into it, and not much is going there transit-wise (except for the brilliant regional railway network that is).

   Generally speaking, after nearly 20 years of living in Glasgow, I feel like I ended up in some kind of public transport heaven. I remember living in Cambuslang and checking what time the trains will be, and then checking again if they haven’t been cancelled or delayed before going out for the station.

   Here, I have train every 15 minutes. And buses from the doorsteps every 4 minutes on average. I stopped even checking, I even stopped running when it’s pulling to the bus stop, because why would I if there will be a next one in no time.

   Initially we were susprised to see very lighlty dressed people at the bus stop during cold temperatures. We realised that public transport is so reliable that there is no point in dressig for -20, if you’ll just walk one minute to the bus stop, wait another two and then you are back in the warm.

   It does not mean that the city is bad for driving – on the contrary, there are two complete ring roads, many dual carriage roads leading into the city centre, multi-level junction, tunnels and everything. But there is no traffic, beause public transport is so great that not many people use their cars to drive into the city.

   You could see it when there was a bus driver’s strike one day, and suddenly the usual route that normally took me 30 minutes suddely required 1h and 20 minutes to drive.

   And dont’ even start me how wonderful is this city to cycle.

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