What are your views on this amount of money being spent on this when the M4 around Newport needs a major update as the gridlocked traffic is and has been a problem for many years?

by Drambonian

32 comments

  1. Public transport is a better solution than more roads. Calling this “tube style” is a massive reach though

  2. This is not a tube.

    It’s a high frequency overground rail service.

  3. But does that mean the price of a ticket will go up by 5% every 5 minutes?

  5. Will it be 10x higher price than car, 4x slower and often cancelled/delayed like every other rail service in this country

    Does it go from where you aren’t to where you don’t want to be

    Will there be no free parking at the station so you need to either pay a taxi (if they turn up) or park your car there and pay a kidney to leave it there for the day

  8. Meanwhile north Wales transport infrastructure projects

    ![gif](giphy|5x89XRx3sBZFC)

  9. It will be great at first, then it will be underfunded and left in ruins like the rest of the infrastructure in Wales

  10. “The new Metro system will connect Cardiff, Aberdare, Coryton, Merthyr Tydfil, Rhymney and Treherbert.”

    What a weird thing to spend a BILLION pounds on.

  11. Excellent news. We don’t need to upgrade the M4, we need better public transport and get people out of their cars. I have a car but I don’t use it if I can walk or take the bus, which is most of the time We need to get out of the autonormalization mindset. I think some people can’t think of anything other than their cars. Why do people use the car for a journey of less than half a mile if they are fit and able to walk? It’s going to be a long road to change that mindset, but this is a start.

  12. Penarth’s extra platform and overtaking line have been shelved, not that anyone is talking about it officially.

    So, considering they struggle to get 2trains an hour on time during any given rush hour of the week, and send us 90’s diesel single carriage trains frequently, I am not holding out much hope.

    We’re only 3 stops from Central, and we’ve been forgotten. No wonder mid and north wales are feeling left out.

  13. Is this actually new lines or just tube style rolling stock on existing lines?

    105 miles of new track laid and operational by next year would be incredible. Especially given how awful the UK has been at building any rail in the last 50 years or so.

    To answer your question both would be good. If this is just rebranding of existing lines it feels like a waste.

  14. Sure it will help a bit with traffic, with more trains etc. But there must be quite a lot of non local traffic on the M4 that won’t be affected. It will probably depend on the relative expense and convenience of the metro. Parking has gone up a lot in Cardiff over the years and the existence of the metro you’d think would make a congestion charge much more likely in the city – rather than make the metro cheap they could make using a car more expensive.

    Personally one thing I drive to Cardiff for (and hate driving to Cardiff for) are Welsh football matches. Never fancy the chaos after matches at the train station, I am hoping the metro will make public transport/ park and ride a more viable option…

  15. Maesteg not getting much love with all this. The new trains are better but it’s hard to go backwards with that they had running.

  16. Anything to get more cars off the road in the valleys is a win for me.

  17. Why is Daily Mail posted? There’s loads of info on the tfw website and has been for months. If they pull it off, it’ll basically be like TFL with a completely intereconnected system, but on a national scale. Far more ambition than anyone has ever had.

  18. Anyone find it odd that the likes of Abergavenny, Ebbw Vale, Chepstow, Caldicot and Newport aren’t on the ‘Welsh Tube’ map when all those towns are already connected via rail to Cardiff?

  20. Both need doing. It doesn’t have to be either/or. The Brynglas ballsup will stifle investment. How much did our beloved Labour government spend prior to bottling it – £120m. Staggering.

  21. Brynglas tunnels. GIVE US 3 LANES. its been a problem for 50yrs. Whilst were at it, reduce the number of M4 onslips at Newport, who abuse the motorway as a handy cut through

  24. What are the improvements being made, very much feels like a slightly better service on the same lines. Feel we actually need east to west coverage across the valleys (pontypridd to Caerphilly to newport and blackwood to pontypool and heads of valleys) and north Cardiff (rhiwbina to llanrhymney). For £1b you would think that some of that might be possible.

    As with everything in South Wales you have to go to Cardiff Central before going anywhere else. Busses are worse cos they can go wherever but still all head to the city centre.

  27. Does that make the Metrolink the “Manc tube”?

    What a load of nonsense.

  28. Public transport is useless for the journeys I make.

    Travel up the valleys to do shopping for my elderly father
    Travel to West Wales frequently
    Luckily I work from home
    Do my actual shopping for my own household

    But there’s no chance I’m doing those without a car.

  30. Again more money being plowed into the south and not the north….

  31. hopefully more people will be using this and that means less cars which means less congestion

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