Man behind vision for metro gives his verdict on rail firm’s plans

done a remarkable job in running this procurement) and KeolisAmey to build, deliver and operate this next phase of the South Wales Metro – it is vital this essential foundation is completed successfully.

There will be some finessing of the scheme and some adjustment during detailed design and implementation to tease out the maximum benefits.

However, if all goes well it will be operating in the early to mid-2020s; pretty much along the lines of the vision I originally developed, with the support of the Cardiff Business Partnership and published by the Institute of Welsh Affairs, in 2011, followed up in further studies in 2012-13 and developed later with Welsh Government. I am pleased with how this is all turning out. Going further back, it really delivers Professor Hilary Marquand’s vision for an electrified commuter rail network across the Valleys he published in South Wales Needs a Plan, back in 1936! Nor am I forgetting the work of groups like Sewta and other local authority proposals going back to the work to reopen lines in Mid and South Glamorgan in the 1980s and later the Ebbw Valley and Vale of Glamorgan in the 2000s. In Cardiff, metro presents a unique opportunity to develop a new integrated public transport grid across the city.

Some further metro rail measures and new cross-city express bus services east to west which interchange with the metro lines to Pontypridd at Gabalfa and the Rhymney line at Wedal Road station (which also needs to be added to the scheme) will provide a real alternative to car use and the resulting congestion and air quality impacts.

In doing so, new public transport network planning capability, commercial arrangements and perhaps some bus franchising may be needed.

An on-street extension from the Flourish, across the docks to tidal siding freight line via Splott/Tremorfa onto the main line at Rover Way opens up huge development potential in the south of Cardiff and provides a means to route some future tram-train services from, say, Ebbw Vale to the city centre via Cardiff Bay, freeing up capacity at Cardiff Central.

Similarly, the completion of the link between the Bay line and Cardiff Central, probably to connect to the City Line, also