A new document setting out Bristol’s transport vision for the next twenty years includes ideas for an underground system, a congestion zone and charging businesses for having parking spaces.

The draft Bristol Transport Strategy leaves no stone unturned, looking at everything that will help people walk, cycle, bus, train and drive from A to B.

Ideas for projects in the West of England worth up to £10 billion have already been announced as Bristol City Council looks to build a transport system that meets specific challenges, such as creating infrastructure for the 100,000 new homes set to be built by 2036, fixing a pollution problem that causes around 300 deaths a year and to help make the city, which has some of the most deprived areas in the country, more equal. There is reportedly a sixteen-year difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest areas of Bristol.

The strategy will feed into the wider Joint Local Transport Plan with Bath & North East Somerset, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset.

The Bristol Transport Strategy mission statement reads: “Our vision for Bristol is to be a well-connected city that enables people to move around efficiently, with increased transport options that are accessible and inclusive to all.

“We will deliver an improved sustainable and resilient transport network that supports Bristol’s vibrant independent local centres and neighbourhoods and connects to an attractive and thriving city centre.”

The fifty-page draft report covers all sides of transport – from cars and buses, to trains, cycling and walking. However, it is still a draft at the moment, and the public will have a chance to debate and even change its content towards the end of the year.

The draft commits to reducing lorry and van travel in the city centre, pulling together different public transport threads and making walking to places easier. Also on its agenda is making the city centre easier to access, supporting local high streets and making areas easier to get to without cars.

A highlight of the plan is a commitment to looking at options for an underground system.

The report says: “A light automated metro could be transformational for the region, cutting peak journey times from Aztec West, Emerson’s Green and the airport to the city centre to under 25 minutes, with increased capacity and reliability, with services every couple of minutes.

“Automated operation with no drivers reduces costs and allows for more frequent trains with very short headways. Trains can be as often as every sixty seconds.”

But tunnelling underneath a developed city is not cheap. The council estimates it will cost £3-4 billion to build a system with three lines. That is many times Bristol City Council’s own budget, which means it would have to try and find funds from a number of different sources.

Even with funding, the council believes it would take around twenty years before subterranean trains could be running.

When the draft plan was presented to Bristol councillors on the growth and regeneration panel on 26th July, not everyone was keen on the price tag.

Conservative Councillor, Tony Carey, said: “It will be fifty per cent the length of Crossrail, and that cost £15 billion. I think £7.5 billion would be a more realistic figure – especially as it would be built in twenty years’ time.”

Liberal Democrat Councillor, Mark Wright, was less positive, saying the project was completely untenable, with even the cost of servicing the loan needed to build it being way out of the council’s budget or the possible profit the system could turn.

But the ruling Labour administration is keen to look into the idea of a mass-transport system.

The Council’s Head of Strategic City Transport, Adam Crowther, said: “It would be remiss of us not to look at the idea and do a feasibility study.”

The Bristol Transport Plan and the Joint Local Transport Plan (covering the West of England) will go out to public consultation in October.

Jack Pitts