4 Tram track installation costs – £5 – £25m/km where can the money come from to install trams in cities?

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See Also:

-1 Likely cost of Tram Tracks £10m /km in Germany.

0 Likely Tram Track Installations costs for Bath – French Tram Engineering Experts EGIS

1 tram light rail track installation costs

2 Recent German Light Rail Tram Track costs – £13 – £20m / km

3 UK Tram track light rail installation costs – “circa £20m to £30m per route kilometre”

4 Tram track installation costs – where can the money come from to install trams in cities?

5 New Low Cost Tram Light Rail Track Systems Have Potential to Minimise Traffic Disruption and the Need to Divert Underground Services

6 Moving / re-location of services / utilities  for trams installation need not be expensive or even necessary as in Edinburgh

7 Buried underground cables pipes utilities movement diversions and tram light rail installations

8 Tram light rail track installation costs

9 Professor Lesley’s initial analysis into Bath Tram likely installation costs

10 Modern VLR, Very Light Rail track costs – around £5 – £10m/km

“If say 5km line are built it might cost £100/125 m and a congestion charge or even a WWPL could raise at least half that amount over a period of 10 years (more if a congestion charge is applied) Once established, the citizens will want more.)

Speaking at a recent Bath Trams event, Roger Harrison,  (Roger Harrison was the leader of the private sector consortium which tendered, won, financed then designed, built Phase 2 and operated/maintained the three line Nottingham tram network. He later became the Chairman of the Concession company *D-B-F-O-M) Tramlink Nottingham Ltd and Tramlink Nottingham Holdings Ltd which held the main contract for 23 years. Qualifications: BSc, CEng, MIMechE, DIA, CDipFA, CIM ) who has been involved at a high level in re-tramming the highly successful Nottingham tram had this to say:

“Yes, I’m happy to say that it ( Bath) looks doable and that WECA West of England Combined Authority  should move to a more detailed assessment of the corridors identified in the Atkins Report + others to Radstock and Bristol

I assume that WECA would eventually become the public sector Promoter for the project? If that’s the case, they would then appoint consultants (legal, technical, financial…….) to develop a specification for the proposed network and decide how it would be financed, using a mix of Govt specific PT funding and/or “City/CA Deal”, very low interest loans ( 1 1/2 %) from the PWLB Public Works Loan Board,, possibly a congestion charge (or WPL Work Place Parking Levy or similar), developer contributions (if you are able to raise significant funds that will buy you some leverage).
In Manchester – where they expected rates collected to increase as investors/new businesses move in, the increase in rates formed part of the business case, and this has indeed happened.
An alternative private sector project will realistically need to raise large amounts of money and that will be unlikely based on return on investment criteria required by potential investors.
If it becomes a Bath specific project, I assume the Local Authority (The Bath & North East Somerset Council) would become the Promoter or it could be joint WECA/Bath & North East Somerset Council Promoters (that was the original idea in Nottingham (County + City).
Whatever happens, it must be important to reduce pollution and congestion asap by imposing some sort of charge – either a WWPL like Nottingham (businesses don’t vote) or a demand/congestion charge (motorists do vote!). The latter would raise most money but the former could raise maybe £5m pa for a very long time? Politicians would need to be “brave” to introduce a congestion charge (and back it up at least temporarily with very good electric bus services) until the tram system is built. My guess is that it would be best to start small and target building a few km of tram line along the most congested corridor with a free P&R at the outer end (Ps I think that’s what your local MP wants?)
If say 5km line are built it might cost £100/125 m and a congestion charge or even a WWPL could raise at least half that amount over a period of 10 years (more if a congestion charge is applied) Once established, the citizens will want more.
Roger Harrison

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