PsychoMouse
Member
With the HS2 phase 2 scrapping and the promise (lol) of money diverted to other regional projects, including the WMM, where do you think that realistic expansion of the network could happen? I have a few thoughts.
Slightly more fantastical.
- The ending of the line at Edgbaston Village with seemingly no future plans of extension always struck me as very odd. I believe there is a massive scope for extening this down the very busy Hagley Road to the Wolverhampton Road Junction and then turn left down the B4121 all the way down to Northfield and following the A38 to Rubery. All of these roads are wide enough with most of it having large central reservations meaning disruption would be fairly small.
- Reignite the original plan of the Airport Line running from Digbeth onto the rail lines at Small Heath and then onto the A45 towards Sheldon. Then instead of onward to the airport, running up Lode Lane past JLR to Solihull should be feasible too. The roads and buses are always overwhelmed during shift changes there.
- Orbital Line for south/east Birmingham. The city is very hub and spoke, it's easy to get to and from the centre but slow to get across between suburbs. a route connecting the above two lines and to the planned Eastside/Solihull extension running Longbridge-Northfield-Cotteridge-Kings Heath-Hall Green-Acocks Green-Swan-Meadway-Stechford
- Extend the planned Brierley Hill terminus to Stourbridge Junction taking over the Town shuttle.
- Turn the future Y junction at Wednesbury into an X and run to to Walsall with scope to extend to Sutton Coldfield.
Slightly more fantastical.
- Something following the A34 to Great Barr.
- Streetly-Oscott-Castle Vale-Shard End-Chelmsley-HS2 Interchange-Airport-Solihull-Shirley